For Chell

For those who don't know already, I am a miscarriage survivor.
I say survivor for a very specific reason.
I survived.
I don't have a badge or a ribbon or a medal, but any mother who lives through the loss of a child, is a survivor in the truest sense of the word.
Any mother whose arms are empty due to a loss is a survivor.
Any mother who still rises in the morning and goes through her day, however dazed, rather than laying down and not moving is a survivor.
Even six years later, it is as though a part of myself is missing, as though there is an injury unhealed.
I went from the highs of joy to staggering out of a cloud of confusion and blinking at the light of day.
I was decimated by pieces of shrapnel declaring that I had lost my baby at 8 weeks 3 days gestation.
Having an early miscarriage seems to invite people to make the following comments:
"You'll have other babies."
"It was for the best. Obviously something wasn't right."
"Thank goodness this happened sooner rather than later."
And other in sundry statements that make my hackles rise and make me bare my teeth.
And I do bite, just so you know.
If you have never suffered a miscarriage, count your blessings.
I cannot speak for my husband, but for me it was the most devastating experience of my life.
From the moment I knew I was pregnant, I loved that baby as passionately as I love my children now. That baby was my child, my life, and my joy.
That baby existed, even in an immature form.
For me, it was everything.
I went through all of the emotions. The sorrow, the anger, the confusion, the guilt. I raged at how my body failed my child. The one place that baby should have been safe it wasn't, for whatever reason.
Even after all these years, when I look at my children at the dinner table, there is one face missing. I know now that there always be one empty place at our table.
Just like there will always be an empty place in my heart.
The pain does get better. Slowly, it stops being all encompassing. One day, you do laugh unexpectedly. After a while you think about it less, although most likely you will still think about that baby ever day.
But eventually, it is bearable, like an old wound that has healed over badly.
After enough time, you are tender to the touch, but no longer crippled by the blow.
After a time, I knew I was blessed to have that child with me for even the briefest of times. I will hold the memory of that small flicker of life close to my heart, understanding that when I get to wherever I go when I finally drop over, there will be a little voice asking,
"What took you so long? Where's my dinner? What did you get me?"
And maybe it will add, "I've missed you, Mom."
I've missed you, too, baby.
This post is dedicated to an amazing woman I've never met in real life but who touched my heart over a cable modem.

The tea in China

With the price of tea in China, and here, and everywhere else, how am I, an enterprising young mother with a smokin'' hot bod (okay, a little fantasy, because in real life I'm an exhausted older mom with a so-so bod!) supposed to afford to bring home the bacon?
The price of groceries is ridiculous.
The only food that is affordable is the food you don't want to eat. It's the food you shouldn't eat. It's the food that you don't want your kids to eat.
I love fresh fruits, veggies, pastas, etc. My kids love them as well. (The Man is a meat and potatoes man, but I'm slowly but surely bringing him around.)
But with the fact that the dollar is stretched as far as it can, knowing I'm squeezing the penny for everything its worth, how are we, middle income Americans, supposed to survive?
Obviously, we're not rich. (I have three kids and a husband--do you really think I have any money left?)
But we're not poor either.
We're in the unfortunate middle. We make too much money to qualify for any aid, but too little to be comfortable.
We're squooshed from all sides.
So how is the middle class supposed to survive when the economic future is so bleak?

The ways of the world

I've heard it all my life-- the world works in mysterious ways.
It buck at the system, but even I know it's true.
For example, a family friend I haven't heard from in years just happens to reappear right at the time I need services she can provide?
A lump sum of money just happens to appear right as we need it for a bill?
Your child tells you he loves you bestest of all and gives you a hug right as you wonder why you ever thought you could be a parent?
The world works on its own timetable, it's own schedule, it's own path. And even though I fight it, occasionally throwing myself on the floor, kicking, screaming, and making a general fuss, I occasionally stop long enough to realize that whoever the person upstairs is, they might just know what they are doing.
I just wish they'd let me know.
Hey, I'm OCD, what can I say?

The formula equation

Obviously, I've not raised any formula fed kids.
I'm not opposed to formula for everyone else's kids. Just not mine.
My boys both had exactly two days worth of formula when they were newborns, since my milk takes over five days to come in.
But, aside from those little blips, my kids have had only breast milk until they reached one year of age, and then they went to cow's milk.
But, even as devoted as I am to breastfeeding, those coupons and free samples are very tempting.
In the middle of the night, when your baby won't eat and won't sleep, they look like salvation in a bottle.
And I think formula companies plan it that way.
It's a slippery slope that, once started, can snowball into a formula only child.
I personally find it strange that hospitals give out a breastfeeding only bag with formula samples.
9just an FYI, the formula only stays in my house until my milk comes in and then I either donate it or ship it off. I do the same with the coupons I get in the mail.)
these samples are taking advantage of the weakest point in any parents life, making it an easy alternative, even though its not what they may want to do.
Formula feed for breastfeed--it's a personal choice and, even though I am pro breast for myself and mine, I'm not pretending to know what's best for anyone else.
But I do think it's a rather sly way for formula companies to enter a home and, perhaps, stay for the duration of that babies early life.

A pox on our family

More specifically, chicken pox.
My baby is covered in spots that are rapidly breeding, making more baby spots, who then grow into adolescence and becomes breeders. Boo is broken out in rash all over, and Bug is thus far unscathed.
The boys were vaccinated, so, hopefully, if they have it, it will be mild.
Punk was not, and she looks it.
We are awash in a sea of calamine lotion.
I'm waiting for the plague of locusts to arrive.

The Look

I thought I had officially mastered The Look.
You know the one I'm talking about.
It's the look you give your kids when they have scaled the furniture, strapped on a set of tissue paper wings, and prepared to fly.
It's the look you give when you catch your son feeding his broccoli to the dog.
It's the look you give The Man when he's said something so amazingly stupid that words have failed you.
It's like the expression Cruella De Ville gives while chasing down those puppies in her big old coupe de ville (get the pun?) in 101 Dalmations (or Damn nations, as I say it!)
I can make my children stop mid air and rethink their actions--it's too blasted late, but that fraction of a second when reality sets in and they realize that wasn't too smart is priceless.
I can make my husband back slowly from the room, hand cupped protectively over the boys (and not my kids. They, he so magnanimously decided, are on their own!)
But my daughter is immue.
Give her The Look (yes, it needs to be capitalized) and she laughs.
Increase the intensity? She crows!
Get down on her level and give her The Look? She pats my face and smiles.
It must be a girl thing.
It must have to do with female hormones.
It must be a test from the universe.
I'm so throughly and totally outgunnned by my pint sized Mini Me that even The Look has failed me.
Oiy Vie!

Things to think on

"Move over, bubby! I'll show you! This is how you drain the lizard right!"