Eight Years Old Today

What you should know about my extraordinary kid:

He knows when you are lying.

He will kick you in the balls if you try to do anything inappropriate with him like steal him.

He is feisty.

He's a warrior dude.

He will not eat your food. Especially pizza, pasta, or rice.

He hates leaving one place to get to another.

He's tenacious.

He's a ball of fire streaming through the world.

He hates George Bush.

He loves sugar.

He thinks about things on a molecular level.

He believes his belongings have feelings.

He doesn't believe in God.

But he does believe in Santa. (a surprise to me)

He's smart as a whip but doesn't think so.

He wants to have lots of friends.

He's not always easy to be friends with.

The nicknames his parents have used on him: Little Napoleon, The General, The Little Dictator, Bug, Sweetie, Funny Monkey, Lieberschleben.

He will not go quietly.

He doesn't like movie theaters because of all the people in the dark.

He has a stunning vocabulary.

When he really laughs the crust of the earth swallows some bugs.

Today my child is eight years old. A visitor to this blog recently wondered if Max was an "accidental" pregnancy. Ever since I've been wondering how many of you out there also thought this? This answer is no. It took me seven years to decide to have a baby and we planned when we would start trying, what we would do if we couldn't conceive, and we were fortunate enough to not have to wait long.

I don't think I love being a mother in general, but I can honestly say I love being Max's mother specifically. I don't think anyone else could handle parenting him. Most of the time I can't either. Being a parent has exhausted me beyond belief. Every day I'm amazed I get to the end of the day. Since having Max I have often wondered why I thought I could do this whole parenting thing when clearly I can't. But then I look at my kid and I realize something important:

I had to be a mother so that I could mother him. Why? His spirit needed me, not someone else. Me and Philip. Together. Why? Because if he had come to you (whoever you are) you would have already ruined him. I don't mean you are a bad parent...I only mean that you probably would have tried to force him to eat whatever you eat and you would have crushed his spirit. and made him hate all food. I only mean that you would probably have given up on him because of his negative downward spirals and not understood where they come from and that he can't entirely help himself. I just mean that you wouldn't have known how to get him to his eighth birthday believing in the magic that makes sense to him and not trying to force him to believe in things that don't make sense to him. Parenting a warrior is a tricky business.

All I'm trying to say is that Philip and I got Max because we are just the people to figure out how to raise him, just as you are the perfect people to be raising your own children.

In spite of how challenging it is to parent my child, knowing Max is such a pleasure, such an excavation into the human spirit, and sometimes it's incredibly fun. He's extraordinary. He's strong. He's everything I could want him to be. He's funny. He's curious. He's warm. He's honest. He's passionate.

I love him. I will continue to complain, to drop my parenting troubles onto the table, but in the end, what matters the most is that I love him.

And I'm fiercely proud of who he is.

Metal In Your Eye

(is not a medical mystery)

Sometimes there really is something wrong. This is why we go to the doctor even when we don't see any visible cause for pain. It turns out that Max had a tiny spec of what appeared to two doctors to be metal. A tiny piece of metal was stuck in his cornea. Causing him all that pain. Boy do I not regret letting him have that Motrin two days in a row! I was tempted to say "Stick it out kid, there's nothing wrong with your eye..."

But most moms know when their kids are faking it and when they're not. I knew he wasn't faking it when he told me he would like to rip his eyeball out because it hurt so much. The first doctor told us that tiny abrasions on the cornea can be terribly painful.

To see what was going on with his eye the first doctor had to put dye in Max's eye which would then be visible by ultra violet light. This was the coolest thing that happened to us today. Except that obviously it wasn't cool having a piece of dye covered paper poked into Max's eye. But we take our pleasure where we may.

The second doctor (the optometrist) put numbing drops in the kid's eye. That has got to be very freaky. The thought of a numb eyeball makes me flinch a little. Which Max did. Then more drops followed which made Max look insulted. The doctor was quite deft. Before we knew it the science fiction machinery was in front of his eye and a pair of the sharpest tweezers I've ever seen were navigating the surface of my boy's cornea. It took about three tries before the doctor got it. We could see it. Very tiny.

Then some ointment was unceremoniously slopped into his eye. This made him more squeamish than all the rest of the procedure. He hates weird textures of goop on his skin. But then it was over. OVER.

This was so much less like torture than taking him to get his nose cauterized the second time. That was pure agony. But this, this was not very much fun. Still, the metal spec is out of his eye and he's home enjoying sugar. Now this has become one more legend in the family history to retell over and over again.

Young American

I am impervious to sentimental bursts at most of the signs of maturation in my child that many moms succumb to frequently as their "babies" morph into fledgling adult people. I know I was excited at my kid's first steps when he was nine months old and it did seem fascinating in an awful way that four months after my baby was born he lost all the very dark hair he was born with and started sprouting white/blond hair in it's place. But these things have never triggered that strange stew of hormonal emotion that they seem to stir in other mothers.

I was happy (yes: HAPPY) to tote my kid off to kindergarten and thought "This is what it's about; the kid goes off to get some interaction and experience with the world outside and I get to spend time doing the things that remind me I'm my own person until the kid gets back. Then we hang out." Well, except that in California they believe that instead of "hanging out" one should do five pages of homework with your kid every night. Five. That's a lot. Other moms stood around the kindergarten classes with arms outstretched madly tearing up. I feared that a couple of them might actually end up completely prostrate.

I didn't shed a tear when he walked off with that huge backpack weighing him down. I didn't shed a tear when he started getting lanky, or when he started telling me not to hug or kiss him in public. This is part of what having children is about- seeing them through all of these periods of growth.

I'm not very sentimental. But all of my much more sentimental friends will appreciate that when my boy came home yesterday with one of his front teeth in a baggy, proudly showing me the big gap between his teeth I almost broke down and cried. To me, losing your first front tooth is crossing a real line between your baby years and your adolescent ones. I see all these kids in Max's classes with their grown up teeth pushing into their mouths, reshaping their faces into older versions of themselves.

I have an innocent fascination with teeth. Teeth are important. Have you seen what happens to a face that has lost all its teeth but not been filled with dentures? Dudes, that's going to be me in, like, five years! It's not a pretty sight. Our teeth affect how we speak, how we eat, how we smile, and how our faces are shaped. Our baby teeth are nothing. They don't say anything about us and are milky nubs that get us through the first few years. I have known all along that my son doesn't look how he's going to really look because he hasn't got his real teeth in yet. The ones that he will wear for the rest of his life.

Unless he loses them all as a professional boxer or because of his very strong affinity for everything with sugar in it.

I put some David Bowie on and made some eggs while I was thinking about all this. I made eggs without any cheese. I contemplated what a life without cheese is worth to me. ( NOTHING.) I mean, if I was told by the doctor not to eat any more cheese or I will die I would steel myself up for the brave challenge and promise not to eat it and then I would wake in the middle of the night dying for a thick slice of cheddar and I would eat it before I gave it two seconds thought. It's amazing that people like me survive life as long as we do.

I was thinking how incredible it is that I'm sitting around getting sentimental about my son's first adult front tooth coming in. I was thinking about how most moms seem to feel that all of this babyhood goes by really fast...too fast...sobbing fast. I don't. It feels like it took a million years to get to this point. I don't see it all slipping away. I see it all before me. Max getting his first front tooth in is wonderful not because everything about my kid is wonderful (but, obviously it is), what it really means is that he made it through his earliest years alive and (so far) with all his limbs and digits still attached.

Although we do have to take him to the doctor today for some mysterious eye pain he's been feeling that reduced him to tears last night which brought on the biggest bloody nose he's had in months, it amazes me he's almost eight years old. For me the time does not go at breakneck speed. I am so anxious about parenting generally that I don't think I'll truly rest until he's an adult and I can at last say "Kid, it's all up to you now!"

Hopefully this eye thing won't turn out to be some rare disease. I may as well say that this kind of mysterious pain/illness really charges my atmosphere with apprehension. If it's possible, I've thought of it already.

So while I was listening to the song "Young Americans" I was wondering why people love that song "All I want for Christmas are my two front teeth"? As much as I'm a tooth person, that song makes my skin crawl six ways to hell. Someone played that song a lot at the Holiday Market downtown last year and I almost had a nervous breakdown over it. Why listen to such awful awful music sent by evil its self when we can all be listening to David Bowie instead?

When I listen to "Moonage Daydream" I always decide to forgive him for capping all his teeth so that he now has Hollywood teeth instead of cool teeth.

The face my boy will wear as a man is beginning to shift into place and that's pretty crazy.

Back To School

Not his school face.

Today is the first day of school. Max starts at a new school this year because of our move. So not only does he get a new teacher, he also gets: all new kids he doesn't know, all new environment to get used to, and new rules. I was wondering the other day why most adults seem to assume that kids are excited to go back to school? They're always asking kids "So, are you EXCITED to go back to school?!"

Why not? What's so great about summer vacation; staying up late, playing with friends, your parents getting tired of having you home 24/7 and consequently letting you play as many video games as you want, sunshine, sleep-overs, sleep-ins, and trips to see old friends across state lines? Wouldn't everyone rather be going to school...doing homework, following rules, and sniffing that industrial school floor scent?

I did not love school. I loved having new clothes in the fall and new school supplies. The only part of school I really loved was sharpening pencils and putting them point down on fresh notebook paper to write. That first moment when you don't know what will come out of your pencil, when all the world is waiting to be recorded, it is a carefree and lovely moment pregnant with potential.

I didn't hate school though either. Not until high school. So I don't expect my boy to love school. I don't think it's a sign that he's a bad kid that he would rather be home playing Legos. Though I can see why any teacher would prefer kids who are happy to be in the classroom.

I don't get weepy about my kid going off to school. You know what made me feel bad though? His pants are almost three inches too short for him. I've been having such a hard time getting clothes, socks, and shoes for him that he will wear. He's not a prima-donna but he's extremely sensitive to textures so jeans are out. He won't wear denim. He wears sweat pants and sports pants (the kind that are made out of water resistant cotton) and he doesn't wear thick socks. The socks he usually wears got too small for him so I got him the next size up which were just a little too big for him so they lump a little in his shoes. So he's wearing no socks in his shoes. The only shoes he finds comfortable are the slip on Van's type of shoe.

So this morning he was wearing a sweatshirt that was about two sizes too big for him, pants that were 3" too short, and no socks. There's nothing like clothes on a kid that obviously don't fit them that makes me infinitely sad. Misfit. These things matter to other kids. As an adult, especially as a parent, we may look at it differently (rationally), but to other kids such an ensemble will signal: misfit.

Which is already how he feels. Which is what our family is. And now I've sent my wonderful bairne to school wearing clear signals.

So why send him at all? Why not keep him home as quite a few of my friends do? Because I am not a math teacher. I am not a science teacher. I could become one, of course. But I don't want to. It's enough just to help Max with his homework. Being responsible for his whole school education is not why I had a kid. Parents automatically are teachers of a lot of things and I'm satisfied to teach my kid what I know well and let others teach him the rest.

I send him because he needs the stimulation school offers him that I can't. I send him because unlike many of my peers (and my father in law) I believe in public education and even the teachers I haven't liked (like Max's teacher last year) have been good teachers who care about what they're doing and as a consequence Max is actually good at math and all summer long he's been reading both with his dad at bed time and by himself. He's learned to read at school but he gets his vocabulary from us.

I don't believe there's a better choice for us but that doesn't mean that it isn't hard sometimes.

Fall must really be here.

Ocean

There is no better natural pedicure than the beach. My feet get so rough and dry and callused that they are generally not too pretty. When I was nineteen I lived on 27th Avenue in San Francisco, within walking distance of China Beach. I used to walk there every week by myself and I would walk in the freezing cold water and through the sand until my feet were nearly numb. I would climb the rocks like a mountain goat and sit with my eyes closed listening to the crash and roar.

When I would return home my feet would be so smooth and soft, as though they'd been pumiced by an expert hand. Sea water is also healing.

We went to the ocean yesterday and the tide was out pretty far so I got to see the tide pools! Tide pools make me feel like a kid. There's so much of the underwater world revealed temporarily. The textures and colors are incredible. Philip, Max, and I had so much fun finding starfish, anemones, and fish.

Old big barnacles looked like ragged fossilized bones.

The anemones looked creepy and kind of perverse when curled into themselves. The colors were wonderful light teal and light pink. I love how all colors harmonize in nature.

Everywhere I looked there were patterns and textures that I could imagine being reflected in human design.

Just a little tweaking of contrast and splashes of color in a randomly organized fashion could be produced into fabric, or rendered in oils, or even just reimagined with the photographer's eye and tools.

My kid was alive with discovery as well. The ocean is a tactile place: sand between your toes, barnacles scraping your hand as you brush past exposed rocks, beetles with ridged shells land on ledges close to the deep crevice where small fishes are trapped until the tide comes in.

Things get washed to shore from deeper places. Things that look like other things and like nothing else at the same time. Sponges, pom poms, mops, and vegetables come to mind.

What a marvelous place a tide pool is.

A Gift More Precious Than Myrrh

Andrea, from California, read that I was having a hankering for kiwis and like a guardian angel sent to protect me from scurvy-she sent me a bag of them! Thank you Andrea for your thoughtfulness!!! This is better than anything from Harry and David's. Better than the gifts from the magi. Seriously...oh and I ate one yesterday and I have to say that I immediately felt healthier inside for having eaten such a bright and tangy fruit. It was such heaven!

Even though Max made lots of fake retching noises while I ate it since he can't understand how come anyone would eat a green fruit with black seeds that's covered with hair. Kiwi hair looks a lot like tarantula hair. I had been thinking I wanted kiwis to put on a tart but I'm afraid that these are so good by themselves that they must be enjoyed entirely for their own sake. Now I am even more curious to find out if the kiwis in Dundee are any good. Maybe last year's batch that Lisa E. picked weren't ready to be ripened off the vine? If they can grow well here, then I must grow them. Citrus certainly doesn't do well here, but I think Christmas kiwis sound even better than the traditional Christmas orange.

One thing I love about the PNW are the incredible cloud formations and sunsets we get. The sky is a constant source of beauty around here.

Gruel is what I had for dinner. Even though my stomach felt fully recovered enough to spend the day cleaning the house, no savory food sounded really good. I only craved foods I can't have because of my stupid local challenge... like steamed vegetables on cous cous with feta cheese and vinaigrette. I haven't learned to make feta yet so I can't eat any. As I scoured the shelves for something suitable to eat I suddenly got the urge to eat oatmeal. With lots of brown sugar and a little milk. A meal otherwise known as PORRIDGE. But I like to say GRUEL. GRUEL. Yum.

This is what my kitchen looks like when I am sick for one day. You should have seen the rest of the house! No, you shouldn't. It would hurt your eyes. It still isn't totally clean but I blasted Madonna on top volume and swept and vacuumed and put crap away. Our house is one big crap storage facility.

Last night was a little slice of hell. I read a book by Patricia Cornwell which was brutal and nasty and scary and so even though it was on the late side when I finished it I had to detox my head with something light and fluffy. So I watched some Friends reruns, as I often do, until quite late. The lights didn't really go out until about 1:10 am. Within ten minutes the cat needed to be let out of Max's room. He bangs on the door to get our attention. Max doesn't like to sleep without the cat. So within another ten minutes Max was up and upset that the cat was gone. He wanted the cat back.

I explained that the cat just left and probably had to spend some quality time peeing in the cold outdoors and that Max needed to go back to bed. But Max said he was going to sleep with us instead. (Which is an impossibility because we don't all fit on our bed at the same time.) I told him he was going to get back in his own bed. This is where things got to be really fun. He wouldn't budge out of the hallway. So I pushed him into his room and he starts bawling.

The house makes noises. Where's the cat? He's scared. He wants to sleep with us with all the lights on for the rest of his life. I have little patience because it is now 1:20 am and I'm really ready for sleep. Max is really bawling his head off. Philip stumbles out of bed to retrieve the cat which makes me want to yell at him because I just let the cat out and you can't force the cat to stay in Max's room and I know that the second all the lights are out the cat will be banging on the door again and it will be ME, not Philip, who will hear it and have to go let him out again. Which will probably wake the kid again.

When Philip returns with the unhappy cat Max's nose is gushing. It's been a while since this has happened (like a whole month!), thankfully, but it means we're caught off guard so blood gets all over his comforter cover (and probably the comforter underneath it too) and all over his hands which freaks him out. Just like he used to freak out when jam would drip on his hands when he ate PBandJ sandwiches when he was two. Jam on his hands always made him freak out. Philip is impatient too because Max isn't doing a good job of staunching the blood and is blaming Philip for it. Philip is not great in emergencies or any situation that wakes him up or keeps him from his sleep.

I'm not fond of being kept from my sleep either. Finally I get Max to stop crying by making him mad. The nose has stopped bleeding. But there's still the question of the cat and Max's refusal to sleep without him. I give Max a choice: sleep with the dog in the guest bed with the lights OUT (because it's next to our bedroom and I want to sleep for god's sake!!) or sleep in your own room with the lights on. He chooses his room. By now I have begun to feel for my kid. I know what it's like to be terrified to sleep. I've been Max my whole life. Where's my fucking compassion? I explain all the noises he hears in the house. He is not really convinced.

I finally crawl back into bed by 1:30 am. Within two minutes the dog is whining. And I can't sleep. Can't sleep because now I'm not the tiniest bit tired. By the time I start drifting off to sleep the dog jumps on the bed and I sort-of-sleep the rest of the night in a weird contorted position. With the blankets half off because of the stupid dog and me being too tired to try to fight it. I would have crawled off to the guest bed but there's no comforter on it because Max barfed on the extra comforter this week and I am in the middle of washing it for a second time.

By 5:30 am Max is up again. But this time he's up for the day. I tell him to go back to his room and be quiet. By 6 am the animals all want feeding. Philip does it. But then the dog wants out. I let her out. I crawl my sorry ass into bed just in time to be crowded by the dog again and hounded by the child who wants Dad to get up already. Dad is really grumpy. I am always annoyed by him being so grumpy in the morning because he attempts to sleep in as though it's his sacred right. And he yells at everyone when we bug him too much. Which makes me even more mad. He'll say he's going to get up really soon and he'll still be in bed an hour later, mad that we are expecting him to get up because he said he was getting up. Mornings can be real hell around here.

I can see the writing on the wall. There's no point in trying to sleep anymore. I get up by 7 am after my night of hell and no sleep. I drink coffee and read blogs. While Philip stays in bed.

This week-end is all spoken for and I can't see how I'm going to get any of the sewing work done that needs doing. Ah well. At least I don't feel like throwing up and I have kiwis.

Linking Emetophobia With Mother Love
(it could only happen here)

This post is full of disgusting discussions of vomit and things that a woman is never supposed to say. Consider yourself duly warned. You read at your own risk.

(I promise I tried to hold it all in. At least I was successful with the vomit. As it turns out, I am a master at not hurling the contents of my stomach, however, apparently I have no control over the words that come out of my mouth and endlessly get me in trouble. Ahhh, isn't self discovery a beautiful thing?)


Whether or not Max and I had gastroenteritis or the influenza will probably remain a mystery since we can't afford to go to the doctor for such paltry complaints as upset stomachs, but if I had to give it my best bet, I'm going to bet on gastroenteritis since neither of us had fever, body aches, chills, sore throats (well, Max did, but that was strictly because of the constant vomit that traveled up his throat), or that heaviness of body that almost always accompanies influenza. Max, between bouts of hurling, felt fine. He would perk up and think it was all over...until the next wave of nausea hit him like a hammer.

I was luckier, or more stubborn, or...I'm not actually sure how to describe myself. I've said before that I will do almost anything to avoid throwing up. This is true. I have had an uneasy tummy for days. For most of the week as a matter of fact but I powered through it for two days until the night before last I found myself on the bathroom floor trying to explain to an inquisitive Max why I like to lay on the floor when I feel like throwing up. I never did hurl. I used intense powers of concentration to keep it down. I have heard many people extol the virtues of simply letting it all out and getting it over with- how much better you will feel just letting nature take it's course.

I prefer my method, which is to fight nature 100% of the way.

Nothing that goes down my throat should ever, EVER come back the way it went down. I have what I might describe as emetophobia, though I should say that my phobia is much less severe, apparently, than some other emetophobic's. (Read the link about it. It had me laughing so hard because it all sounds so ridiculous and yet is describing me and my relationship with vomit. Although I don't have any issues around food because of my phobia. Uh, though I do stay as far away from whiskey as possible. And cold butter. And surprise chunks of meat. And fish. And the smell of fish. And green peppers. And questionable food. And other people who might be sick with something that makes them vomit.)

(Don't say I didn't warn you!)

The term "emetophobia" is a real one and comes to me courtesy of my good friend Lisa B. It never occurred to me to see if a fear of vomit was something recorded in the annals of psychological disorders, and I honestly didn't realize that other people suffered from the same feelings I had about throwing up.

I think it's all so clear now why being pregnant was, for me, a nightmare. I was nauseous for six out of the nine months of my pregnancy. I spent a tremendous amount of time cramming myself with saltine crackers and other soothing carbohydrate rich foods while laying prostrate on the couch watching terrifying episodes of that program on TLC where women give birth and other fun programs where the topic of "what can go wrong" genetically during human incubation is thrown around happily like rice after a wedding party. I never once threw up. Six months of feeling like hurling and I managed to power through without once losing my lunch.

Which, honestly? I probably would have been better off losing occasionally.

(It's about to get much worse so now would be a good time to stop reading)

In the FAQ on emetophobia, they mention that many emetophobics say that they would rather die than vomit. I'm afraid that I've certainly thought that in my head, though I'm not sure if I've ever said it out loud.

Whenever the question comes up of having more than one kid (which doesn't come up nearly as often as it used to when Max was still a baby and everyone used to ask me when the next one was coming...in fact, it usually only comes up now because I stupidly bring it up myself out of curiosity about other people's intentions) people like to say that having two is just as easy as having one. Whether or not that's true (and it doesn't matter, because having a second one would make me go over the edge emotionally regardless of how easy going the child might turn out to be) I can't even get beyond the idea of having to be pregnant again.

Every time I think about the possibility of finding out I'm pregnant again I fly into instant panic.

When I was feeling not so great earlier this week and said something out loud about feeling a little nauseous, someone teasingly suggested that maybe I am pregnant...which froze me in my tracks.

I must have looked like I was staring down a sem-truck speeding toward me because instantly the person who suggested this backpedaled as fast as words could take her away from what she'd just said.

What instantly ran through my mind was "I would rather die than be pregnant and give birth a second time."*

Which I instantly realized is one of those things you are never allowed to say. Ever. Ever. Ever.

However true it may be, (and I just told you one of my deepest darkest secrets just now), you are always supposed to view pregnancy and childbirth as a beautiful experience. And enriching. And wonderful. And rewarding. Because of the baby. Because of the prize at the end of it all. Because there is nothing more wonderful than procreation. Because it is sacred. Because if you hate being pregnant and being ripped wide open to spit that little sucker out- it might also infer that you hate your baby. That's why we aren't supposed to ever say such a thing.

Well I can tell you right now that I have never hated Max because I hated being pregnant. I have never resented him for the work and unpleasantness I went through to get him here. Not once have I viewed him as the thing that made me want to vomit for six months straight.

Another lady I was working with that day had a surprise baby many years after her first three because of a little malfunction with her husband's vasectomy. Which freaks me out because Philip has been trying to convince me that vasectomies really do work, for two years now since he got his, and I keep telling him that sometimes they don't. I was finally beginning to believe him. This woman says to me "My surprise baby was a gift from God."

And I said "Well, I hope God has a gift return policy because I don't need a gift like that."

All because of emetophobia?

Yeah, well...yeah. That and the whole thing about having to raise a whole other different person from scratch and being tired all the time and having my hoo-ha** in pain for six months and the extra depression, the sleeplessness, the cracked nipples, the crying, the excessive bleeding, the impossible to lose weight gain, the incessant chaos, the 24 hour a day parenting...

What's beautiful about having one child is that as we go through these stages of childhood enjoying the wonderful aspects as they come (and there are lots of wonderful aspects to parenting) and say goodbye to the challenges as they pass and know that while we have a hundred new challenges waiting to make us cry, at least we don't have to go through the same ones again and again with other babies.

You know what I would like to do? I would like the powers that be to gift any possible fertility I may have to the people I know who have no children yet because they haven't been able to conceive, because they will probably love being pregnant and giving birth and I have had my turn already, I want others to take any future turns I could have. I want to give them away. Can I do that? I have had my turn and love my child and want no others.

So, is it really so awful to say those things out loud? Even if I am the only woman on earth who feels the way I do, is it so wrong to say what I have said out loud? Will it really harm my child to someday know that pregnancy and child birth were hell for me, that parenting is like a test I will never be able to pass- won't it be enough for him to know that all along, from the moment I could feel him moving in my belly I knew that I was going to love him no matter what kind of genetic mutations he was going to be born with? He could have been born a hermaphrodite dwarf and I would have loved the bones of him more than any other being on earth. Isn't that what really matters?

As it turned out he wasn't born with any interesting genetic permutations. That we know of.

It is a testament of my love for my child that I spent days nestling close to him between his bouts of vomiting in spite of the fact that all that time I was panicking about getting the same illness he had. I breathed his air and hugged that sad little body, covered his face with mama kisses** and sat with him in the bathroom feeling waves of pity for my baby who isn't a baby anymore but a seven year old teenager...while simultaneously strategizing about how I was going to avoid vomiting myself. I pounded down the Wellness vitamins. I tried getting to sleep before midnight. I constantly made myself breath deeply to prevent hyperventilating myself into passing out or getting sick.

Hopefully my son will know how much I love him in spite of all my anxieties and phobias, hopefully he can feel the mother love powering through his mama's crazy brain. Because every day I look at him and I want to hand him the world. I want to smooth his path. I weep for the pain he will inevitably have to experience in life. I worry about his path. I feel the tiger love for him. And most importantly? I sit with him next to the toilet while he vomits and smooth his brow while choking down my wild animal fear. Hopefully he will just know I love him because when you really love a child it hangs between you in the air like stars on the clearest winter night.






*"Tocophobia" is the official word for a phobia of getting pregnant and giving birth. You know it has ceased to be a regular old concern and turned into a phobia when you find yourself worrying about it all the time. And having frequent nasty nightmares in which you find you are suddenly pregnant. You also know it's a phobia when you hear about others getting pregnant and worry that it might be catching. (I'm so happy for you, though, Karmyn, because I know you have wanted this gift of a third baby so much and I was praying in my secular way that it would happen for you.) As I have been reading about it just now I am seeing all these suggestions for "curing" tocophobia and I just keep thinking in my head: I know how to cure it and it's called a HYSTERECTOMY. And I want one. Not being able to get pregnant for certain would undoubtedly instantly cure my phobia of getting pregnant. Duh.

**"Vagina" for those of you who prefer to use the clinical word for your tu-tu. Which I don't. This may be the only word for which I prefer the euphemisms. My favorite euphemism for vagina comes from Mom-O- Matic who refers to her hoo-ha as her "lady bits". I want to use that euphemism too but feel somehow that it would be stealing from her brilliance.

***Something he will only allow me to do when he's ill now. Otherwise I am allowed to kiss him only once a day, at bedtime.

Contagion

I got up at about 5:25 in the morning with Max who has been throwing up since then. Poor not so wee guy. It's been four years since the last time he got the stomach flu. I have to say that a seven year old makes much less mess vomiting than a three year old. I made him drink a little water which he promptly threw up. I have been reading about the stomach flu online and now know that the biggest danger is dehydration. I'd make him sip a little more water right now but he just fell asleep on the couch. I'm going to just hope that he'll feel better after a little rest.

When it comes to vomiting I am a huge wimp. I mean, a wimp about ME vomiting. I have the instinct to run for the hills whenever someone around me has hurled in an effort to be very far away from whatever made them sick. Is there an actual word for vomit-phobia? Because I have it. Most people hate it but I will go to some extreme lengths not to do it. Which you don't want to hear about.

I like to see the bright side of hell so I've always appreciated that bulimia nervosa is not going to ever be a problem for me. Whew! One medical situation I don't have to worry about for myself. (And for anyone ready to harp on me about taking this illness seriously-trust me, I am not joking. I do take it seriously and am seriously glad that I won't ever have it.) (I know that someone out there is ready to assure me that even with vomit-phobia I could end up having a problem with bulimia. If anyone has that in their head right now-all I can do is assure you that no power on earth will make me voluntarily hurl.)

You know what I really want to do? Clean my house. Nothing like contagion to make you want to clean. I have to work again today so I'd better get something done before I go. I can't bail on work so Philip has to bail on his for half a day.

I'm going to go clean some toilets. So what are you all up to today?

Who Buys 18 Pounds Of Celery?

Me, that's who. In my desperate bid to blanch and freeze enough locally grown celery to get me through to the next celery season (which is when, by the way?) I bought the only celery I could find at the Hillsdale farmer's market. It's not difficult to process but never the less, it takes time, and of all the food processing projects I've done this year, this one is the most tedious. I'll be happy I did it though when in two months there is nary a celery stalk to be found.

I got it done though. In fact, I got a lot done yesterday. That's what happens when you rip the computer cords out of your veins and turn the screen off.

Have I ever mentioned how much my boy looks forward to his birthday every year? The excitement begins the day after his birthday with conversations like "You know what I want for my next birthday?" Then he checks with us every three weeks to see how soon his birthday will be. He likes parties. Big parties with lots of presents and excitement. I don't have to tell anyone here how much I love throwing parties, right? How much I look forward to inviting hundreds of shrieking children into my domicile to ransack the place. I mean, it's great. Super. A total thrill. Sydney Bristow's got nothing on me when it comes to thrills.

Normally I refuse to conduct games in my house. Party games especially. But Max doesn't have a lot of friends here in Oregon like he did in California. All I had to do down there was invite tons of children, feed them a constant stream of sugar and shove them outside to explode their energy away from my head, then feed all the parents beer and wine so that they wouldn't notice I'd just ruined their children with sugar. It worked out well. With very few kids to invite and it being probable that they won't all come, I figured I better step it up a little and provide something fun for them to do. Something memorable for Max.

So I'm throwing a treasure hunt. I'm not going to buy party favors, I'm going to make them. Little muslin bags with cookies and little notebooks they can decorate afterwards. Doesn't that sound precious? Doesn't it sound like it came right out of Martha Stewart magazine? And yet, I thought it up all by myself.

I was going to have a spy party but realized that some of the children who are invited aren't encouraged to play with toy guns and to wreak destruction on villains. So I thought a treasure hunt couldn't possibly be objectionable to the younger set. What kid doesn't like a treasure hunt?

Well, I didn't when I was a kid, but you can't judge normal kid behavior by me.

So anyway, I made Max's invitations yesterday and actually sent them out. Now I only have to sit around and worry that no one will be able to come.

Which I don't have time for actually. I have to get going now because I'm submitting an article to an online craft blog and must do the writing today. The last time I submitted things to other publications it didn't go anywhere, but you can't stop trying to do what you were meant to do just because some people out there don't see it. I submitted something for that apron book and got accepted...so it's time to put myself out there again. If I don't get accepted, I will publish it here.

Wish me luck and I'll see you tomorrow!

A Miracle On 18th Street

My kid ate this yesterday! (Shhhhh. He's eating some now, so don't say a word or the magic spell will break.) To most parents this is a real dull moment because their kids have been scarfing down piles of innocuous cucumber since the day they were weaned. As I mentioned before, although I totally accept that my child is an incredibly picky eater, it is still my job to always be offering up good food. Wholesome food. I dutifully do this. So yesterday I listed cucumbers with ranch as being one of his dining options. The kid floored me by saying that's what he wanted.

AND HE ACTUALLY ATE IT ALL.

Which, by the way, he did again just now. While writing this post I went into the living room to collect his plate because he was screaming that he was all finished. What this means in Max-speak is that he has finished the absolute minimum required of him. He has this little quirk where he doesn't feel comfortable unless he is allowed to leave something uneaten on his plate. It's like a young blossoming of OCD. It gives him a sense of control. He must always feel that he has some say. I let him do it because I'm crazy too and understand these little necessities. However, can you imagine how I felt when I picked up a completely EMPTY plate?

How I felt: like springtime just opened up in my chest and I am flying through the wild flowers on the set of "The Sound Of Music" and wearing that awesome dirndl and I'm not fat...like snow just started falling in the summertime and I get to drink a gin and tonic and catch the flakes which, for once, aren't coming from my head...like nothing can ever be wrong again because

MY KID ATE CUCUMBERS AND DIDN'T LEAVE ANY ON HIS PLATE.

My joys are simple. I spent all day (prior to the occurrence of the miracle) cleaning. I don't mean I was scrubbing toilets. I'll do that in the near-ish future. I mean I was DUSTING*, and putting crap away. For the first time in two months I can see the surface of my buffet cabinet in my dining room. For the first time in two months this table was relieved of it's burdensome piles and decorated with one of the last vases of garden flowers for the year.

My pictures of all this bliss kind of suck. Which is ironic because I finally bought a new camera that can actually perform the tasks I want it to. Unfortunately, I have to learn how to use it first. I think I may have been using an ISO setting that isn't ideal. Whatever.

I desperately need to interrupt myself here to tell anyone who is still listening that I have just realized a virgin birth is no longer impossible. For those of you who always believed in it in the first place-you will be disappointed (but hopefully not offended) when I say that I never believed that a virgin could give birth to a child. All information indicates that sperm is always involved in the baby building gig. However, with the help of lots of money and a sperm bank a virgin could absolutely get knocked up without ever having lost her highly over-rated innocence.**

Do you think God was operating as the first ever sperm bank? Do you think he used a petri dish in his transactions with Mary to bring about the "son" of God?*** Was Joseph God's personal petri dish?

Gratuitous shot of the new pantry. I include it only because I think this is a better picture of it than the last two I offered up. There is no need to comment on it again.

I also decorated today. For Halloween. Not a lot. I don't go over the top with holiday decorations. In fact, before having Max, I never decorated for the holidays at all. Having him forced me to unbend my holiday-hating ways and stop acting like a grumpy old man. (It's interesting how often I remind myself of grouchy old men). Max loves holiday decorating. LOVES IT. So I enjoy it now through him. I pulled out my minuscule collection of Halloween decorations and since I had cleaned surfaces off today-there was actually a place to put them. I have to say that there are few things as homey as sprucing up your pad with sparkly black cats and skulls. Taking the time to make one's home festive is really satisfying.

I have missed the homey routines I had before our life crashed down around our ankles two years ago. How can I have been thrown so far off track? How can it have taken me so long to settle into this house and back into the comforting routine of cleaning it and decorating it? I know the time has come to rip out the living room carpet and paint all the white walls. It isn't until the sterile white is replaced by warm color that I really start to feel that my home has our spirit in it. This house is not as pretty as our last one but I realized today that it hasn't received the love and attention it deserves either.

When the hardwood floors underneath the beige carpet is revealed and the walls of my living room are painted, it will feel so much more welcoming. Life may have been tail-spinning for two years as we have tried to find our footing again, but I think a part of me has been scared to settle in. To plant my feet firmly in this house and say I like it and I'm going to stay. I've been scared to love this house and make it better because the last time I loved my house and my life was as perfect as life can get it was taken away from me in one really huge sweep of misfortune. All of it. What if I come to love my humble fifties ranch house? What if my life starts to seem completely perfect again?

What I felt today was that my feet are finally touching the ground and the ground isn't moving anymore. Time to find places for everything. Time to really make it ours. Time to return to the old happy routines like cleaning day being every Friday. Time to love what I have and trust that things will work out so we don't have to lose it all.

See? I may not believe in miracles but I still hope for them.

*See Capello, you're not the only one who abuses caps at times. Sometimes you just have to break the rules.

**Just to be clear here, I'm not saying that innocence is highly over rated in the teen crowd. I'm not saying there's no value in being a virgin. Only that I don't believe that virginity is all that virtuous for it's own sake. It's just the state of being you experience before you experience a different state of being. It's not wise to get me started on the whole innocence topic though. It only ever makes every one hate me.

***One of billions, apparently. Aren't all men sons of God? That begs many questions. So many that my head is beginning to get buzzy.

Congenital Misfits

It is only the beginning of the school year and already we are proving to be Max's teacher's challenging family. Not only is Max slower than all the other kids at doing pretty much everything, but his parents aren't alarmed by this fact and have actually admitted that they were the same way as kids. What can she do with that? What's worse is that Max comes to school mostly exactly on time or a little bit late but NEVER a minute early. EVER. Since he takes forever to do his morning tasks she has asked us to get him there early.

We are tardy slow people.

The crimes against us don't stop there though. Max took a spelling test that he failed and his teacher sent the offending test home to us with a note that informed us that all of the words on the test are ones that all second graders should already know and could we please practice with him until he learns them?

We are tardy slow stupid people.

This teacher is a six foot tall gorgeous amazon with the most startlingly white straight teeth, is fresh out of college, and has the fire of idealism burning in her breast. If there is any child that can dampen those fires and chill that idealism, it's Max. Something tells me she's not going to enjoy his special brand of charm and is going to insist on trying to squish him into the mold of student she wants to be teaching.

I do actually feel bad to be the one with the kid who's going to give her trouble all year long. I will actually try to help Max get along a little better by setting the alarm clock earlier and work on those words. I respect his teacher's desire to get the best education for the kids in her class and to expect them to keep up. But I also know that nothing I can possibly do is going to make Max into a kid he isn't. I'm different, perhaps, than many other parents in that I don't have a desire to force him to become someone he isn't just to satisfy other people's need for comfort.

My dad certainly tried to make me shape into someone I wasn't. Both my parents were driven witless by my own pace about things. You can't rush me. Even now. You just can't pressure me into becoming a comfortable known entity that I most certainly am not. I'm not going to like hazelnuts no matter how much everyone else does or how classic and universally pleasing the chocolate/hazelnut combo is. I don't like it.

That isn't to say I won't ever like it, but if I change it will have to be on my own terms, in my own time and way. Philip is no different. Max is like a little reflection of us. So it's hard to rustle up the proper amount of concern about our transgressions against the educational institution.

We are CONGENITAL MISFITS.

Something that's been kind of nagging at my brain in a very insignificant manner is the fact that I cannot explain how come I like watching medical shows like "ER" and "House" and how it is that I can watch really creepy British mystery shows like "Prime Suspect", when at the same time I find the show "The Office" excruciatingly depressing, "Curb Your Enthusiasm" quite depressing as well, and "The Sopranos" too violent and coarse. All I can really boil it down to is that the shows I like have strong sympathetic* characters in them and/or there is a pleasing balance of things gone wrong and things made right. But honestly, I really can't say.

I've discovered that there is only one brand of bedding that I like: Charter Club's "Damask Stripe" sheet sets. I have two duvet covers and one sheet set of it and it is the very best in my closet and stained from old bloody nose incidents and worn from lots of use. They are not cheap and I wish they were. Trying to save money last year I bought a few sets of much cheaper sheets from J.C. Penny's and you know what? TOTAL CRAP. The sheets don't fit very well on our mattress even though they say they should. One of the fitted sheets is already shredding at the elastic corners. Oh, for the money to have a few more sets of the good ones. Does that make me a materialistic luxury seeking mistress of commerce? Is it too much to want sheets that fit even after four hundred washings?

Incidentally, Macy's socks pretty much kick ass too. I've had the same socks from them for about three years that are only now getting to the point where I'm going to have to retire them due to having worn really thin at the heels and balls of my feet. I have bought socks from a number of other sources that wore out in six months.

So I'm a fan of Macy's. So what? Does that make me a bad bad girl?

I'm sitting here at my computer writing and I keep staring out the window at the row of maple trees in my view that are changing colors-I keep soaking up the bright flecks of red on one and the completely fiery canopy of leaves on the one right next to it, waiting for more things to say because I don't really want to start my day. I'm in my pyjamas and it's almost 11 am.

Isn't that what Sundays are for? Besides fire and brimstone, obviously. For the record, Sunday has been my least favorite day for almost my whole life. That reminds me that someone (probably someone I know very well) stuck a little tiny wind chimey thingy in the planter box by my front door. I just want to say (for the record) that I AM NOT AMUSED. I keep meaning to toss it away or put it in someone else's yard. But it seems so cruel to do that. What if the person who left it there isn't aware of my very deep unbudgeable HATRED for wind-chimes of all kinds and meant only to be sweet? I don't want to be the curmudgeon that squashes the kindness in others.

If I give it to a little child will I be absolved of the crime of getting the willies every time the tiny tinkles reach my ears?

Well, I must pry myself from this desk and do something. I don't know what, but something. Maybe I should make those twelve jars of mustard pickles I was planning on making? With those vegetables that have been brining for 36 hours now...

Have a great Sunday wherever you are!








*To make matters more obscure than ever, what is "sympathetic" is extremely subjective and personal so we may never all agree on the definition of a "sympathetic character".

34 Pints And 6 Half Pints Later...

I spent ALL of Sunday canning. I made two quadruple batches of marinated two bean salad*, ten pints of salsa, five pints of dilly beans (would have been six but for the first time in my eight years of canning, a jar broke in the canner), and one pot of cooked down tomato sauce for the freezer (I have to try it out Karmyn).

It rained yesterday which was wonderful. I really don't understand why everyone finds it so hard to live with. I was even out on my scooter in it which isn't my favorite thing in the world, but it doesn't sap my enjoyment of it. This summer was so mild and bearable, if this is the kind of summer northern Oregon is used to having (as opposed to last year which cooked me like a pig on a spit) then I've picked the right place to live. Heaven. I suppose, though, that even if this cool summer is the usual, global warming will slowly transform this climate into one where all summers are unbearable like last year.

The only problem with the rain is that it may make the tomatoes split at the farm. I'm not done with tomatoes yet. I plan to finish this week. I just hope I am still going to be able to pick them. I plan to go out to Bernards today to pick more beans and tomatoes. I still need to make more dilly beans (because I still have some gorgeous fresh dill heads from the market), marinated green beans, and stewed tomatoes. My plan is to can and freeze heavily this week and then work on organizing and cleaning half of next week, then see if I can get a couple of cases of good Bartlett pears. Once I've canned twenty four quarts of pears I think I'll declare my canning season over. Because I have to start looking for part time work.

Max's nose is healing. It still hurts him when I dab a little Vaseline on it to moisturise it, and he's very dramatic about letting me know it. A couple of times this week-end he scared the bajeezus out of me by yelling out "I have a bloody nose!!!!!!" so I come running only to find out that there was just a tiny spec of blood coming out when he blew his nose. This is the kind of thing that makes me want to strangle my sweet little lieberschleban**. Max woke up last night in his sleep and I'm so used to blood and calamity around here I had to steel myself up for the inevitable fountain of gore...instead I discovered that he woke up to the sound of the kitty retching and wanted me to find the vomit. I didn't find any so hopefully it won't be like the time the kitty pooped in Max's room and cleverly hid it for one week.

I don't think I'll totally relax about Max's nose job for a few weeks. If I don't have to deal with any bloody noses for that long I'll start to relax. It took two years of frequent blood drama to get me to the point where if I hear Max say the word I come running with five tissue boxes and my little box of tricks that almost never work to calm him down. (Maybe the kids of zen-type parents respond to deep breathing but Max really resists the temptation to get enough oxygen. He prefers to hyperventilate.) I get more stressed out than most moms when my kid has a tantrum because all Max has to do is tense up his whole body for a good scream and he can make his nose blood vessels pop. I look forward to not having to worry about this anymore.

This cold of mine has turned out to be quite mild. I had decided already not to complain a lot or try to fight it. I find that colds run through my body faster when I just relax and let it do it's thing. As it turns out, it's just an inconvenience. A little discomfort, but nothing compared to the million other worse colds I've gotten along with Max over the last few years. Sometimes I don't know how I've survived the last six years of parenthood. I am made of stern stuff. I mean, I've gotten mugged and scared the mugger away with my extreme wrath. I've gotten punched in the face by a drunk skinhead (not a shining moment in my life). I've lived through a lot of stuff that it's taken a certain amount of grit in my gut to get through, but nothing compares to parenthood when it comes to challenging me and my resources.

It just struck me right this minute, how hard the last (almost) seven years have been. Right from the forty hour labor through to now. Nonstop challenges. I have actually admitted once or twice that I am not a person who should ever have had a child***, I'm not naturally equipped to deal with the constant little emergencies that having a child ensures you will experience. By the same token, I love the bones of my baby. He's pretty extraordinary. I guess the reason I'm bringing this up is that even if Max doesn't get bloody noses any more, there's always some new challenge to replace the one you've gotten past. So the best thing is to find more inner strength, build a secret fort to hide in when the going gets rough (shhhhh, I think I'll choose my pantry for my secret fort. Don't tell my family, OK?). I want one filled with fashion magazines and beer. And cheese. I'm just coming to accept that unless you're Lucille, parenting never gets easier, it just gets different.

On the more positive side of this parenting gig, I have to say that babies are for the birds. Just kidding, I wouldn't really throw any babies to the birds. I like babies actually. They smell good a lot of the time. What I mean is that having a baby is not nearly as cool as having a kid. I don't for a million rubles wish Max was a baby again. It did used to be easier to entertain him when he was a toddler, we played a lot of chase and that was so much fun. Now he's always complicating things with RULES. He makes new rules every seven seconds. And he doesn't tell you what they are until you break them. What's cool though is this whole reading thing. The whole universe is opening up to Max now that he can read. He can read better than he wants us to know about. What it means is that I can't hide the world from him. He can read the writing on the wall better than I can sometimes.

He doesn't want to read anything when we ask him to and he pretends to hate reading, but once a curious mind gets it's grips on a tool as useful as reading, it can't help but use it. I find Max mouthing words to himself when he thinks I'm not looking. He'll read signs, labels, he reads along with us now when we read to him. He constantly asks us where we are on the page, a totally new phenomenon. It's because he's kind of reading along with us. He wants to see the words he's hearing us say. I always think it's so dorky when parents go all gushy about their kids learning to read, as though billions of people haven't learned to do that before them. But I totally get it. I feel the same way.

The way kids look at the world and explain it's mysteries is captivating. How funny is it that Max thinks Santa and God are perverts for seeing EVERYTHING we do? He doesn't think it's cool at all that they can see us go to the bathroom, he thinks that's very wrong. I find it hard to argue that one. I think it's wrong too.

Enough. I have a lot to do. I have a lot of jars yet to fill. I have to admit (well, I don't HAVE to) that I have this semi-secret ambition not to buy any canned goods all winter. Yes, I'm saying I want to can all of of the food I'll need for the winter besides fresh food such as in season vegetables (cabbage, chard, lettuce, winter squash, etc.). Is there any reason I shouldn't have this ambition? Does it reek of obsession...or good sense? Wouldn't it be cool? Wouldn't that be amazingly satisfying?

Alright, I'm off to shower and pick food. Laundry be damned!





*The less famous cousin of the "Three bean salad" known and loved by all deli aficionados. I didn't have any garbanzo beans but I have twenty five pounds of dried kidney beans so I just used more kidneys and more green beans.

**I spell that word differently every time. I figure that since it's a word I made up, I can spell it however I want. It just now occurred to me that maybe it's a real word in German and someone is going to bust my chops over it. Let 'em bust me...I just hope it doesn't mean "penis" or "nose job" in German.

***Don't anyone bother trying to say otherwise. Sometimes the truth sounds harsher than it is. I wouldn't probably say something like this about any other woman on the planet, because that's not something we can really know about other people. But we certainly can know it about ourselves.

Silver Nitrate Is A Bitch

Why does this bairn look so dispirited? How can a kid be so low on a Friday? And anyway, when you're six years old, isn't life just a gas? Isn't life nonstop freedom from responsibilities? (Of course, to appreciate freedom from responsibilities one must actually experience them first, right?). While it's possible he's just expressing his chagrin at his mother snapping a picture of him in the hospital elevator...

...I think it's probably because he just had an "engorged" nose vein DUG OUT OF HIS NOSE WITH SILVER NITRATE AND BURNED TO SMITHEREENS WHILE HE SCREAMED WITH PAIN IN THE CHAIR.

I have to admit that I almost couldn't take it. I had the strongest urge to shove the nitrate up the doctor's nose so he could see for himself that the pain is not "like a little pinch" as he promised Max but more like a searing gut wrenching pain not unlike pouring boiling water on your bare skin. When we left the office Max asked "Has that doctor ever had that done to his own nose?". Astute question little dude. I seriously doubt it.

The last time he got his nose cauterized it really wasn't too painful but that's because it was a fairly superficial cauterization that works on most cases. They save the torture for the really stubborn big engorged veins; for the real tough cases. To be fair to the doctor, he really was doing what he knows to be the most effective way to stop the bloody noses and I, for one, will be relieved to live a life without being frequently covered with my son's blood. I hate to hear my son begging to be put out so he can't feel such pain, but the nose bleeds are also incredibly distressing to him when they happen, which is all the time. So if this little experiment in torture proves effective, then I will be grateful for it.

We're a little shaken up over here though. He's recovering his color (what little he usually has) while playing on the play station. I can tell there are going to be rough patches today though. He's pretty emotionally fragile at the moment.

When we got home he wanted me to read him a story. Guess what he brought home from school? I'll just tell you because I think you'll never guess: a book about Navy SEALS. Nice. So like a good open minded* mama I read to him all about Navy SEALS which ends with propaganda rules on volunteering. Because what six year old boy is not going to think it's totally cool to join a stealth team of assassins soldiers who get to play with explosives for the "good guys"?! Do I need to mention how heinous I find it that there are books about Navy SEALS available to little children?

There was mention of how women aren't allowed to join the SEALS and Max wanted further explanation as to why that is. I offered the simplest explanation I could which is that traditionally women are the only ones who can have babies and they need to stay out of wars so they can care for them. So he says "So the women stay home to have babies and protect them so they can grow up and become SEALS?"

Yes honey, it's what every mama dreams of.


*Well, I think it's open minded not to care if my kid becomes a cabaret singer, a cab driver, a liquor store owner, a gas station attendant, or a football player. But I admit I struggle very hard not to scream in horror every time he expresses interest in the armed forces.

Salsa Water

Notice the lipstick? I must say, lipstick really makes a difference. I've known this for so long it amazes me that I ever forgot. I do remember declaring when I was seventeen and stupid that I would never be caught dead leaving the house without make up. That was back before I learned not to use the cursed word "never". You may find yourself wondering how the hell I can bring myself to wear such outre sunglasses...but if you're asking this question then you are behind the times my friend. Didn't you know that the '80's is the new '70's?

(I have a whole dissertation in my head about the asinine nature of this particular statement which is forever cropping up in fashion magazines "Pink is the new black", "50 is the new 40" (with regards to age), "Casual is the new formal"...etcetera. You may as well say that "Penis is the new vagina" for all it really makes any sense.)

Yesterday was another gorgeous day to be out and about. I had to go back to the farm to pick up the peppers I left there, so obviously I had to pick more tomatoes too. And a few more jalapenos. I thought I might take you along. This is what the world looks like from my scooter. Hop on man, let's go to the farm! (Doesn't that make this post so interactive you almost feel the bugs in your own hair?)

Here is one of the many crosses I see on the road sides. This particular road has it's share of ghosts. I don't know what happened to Kate, Katie, and Michael, but I'm pretty sure they were Hispanic and catholic. I only guess this due to the exuberant display of catholic offerings with the slightly cooler Latino flair than my own catholic relatives are likely to have. I risked my limbs for this shot. The road is very small and there's no place to really pull over. I wonder if that's how Kate, Katie, and Michael bit it? Were they just trying to get a more pastoral shot of this pretty landscape when they were tragically bumped into the next life?

Another ghost on this road is a young man who apparently died trying to procure drugs which he was rather fond of. Meth was his nectar. Unfortunately, his body was recently found in a fifty gallon drum on a farm on this road. See, I can't stop thinking about it which I would like to do, but I read the paper last week (big mistake) and this is what I find out about. This is not useful news to me. I already am aware that there are thousands of lost bodies stashed in weird places on the planet just waiting to be discovered, or not. I don't actually need to know the precise location of where they were stashed once found, especially when it's in my neck of the woods.

This is heaven. An endless field of tomatoes. Tomatoes as far as the eye can see. My ambition is to fill every cupboard space in my house with canned tomatoes so that all winter long I can open up that sunshine and have myself some home-made tomato soup on a cold winter day with a hunk of home made bread. I had a great talk with one of the farm owners, Chris, about their policy on pesticides. Bernard's Farm rarely sprays their crops, and when they do the only thing they use is an organic natural rosemary oil. Chris says it's important to her that people be able to go out in her field, pick a tomato, and eat it right there without worrying about chemical contamination. However, they cannot be certified organic because they use a non organic fertilizer.

This is how many tomatoes fit in my apron.

(I was on a role with this post when I got a call from the school that Max had a bloody nose that wouldn't stop and it had been twenty minutes and he was getting really upset...I just got back from sitting with him while the dizziness subsided. You can't call the hospital for advice on whether you should come in to emergency or not, and the advice nurse at the doctor's office is never immediately available and generally will call you back within two hours.

So essentially, we're always in our own hands when it comes to drawing the emergency line. That really sucks. Our doctor told us that a twenty minute nose bleed is the limit they should go, beyond that we should take Max to the hospital. But what the hell will they do for him? This one stopped right at about twenty minutes. I think the office gets tired of seeing my son and I feel bad for Max having to be the kid who is always bleeding.)

This is what I took home with me.

Heading back to the barn to weigh up my pick. I love it here. It's a very calm productive spot full of potential meals and abundance, I find it addictive to come pick my own vegetables here. I love it even more now that I know for sure that they don't spray with anything except a rare dose of rosemary oil.

Before heading into the barn I couldn't help but stop to pick a few jalapenos since I used up most of my stash the day before. I didn't wear gloves to pick them. We need to talk about that later.

Over forty pounds of produce for $19.00 is such a great price. Especially when most of that is tomatoes. I fit it all on my scooter. I admit that there are moments at the grocery store and at the farms when I wonder if I'll really be able to fit it all onto my little vehicle, but I always manage.

Tuesday I made a salsa recipe that I got from Karmyn at Dreaming What Ifs... and then yesterday I used a recipe from a pamphlet of recipes developed by The Pacific Northwest Extension. The one I did yesterday was supposed to make 16 to 18 pints of salsa. That would certainly have been the case if what I wanted was SALSA WATER. I not only squeezed all the seeds out (the juiciest bit) but I had to cook that salsa for over an hour and also ladle out several quarts of watery tomato juice. I like salsa to be thick enough to hang onto a chip. So what I ended up with after a huge day of work was 8 pints of salsa.

I also made some stewed tomatoes from the leftover fifteen pounds of tomatoes I picked on Tuesday. They turned out really well, I mean, they didn't ooze out of the jars after removal from the boiling water bath, and nothing floats to the surface. I want to do this recipe I found in a British preserving book but I can't figure out how to make it work with the recommendations of the USDA. So then I was thinking of freezing some tomato sauce or soup, but I know tomatoes can well so I'm reluctant to waste energy freezing anything I'm unsure of.

I've also slow roasted a couple of batches. I will certainly post the recipe for these in the next couple of days. The great thing is that you don't need a bushel of tomatoes and it takes almost no work to do them.

Here are a few tips I'd like to give to anyone who is canning this week:

• Obviously don't douse yourself in boiling water. You'd think this is something we all already know, yet only two weeks ago I shuffled across my patio with a pot of boiling water and got myself good. So really: Don't run with boiling water kids...

• You know how people are forever saying you should handle all hot peppers with gloves? I'm a tough girl and I don't listen to pansy advice like this, do you? There's a difference between chopping three roasted jalapenos and de-seeding sixteen of them raw. The difference is: skin that burns for 12 hours no matter how hard you try to scrub your skin off of your hand. Yes, I bought myself some latex gloves for the purpose of handling hot peppers and the next time you plan to handle hot peppers, I recommend you follow that advice. Unless you are one of those people that find pain sexy, in which case go ahead and take the pain highway, just don't tell me how much you like it because things will be uncomfortable between us for a while if you do.

• If a salsa recipe says the yield will be 8 pints, be advised that in all likelihood what they mean is that you will get 8 pints of SALSA WATER, or 4 pints of regular salsa. Ladling out the watery part that settles on the top will reduce the total time it takes to get your salsa to a regular consistency.

Now I must be off to cook more tomatoes. Which I don't feel like doing because I am coming down with a cold. Think I can trick it into never arriving? I am actually shocked that it has been over a year since the last time I got a cold. Ever since Max was born I went from getting sick once a year to getting every single cold that drifted through town. Hell, if Carla in Kentucky got a cold I'd get it from her. This is the first year that I've gone back to my normal cold programming. I still wish I wasn't feeling it coming on though. So maybe I should make some delicious soothing tomato soup?

Note: Finally the advice nurse called me back and guess what? After a year of torture and agony and us begging for answers or help with the bloody nose situation, they've made us an appointment with the ear throat nose specialist. Of course, I know what will happen there too. They're going to tell us there's nothing that can be done, there are no answers that we don't already have. But the point is: it took a year for the doctor to decide that this might be an issue? They didn't think this was an appropriate step way back in (whenever that was) when I almost passed out from the bloody nose that came out both nostrils like a river for twenty minutes and the only reason I didn't pass out was because Philip DID?