A Doldrum

By the time I reach this blog space, I am usually distanced enough from whatever drama there is to be able to be a least a little sanguine, maybe even have some genuine perspective on the situation. And maybe that isn't always a good thing because part of the whole point of this format is to have something out that can be more raw.

Well, raw is definitely how I have been feeling recently, in large part because of Abigail's 18 month sleep regression. Lo, may it pass by your toddler, may your door be marked such that this particular avenging angel passes you by unscathed. Having a toddler who is fighting sleep = a mama who is partially losing her mind. Reverting to the days of it taking an hour and a half to put her to bed. Having a middle of the night wake up become a multi-hour, multi-parent affair. Her then being cranky the next morning because "WAH I am TIRED and have even less control over my EMOTIONS that USUAL". No shit little one - that is what sleep is for. It acts as this marvelous emotional regulator. Because really you are too young to be hittin' up the pediatrician for Cymbalta and clonezepam. But I digress....

Because last night, she slept through the night. Not particularly late into the morning, but then she just wanted to nurse for quite awhile so that gave me more time to doze. And it is amazing the difference that uninterrupted sleep, even if it isn't as many hours as I would have liked, makes on one's own emotional stability. Part of what was messing with her (I think) was her peeing out her diaper...so now she is in Huggies Overnights just for bed. No other company seems to make a disposable super-absorbent diaper in her size so we are betraying our Pampers loyalty for Huggies absorption. If they allow her to sleep, they can have my union card.

But what was I saying? Oh yes, the difference of sleep. So I empathize with her extra-frustrated-toddlerness when I know her sleep has been jacked up. But I can't reason with her yet and explain that if only she would work on the whole staying asleep concept, all of this would be ever so much better. That conversation will naturally be reversed once she is a teenager that I can no longer extract from bed.

Yet maybe it is made up for by the shrieks of delight that she and her little buddy at daycare engaged in this morning when greeting each other...although I must admit in that shrieking I saw the looming headlights of her own version of pop music obsession....cute now and scary then.

Take home message: sleep = good. But maybe the lack thereof is meant to bust a few walls along the way.

Taking and Teaching Responsibility

I have been feeling a bit beat down by the process of being An Adult this week. About two weeks ago, we got a notice from the IRS saying that we owed penalty money on a 403(b) disbursement we took back in 2006. While this was not a financial move either of us was necessarily happy with, we had done it when we left Atlanta and knew we were going to need to finance a likely unpaid maternity leave. So we did it with heavy financial heart, but with good reason. And that year we definitely had our taxes professionally done by a firm that my mother has been with literally for decades and that I used when I previously lived in DC because my father's death set me up with an inheritance that then had more complex tax implications. So between the move and the various jobs and my training work which means I end up getting paid by the site where I work plus this, we knew we did want to screw it up ourselves. So instead it was looking like we had paid professionals to screw it up for us. Now don't get me wrong - we had paid a hefty tax bill for '06 and we were expecting that because of the disbursement....but we thought that amount covered what we owed. But the Feds were saying "cough up". So faxed the paperwork to the accountant, they looked it over and said "you don't owe more, we'll write it up", then and email from one of the partners in the firm said "you do owe it so go ahead and pay it" which led me to ask "WTF!?! We gave you the 1099s and you say right here on the 5329 that we DIDN'T owe more!"...only I was much more diplomatic. Call to follow up....and apparently again we don't owe more - some code didn't make it from the 5329 to the 1040 and now a letter needs to be written to that effect. I won't get final confirmation until early next week, but I am (tentatively) relieved.

But this raises a larger issue for me. When we moved, we knew that while in theory we could expend the energy to figure out our tax situation for that year, at the same time, we had other priorities and the risk of mucking it up was just too high. So we compiled all of our documents (including a river of W-2s - not that I don't love my training work, but my goodness, couldn't TPR actually centralize its payroll??) and submitted it all and signed everything and sent the firm their fee for all the prep. We paid the feds a big chunk and thought we were done with it. More importantly, I believed that we had handled the situation in the most responsible way we could have under the situation -- we hired professionals who had shown themselves over a period of DECADES to be reliable, professional and accurate.

And yet here we are staring down the gun barrel of a federal notice. We had made no attempt to hide the funds or cover them up or dress them up as dancing ponies. We knew what the consequences were when we cashed out that account. It hurt, but we knew we had to do it. However, our honesty was still ending us up with a surprise bill. A surprise bill with penalties.

At this point, I am having to trust that the latest word from the firm is right and that this will be cleared up with a letter of explanation returned with the notice. But it then makes me question a larger lesson that we will slowly and hopefully successfully be teaching Abigail over the next several years: how to take responsibility. I believe in being responsible for one's actions, even if they end up being mistakes. Actually, especially if they are mistakes. It isn't fun or even necessarily comfortable, but it is important. This doesn't mean taking on burdens that aren't yours, but neither Brian nor I can stand the "well it isn't my fault!" attitude that seems to dominant, particularly in this age of hysterical parenting. Kids need to learn to take responsibility for themselves just like they need love and boundaries and support and direction.

Now, ultimately this scrap with the IRS will be little more than a footnote in Abigail's memory if we have reason to tell her about it at all...hopefully this can be a "funny" story one day. But how do I explain to her that even though we did everything in our power to do this right (short of taking tax training ourselves which is the whole reason we hired the, you know, seasoned professionals) it still might end up being wrong, that we still might end up looking irresponsible in the eyes of the law?

I know life isn't set up to be particularly fair, but this one felt like an extra slap in the face. And handed me a parenting conundrum to boot. Party time!

My (Tall) Girl

Abigail was certainly not of extraordinary proportions when she was born. And there was even some temporary concern when she dropped about 13% of her body weight before we went home. However, when during her second week of life she put on thirteen ounces (yes, in seven days and yes, that is almost two ounces a day and yes, apparently breast milk can be bionic), I quickly stopped being concerned and started being amazed.

And that amazement has never really let up. That great "I do all my own stunts" in size 12 months? Fit her pretty well around four months of age. This past winter when she was less than a year? Doing great in 18 month clothes. This summer? Already starting to bust out of a few 2T things (although others still have plenty of room).

It is official - I am currently the mama of a Tall Girl. Now to some this wouldn't be such a shock. But I grew up with a short mama myself (clocking in at 5'2") and though my dad was tall, I wasn't always around him. Now Brian is tall and I have lived with him for years now, but sometimes it still surprises me how tall he reall is. I love Jeff Goldblum in part for his sheer height. So don't get me wrong, I am not complaining.

Yet still I am amazed. If Brian is driving, she can already put her feet up on his seat back. When I am nursing her, I look down this loooonnngg expanse of toddler draped across my lap. And down my legs. And kind of hanging off my legs too. It is this phenomenon in part that makes me think I should have another one, just to potentially experience what it would be like to have a baby-sized baby. Not that that is a reason to expand the family, but still, it makes me wonder.

I handle the children of others, some her age or a little younger, and they feel so light, not necessarily little, but definitely light. That is the other thing - the P-nut is solid. We are closer to 35 pounds than 30 and it is all DENSE.

Yet this, even more than her height, makes me wicked happy. Because I feel like all that solidity will somehow be a bulwark. That she will then have the strength and the fortitude to take on stuff. Like life. And people who will try to stand in her way. Or give her guff. I've never been a waif, never aspired to be one, and never took offense when my own mother called me a "sturdy wench" (in the Ren-fest, not hip-hop sense of the word). So while she may have her dada's legs, she's got my brick chickenhouse composition going for her. And that is strength she can build on, rely on, be proud of. And for that, I don't feel sorry at all, even if she never really has been my "little" baby.

Worth the Drive

Abigail got to have her first sleepover at Nana's this weekend courtesy of the 2 Skinnee Js. Brian and I first heard the Js about ten years ago -- we won concert tickets, they were the opening act and just blew us away. Their set was far superior to Everlast and Sugar Ray, the other two groups on the bill at 9:30 that night. We were hooked and have been ever since. We saw them play in Atlanta when we lived there and lo, were ever so broken hearted when they opted to disband a few years back. Nothing acrimonious, they were just moving on with their lives. So it was totally fab when a few months ago, we heard that there would be a short reunion tour....well, at that point, it was one date and that was in NYC, their founding hometown as the members met when they were students at Columbia.

So not only did we buy tickets, we opted to splurge for the VIP tickets (signed merch plus a post-show meet-and-greet); at $50 a person that was a deal considering what that usually costs for most other acts. I lined up the rental car and the hotel and we decided to make a night of it! Only recently did we find out that there was also a DC date (although no VIP option there and it was a night I was slated to teach)...and then things fell through with our hotel arrangements (as in yeah, we really need to not spend that money). But still, to the show we go! Thus the P-nut landed with Nana about lunch time and we spend the afternoon wondering why the Delaware department of road works thinks it can pull off doing road work on Saturdays in the summer. They need to invest in OT pay for night crews, like, now.

We had dinner, roamed around Union Square and surrounding environs and then rocked the hiz-ouse. Well, really, the Js rocked and we just rocked along. Their first opening act, The Peculiar Pretzelman, was one part rockabilly swing, one part Dorothy Parker and one part a revival meeting from 1934. They were kickin'. Their second opening act was Tragedy, a heavy metal Bee-Gees tribute band. Yes, I know. But still, it worked...sort of. What I took away from that is how close the two genres are, oddly enough, and that more back up singers should wear angel wings. Good times with that schtick.

But then the Js kicked out the jams for two hours and I even got to tell an appropriately abbreviated story of how we came to know and love them to their drummer and one of their lead vocalists. I know I tend to run off at the mouth and that that is highly verboten at one of these things so I got it down to about six sentences and around 30 seconds. I think I managed to not come off like a sycophantic idiot or a blithering one at that, but check with Brian for confirmation. I even got to tell the Pretzelman I thought their set was awesome and my Parker+revival meetin' description was apparently a new one on them.

And once all this was done, we were back in the car -- I had driven up, Brian was driving back, trading traffic for dark as the challenging factor. Flat out, you can make it from our house to the East Side of the city in 3.5 hours. Our drive up leaving from College Park (which is closer) had taken just over 5, but our trip back was on point because though there were more people on the road than I thought, that hardly means they were packed.

The P-nut did great! She napped, she visited, she ate her dinner and she went to sleep without a fight and stayed down until about 6 AM, about 15 minutes after I had walked in my MIL's door. I had laid down on the couch, but then heard her crying so I got her...and she kept crying as in "you're here now, but even though I had a good time, you still need to know I am mad at you". I had to sing to her to calm her down and only then would she nurse. Oh my goodness child, let me get your your smelling salts. And your fainting couch.

But I was glad that her first overnight was so, well, uneventful. She played, she slept, she pooped -- this is what I want for her. I don't want being away from us to be horribly traumatic. I was expecting it to be harder on me than it was which was also good. All of this tells me that we are doing all of this at the right time. Was this later than many folks leave their kiddies? Yes, but at the same time it's not like she's ten and this is happening for the first time so I am riding a wave of Good Parent Choice (GPC). Of course, all of this made Sunday a patchwork of naps (for her and for us) and I am still not entirely sure my body is over it, but by tonight I should be fully reset. Totally worth it even with funking up the sleep as can I say it again? The Js rock!

This also put me in the mindset of really looking forward to Abigail being old enough to go to big kid shows. I'm all for music aimed at kids, but I also figure that by age seven or so (depending on the kid) and with appropriate hearing protection, a kid should go to all ages shows if they want to. Brian loves the band Soulive and so does Abigail so hopefully a. they will still be touring in a few years and b. she will still like them because that sort of thing would be perfect. It's not that tweener music like Miley Cyrus is evil, it's just....boring. And I think that would be hard for me to swallow with her, if she loves "boring" music. She doesn't have to love all the bands we do, I just want her to have reasonable musical taste. Is that so much to ask?

Plumbing

This past spring we found out that the main waste water pipe leading from the house was kaput. Like so kaput that it had crumbled and our waste water (read: sewage) was basically dumping into the the inside of the hill that is our front lawn. Good times. So several thousand dollars later, we had a new pipe.

Now that it is summer, the plumbing issues have apparently internalized themselves. In mid-June, Abigail had a fever that we chalked up to being toddler ickiness because there were no other symptoms....until there were. A wet diaper that had the distinctive rotten asparagus stench of a UTI. Yes, our little P-nut had her very first urinary tract infection. This was a milestone I was hoping she wouldn't have to pass until well into adulthood if at all. But it seems that the genes are against her as my father's mother, one of his sister's, one of my cousins and myself all have a long and torrid history with UTIs. Like so much so that when pyridium went generic, I almost offered a new lamb in sacrifice.

As an adult, I have had just about every study and lab test there is to check the structure and anatomy of my urinary tract. Again, good times and even as recently as this past December. Always the result is the same -- everything looks normal, can't tell you why you get them, how about that refill of nitrofurantoin? Now, it is not my inclination to take antibiotics I don't need, but I have knuckled under to an appropriate regimen (along with all the behavioral and dietary changes which were tried first and I won't bother getting into here). But when Abigail got a UTI so early, I found out that it is now standard for a febrile UTI in a child under age 4 to then trigger a full work up. By that I mean a kidney ultrasound and a nuclear cystogram.

For those who may not be familiar, they were going to image her kidneys (no big deal, external exam, no prep) and then they were going to catheterization her, fill her bladder with saline and a small amount of radioactive dye and then shoot films as it fills, when full and as it empties, all to check for reflux from the bladder back into the ureters or up to the kidneys. Now, I have had this test done as well and oh my lands, was that a painful experience. So you can imagine my enthusiasm over Abigail having to endure this.

One papoose board and 30 minutes of crying and we find out that indeed there is no sign of reflux. So YAY for no daily antibiotics and no surgery, but BOO for her probably dealing with the same thing that THREE GENERATIONS before her have faced: can't tell you why, do these things and here are these antibiotics -- good luck with that! Don't get me wrong. I didn't want the P-nut to have to have surgery, but part of me was hoping for a "solution".

Then the next day it was back to the opthamalogist to follow up on the appointment we had late last year. She's stopped the head dropping (aka torticollis) and her movement and play seem to be normal in regards to her vision -- all of this was confirmed and she doesn't have to be seen again for three years (unless we notice something funky) so yay for that as well. The following day, I got to go in for a pelvic sonogram (the ob thought she felt a cyst? fibriod?) only to find out that...there's nothing there. My guess this is the rogue section of colon that has confounded my exam for years, but still considered post-partum, first truly "normal" exam since Abigial blah blah blah, they took and look and nothing. Finally, today it was a glucose tolerance test and some thryoid work. We'll see if that is another pile of normal! can't tell you why your cycles are so funky! ENJOY!

So while I am deeply deeply appreciative of having access not only to care but also to insurance to help pay for it, this has been a week of hauling around and coordianting and managing all this testing (plus, you know, work and LIFE) for everything to be fine. Our plumbing has been unders the microscope, so to speak, and nothing new has been learned other than all systems seem to be GO. That is a good thing, but I am finding myself wearied by the process of finding all that out.

And that especially goes for Abigail. I certainly don't think she will remember this (although there was a Mickey Mouse cartoon playing during it and if that is enough to turn her off Disney, then there is a silver lining to this cloud), but at the same time, stroking her head and singing her while she wails so hard and for so long that the fingers she is sucking on become coated in thick, ropey saliva -- these are not the picture album moments for anyone. It hurt when they put in the catheter and whenever they had to push fluid into her. She was good about not struggling, but it is extra hard for me when I know from personal experience the kind of pain/discomfort she is really in. Being right there next to her doesn't take that away, but at least I know we were doing all we could to make her feel better. Cold comfort that one.

I am just feeling seriously tapped out by modern medicine at the moment, both for myself and the munchkin. At least with her 18 month check up at the end of the month, we'll get to see just how much more she has grown because lo, the beanstalk is on the rise again.

A Heavy, Grateful Heart

We will find out more this week about another lone gunman, a shooter who this past Sunday stepped into a Unitarian church in Knoxville, TN and began firing. Apparently, this man felt disenfranchised in his life, opposed the Unitarian's acceptance of gays and lesbians and didn't even expect to leave the church alive. What isn't clear to be about that last bit is whether he thought there would be a stand off and he would be killed by police, if he intended to kill himself or if he someone thought the members of the church would kill him. If it was the last of those, he certainly chose the wrong kind of congregation to pick on. However, the man is in jail, having survived this experience apparently, but not everyone in that church was so fortunate. Right now, there are two dead, but that may go up as some of the injured are still in critical condition. So we will have to wait and see on a final death toll.

When I first heard about this shooting, it had an impact as other recent attacks of this nature have, but this hit closer, in part because this was a Unitarian church and the Unitarians are about as close to being Quaker as you can get while still having, you know, structure. We share a great deal in common with them when it comes to a commitment to social justice as part of ministry. But also, this was Knoxville -- my father grew up in Oak Ridge, TN and someone I used to care about a great deal is from there. And though the rational part of me said "what are the odds he knew any of these folks?", part of me still said "get in touch". So I did and basically said "hey, I was concerned and even if you didn't know anyone there, I know that this sort of thing rocks a community". And I didn't necessarily expect to hear anything back, but wanted to at least put my sympathies out there.

This is where I hate hate hate having an instinct be right because that rational part of me couldn't have been more wrong. The first confirmed victim, the one who had dived for the shooter, the man who without thinking had given his life to hopefully protect others (there was a children's play going on at the time) turned out to be his former Scout master and the father of a good friend growing up. So the loss wasn't just in the community it was personal. At the same time (literally) he had lost a good friend to a motorcylce accident -- an idiot running a red light has sent the friend into a ravine, the type of accident that isn't survivable no matter how good your gear is.

It was at this point in reading the email response that I lost my shit. I just sat there at the computer had cried. It has been years since this person was really part of my life, but every piece of compassion I had went out to him as he was trying to absorb not only this violation of his community, but also the loss of a formative influence and the loss of a good friend. And it hit so hard because of the parallels -- while not all Unitarians are pacifists, many are and often work with Quakers on peace issues so it makes this violence that much more painful and Brian and I have loved motorcycles and riding and make a point of being responsible drivers and riders. Yet here were people losing their lives when simply trying to worship and enjoy a ride. Tennessee is good motorcycle country so even if the friend was just driving to work, it was probably the most enjoyable way to commute.

I sat back from the computer and was filled with gratitude that the only real accident Brian's ever had with the bike was due to a rookie mistake and was at relatively low speed. In fact, he was more scared about me being mad than his broken collar bone. But mistakes happen and this is why we had (well, still have) insurance. That wasn't going to stop me from riding with him or have me tell him not to ride, despite what many people said to us at the time. However, I also faced again the idea that someone else's mistake could still erase all the care and responsibility he puts into riding. Just like someone else's hatred or twisted ideas could still violate my religious community.

Though all of these risks are present, it doesn't make me want to retreat. I wouldn't tell Brian to sell the bike out of some misplaced hope of protecting him; he could still get mowed down by a bus any day (which has happened way more than it should in DC in the last few years) and I certainly wouldn't stop worshipping or belonging to a spiritual community that might alienate others. On another level, it made me value having Abigail in our lives to an even greater degree. Yes, she will have to contend with a world where all of these things happen, but if we do our jobs to raise a compassionate, responsible person, she also has the ability to counteract such influences just by being in the world.

It's trite to say "value your loved ones" and that isn't even really what I am focused on; rather, I want us to value our time and the opportunities it gives us and to take advantage of those no matter how small or insignificant they may seem. I think I'll go meditate on my toddler's giggle right about now.

She's Got Legs

And for the most part, she has figured out how to use them. Abigail was a little slow to the mobility game. Crawling wasn't for her, mostly because it required being on her stomach to at least learn the process, and that was was apparently akin to a stress position. So she went pretty much straight from sitting to standing and walking. Which I think is funny now because she loves to sleep on her stomach...just like her daddy. She will be her most knocked out, sprawled out face down. Genetics are a wonderful thing. And that brings me back to her legs since she clearly got those from Dada as well. Long, long legs -- legs which I hope will continue to have that sort of ratio in terms of her height because I view long legs as an asset no matter what your gender maybe. They just look good attached to the human form.

But in terms of using them, the walking quickly became running and now she is often more coordinated than I am (not that this is a high bar to get over, but you get the idea). She is now spending more time trying to manipulate this footstool that my mother gave her, figuring out how to sit down on it, move it around or if that gets too boring, put her Snoopy to sleep on it. Those legs are also still pretty bendy and rubbery, though she doesn't spend much time trying to put her feet in her mouth anymore unless she is in her carseat -- then the draw of being able to chew on shoe laces seems all too powerful. My aunt is right -- at this age, they are just labrodor puppies.

Along with her actual legs a'sproutin' (which they have been doing more of recently, I am telling you she is growing yet again), her verbal skills have got legs of their own. And so we have entered the start of the mimicing phase which has been most entertaininly characterized by Timmy. Timmy, yes, the alternatively abled character of "South Park" fame; you see, in the episode in which he participates in the "liberation" of a killer whale from a water park, he utters his eponymous "Tim-may!" but does so in a whisper because they are sneaking past the guards. This has always struck as as wicked funny, like "hey even Timmy knew they needed to be all super secret spy!" So Brian started whispering "Tim-may" to Abigail and she was whispering it back. But apparently holding on to that name was too taxing so now she will whisper "Dada!", like all excited but still sotto voce. Very amusing for us. Still haven't gotten her to say "ninja" yet but you bet I got her to say "Wall-E". I'm not a fan of the Princess Industrial Complex, but she can love Pixar all she wants.