Tales from the Crypt

At the risk of offending, I'd like to say a few words about all of the interesting stuff we collect in our heads. I've heard the sinus cavity referred to as a crumple zone-all that room in there to cushion the important stuff-and thought it an apt description. The first time I used a neti pot I was impressed. And of course, before you even get to the sinuses there are ears that can collect truly fantastic amounts of wax. My newest "weird head stuff" discovery is tonsilloliths. Should you not desire to head to wikipedia to read about them, they are stuff that can get stuck in your tonsils (crevices known as crypts) and calcify. Think pearls, except irregular in shape and potentially stinky.

I learned about these things after feeling like I had something scratchy stuck in my throat. On further examination I discovered that my right tonsil was humongous and had white things sticking out of it. Ewwwwwwww. But you know, I'm not as "ewww" prone as I used to be and this was just plain interesting. My doc confirmed that these things aren't harmful and will come and go so I'm not worried about 'em. Gentle and frequent care and cleaning has done wonders and my right tonsil is now only visibly about 4 times bigger than the left. I'm thinking that as some of those crypts have time to shrink back to their regular sizes the rest of the tonsil will get back to normal.

Our heads-containers for more than just braaaaaaiiiiiins.

Torturing Torturers

By now, most of you have seen the ABC news reports that we've got clear evidence of war criminals in the Bush Administration. We all kinda knew that already, but now it looks like there's no "forgetting" or equivocating on the part of the principals.

So, without further ado, it's time to induct the following torturers to the ranks of the crimes against humanity club:

Dick Cheney
Condoleezza Rice
Donald Rumsfeld
Colin Powell
George Tenet
John Ashcroft

I think it's a sign of a criminally insane regime that John Ashcroft comes across as a voice of reason in this. For shame. Unfortunately, among the people thinking about this there are far too many who see nothing wrong with torture to "protect freedom." Everyone else is exclaiming about airplanes and tornadoes today, if they're paying attention at all.

For the record, torture is wrong. And I will be cheering for the war crimes tribunal all the way.

Return of the Library List

Thanks for your patience and understanding while the library list took a brief hiatus these past two Thursdays. For the first missed week, I was busy packing for a trip to Montana, and the second one I just didn't have a chance to look over the books Andy and Elise got while I was gone. But now we're back!

The Boy Who Wouldn't Go to Bed
by Helen Cooper
In this book, a toddler decides he doesn't want to go to bed because it's still light out and he wants to play. He has lots of adventures in his imagination, but none of the characters he meets wants to play because they're all tired. Finally, his mommy searches and searches for him and hugs him goodnight. This one is very timely for us here because Elise has been dreading bedtime and bad dreams and all the rest.

Dora's Favorite Fairy Tales
adapted by Leslie Goldman, illustrated by A&J Studios
Normally, I'm not a huge fan of these TV character adaptations of stories that were told much better for eons before someone wanted to make a merchandising buck. That said, I really really like this one. The stories are told so that they're scary but not terrifying. I particularly like what they've done with Jack and the Beanstalk.

Cat Up a Tree
by John and Ann Hassett
From our reading of Pickles the Firecat we learned that fire departments rescue cats from trees. It's such a shock when Nana Quimby calls about a cat in her tree and the fire department says they don't want to hear about it unless the cat is playing with matches. She gets similar dismissals from all of the other various official entities in town as the cats multiply in the tree. Elise's favorite response: "'Sorry,' said the library, 'we do not catch cats up a tree. Call back if the cats have an overdue book." In the end, we realize that a lot of people would be better off if they'd have done the kind thing and helped the cats when they needed it.

Please Is a Good Word to Say
by Barbara Joosse, illustrated by Jennifer Plecas
We've liked this book for awhile, and when Elise saw it on the shelf last week she had to have it. The girl in the story talks about what different words mean and how to use them nicely. For example, "please" is a way to "put a smile on your words." It goes into "excuse me" for bodily noises, "I'm sorry" when you do something that makes someone else feel sad, and paying compliments. We haven't read this one in a few months and I think this time Elise has really understood what it's all about.

Mary and the Mouse, the Mouse and Mary
by Beverly Donofrio, illustrated by Barbara Mc Clintock
This story is so gentle and sweet. A little girl and a little mouse become friends after discovering one another. A generation later, their daughters renew the friendship. The pictures are lovely and the characters charming. Just a nice book.

And then, I've been reading too. Normally I like to keep this to kid books, but thought I'd throw in what I've read this time too as kind of a make-up for the long absence.

Assassination Vacation
by Sarah Vowell
Every time I hear this gal talk I think I'd like to get to know her. She's very funny, very smart and extremely well-informed on a lot of interesting things. It might sound a little macabre to seek out places associated with presidential assassinations, but this book turns out to be a fascinating history. With a healthy juxtaposition of kitsch and presidential dignity. Her style of writing fits my style of study very well, so I learned a lot more from this patriotic romp than I ever learned in history classes. (with apologies to excellent teachers)

Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline
by Becky A. Bailey
I've just started this one, but it's a winner. To my way of thinking, we've been pretty good with most of Elise's developmental stages so far. Age four is not our milieu, though, and I think life around here has been a good deal harder than it needs to be because of that. Once I got past the mystical-self-help style at the beginning, it became much easier to read what the author writes. Luckily, the writing settles down and is clear and informative. I especially like the examples she gives and the activities she gives for practicing the skills she thinks parents and kids need. I'm sure this one will get its own blog entry when I've read it all.

Mr. Mosquito

We have a new pet. I'm assuming his stay with us will be relatively short, but we'll enjoy him while we can.

Last night, as Flapjack was dashing out the front door to explore, a biiiiiig bug flew in. That got the two of us pretty excited and we spent about 5 minutes chasing it around. Then, I realized that Elise has this cool bug catching equipment that she got from Aunt Amy for Christmas. It took all of about two seconds to slurp the thing up with the sucker thing. Then, it took about 5 minutes to get the thing to crawl out of the sucker and into the habitat enclosure. I should mention, as a point of interest, that I finally succeeded in this task when I realized that the little bugger preferred to hang upside down.

Anyway, thinking it must be a male mosquito (and I was right, btw!) I put a grape and some water covered lettuce in with the little guy and went to bed for the night. Elise has been enjoying looking at him with her magnifying glass. We gave him a piece of strawberry at lunch today, but I think his heart isn't in it. Mr. Mosquito may be on his way out. Sure is interesting to watch, though!

M&Ms on the Brain

One of the things I like best about our girl is her ability to take an idea and stick to it until she's explored every angle. For example, she found no end of things to do with her wooden trains (most of them not related to riding on tracks-but fantastically complicated social interactions.) From trains it was on to rocks, and then pompoms reigned supreme for a good long while. I am now somewhat chagrinned to announce the dawning of the Era of M&Ms.

It started harmlessly enough. Elise remembered seeing a book about counting M&Ms at the library, so I dutifully looked for it. A pretty spiffy little book, really. I was impressed because within the space of a week she'd used it to learn how to count by 10s and was getting the hang of counting by 5s. From there, she wanted a chance to sort an count real M&Ms so I indulged once. Apparently, she thinks they're tasty.

Today, Elise woke up convinced that she'd be eating M&Ms within minutes. Generally, I've learned to dread days on which I'm greeted with her very firm idea of how things are going to be, since it never goes very well. As Elise gets older, it's been a little easier to figure out what's going on. It's a little terrifying to watch the wheels go round as she tries to bend reality to her will-I am seriously not going to be a match for her as she grows up. There's no distracting, there's no diverting. She's just grouchy and out of sorts and easily frustrated all day long. And single-minded.

This morning, I was assaulted by requests and then demands that I purchase M&Ms. I'm not in the habit of taking orders from four-year-olds, so I said "No." I thought that was the end of it, but as I dropped her at school Elise asked again. Ugh. "No."

This evening when I picked her up, what were the first words out of her mouth? "Mommy! Did you get M&Ms?"

We talked about how I like it when she's happy to see me because she likes being with me, not just for treats I might give her. "Okay, Mommy. But can we still have M&Ms after dinner?" Literally no giving up with this kid.

I'm sure I've conditioned it into her-this persistence until she gets what she wants. And you will all be as distressed as I am ashamed that I did indeed give Elise M&Ms after she redeemed herself with a tantrum free dinner. I have got to find a better way of dealing with these obsessions that rule her days and thus mine.

To that end, I've checked out a book recommended by one of the mommy bloggers I read regularly. Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline by Becky A Bailey. Now I just have to get the screaming about M&Ms to stop long enough to read it...

Boingy Boingy Boingy

Yup, folks, I'm bouncing back. Not nearly as quickly as I'd like but it feels good to round the bend that leads back to the more familiar world. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

I'm woefully behind on writing about the "big" events of late, so bear with me as I take awhile to put these things together in my head and get them typed out.

In the mean time, I'd like to mention that I've got a handle on my snail problem. The little buggers were eating my plants outside and grossing me out all at once. Talented, aren't they? Corry's is my method of choice. Unfortunately, it looks like an agonizing way for them to go. So, once the worst of the snail season is past here, I may move to just using the copper tape stuff to slow 'em down rather than kill 'em. We'll see.

Of further disinterest to my readers will be my assertions that, in spite of his recent springtime-induced aggression, Beaker is still a pretty good bird. Imagine if we hadn't taken such care with his upbringing... I have no idea what I'd do without Fark.

Probably too much information...

...but I'm going to write it anyway.

Some of my faithful readers may not know this, but childbearing has been hard on my body. Complications, surgeries, and hernia repairs kept me in fairly constant pain and various levels of incapacity for about four years. In spite of this, I very much wanted another child. I always just assumed we'd have a two child household, and never bothered to imagine things any other way. But, as time passed and the health implications of another pregnancy became very clear and very scary, Andy and I decided together that we simply could not take that risk.

As my dad said when I told him this, everyone makes a decision to stop having kids at some point. This has helped immeasurably as I grieve the child that will never be and my long-cherished vision of my family. Hey, I'm not the only one who's come to the end of her reproductive life! The decision is an emotion-filled one whenever you make it. I have my good days and my bad days with this stuff, but at this moment I can not fathom a time when I will not be entertaining the "what if" of creating another human being.

Now that we've decided this, it's time to move forward and to that end we looked into beefing up our contraception. For awhile, a vasectomy seemed like a good option, but there are some concerns that rule that out at least for the foreseeable future. My preferred option became an IUD. Because I absolutely did not want to go on any sort of hormonal birth control ever again.

And then I went to my GYN. She talked me into going on the pill because it is reliable but not long-term and she thought it was a better option than an IUD for a gal who's had a lot of pelvic pain and doesn't want to risk more. I am so easily intimidated by "experts" who treat me like I don't know my own body and therefore need to be led around by the nose. Rather than sticking to my guns, I caved and started taking the Yasmin birth control pill a few days later.

And then everything went all to hell.

I couldn't figure out why everything was so annoying, why the world had suddenly gone from rosy to unbearable. From where I was sitting, it was all Andy's fault and I was paranoid that he was actually scheming ways to make me feel like a worthless lump. I was tired, grumpy, couldn't eat, couldn't sleep and started having heart palpitations. And that chest pain? Well, it's not blood clots (yay!) probably just panic attacks. A week and a half in, Andy sat down next to his very teary wife and asked if I there was anything I needed to talk about. I started babbling and blubbering and it took us all of about 3 minutes to realize that it had all started when I started on the pill. I wanted to see it out-sometimes these things do get better-and contacted both the GYN and my psychiatrist.

My psychiatrist was helpful-he upped my meds and thanked me for keeping him in the loop, asking me to check back in should I need anything. The GYN was slightly less helpful, saying that we should just switch to condoms with emergency contraception as a backup. I have no idea in what world that constitutes a viable option for a couple angling for sterility. That pretty well pissed me off, to be honest.

As the month wore on, the increased anti-depressants weren't having any effect, so my psychiatrist recommended further adjustment and I gave up on Yasmin. Clearly not the pill for me. My GYN offered up more vague discouragement about an IUD, but I'm going for it anyway-just have to wait until the right time of the month to call and get one fitted. I'll be going for the non-hormone one, thank you very much.

So, here I sit. I'm taking double the anti-depressants that had kept my mood stable for over a year. Two weeks after quitting the pill I'm still not sleeping well, still teary, still unmotivated, and still seeing a glass that's 2/3 empty. I have no idea who is sitting here typing this, but I don't like her very much and desperately want her to go away so I can get back to my life. It feels like very unfair fallout for such a carefully considered decision. I'm sure I'll stop feeling sorry for myself once balance is restored, but in the mean time I'm pretty grouchy and miserable.

Thanks for reading-it felt good to unload that one on the interwebs.