My son is 8

I cannot quite wrap my head around the fact that he is 8. Maybe it is because I see so little of him, or maybe time really does go faster when you get older. It seems strange that my daughter is almost 15 months old, so I suspect the latter.

He had a great time on his birthday. A party on Saturday with all his classmates from school. We talked on the phone and he told me all about his presents.

And I think this was the first time I have been happy on Sprog’s birthday.

Parenting Lamia has flipped a switch in me. Instead of Sprog’s milestones depressing me, it is Lamia’s milestones that make me think wistfully of Sprog. I realize what I missed by not seeing him eat his first bite of food, crawl across the room, pull himself up on my leg. And somehow, on his birthday, it is about Sprog now. Not about me missing him.

Never mind

I decided against posting my response to Nicole’s link to an article on feminism and adoption. Some things are best left unsaid when it is essentially just another scream into the abyss.

I will still say I am thankful for adoption. Reform is necessary, and way too many birth parents get screwed by the current system. Especially fathers. But for my family, adoption was a good thing. Is a good thing.

Pass the kool-aid.

Today we made history

Just a few minutes ago, I sat with my daughter on my lap, tears streaming down my face as we watched President Obama give his victory speech. A beautiful, gracious, inclusive speech.

My son was born in 2000, my daughter in 2007. All either of them have known is a nation suffering under George W Bush. I have hope for tomorrow. Hope that my children will now be able to grow up in an America we can be proud of.

Mama, I am skeered!

I am scared witless that, despite lip service and assurances, when it comes time to put the proverbial pen to paper people’s inner racist will dig its claws in.

I do not consider myself a racist, but I will not deny that there are certain remnants deep inside. I am a product of my environment after all, and my childhood was spent in a small town in the deep South. My parents will be voting for McCain, I can guarantee that (although they would be regardless of the color of his opponent’s skin).

My fear is that people will balk at the last moment, that they will decide that the guy who looks reassuringly like their grampa is a better choice.

Vote Obama. Please.

Even though Hussein is a really unfortunate middle name in these dark times.

God’s plan

I am not someone who sets great store in organized religion. This has been a massive pitfall for me when it comes to twelve step programs. My concept of a higher power is extremely weak. The buck stops here. I am the higher power. So it completely befuddles me when people start talking about it being God’s plan that they should adopt. It defies logic.

If God is supposed to be all-knowing and all-powerful, why is he putting babies in the wrong uteruses? Ah, I get it… so that the parents (both sets) and child understand what it is to experience suffering. And God obviously does that because… he is loving and kind? Wait, that does not sound right. Maybe God’s plan is actually that the childless remain childless for a reason, and that mothers should be mothers for a reason. Maybe all this talk of God having plans is just a way of putting a positive spin on something fundamentally and terribly wrong.

Maybe God just needs some help with his engineering. Really, who would put an amusement park next to a sewage outlet? Guess the truth is God has a sense of humor and we are his little joke.

Or there is no God and maybe you should just learn to accept that you are benefiting from the misfortune of others.

Procrastination

We just finished decorating my daughter’s room. Yes, she did turn 1 last month. Yes, it did take that long to get all the furniture. We bought it on eBay. Her room looks amazing now. A real little girl room. It finally looks homely and inviting instead of just a place for her to rest her weary head.

Like so many things, I put off decorating her room. I made excuses in my own mind – she was only a baby, she did not need anything fancy. Her room looked just fine with cardboard boxes instead of a table, she would never notice that it was not pretty. Thing is, I noticed. Every time I walked in there I felt just a little guilty that I had not at least covered the boxes with cute paper or something. My wife also is a champion procrastinator, and turns out she felt exactly the same way. We have both made a habit of leaving things until the last minute. Taxes. Cleaning. Yard work. You know, all the not-fun stuff. And yet when we finally get around to doing those things, especially to beautifying our surroundings, it feels so good. I always wonder why we never did it earlier. But then the next time something needs done, back we go to the procrastination.

So this is my pledge. No more procrastination. Every day, I will do at least one thing that I desperately want to put off. One thing to enrich my family’s life. Because my daughter deserves to have nice things, even if she is too young to truly appreciate it.

Now I am a Real Parent

Not only have I changed diapers and wiped boogers, I have now experienced the dubious honor of spending an evening in the emergency room with a sick kid.  We took her in because she had a high fever and we are paranoid, and while we were there she puked up everything she has ever eaten on the hospital floor. Incidentally, they are woefully low on janitorial staff (we cleaned up the barf with a paper towel and nobody ever appeared to do a proper job).

Diagnosis: “Vomiting without blood”.

Yeah.

Anyways, she did not die and has recovered just fine, although she is not interested in eating anything other than cereal and toast.

I guess I put this one next to my “campfire” badge.

… and another one down

Where the hell did Dan go?

Incidentally, if my readers from Baton Rouge and Seattle could please identify themselves, I would be a whole lot less nervous and less inclined to follow Dan et al into oblivion.

Sing like no one is listening

Dance like no one is watching

Blog like no one you know is reading…

There need to be more pink WordPress themes

This blog is pink for the month of October in support of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I apologize for the suckiness of the layout, but unfortunately this hideous theme is the only pink one readily available on the WordPress site.

Most families have been touched by breast cancer in some way. My mother was diagnosed when I was 16 and it was a horrible time for our family.

For some understanding of the heartache, please read Judy, who has been kind enough to chronicle her journey and share it with us. I hope our support gives her strength in return.

Misgivings, addiction and NA

I am being encouraged to resume going to an NA meeting every day. I am not sure this is a good move. I find that on some level I resent the time it takes out of my day, especially when those hours are the only time I have during the week to spend with my baby girl.

I also find NA a little…. hypocritical. Are caffeine and nicotine drugs, or are they not? For some reason it is totally OK to sit there strung out on coffee. Bizarre.  I do still drink coffee though. One cup per day. What if it is a gateway drug though. You know, it is only coffee, I can handle just one… you know, Kahlua tastes like coffee, I can handle just one…

At what point does it get ridiculous? Where do you draw the line? No sex, it releases endorphins… so maybe coffee and cigarettes is the place to draw the line and I am being overly critical about the hypocritical.

Sometimes I think I think too much.