The Schmubbleyew

I'm in Atlanta for a few days at a small conference being hosted by Coca Cola, Live Positively. I've had the chance to connect with some old friends, new friends, and, presumably, make new enemies. More on the cool things I'm learning later.

We're staying at a hotel downtown that rhymes with schmubbleyew, and since Jen lives a mere 2 hours away, instead of 5 days away, she came to meet me for dinner. The hotel is so fancy, the shower is see through.

I am standing in the bedroom. You can see through the shower to the water closet. This is handy because I always hate not being able to see through the shower. The hotel is SO fancy that there are no doors on the shower. This would be perfect for a family vacation, is what I'm saying. If I could give the place one piece of feedback, I'd tell them that if you can see the TV through the shower, the remote should also be waterproof. That's a no brainer, hotel Science people.

I had to lighten the picture so you could sort of see Jen, because the room is dark gray, purple, and lavender. Good for hiding stains, I would guess. Or blood. Kid friendly!

Jen and I went to dinner at the Watershed. They served a bacon caramel popcorn ball, which we had to try.

It's been about 12 years since I've been to Atlanta. I always forget how beautiful the town is: rolling hills, giant trees, graceful homes, Waffle Houses...

How Much Should You Love a Coffee Table?

Here's the thing: I love my coffee table.

It's beautiful.

Yeah, that's the one. Look how the chrome shines, look how the marble glitters! Look how un-child friendly it is! Joe tried to warn me that someone was going to get hurt by that table, and it would probably be our children. "BUT LOOK HOW PRETTY IT IS," I totally logically countered.

A few months after Lulu was born I made a cover for the table out of some leftover batting and cream vinyl. It hid the beautiful marble surface and the shiny chrome, because even I was coming to understand that it wouldn't be the best furniture for a baby who would soon be pulling herself up and trying to walk. Covered it has remained, and any bonk or head-long tumble resulted in nothing worse than any other encounter with furniture, so I breathed a sigh of relief.

Until Monday night while I was making dinner.

Proximo and the kids were bouncing around, as all children do right before dinner everywhere on this planet and any other. The pot was on the stove, nearing a boil. I was prying open the box of Barilla Thin Spaghetti and reaching for the salt. Proximo, jumped laterally, head first (as usual) from the couch and into the table, slicing his head open despite the vinyl-cover (the batting having slipped from that edge.) He started screaming, but since he's almost always screaming over some injustice or another, it took us a second to respond. Joe turned to see the blood start streaming down my baby's face. I ran upstairs to grab a clean towel to press to the wound, reminding myself that head wounds always look more terrible than they are on account of 17,000 cubic fathom pounds sterling of blood in them, or something like that.

(Don't worry, all pictures of blood and gore are at the end of this point out of respect for your delicate constitutions.)

Within 3 minutes of the injury I was in the car with Proximo in his seat crossing my fingers for green lights and no radars. We were at the ER in less than 10 minutes after the slice, and that includes the time that it took for me to walk from the other side of the road with my 40 pound child since all the ER parking spots were taken by people who were obviously not suffering a real emergency. I resented every person in that ER, because if the blood isn't flowing, or your bone perpendicular from its previous location, why are you in the ER? Look sicker, dammit, or thanks for playing.

This was, officially, Proximo's 5th visit to the ER: thumb slice, near eye-miss, impaction, suspected impaction, and head wound. I asked about a frequent customer card but it turns out they don't do that.


And the sad thing? I still love that coffee table and I don't want to give it up. Joe says that he'll move it to the living room, but what should I put in its place? A pile of air where the perfect coffee table used to be, damp carpet with my tears, and droplets of my baby's blood? Should I sew a new cover with actual batting that could resist boy? Because I don't know if there is any coffee table on earth, other than a giant marshmallow, that could be truly injury-free (and even then, someone would get hurt, I swear.)

Tell me, Internets!







Here is the blood and gore portion of this post, in case you've the stomach for such things:

The Great Recession

Three-and-a-half years ago we were stable and steadily growing. Then the economy tanked, so did my work, and we've been living by the skin of our teeth pretty much ever since. I know that so many of you have been in the same boat: all of us, floating along, furiously bailing out the vessel to keep it from totally sinking--even bailing out when the water is up to our chins and all we're really doing is moving water from the lake on our right side to the lake on our left. Sue recently wrote about the bankruptcy and foreclosure she went through, when it seemed like there wasn't much to be happy about, and the swells threatened to overtake.

I've been there: staring at the rapidly dwindling food storage, making meals out of the freezer, thankful for the wheelbarrow of free produce a neighbor left on her driveway. Spending an unemployment check on bags of flour and rice, confident that I could make bread instead of buying, knowing that rice will stretch and that cheap dried beans are even tastier than canned. We were blessed because my frugal childhood taught me how to cook delicious meals from scratch. Putting the electricity bill on the credit card. Letting the tires on the car go bald. Going without a car for weeks when we couldn't afford to repair it. Negotiating with the hospital. Feeling terrible guilt for taking the money grandma would give to the boys for their birthdays and recklessly blowing it to buy them things like food...and shoes. Taking the scraps of leather that Susan gave me and patching the boys' pants. Patching those pants a lot. Living the old pioneer creed: Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without. Our grandparents were shaped by the Great Depression. Our children will be shaped by the Great Recession.

We're the lucky ones. We'll never starve because we have family that can help, if it gets really bad. We have a church that can help us if we need it. We have health insurance. We are educated. I can always work retail. The baby was a good nurser and we didn't have to buy formula; she was healthy and didn't need the doctor. All the kids were mostly healthy and I could duck the well-child visits with their serious co-pays. I can mend, cook, and let things go. Every time we got down to our last dollar, our last line of credit, some work would come and we'd be OK for a little bit. Each mortgage payment made felt like a victory. We made it on a wing and a prayer and a shoestring and a hundred other cliches. I stopped worrying, because it felt like I would worry myself to death. I learned to take a deep breath and trust that good things would happen.
Joe and I would laugh, "We're broke," I'd say.
"Yeah, but we're broke in this house."
"We're broke with (sometimes) two cars."
"We're broke with kids and a good family."
"We're broke with the lights on."
"We're broke with Internet."
"We're broke with insurance."
"We're broke and you went to Hawaii."

And it's true: I went on a Hawaiian vacation paid for by Disney, and our family had $40 in the bank for the rest of the month. I brought my food to eat on the flight so I wouldn't have to spend money in the airport and make it $30. Hawaii is the kind of miracles that kept happening and left us not feeling bereft, but loved (thanks, Rachael.) Feeling taken care of, knowing that the worst had happened: we'd lost our security, our family members had ill health, but we still had so much.

"We're broke and we have enough."

If there's one thing I learned, more than anything else, is that if you are grateful for the little that you have, if you thank Providence, or the God of your heart, you will find the happiness in the small things. I am grateful the TV I bought in 1995 still works. I am grateful for strangers who drop new furniture by the door. I'm grateful for friends who would pick up my check if we were out, refusing to let me pay. I am grateful for the work and the companies that hired me; they were generous and I have learned so much. I am grateful for Zoloft, for a pregnancy without complications, an easy delivery, and for not being pregnant anymore. I am grateful for mild summers and winters, and for warm sweaters. I am grateful that sometimes we could share with others (I cried when a check came in before Christmas, allowing us to give our children a modest holiday and pay for a few bags of food for the food bank.) I am grateful for friends who make me laugh until it hurts, letting my burdens lie easily on their shoulders. I am grateful for neighbors who understand when we can't fix the mower. I am grateful for a thousand and one mercies I have experienced in these years.

Every night we'd say a prayer to give thanks for our bounty, because even in our lack, it was bountiful.




I have been thinking about the Great Recession recently, since it feels like we may have turned a corner (if the Eurozone doesn't plummet...and let's not go there.) Would you do your grandchildren a favor and write down what the past five years have been like for you and your family?


UPDATE here.

Are Your Toilets Really That Clean?

Anytime I see something that seems to be absolutely ridiculous, only one thing comes to mind, "Are their toilets really that clean?"

Let me explain.

Take the entirety of newspaper online comments. Yes, all of them. The mean, stupid, cruel comments that trolls leave on news outlet stories are mind-boggling. Are their toilets so clean that they have nothing better to do than leave nasty comments? Are those bathrooms just sparkling, filled with fluffy towels, and lightly scented of the freshest rain?

There's the world of crafting: where people make painfully tiny things out of the plastic tags they've collected from bread bags. Where every last cereal box is transformed into either a layered diorama of pioneer history or a darling hair bow. Does she really have that kind of time to devote to a craft that most of us find inexplicable? Are her toilets truly that clean?

What about writing out a scathing comment to leave on someone's blog? Are your toilets so clean that you have the energy to pick out a bunch of words, arrange them in a text box, fill out the captcha, and "submit"?

How about deciding that a woman's jeans are too skinny and denying her the right to take a test? Is your house so tidy, your bathroom unfettered from any hint of yellow and freshly stocked with new soap?

If your books are arranged by color, just know that I would like to powder my nose at your house.

Your spatulas are alphabetized. Your pastas are in jars sorted according to size. You have time to watch Two and Half Men. Because if your baseboards are clean, we don't even need to ask the question, the answer is, "Of course."

How about sending the author of a post a really long email detailing their many failings, their lack of parenting (or excessive parenting,) their moral bankruptcy, calling them to repentance, explaining how your ecclesiastical leader told them that a certain behavior was wrong and now you're passing it along in the hope that you can save their eternal soul? Are your toilets really that clean?

Really?






(Disclosure: Are my toilets so clean that I had time to write this post? No.)

I Can't Make This Decision

I have a bit of a conundrum I need your help with, dear reader. I know that pregnant women all over the world are suffering from terrible fetal-maternal health, no skilled attendants to help delivery, are at risk for fistulas, and all kinds of deplorable conditions. So let's talk about my first world problems, OK?

My mother-in-law wants to buy me a glider for this baby. Generous, right? Of course.

But....

Gliders are ugly. They all look like bad, overstuffed 80s furniture. LOOK AT IT TAUNTING US WITH ITS DISGUSTING ROLLED ARMS. Ugly furniture gives me the creeps. And maybe the vurps. EWW.

I've thought about getting a glider and then recovering it--by myself of course because I am cheap, broke, and completely delusional about the amount of sewing projects I can get done in the next week or two.

So when MIL told me that my sister-in-law found an inexpensive glider at IKEA, I got a little excited. Something in my style? Modern-looking? Not cottage-y, sage-y, beige-y, hideous? I want that fictional glider. I couldn't find anything like a glider on their website. I drove to IKEA and scoured the floor, no glider.

I did find the Poang chair and Poang rocker, which both have an ottoman. Boy, are those chairs comfortable, at the right angle, and NOT UGLY. The chair bounces so there is a range of motion that could soothe a baby. The rocker is a rocker, and you understand how that works because you are an intelligent human being. What's more practical, a rocker, or a chair that can transition to a grown-up space?

Turns out my SIL got her glider at Target, not IKEA. Shoot. I'm back to looking at gliders.

Do I accept my MIL's offer for a glider and get one? Even though this is my last baby and a piece of ugly furniture I will hide? Will I really use a glider and am I insane for thinking that I can recover one before I have a baby? What color and brand of glider do I get? The budget can't afford a Dutailier. So I say, Thanks, but I really like this rocker at IKEA and could I get that?

I can't make this decision anymore. And someone make me a drink.




Over at Today's Mama:
What to do about Father's Day