Tomorrow (Wed.) Chance goes back to preschool. We are both so excited it’s a little ridiculous. Him because of 1) kids, 2) kids, and 3) kids! Me because guess how much I’ve gotten done these last two months? Not fricking much. (I mean, besides chasing Bigfoot and photoshopping Joan Rivers head onto some chick’s crotch. Those are just sanity savers anyway. I am way too type-A to not have something “productive” going on. (Yes, Bigfoot is productive.))

I went into a meeting at his school last week armed with SPD info and what techniques have been working with him. Chance got to come for the “visit” and run around the playground while all the other kids were having nap time. (Ah, naps! How I miss you!) He’s been bouncing off the walls ever since then.

I love my son, I love spending time with him, but in the realm of deep dark confessions, I can’t exactly say that playing cars for the 100th time (cars playing “school”, btw) rivets my attention. Especially when he’s been bored, too*. If I even step near my office it’s like having a drug-sniffing dog at my stash in 2.5 seconds.

So… yes, I have a list. A list of things I can do (or start uninterrupted) in the 3 ½ hours, 3 times a week that will start tomorrow. I don’t care if the list is unrealistic or not. I don’t care if the list items** are frivolous or highly necessary. All I know is I will be accomplishing things!

Because so far this summer I’ve baked a lot and gardened. I feel a little grandma-ish, all panties aside.

Back to comment-inspired posts next time!           - wg

*Bored sensory seeker = pooped parent.

**All list items subject to replacement by sleep without penalty.

The scene - Early evening at Stan and Janet Barkley’s house. Their guests for dinner are Michael and Gail Stevens. They are just sitting down to eat while Stan serves from the buffet.

JANET:  We are so glad you made it over for dinner!  We don’t get together nearly enough.

GAIL:  I know!  Oh my goodness, dinner looks lovely!  You really are a marvel, Stan.  So, what’s new?

STAN, conspiratorially:  This is my secret twist on Chicken Jerusalem.

JANET:  Well, both the kids are off at camp so we’ve had the summer to ourselves for once.  Oh, and I just got back from a fabulous spa trip!

STAN:  Now I know white wine is traditional with chicken but I think a good pinot noir goes with everything.  Hope you don’t mind.

MICHAEL:  Hey, what can you have against great wine?

GAIL:  Spa?  Ooh dish.  Where did you go?  What did you do?

JANET:  It was amazing!  The place is called The Virgin Rose.  The entire spa is devoted exclusively to vaginal rejuvenation.

MICHAEL: cough choke

GAIL:  Excuse me?

JANET:  I know, I know, TMI!  Ha ha!  But after having been there… I would tell anyone… anyone about it.  Stan, do you think we need the other salad dressing?  I’m serious, I’d tell anyone… Get. Your. Hoo-hoo. DONE!

MICHAEL:  O-KAY, wait a minute!

GAIL, fascinated:  You actually had something done… down there?

MICHAEL, turning to Stan:  Should we leave?

STAN: shakes his head while serving pasta

JANET:  Not just one thing!  I spent four days getting the works and I still have a few treatments to go.  There’s a whole specialty field now around sprucing up our most valuable asset!  Ha ha ha!  You can get lifts, you can tucks…

STAN:  Who wants dark meat?

JANET:  A little botox here, a little collagen there.  Laser doing… well, whatever it is that the laser does…

GAIL, to Michael:  Honey, here, have something to drink.

JANET:  Now granted the chemical peels sting a bit, but I am telling you… SO worth it! I feel like I’m fifteen again!

GAIL:  Wow.  (She turns to Stan.)  And what do you think about all this?

STAN:   It’s been great!  Just like when we first started dating!  Ha ha ha!  Although… and this is a small thing… it has started to look a bit odd…

Thanks to Evyl for contributing “vaginal rejuvenation” for this one!  More commenter-inspired posts to come.  If anyone would like to make more suggestions just leave a comment here.
         – the weirdgirl

My brain is mush today.  Granted, Chance woke us up a couple times last night because he was running a fever and kept waking up thirsty.  But get this, I was also running a fever... did not feel sick at all!  I'm not sure Chance felt all that sick either because I asked him if anything hurt or if he was tired or, you know, nag nag nag with the usual mom questions and his response was, "I feel OK".  He just wasn't eating much and was thirsty a lot.  His temperature, at one point, was almost 103!  Mine was only 100, but for me that's a fever.  It's just, you know, if your skin feels hot and the thermometer is showing that you have a fever you'd assume that you'd be feeling symptoms of some kind or another, right?  We had even run around doing errands and going to OT before I even noticed we were both hot.  It was probably one of the stranger pseudo illnesses to hit this household.  (I blame the government.)

Anyway, I think my brain is mushy more to losing sleep than damage from weird, experimental diseases being let loose into the environment, or maybe it's the time of year, but I could use some help nudging the old brain pan awake.  So I am soliciting YOU, yes YOU, loyal readers to maybe throw out a few words and/or phrases and we'll do another little round of improv posting. 

Thank you in advance for anyone who helps!           - the weirdgirl

Previous commenter-inspired improv posts:

Dominant Lactating Mommies
Shakespeare's Mustard
Painful Playgroup Moments
A New Medium
Next in Line
The Internet Makes You Crazy
When Mutant Love Goes Commercial
Let the Good Times Roll
You Give Me Fever
Dildos and Cough Drops
Foo-foo Improv

(Did I miss any?

A virtual baby shower was held for Rebecca of Girl's Gone Child  and Kristen of Motherhood Uncensored over the weekend.  I totally missed the deadline for this but I love Rebecca &
Kristen dearly, both being some of the first bloggers I read and having the  privilege to meet them in person more than once.  To celebrate the upcoming births, the shower hosts asked for stories reminiscing about those bygone first baby days.

There is nothing like watching a sleeping baby or cuddling them or their smell.  However, the thing I remember, the thing I miss... is how grounded you feel with a newborn, as if the weight of the baby in your arms connects you to the earth more firmly than you've ever been before.  Straight to the core.  Everything is heavy and warm, yet even at the darkest time of night there seemed to be light coming off this child and it fills you.  Somehow it fills you, this light and heaviness and warmth, being blanketed in baby until it's something that's a part of you.  A part that, no matter how sweaty or hot you actually get, you never want to take off.  Knowing that blanket will get lighter and lighter as your child grows up makes you appreciate that ground-ness more deeply.  You know every inch of your body and you know every inch of your child's body and it's simply an extension, his skin is your skin.  Everything that you've ever felt, your child will feel as well. 

The schedule was constantly changing, I was tired and it was hard work in those early days, and yet I lived more in the moment than I ever had in my life.  I've heard it said that when a child is born, for the mother the whole world narrows to just mother and child.  But I didn't feel that way.  I felt like we were a mother and a child in the world.  Finally, in the world.  As big as it was, together.

Congratulations Rebecca and Kristen!  Enjoy sharing the world with your little ones.

With love, wg

Can I just talk about how much Kenley of Project Runway fame is getting on my nerves?  I don't usually take a strong dislike to people on TV (because it's TV), but really... it is like she is fraying my nerves with a stitch ripper.  I feel a little bad because she actually looks a lot like my hairdresser (whom I adore and is also into super cute retro looks) and whenever I first see her (Kenley) I think, "How cute!" but then she just opens her mouth and rolls her eyes disdainfully and it's all over.  She is also loud.  When you can tell a person is louder than everyone around them through the TV - especially since TV production crews have that magic of sound control - there's a problem.  And she is rather cackle-ly.  And I am the first person to appreciate a really good cackle because there are times when a cackle just conveys a certain spirit and energy and non-conformist - I might even say, risque - comraderie that simply works in the everyday mostly (sadly) cackle-less world (my mom, for example, can let loose a great cackle)... but when Kenley does it it just sounds cocky and mean.  Cackling Kenley, I think that's my new nickname for her.

I'd invite her to wear a pointy hat but being a fan of witches I'd just be insulting myself.  She's already insulting cacklers.

And no one talks to Tim Gunn that way.

Carry on.           - wg

OK, here’s the deal.  We are about to hit cycle number 14 of this baby-making venture.  Clearly, attempts 1 – 13 were a no go.  We’ve been in this process for almost a year.  (Yes, I know that’s an awful lot of periods in a year.  Yay fricking me.  My ovaries are obviously in final overtime.)

Sooooo… this month we decided to try the turkey baster o’ sperm (that’s IUI for you scientific folks).  Keen and I have both done all the testing and for all extents and purposes we’re fine.  My hormones are all in place, the eggs aren’t totally rotten yet, and Keen has a nice high count and some good swimmers.  However, with age – on both sides – the chances of conception do decrease.  Eggs get a little old and overall sperm volume goes does.  (Sorry guys, you know it’s true.  At least your boobs don’t sag to your knees.)  Volume can be important because it’s like Indiana Jones, right?  You know that scene where the natives are dying off left and right, from spear traps and poison darts and falling rocks, until only Indy is left (or at least way ahead of everyone else)?  That’s pretty much the same scenario for sperm traveling the ol’ vag.  (Those vaginal traps are just brutal.)  Dr. Jones obviously hasn’t been making it, so we figure let’s try shooting some of the boys directly to the gold idol and bypass the Tunnel of Doom completely.

But no Clomid, man.  Clomid scares the crap out of me.

(True real life conversation:

ME:  I’m not sure I want to do Clomid with the IUI.  Would that affect the chances of conception?

OB-GYN:  Hmmm… well… I’ve never done it without Clomid before.

ME:  I mean, I know I’m ovulating.  And I just want one more kid, not twins.

OB-GYN:  Mmmm…

ME:  How many twins have you gotten from using Clomid?

OB-GYN:  I haven’t gotten… any.  (He sounds surprised.)  And that’s in ten years!

Long pause

ME: So you’re due… and chances are that would be me…

OB-GYN: With multiples!

And then he starts laughing.)

Anyway.  Me and Keen have been preparing for this to be the cycle where we rush down to the OB's office for some plastic loving.  (Which, really, doesn’t take all that much preparation except for counting days, peeing on sticks, and pondering important questions like should I wax?  (BTW, peeing on sticks?  Completely overrated.))  I figured I would hit ovulation around Monday or Tuesday.  Guess what I wake up with Saturday morning?!  A fricking bladder infection trying to start, that’s what!  I haven’t had a bladder infection in, like, two years!  All I can think is that I gotta get rid of it before I ovulate ‘cause I’m pretty sure IUI with a bladder infection is not a good thing.

So first thing I grab a bunch of cranberry pills to kill the infection.  This is my usual method of dealing with a bladder infection.  Sometimes if you catch it early enough (and it was early) you really can nip it in the bud with cranberry pills.  I slosh ‘em all down with water and then I realize… fuck! if I take too many I’m going to raise my acidity levels… and I’ll once again kill off Indy!

Damnit!

Then I start scrounging through the cupboard to see if I have any spare antibiotics.  I find a recent sample bottle, check the Internet to see if it can be used for bladder infections, and (score!) it can.  Slosh that down, too.  Then I start wondering if it’s OK to take antibiotics before an IUI.  (Hi, I’m the weirdgirl and I’m freaking out.)  Will that kill off sperm?  Will it affect ovulation?!  I sure as hell don’t know; I’ve never done this before!  I look up more crap on the web… find nothing helpful.  Finally I decide, because of course, I’m dying every time I have to pee at this point, which is every 3 ½ minutes by the way, that I’ll take the antibiotics for one day and hope it’s all out of my system before the IUI.

Then I think about yeast infections… and I swill down some acidophilus, too.

(No temples here; my body is a walking chem lab.  If my hoo-hoo starts producing meth will someone let me know?)

At this point, I’ve been chugging down water all day today hoping to equalize the entire environment.  Just in case that works.  And this whole thing is totally our fault because we tried cramming in a little (too much) extra fun before the “cut-off date” for the old build up of sperm.

Yes, I am blaming the sex.  Why you being so mean to me, intercourse?  Why?

              - the weirdgirl

"Mom!  Mom!  Look!  The poop is my favorite color!"

"The poop is your favorite color?!  What color is it?"

"YELLOW!"

For FADKOG, something I never thought I'd say.  Especially so enthusiastically.     
           - wg

We have been doing OT and speech therapy with Chance for three weeks now.  I'm also on the second week of a specialized brushing and joint compression technique that reduces sensory overload in SPD kids.  This technique is calming because it helps kids with sensory processing issues organize sensory input better.  In Chance's case, the brushing and joint compression wouldn't necessarily help with some of his motor-planning issues (but his therapists have been awesome!) but it does help with the hyper-awareness of sound and provides some of the deep sensations he craves (i.e. previously known as crashing into everyone and thing). 

What's really exciting is that I already see a difference!  Chance seems calmer and more focused.  The meltdowns have dramatically reduced: his last biting incident was last week and that followed a week long gap (which is a huge improvement compared to his peak biting period)!  He's still incredibly active but that's just the way he is - and no big surprise either, coming from a completely hyper, sometimes bonkers family.

I was basically feeling like a pushy, stubborn bitch when I went ahead for the OT/speech screening despite all the recommendations to "wait it out", but I am SO glad I did.  (Yay for bitches!)  Between now knowing what his triggers are, the combined therapy, and the brushing technique I see an improvement that I don't think would have happened for months (if at all) if I had waited.  Best of all, I feel like I finally know what to do and none of this changes his overall personality, it's just changing how he deals with things.  We still have a ways to go but I'm really, really pleased.  And Chance seems to truly enjoy therapy.  

On another note, having Chance home full-time with no breaks (for either of us) is exhausting!  As part of his therapy I'm trying to work in more structured activities at certain times, which in turn pushes out time for housework, shopping, computer work, etc.  My day is not ending until around 10:00 each night and then I collapse in front of tivo'd programming (because I CAN'T fall asleep right after coming back from Target that late).  Chance also seriously misses school so he wants to play with Mommy 24/7. 

Those 4 hours, 3 days a week sound like heaven right now.

                - the weirdgirl

We are having another heat wave.  I never understood that term... "heat WAVE".  A wave is cool and refreshing and what we're experiencing weather-wise is decidedly not. How about heat blanket, heat steamroller, heat "wow, I didn't know I could sweat there" crashing epiphany.

Did I mention that we have no AC?

Whenever it gets above a certain temperature my online time goes down.  The reasons for this are 1) my upstairs office is an oven,  and 2) my laptop is a lap-burning minion of hell.  I'm trying to catch up, though. Through a combination of having cramps, catching and crunching my toe on a rug so bad the top half of my foot is bruised (btw, does a sprain throb or have a shooting pain? I always forget), and hearing that the weather is supposed to cool down I figure today is a good day to sit on my ass in front of the computer.

(While I was still lying in bed I had originally planned to steam clean Chance's carpet and do some gardening... and then I stood up.  You ever do that?  Like totally forget you hurt something because there's so pressure on it?  Silly invalid!)

Speaking of heat in bed! 

Dearest Husband,

Please stop molesting my pillows.  At the end of the day when I am anticipating the sweet comfort of sleep I do not like to plant my face into a pillow that is sopping wet.  Moving them back to my side of the bed and turning them over does not disguise your activity.  Your half-asleep, mumbled excuse that you "just washed your face" only adds insult to injury.  Did you know that one of the distinguishing characteristics between water and sweat is the smell?  Keen, I love you dearly, but your sweaty man stench?  Not so much. 

I know this is not entirely your fault because you, like many men, do not realize that you sweat in quantities fit to float an armada, however you can remedy this situation by simply keeping my pillows out of your zone.  If this activity continues I will be forced to wreak vengeance.

Smooches, your loving wife.  

I overloaded on TV programming aimed (supposedly) at the teenaged set last night.  (We all know they really want to sucker in 80s kids/Gen-Xers, give me a break.)  Greek was on, as well as The Secret Life of the American Teenager, and OF COURSE the premier of 90210!  None of them are fabulous, as far as acting/storylines/consistency goes, but they can be satisfying.  90210 was no exception but I think I have to continue watching it, juuuust to see how it goes.  Besides, it has that girl from Degrassi who was the uber-Christian chick and wore a chastity ring and then, you know, she started posting sexy pics of herself online for money until she got stalked and then she repented and then she started dating a “bad boy” and was considering having sex (bad Christian!) but instead got roofie raped at a party.  And her Friendship Club was so mean about it.  You know, her.

Hi, my name is the weirdgirl and I’m addicted to teen dramas.

(Except not shows like The OC or Gossip Girl because those are SO unrealistic!)

Speaking of realism, the upcoming presidential race might be even more historic than we all thought.  Not only do we have a woman and an African-American nominated (although… am I the only one who kind of thinks that Condoleezza Rice has been our unofficial VP since before Cheney’s hunting accident?) but we might actually see those candidates living real life!  With teen pregnancy and issues from being of mixed ancestry!  Wouldn’t that be refreshing?  Because you know the rest of us live in a world where shit happens and you deal with it, without spin or polish or image specialists in technicolor.  And in the end, life turns out to be just life.  There’s no doubt that this race is shaking things up in this country.  Maybe it’ll shake a few heads out of some butts, too.  I’m sure they’ll feel lighter.

Then again this is the opinion of someone from the “angry left”.  And I AM angry, a deep burning anger, because apparently those Republicans have been having SEX and making stupid decisions while drunk and occasionally being extremist!  Which is probably why they are so flipping happy!  Damn you!  I want drunken, extremist sex, too!

Oh wait, I’m married to a Republican.

Honey, you better start sharing the tequila.  (But not until after 90210 is over.)

               - the weirdgirl