Once A Week...

...if I'm lucky, I'll get time to blog.

This is a new thing for me lately, coming hard on the heels of not wanting to blog. Now that I want to, I can't find the time. This stinks on many levels, one of which is that writing is therapuetic, and the other being that I have a hard time with short term memory. I keep running into these wonderful blogworthy situations and thinking, "Ha! I'll totally have to blog this!" and then when all is said and done and I am logging on, all I can remember is that something amusing happened, or that I had a great thought. At least I can remember the laughter or the deep feelings. I imagine I'll be the little old lady staring into the corner chuckling to herself for no apparent reason... or crying into her oatmeal without knowing why. At least it will be easy to entertain me!

Occasionally I'll make a quick list of the things that have touched me in some way, and this was one of those times. Grab a cuppa, some toast or pound cake or a dish of ice cream... let's chat!

I've been listening to a book on tape by Anne Lamott. It's called Grace, Eventually. I went through all 5 discs, I dunno, maybe 3 hours or so, and I was so distracted by her voice. The author is the reader and since I've read other things by her, I already had her "voice" in my head. The way she really sounded was so completely different from the voice in my head that all I could do was dwell on that fact instead of listen to the book. By the time I hit the 5th disc though, I began to get used to her voice and speech pattern and started to listen to the words. It was so good, that I started all over again with disc one this morning. This time I can focus on the meaning in what she says instead of the tone she uses. I can't believe how much I'm already listening to that I didn't hear the first time.

My Meme has been very sick...again. I don't remember if I posted about it before but she has asthma and a propensity for ear infections. Any small cold she gets usually flares up into an asthma crisis. Not like, go to the hospital crisis, but just the same, scary and frustrating and sleepless and cranky crisis with plenty of doctor visits and worrying. Well, it happened again. I've been at the doctors office as much as twice in a day for as long as 3 hours at one time in the past 3 days. I've given this sweet little girl so many high powered medications and forced her to inhale clouds of medicated steam so many times every day that I can't help but understand when she screams inconsolably and swats at me and throws herself backwards in rage. As I sat on the couch last night with nothing else to do but sit and stare at her while she screamed from the bottom of her wheezy crackly lungs, I wished that the next time I was tired and achey and jittery... that I could just sit down and weep too. Oh the things we lose to childhood.

You know the old saying about women carrying "everything but the kitchen sink" in their purse? Well, I come from a long line of professional purse stuffing women. My mom actually did have a peice of the plumbing from the kitchen sink in her purse once. As I was cleaning out my purse the other day, sorting through reciepts, cough drop wrappers, used kleenex and other detritus (how many kotex and tampons did I really think I'd need on a trip to Target or the grocery store? Appar-ently I was planning for a hemmorhage!) I found notes on future classes, phone numbers with no names attached, dates/times scribbled on the back of ATM reciepts of which I know nothing about, triple A batteries, and a bell clamp for circumcisions as well as a Gomco set. Seriously. What the hell? Well... you know... knowledge is power right?

I recently attended the labor and birth of a teeny little girl baby to one of my teen moms. Momma did a fabulous job dealing with a pitocin induced labor and had a wonderful vaginal delivery. Often when I work with a younger mom I feel deep empathy for them, reaching down into my own soul and seeking whatever knowledge I have about the needs of a young woman and the needs of a birthing woman. This time however, I felt more in touch with needing to support the young daddy. He was a sweet, tender hearted, Macho/tatooed and peirced homie. He was all about his cell phone and "Whaddup yo!" whenever it rang... but he was also scared witless and as nervous as a cat in a car. When the time came for momma to push, I held one leg and daddy held the other. As much as he didn't want to look, he couldn't help it - and he was mesmerized as his daughter was born into this world. He was crying, sobbing into his own shoulder and trying to appear as if he was just scratching an itch on his face. I ached to hold him, to leave the birthing momma and go to him to hold him in my arms and tell him he was good, he was strong, he was brave... to tell him he was going to be a great daddy, a good provider... to give him a future. I called him, "Buddy"... which is the same name I call my son. As I left, after they were all settled into their postpartum quarters and baby was having her first bath, daddy was standing in the hall with some of his family who had reluctantly and obligatorily shown up. I hugged him hard and long and told him how awesome he was and how great he was going to be as a dad. Then I walked away... thinking the whole time of my own dear sweet goofy big footed buddy. Someday my own little buddy will be a daddy. With much hope, I pray he won't become a daddy before his time is due, but with confidence I know that my buddy will be an awesome dad. He's had a great example for one thing.

This weekend we are caring for the child of a church friend. She is a single mom to a high energy boy and a series of events have conspired that led her to tears in our last small group meeting. We agreed that she needed some time alone and volunteered to have her son stay the weekend. Well hell. It's after 12 AM and the little bugger is giggling in Buddy's bed over a comic while Buddy tries studiously to fall asleep. And I'm sooo tired... and I know my Meme will be up for a neb treatment in a couple of hours. Happy happy joy joy.

I just recieved an email from my dad. It was a mass email forwarded to many people. It was about our upcoming first ever family reunion. First I thought, "um, Family? You mean... we have some????" Then I thought "Family? oh yeah, the ones who forgot about me and let me slip from their minds when my parents divorced...those family!" I feel a voracious hunger to know these people. I read through the collection of emails that have been forwarded, and forwarded again, and forwarded again. I know the names; a cousin, an uncle, another cousin... and I google them. I am surprised by what I find. And also by what I don't. I search and search, feeling the pull of "family"... the pull of my blood. In this instant, I am rekindled to do the right thing for my foster children. Whenever possible, my foster children must know where they came from, who they belong to, what their heritage is, and what it is that ties them to this life. My meme must know her parents, her grandparents, her cousins and aunties and uncles. She must KNOW their language, their culture, their customs, the unspoken unwritten rules of conduct, the basis for her being. I need to make this happen for her even if her 'family' isn't as willing to reach out for her.

I have a warehouse discount shopping size bottle of laundry detergent. The kind that weighs 20 lbs and does 400 loads of laundry... I love it. But I just have a question. Apparently, this laundry detergent cleans 99 stains. Yet it's very name leads one to believe that it cleans ALL stains. I wonder how they ended up with the number 99. Maybe they need to rethink their name? What about "Almost"? Or, how about, "Mostly"? or, "All Except!" Whatever. Just, you know... I have figured out that Amoxicillan, Grape Ibuprofren, Cherry Tylenol, and orange liquid steroids must be numbers 110, 142, 143, and 115 because they certainly aren't any of the 99. Thank my heavens for Oxyclean. Man... that stuff gets out EVERYTHING. It may take you three days of soaking, but that stuff get it ALL! Maybe they could go by the name, "Truly All"??

I clean my church. I'm part of a crew that rotates through monthly, so once a month I'm on call to go in on Saturday and take out trash, vacuum, refill newcomer cards and offering envelopes, clean bathrooms and wipe mirrors, sweep nurserys and disinfect toys etc. Tonight was my night. Although I usually groan about going, I actually find an amazing amount of spiritual peace when I am cleaning. I think about the people I know who might use the bathroom that sunday and I pray for them. I think about the woman who always has the coffee on and the pastries out, and the guys who design, print, cut, and fold all the bulletins and the team that greets and meets. I think of them and I pray for them while I am elbow deep in Lysol and toilet brushes. It's the simple things, the humble moments, the ordinary, when we can be closest to God without calling on him to save us from whatever mess we've gotten into.

My Buddy entered into our churches Guitar Hero Championship on saturday. He was nervous and nearly didn't sign up. He only had GI and GII on PS2 and was worried about the newer games and the Wii that everyone else has. I assured him it would be ok and worth his time to try out anyway and I finally convinced him. I didn't expect him to register for the Expert Level of competition though! May it be said now, he does not have a self esteem issue! Anyway, he played up against adults, he played GIII which he'd never played before on a song he'd never played before and while he lost, I was so proud. I loved the way he stood up there, straight backed and determined, and then smiled and high-fived the winner. I loved the way he lost to a girl and to our Pastor and just smiled anyway. I especially loved that while he lost, he didn't actually get totally creamed, just sort of smeared a bit. Later on at home a little bit of the bad loser attitude popped up but he saw it for what it was and excused himself to go to his room and have some quiet time. A mature decision... and I'm even prouder of that than anything else!

My Buddy also has to gain weight. While he's always been on the thin side, he has also always been a voracious eater. Suddenly he has lost interest in food (really since he got sick a month ago) and is down 9lbs. It's a lot of weight for a thin pre-teen to be losing. We are doing our best to bulk him up with Ice Cream, protein shakes, pudding cups, bread and butter, and whole milk which is all fine and dandy for HIM but sheesh... it's soooooo hard on me! Those dang cookies always get me everytime. And the ice cream... Lord, save me from the Ice cream. It's truly an addiction!

And that, dear friends, is about all. A crazy week and a half with Meme being sick and out of daycare, a client's impending labor, a new class starting, and oh yeah, there was the little thing about falling down the stairs at 6am and potentially ruining this. Sigh.

I wish you all a Happy Spring (yes, yes, it's coming... I heard the birds singing the other morning inspite of the snow on the ground!)