Coming home tonight

Almost a week since my last post, but a lot has been happening...

I've been away.

I came home from Texas last Friday night (3/18). Spent Sat with the family: did some running around, playing with the kids, grocery shopping, etc. Went to a baby shower for my cousin's wife, spent a few hours with my CT cousin-friends (That's a word I just made up... It's like "sister-wife" in Mormon country, and is used to describe people that you are related to by birth, but more and more as you grow older, they are your friends. While we're here, I think I'll also coin the flip side: "friend-cousins": These are people like the Tabors/Menzies/Priors and the Vuolos... people who fate has so kindly intertwined your families' lives that you are friends with them, but you think of them as cousins...)

Then Katy's parents arrived (Granny and Granna) and we had dinner and I got to the business of packing a fresh suitcase, and bathing, smelling, and snuggling my kids enough to carry me though this week that I have also been away. Katy and I woke up at 3:30 in the AM (last Saturday) to get me to the airport for my 6am flight to Sunny and Warm LA county. The trip with layovers and waiting times on the tarmac to "replace computers on the plane", and flying around in circles to avoid weather patterns, and the harrowing shuttle journey to the hotel took over 15 hours.

It has been neither warm, nor particularly sunny.

But, I have been working my tail off (so to speak).

Only as this week has wound down (Thursday night, Friday, and now) have I truly started to feel the weight of my- not "homesickness" exactly- but yearning to have my babies near me. I think I just compartmentalized it fairly well at the beginning. Also, I knew that (between Katy and my in-laws) the boys were not only in good hands, but they would be distracted and having fun in my absence.

Still, attending these two conferences back to back, I have been away from my family for 11 out of the last 12 days. Even Katy and I have not spent this much time apart since we started dating.
And it has been weird to miss a week that my in-laws took to spend with our family. I've been wondering what I have missed in terms of "bonding opportunities" with them, and while I was out here in CA, my God-daughter and sweet Mac-a-doodle turned 5 years old!!! So, I felt a little sad that night that we weren't all together celebrating.

I've done my best to put the time to good use. I've met a lot of interesting and fun people. I've networked and bonded. I've gotten to spend this last week rooming with (and joking and laughing and theorizing and scheming with) Tara. Tara has been a BFF of ours since Katy's and my grad school days. This week only confirmed why: she is good people. She is real and full of brain and heart power, and loyal and honorable, and not only hilarious- but appreciates (and plays off of) my particular brand of wit. She is funny, without being trivial, and carefully measures the weight of her words and actions like only a soul-sister of mine could.

It is absurd that we ended up here this week together, and I can't help but thank God (The Tiny Baby Jesus, or whatever older version of him you prefer) for the way this trip took T and I out of our other lives and put us here, together for a week.

I also tried to use the time well- to appreciate the things a mom of small children loses out on: Sleep, "Quiet time", complex and extended adult conversation, "me time", I've done some list making and sorting through of things in my head, a kind of spring cleaning of my brain. I've also hit the gym whenever possible and done some sweating- and yesterday got myself onto some of the beaches of Malibu for a little hike.

At the end of this, I am eager to get home. But I think I am going back a little bit of a healthier person. Maybe more focused, more grateful for what I have, more (possibly?) full of energy (though taking a red-eye tonight might put a damper on that).

I can't wait to see my sweetie and our kids!

What doesn't kill us makes us...

Sicker
Stronger...

Yesterday, I spent the better part of 7 hours up on our roof, shoveling and clearing ice.
It was a nice warm day (42 degrees when the sun was out) and the sun kept going in and out.





It was a little brutal, if I am honest. The snow was literally up to my thighs. Like the rings of a tree, there were all the layers of the storms we have had. I am well aware that we have had over 55 inches of snow this January, but somehow, standing up there, I could not get over how much shoveling had to be done. I wanted to quit so many times, but I knew if I got down and took a break, I did not have it in me to climb the ladder again. So I stayed and did the job as best I could. I used a hatchet at the edges, near the gutters where there was 4-6" of solid ice on roof near the gutter in the back yard (the South side of the house) and 10-12" of ice in the front yard (on the North side).

While I was up there, I seemed to be experiencing the stages of grief

First I was like, "this won't take long at all... it's a beautiful day! And getting up here at all is really the hardest part."

Then I spent a few hours sputtering a fuming inexplicably- pissed at Katy somehow (WHY wasn't she checking on me more often?!? Why hasn't she figured out a way to play some music for me?!?). Then turning the anger towards other members of my family- and friends that aggrieved or abandoned me (both living and dead).

I turned to Jesus a few times... "Help me out here, Lord, Please, I'll do anything..."

Then I got sad.

Really sad- strangely sad, thinking sad things as if I were alone in the wilderness and not on the roof of my own home. It was then that the events of last week (weather and baby's illness aside) came back to me... That we experienced the 2nd death of 2011. A friend of our family, Kevin. And then the "stages of grief" exercise that my brain was taking on didn't seem so totally strange.

Kevin married into the Tabor clan - whom I've spoken about here when G'pa Jim died and countless other times (especially when talking about the pool in the summer). The tabors are our family. The family we chose, choose, and continue to choose. My parents grew up with them and so did my sister and I.

They are some of the few people that know me now who also knew me when I was a shy, skinny kid. They helped me grow up. They encouraged my budding sense of humor, my musicality, my athleticism, my intellectual pursuits, and that I be honest and follow my heart. There's a stagger in the generations and sometimes I have more in common with the "adults" and sometimes I have more in common with the "kids" (we are all adults now so the gap is getting more narrow...) but I used to babysit for the kids of my babysitters and now those same kids, I occasionally call on to sit for my kids. It's a little convoluted, but it works. When I need advice or help, I call on my aunts, uncles and cousins in this "adopted" family as much as in my "real" family.

Kevin married one of Jim's daughters and they had 2 daughters of their own. They had a wonderful life, but at some point, the marriage stopped working.

Kevin was in NYC the day the towers fell. He called home to say he was okay and on his way home, and then he disappeared for 6 or 8 hours. The "radio silence" was in part due to a lack of phone service, but it turned out his "escape" was delayed when he was distracted by helping rescue workers sift through rubble some before making his way out of there. I remember getting a call that told me he was safe. And then I got a call saying he was missing. I remember hours and hours going by and I worked hard pushing the thought out of my head that we would never see him again. Then he came home, but he was never really the same after that. I only saw him once or twice again. His marriage had started falling apart before September 11th, and took some time to completely crumble. But even when we were all together, he always found a way to disappear from a crowded party after that.

Up on the roof yesterday, I couldn't help think of him and all this stuff I either hadn't thought of before, or hadn't thought of in a long time. He died last Saturday, January 22 at the age of 57. He died of natural causes after quite a few years (and reportedly several consecutive days) of abusing his body with not-so-healthy substances. He leaves behind 2 beautiful, strong, and heartbroken children. And a mess of us that miss him- what he was, what he could have been; plus the sadness that comes from knowing he experienced a lot of emotional pain and/or psychological anguish that couldn't be extinguished.

When I heard of his death, I had a very intellectual reaction that essentially amounted to, "That's so sad." When I went to the memorial service, and saw photos of him and saw his family- family that my heart recognizes as "my" family... i had a very emotional reaction. It surprised me. To suddenly be weeping and missing so urgently, someone I hadn't seen or spoken to for most of a decade...

Up on the roof, in the clear, cold air, I realized I was a bit of an emotional basket case. I was angry that this had to happen to him. Angry that he couldn't figure out a way to make himself whole. Sad and disturbed that the chance he could somehow make things better or right was gone forever. Sick that sometimes in the world, things just don't work out. Sad for my childhood and a time when there was less gray area in all aspects of life... I was glad to have all that physical labor to help me work it out.

Today, I am either sick, or just exhausted. So many parts of my body are sore: fingers, toes, arms, legs, neck, back; my throat is raw, my sinuses constantly draining post-nasal drip, my stomach full of mucus, my head pounding.

The weather forecast is not mild- the winter machine is starting again... the next three days might entirely erase all my hard work on the roof. But I feel I've done something to try to protect our property and our family, and that is something, at least.

You catch your breath and winter starts again...

It snowed every day this week... We got 3" on Tuesday, 3-4" on Wednesday, and another 12-15" of snow overnight...

Since I last wrote, our family has been through the ringer a little bit.

Tuesday night, I couldn't wait to watch the State of the Union Address (SOTU). I am a little bit of a political junkie and the SOTU is like the Superbowl to me (especially with a Dem in the White house). I even had this "live blogging" idea going where instead of driving Katy absolutely nutty by exposing her to my internal dialogue, I would write it to the blog in real time.

But something was up with ML- he was breathing too fast and audibly wheezing, and had hurled the contents of his stomach all over 2 different rooms after the hot steam shower I gave him. Katy and I were both already exhausted from commuting to and from work in the winter weather and 4 separate full body clean ups on 2 children. Katy announced, "I think I have to go to bed," and I replied, "I think I do too." Then my wife passed out from the shock of seeing me wave a white flag in the face of exhaustion. When she came to, we headed upstairs and our little boy woke up not but a few minutes later pretty uncomfortable. He seemed a little warm, but it was definitely his breathing that was freaking us out. We put it off and put it off b/c who wants to bring their 16 month old out into the cold night to get him checked out at the ER? We could have headed there at 8 or 9pm, but by 11:30 pm, we couldn't deny that he was breathing too fast, retracting, wheezing, not able to sleep, and it was getting worse. I called my mom to come sit with JB and we packed the little hyperventilator up.

There is an ER 10 minutes away that I would take myself to in a heartbeat, but it is not a children's hospital, to get there means a 3o minute drive. It is tempting, but I know I will never (if it is in my power) take a kid of mine to a hospital that is not a children's hospital. We were triaged in minutes and then given a number to wait - which is surprisingly reassuring when you have a sick baby. We were taken into a room within 15 to 20 minutes, and were there about 2 hours. They gave him some respiratory treatments which made him all jittery and tachycardic, but pretty much stopped the wheezing. They suctioned him, which did nothing but hurt his moms and piss him off. They said: "Probably RSV," and "Bronchiolits" and sent him home on albuterol.

We got home at about 3am. My dad had come by on his way home from work to keep my mom company and was shoveling our driveway when we pulled in. My eyes were rolling in my head by then, but we all slept only a few hours before Katy had to get up and go to work. I got JB off to school- walked him to the door with ML bundled in my arms and shouted a goodbye without actually crossing the threshold of the day care- not wanted to spread germs. Then I spent the day trying to console a very unhappy boy.

ML is not what we call a snuggle-bug. That is not to say he isn't sweet. He is a sweetie. But he won't sit in your lap for more than a few seconds. One of his favorite games is begging to get up on your lap and then wiggling right off again ad infinitum. But these last 2 days, he would just sit on your lap and/or rest his head on your shoulder, breathing at a rate of 39-48 breaths a minute. (Which, trust me, is alarmingly fast). He was lethargic and only a little interested in food, drink, or sleep. He just wanted to sit, stare ahead, and breathe. It was pathetic and scary. At some point in the day, I was too tired to stay awake with him, so I put him in bed with me and we both slept on and off for a few hours... It was decidedly un-ML-behavior... that he was just content to lay there and play with my hands or hair when he wasn't sleeping.

Last night, he was also restless and feverish, as high as 102.5. But this am, he was better and wanting to run around a little again. I fought the elements to get to work, and Katy took a snow day/sick kid day to be home. She got him to the doctor who checked to be sure there was no obvious infection that the ER might have missed. He screamed and cried b/c now he really hates medical personnel...

This has been a long week. But one that has made me feel grateful in this exhaustion.

We have broken the record for the most snowfall in one month - I can't find the exact number, but I think it is 54". And guess what, there is more snow headed here this weekend. Frankly, I've been loving it. I really have. And the more people complain about it... that just makes me love it more. But today... so tired... so spent from worrying and caring for the boy and you look out the window and calling it 12" is conservative. I was not looking forward to the battle of the driveway.

And then the neighbor, Tom, comes over with his snow blower...
What's a 4-letter word for a neighbor that comes over at 8am with a snow blower???
H-E-R-O

SRSLY- that guy has no idea how much we needed that.

Updates from the home front...

1) Katy got home yesterday! Hooray!!! We missed her but she had a wonderful weekend with her peeps and I had some nice alone time with he boys... I felt good about the weekend. We ate well, and spent nice time with cousins. I showered ALL THREE mornings, and even got to shave ONE leg in the shower. Katy asked me, "What made you TRY to shave in the shower?!?" I told her I wanted to stay pretty for me and also, I like a challenge...

2) JB saw his first movie at a movie theater Sunday with his TT, Uncle Bill, cousins, and me. We saw "Tangled". I loved it. The girl cousins were literally vibrating in their seats in excitement. JB thought the whole thing was a little tired. He was absolutely ambivalent. When Mac called him on Saturday to invite him for Sunday, he (without really even knowing what it meant to "go to a movie," without asking any clarifying questions, and without a pause or any genuine consideration) replied, "No, thanks." He used a tone reserved for someone who is totally satisfied and who is invited to eat one more piece of chocolate- No thanks, I'm good. After we talked about what going to a movie was all about (including details of the treats involved- popcorn, candy, etc) he agreed to go and I advised him he better check to see if the invitation still stood.

The movie was sweet and entertaining, but as all Disney cartoon features, it was fairly adult themed and angst-y. JB feels a lot of feelings and did not like the darkness or the sadness that he sensed. The character of Rapunzel's "adopted" mother was played by Donna Murphy with lines that adults could laugh at- full of understated narcissism and self-esteem crushing abusiveness toward Rapunzel. JB couldn't name what that was, but he was uncomfortable with the introduction of her as a "mother". There were also tons of chasing and fighting scenes and a great deal of stated and perceived "sadness" related to the "missing princess". None of that was lost on JB. He sat with a consternated, furrowed brow for most of the movie and he asked 1/2 way through, "When is this over?"

I pointed him toward the antics of the hero horse, Maximus, and told him how great I thought the music was and we lasted until the end. But when I said, "We should bring Mama back to see this movie, I think she would like it." He replied, "No thanks" in that same, "I'm good" tone.

3) The town pool collapsed a little over two Saturdays ago. ML and I had just began our "Mommy and me" lessons and he seemed to really enjoy it. (As did I.) There has been a lot of drama about this town pool and constant complaints and outcries from people about the failures on many levels. They tried to make it an Indoor and and Outdoor pool with some kind of bubble/ retractable roof... a good idea in theory!

But, this is what the pool looked like the day of our first lesson (I was so excited that I snapped a picture on my phone):



And this is what it looks like now:

I mean, yeah... thank God no one was in there when it happened, right?!?

There is a lot of outrage in the town about it. I really do feel bad for the planners and decision makers. Obviously there wasn't the support to spend the money that they needed to spend for a durable and effective retractable roof. I guess they should have just built an indoor pool, but someone obviously thought it would be good to have a town pool that people could join in the summer.

We've had a championship level swim team in this town since I was a kid and there still isn't the support of the tax payers to give these kids a pool of their own. They have always been at the Y or at the Academy, or borrowing space at other town's pools. It is just too bad. The word on the street is now they have to heat the pool to some degree for the rest of the winter to keep everything from freezing and getting completely damaged. Crazy.

4) Gram went to Florida. For two weeks, with my aunt. This is good for her that she is getting down there and good for us that she is not down there alone or for an extended period of time. Since her stroke in September, she seems almost completely healed. Enough to even take a trip down the hill on our recent sledding expedition:







But that doesn't mean we still aren't worried about her health. I for one nearly pee'd my pants when I saw her on the sled... I was on top of the hill and was like, "WHAT?!? WHO PUT GRAM ON A SLED?!?" She came over dressed for it and had every intention of sledding; without any prompting at all, she put herself on that sled! I was absolutely dying for the 20-40 seconds she was sliding down, but when the sled stopped, (and she hadn't slammed her body into the side of the foundation or broken any bones) I was so thrilled and proud!!! She rocks!

5) One of the more glorious aspects of this winter has been the amazing and spacious 2 car garage that came with our house. There is nothing like pulling out into winter weather with a clean car... the awesomeness is dampened a little by the recent breaking of BOTH of our garage door openers... you win some, you lose some I always say. But thanks to facebook, I've got a friend that "knows a guy", so hopefully, we should be able to fix the situation soon!

Your snowblower CAN'T HELP YOU NOW!!!

We have soooooooooo much snow here right now.











The week after Christmas, we got 10-12" of a powdery mix. A snowman was built and several days later, some of the snow melted, the snowman broke into three separate balls, but certainly, we never saw the grass again. Friday the 7th, we got about a foot more. That snow was so fluffy and powdery that you could not even put a snowball together. I tried and tried, but could not make a snowball- SO FLUFFY!!!


(See the snow behind him on the deck?)


(JB is in front and ML is bringing up the rear)



Then last Wednesday, we got another TWENTY inches of the same pure, dry powdery snow. We have been shoveling our asses off, but it has been a pleasure- I mean, you could go through several New England winters and not have a snow anywhere as near as awesome as the last 3 we have gotten in the last 3 weeks. Also, the temp has only been getting up to about 32 during the day, so it is not melting and getting wet and then refreezing. It has been fluffy and puffy and dry, cold snow for about 3 weeks.



Today, we got about 3 inches of snow followed by 6 hours of slushy, frozen rain. This is more like it... This is more like the weather I am used to expecting and enjoying. This is the stuff that really hurts to shovel. This is the stuff that God invented to mock you for running out and impulse-buying that shiny snowblower (we did not do that, btw). This is the stuff that leaves the trees full of sharp ice-bullets and your back yard shiny like a Zamboni'd hockey rink.



For the last 3 weeks, when the snowplow came by to barf up that extra foot of junk onto the edge of my newly dug out driveway, I could barely complain- it was so fluffy... Deep, but still not icy, you know? But tonight, this is the stuff that pulls groins, and spasms lower backs, and leaves grown people weeping icicles. THIS is what I'm talking about, THIS is New England!!!





BUT this ice is on 22-36 inches of snow, SRSLY. So THAT is not normal at all.

The middle of our front yard has over 2 feet of snow on it. The snow banks that line our driveway are at least as high as my waist. Many sections of them are higher than my shoulders. The mailbox is buried. It is insane! Shoveling icy, slushy, sleety snow over your head is a work out. You get dressed in your winter clothes and they get wet from the inside out.

Thing is, it is exhausting. And I'm starting to get all worried about the roof holding up and the gutters not falling down, and the basement not flooding...

Still, I'm enjoying it. It is extreme and fun and awe-inspiring.
And look what it is doing to the boys:








(Young boys, obsessed with plows)

NOTE:
all of this pics are from 1 or 2 storms ago... I did not yet include any pics of today's additionally precipitation. Also, I am going to try and get some footage of downhill sledding up on the blog asap... So adorable!

Overheard in the darkness

It's 4:30 am.
It's pitch black in our room.
I wake up to the sounds of the familiar pitter-patter, pitter-pat.
Lately, he walks right by me around to katy's side of the bed.
That's what he did this morning...

JB: Mama wanna see something?
KT: (trying to wake up) what?!?
JB: I wanna show you something.
KT: huh? you want to show me something?
JB: yes. (pause. pause. Mama and Mommy can't really move yet. I'm trying to get up so that she can be off the hook with whatever he wants to show her... I imagine it might be a set of wet sheets and blankets.)
JB: (waiting patiently, trying to entice her) Wanna come see?
KT: (starting to get up) What? What do you want to show me?
JB: (He is insistent and won't tip his hand) Come see...
(pause. I am awake, but it is like I am paralyzed. I cannot figure out how to come out of sleep enough to move.)
(pause)
(pause)
KT: Stars?!? you see the stars? Are you trying to show me the stars?
KT: (in the sweetest, most innocent, and most wide-eyed voice you can imagine) Aren't they beautiful?
KT: Yes... they are. Thank you for showing me.
(sigh)

We interrupt this blissful life...

To report the most annoying, rhythmic chirping coming from the swampy woods behind our house. I don't know what creature is creating this noise, but it has been going on for 2 days now. Katy thinks it is a bird. But I've never heard of birds up all night, sounding a piercing, chirping alarm.

I've heard crickets and frogs and locusts and this sound is nothing like those. Imagine your smoke detector battery is dying and the thing starts to chirp in warning. But LOUDER... You are NOT IMAGINING IT LOUD ENOUGH! And you are imagining the noise IN your house, but you should be imagining it THROUGH the WINDOWS... somewhere out in the woods.

Also, it goes on and on and there is no option to get up and just change the EFFING battery!

Does anyone know what this is?!?
I need to identify it so that my fantasies of killing it can be more realistic and detailed.


To get away from the noise, I've joined my lovely wife on the couch in front of the woman's NCAA National Basketball championship game. If you know me, you understand this is a measure of last resort. Generally (excepting baseball, golf, and major playoff games) televised sports make me irritable, this is Katy's department. Since my Alma Mater is on the court, and since it actually is a championship game (which qualifies as a "major playoff game") I'm happy to be involved in the spectator-ship. Amazingly, it is a close game- Uconn is undefeated this season and no final score was within double digits.

Katy (and I) like a close game... but she is NOT happy that the scores are so low: with 11:24 left to play, Stanford 25 Uconn 29. They are missing a lot of shots and while there is a case to be made that a low-scoring game means excellent defense; the broadcast seems to be revealing a poor shooting percentage.

I'm gonna go Google "Chirping bird noises at night" now...

UPDATE: 10:30pm:
Still no word on the "bird"
And Uconn won the game 53 to 47
With two consecutive perfect seasons, it is easy to become cynical and say "they have it easy... someone should be able to take them out/down". I'm not accustomed to routing for the top dog- I'm an underdog kind of girl... But these are young women 17-22 years old, and they work their asses off year round. They have sought and worked hard for this perfection... as easy as they made it look, it wasn't handed to them. So good for you BIG BLUE.
Here's a toast to the University of Connecticut, where men are men and women are champions.