Lives By The Highway

Don't you think there's something terribly sad about the sight of a shoe lying on the side of the road? It always breaks my heart a little bit, for some reason. It seems like an abrupt ending to someone's interesting story. Think of all the things shoes witness every day, all the sounds and smells they pass as they take you where you need to go, faithfully protecting your vulnerable feet. Is that where shoes go when they die, the side of a busy highway? Have you ever seen one of those old, stretched out men's work shoes, the laces gone and the tongue lolling out to the side? I always wonder where its pair is. It seems a little like an old man who has passed away, and patiently waits on the other side for his wife to join him.

What about high heels? Those are rare, but they make me wonder about the owner: did she toss them out of the window in a fit of frustration after a long workday? Or maybe she was drunk, her feet hanging out the back window as her gentlemen friend raced down the deserted, early morning freeway. Will she wake up in the morning, sober and aching, and look all over for that missing pump?

Today I saw the saddest sight of all, a pair of child-size boots. They were made of well-worn leather, soggy and slightly deformed, as if they had been there for a very long time. They lay haphazardly in a small strip of grass that bordered the road. One was standing stubbornly on its sole, the other a few feet away lying defeated on its side. The first image that flashed through my mind was of a small boy, skipping along holding his mother's hand. A car suddenly screams around the corner, hitting him hard and so quickly that he's knocked out of his shoes. In the tragic and frenzied aftermath, as he's driven away in the ambulance, his shoes are forgotten and left behind... each a little memorial of the tiny foot it once held.

Even worse than lost shoes are the broken toys you sometimes glimpse as you rush by in your car. A filthy teddy bear with stuffing erupting from the place where its leg had been; or a sun-bleached plastic baby doll, its naked body cracked and blank eyes staring fixedly up at the overpass. I imagine for each toy a devastated child, sobbing for the loss of his most-loved possession.

So many objects are dumped or accidentally lost along the miles and miles of roads that we travel. A stained mattress here, a ratty armchair there. Cigarette butts and pieces of paper, hubcaps and chewed up gum. At first glance, they all blend together as trash, the grimy residue of thousands of people who travel those streets. But to me, each piece of roadside garbage is one small fragment of someone's puzzle. A link to who they are and what kind of life they live. It makes me wonder what kind of junk I've contributed as I zip along, cozy and oblivious in my little car. If someone found my trash, what story would it tell about me?

Overheard From The Bathroom

Ammon: "E--! No, no, no don't touch that. Oh no! I peed all over myself!"

My Stinky Fate

I hate it when you're just sitting there, minding your own business with no one else around, and you start smelling poop. Your first thought is, "Time to change someone's diaper!" Until you realize that the diaper-clad child is in bed, and the potty-trained child is at a friends house. So it isn't one of them. The Husband and His Gas are at work, so he is innocent as well.

"Dangnabbit! It must be the cats!" You think next, unabashedly checking both of their butt holes. Clean. Hmm.

Now begins the frenzied search under pillows and behind furniture, desperately muttering that there must be a pile somewhere, smells just don't just show up out of the blue! Turning the entire house upside-down, you search and mutter and search some more, until a horrifying thought hits you... "It's not... me, is it?" The seat of your trousers shows up clean, and a sniff test of the rest of your body reveals nothing. Thank goodness. But you're still no closer to the source of this disgusting odor.

Sitting defeated on the floor, you can only come up with two conclusions:

A) This is just the way your house smells, and you have to get over it because nothing can be done about it. Or,

B) You have finally, truly Lost It. You are gone, beyond reach. No one can bring you back from this motherhood-induced psychosis, and you are now forced to shuffle around the neighborhood in your slippers, frightening small animals with your head tics and whispers about the smell! oh how it smells! can't you smell it? make it go away! while the neighbors peek out at you from behind their curtains, and then go and lock their doors.

I guess I'd better go find my slippers.



Update: Diaper-clad child just woke up with a poopy diaper. She was on the second floor with the door closed, and I was downstairs in the kitchen... but maybe smells travel through baby monitors? Or maybe I am just THAT GOOD and I smelled it with my psychic mom-nose?

La Vida Loca

A~ was at the table just now, playing with her toys, when one dropped to the floor. She looked at me and said, "Get it, Mommy! Fetch!"

As I was sitting here typing this E-- came up behind me and began a fascinating game of lifting up my shirt again and again, exclaiming "Ohhh!" each time.

Ah, the humility of motherhood.

My Houseguests Do Not Stink Like Fish

I started writing a post about siblings and the massive wars they fight over property and territory, but my husband walked behind me and read what I wrote. If someone reads what I write in the middle of writing it, I lose all concentration and focus, and I just can't go on. I get all self-conscious and flustered, and the outline I had laid out in my head explodes and plasters my eyes with scrambled up letters so that I can no longer see. Since he should already know this about me (we've had this discussion before) I said,

"Ammon! You know I hate it when you read over my shoulder! Go away!"

And he said, "Oh, honey, that's one of the quirky things I love about you."

One of them? I asked him what the others were, and he told me he would mention them when they come up. Yikes.

Anyway, yeah. Property. Territory. It causes much dissension. Ok, I'm getting back on track here...

As E-- has become more and more mobile, A~ has found it increasingly difficult to protect her beloved toys and personal space. The old "bait and switch" method worked great for awhile for when E-- had a toy that A~ wanted, but that is no longer anywhere on the list of options. Nor can A~ block off her area of play any longer, because her sister is bigger and smarter than she used to be, and can get around pretty much any obstacle. However, this doesn't stop A~ from trying.

This evening she was going potty, and had been in the bathroom an inordinately long time. Upon entering, Ammon found that she had unraveled about half of the toilet paper, and was attempting to create a barricade in front of the toilet and sink. Never mind that toilet paper is just about as effective as AIR for keeping people out, but I guess she needed to feel like she was doing something. Poor thing. On one hand, I absolutely want to respect her need for space and distance, and support her independent nature. But I also want her to learn how to live peaceably in close contact with other members of her family. I really want to read Siblings Without Rivalry which I borrowed from my mother-in-law, but I keep picking up quick-reading chick lit that seems much more interesting. Any suggestions from the seasoned mom crowd?

On a side note, my sister-in-law came to visit with her kids over the weekend, and while she was here she cleaned our carpet. Let me repeat that for those of you who weren't paying attention: SHE CLEANED OUR CARPET FOR US. How stinkin' awesome is that? She has to be the best houseguest ever. EV-ERRR! Also? This is the second time she's done it. She says she likes to wash carpets! How cool is she? My in-laws may be a rowdy crowd (c'mon guys, you can't deny it) but they certainly know how to repay hospitality. What a good family to marry into. I am so smart.

"Talent"

I was going through some of my old notebooks, and found one from elementary school. I think it must have been 4th grade. Here is one of the entries:

Sept 16 "Talent"

I would like a good singing voice.
I would like that because I love songs (they tickle my fancy).
Mostly I like women singers, but men ar Okay too. One of my favorite stations is Oldies 97.3 KBSG. Exept I don't wan't to be famous. I would write songs that might help the world.

Gee, my spelling wasn't half bad back then! Oh wait, look at this one I did for a school assignment:

I like classical. I like it because it sooths me and it's really beautyful. Esspesially I like Fur Elise by Bethoven & the Nutcracker Suite by Taicowski (how do you spell that?). Rap and loud music Suck! Oldies and the Beatles are okay.

Ok, so I had on and off days.

Surgery, Family Reunions, and Various Other Tortures

We've barely been at home at all this last week, and the messy post-vacation clutter covering every available surface in our house is a pretty accurate representation of my tired brain. First and foremost, E--'s surgery went well, and it is such a relief to have that done with. I was so worried about how things would go, and the thought of her going under general anesthesia was absolutely terrifying. Luckily, I was distracted in the days leading up to the dread event by The Psychotic Circus Otherwise Known As a Family Reunion With My In-Laws.

It was fun getting together with the siblings and their families, plus my mother-in-law and her new husband and a couple of old people who only speak Spanish thrown in for good measure. And by fun, of course, I mean incredibly strange and wacky and a little bit frightening all squished together. It took me a long time to get used to the dynamics in my husband's family, and after five years I still don't quite get them. All seven of the siblings have very strong personalities that are endurable one at a time, but when you get them all together everything all of a sudden becomes very very loud and also loud. Did I mention loud? The loudness is extremely loud. The first few family reunions I attended at my mother-in-law's house, I had to take frequent breaks in a quiet corner somewhere to regroup and allow my eardrums to heal. But as the family has grown, so has the need for space, so this year we all rented a big house on a very tiny beach. There was the familiar singing of John Denver songs, the annual cooking of the famous family pizza, and of course the requisite family dispute wherein one or more persons become horribly offended and/or yells loudly enough to wake everyone up on both floors. Ahh, good times.

We returned home from the reunion Monday afternoon, and found that our poor cat had been locked in our bedroom.

For. Three. Days.

Cat pee everywhere. But mostly on our mattress. So gross.

E--'s surgery was scheduled for 12:30 on Wednesday afternoon, and she wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything except water after 4:30 am. I decided wake her up at 3:00 in the morning to feed her a snack and some milk. This ended up working out really well, because she then slept in late and the hospital also called and said they could get her in a little early. We spent most of the day at the hospital, checking in at 10:15 and not leaving until 4:15. All in all, things went very smoothly and quickly. The hardest part for me was when we went back into the OR to put her to sleep. I was able to go with her and hold her while they held the mask over her face. She played with it for a minute until she realized that they were actually trying to do something to her, and then she started crying. They took out her binky and held the mask over her nose and mouth while she cried and struggled. Luckily she went to sleep quickly, and they laid her on the operating table with her blankie. I kissed her cheek, went out into the hall, and broke down into tears. The absolute powerlessness of handing over your baby to people you've barely just met knowing they're about to cut her open is devastating. Even thinking about it now, with everything already done and over with, is upsetting enough to make me cry.

We wandered the hospital during the two-hour surgery while the doctor repaired her nerve, tendon, and muscle. The nerve was completely severed, and the tendon was almost completely severed, with just a thin string holding it together. (The doctor showed us pictures he took during the surgery, so we got to see the before and after. Gross, but interesting!) They used a microscope to stitch everything back together with dissolvable thread, and then they covered her entire arm, fingers and all, with a huge cast that reaches up to her shoulder. We'll go back in 3-4 weeks to have that taken off and check on her progress.

While the hardest part for me was watching her go to sleep, the hardest part for E-- was waking up. She was groggy and disoriented, confused and scared. She would alternate between thrashing around crying, and then suddenly dropping off to sleep. After about 2 hours she was finally pretty calm, and she chugged an entire bottle of apple juice which met the required amount of fluid intake, and allowed us to leave the hospital. She fussed on the way home, but after she ate a snack she perked up quite a bit.

We left the next morning for a short vacation with my parents in beautiful Winthrop, WA. The timing was stressful, but we figured since E-- was on medication for pain it would actually be a good distraction for her. We had a blast, even though it RAINED THE ENTIRE TIME. The most exciting part was when her cast started to separate in the middle, and we had to buy some packing tape to hold it together. She looks like a ghetto baby. Hopefully I'll get her into the pediatrician ASAP tomorrow morning to fix that.

Thanks for all your prayers and good thoughts for E--'s surgery. We made it through the worst of it, so let's just keep our fingers crossed for a quick and uneventful recovery! That's totally going to happen, right?

Right?