Meet the Parents

So, I met the parents yesterday. Not only that, but because I'm an overachiever, oh, yes, I am, I met the whole stinkin' family! It was Doug's mom's 50th birthday extravaganza and we (yup, made the first impression with the kidlets) went and had a great time.

I spent thirteen years in a family that hated me, so I was a titch nervous at first, but it was in a park with lots of room and activities so I was in my element. I didn't have to worry about the kids not being quiet or me not being demure; we were supposed to frolic and, as you may know, that's our specialty.

His family is pretty average, spanning the range of society from Tracy's family to my dad and his yuppy friends. They are, for the most part, very friendly and accepting. No one even mentioned (at least to me) the age difference or pointed out that I have a teenager.

There were only a couple of times that I had to bite my tongue or avert my gaze and they were much more minor than I was expecting. I have some, uh, lets call them unorthodox, beliefs, especially pertaining to parenting that I understand are outside of the norm and his family lives very much in the norm so there will certainly be areas of disagreement. Luckily, on first impression day, none of those surfaced. Because we have been friends for so long, I know quite a lot about his family, but since we've only been dating for a month or so it would be odd for me to know everything I do, so I had to feign ignorance on some things. That only became a real issue for me once when a person (actually only on the fringe of the family) was making a very good first impression of his own and I wanted to throw a big nuh-uh into the conversation, but had to keep my mouth shut. It's not my battle anyway, but still, I wanted to be an absent person's advocate and couldn't. :-(

I was worried the kids would be bored or not engage the other kids, but they really had a great time! I am so proud to be their mom and it's nice when other people get to see how great they are. Levi played football, whiffle ball, washers, and climbed on the play structure. He only asked to get his book once and that was when we were first getting out of the car! Paige immediately ran off with Taylor (Doug's little sister) and her friends and played in the sand volleyball pit, in the water sprinkler/fountain thingy, climbed the play structure, ate cake off a plate like a dog, and, basically, just got to be herself.

Photo Credit: Kathryn Fishman-Weaver

I didn't bring my camera or even phone, but Kat (Doug's long-time friend) took this one of her son, James, Paige, and two girls from Taylor's softball team. Paiger was the youngest one there, but held her own just fine.

So, overall, I think it went swimmingly. Doug reports that I passed initial inspection. Whew!

Eek, I might be old

Alright, so I don't feel or act old most of the time, which is good. Today, I feel about 85. This weekend was Tracy's weekend with the kids so I worked two doubles. In my defense, they were kick-your-a$$ doubles (32 hours in two days in an outdoor restaurant), but still, I'm beat after them. I used to be able to do that no problem, but every part of my body hurts. I don't like it, not one little bit.

Update

I'm sorry it's been so long since I've updated. I'm sure all my imaginary loyal readers are terribly disappointed. :-)

I've been busy (read: lazy) and haven't even been keeping up reading, much less writing blogs. I've also seemed terribly boring as of late. I know that a boring life is a good one, no major turmoil and all, but it doesn't do much to engage my creative side.

That being said, I am also happier than I've ever been. I hesitate to say anything because it always seems like asking for trouble from Murphy to brag about how happy I am, but - I'm seeing someone :::big, giddy grin::: and it's going incredibly well in this newborn phase. To be completely honest, it wasn't that big of a leap. I started dating my best friend, Doug, about a month or so ago. He was married up until January so I didn't even put him in the "datable" category, but when he wasn't married anymore I started to see him in a different way. It is nice to be so comfortable with someone that everything seems so easy with. Plus, he's awfully cute, I hadn't really noticed before we started dating, but he's cute on his own and we are really stinkin' adorable together (if I do say so myself). Another plus to dating your best friend is that my kids already adore him so there wasn't any awkward introduction. Sure, it was a little weird for them to see us be affectionate, but they were used to us being happy together.

Doug, kidlets, and Missy

So, what else is new? I've been working at the Pirate and just love, love, love it. There are some of the same little gripes that there are at other restaurants, but they are so much easier to handle when it is a job I truly want to go to every day. They are so accommodating with my schedule, I've been able to see the kids ball games and practices every week, he lets me work single shifts on kid weekends and doubles on kidless ones. I know it's a pain to keep track of my odd schedule on top of everyone else's, but he does it happily.

We have rats, as you know. We started with Snowball and Skunk, but then Skunk bit my Paigey and off he went to be snake food. We traded him in on Ice Cream who is just adorable and sweet. The pet store only sells male rats, so imagine my surprise when we ended up with babies. Ice Cream, apparently, is female. So, we traded the six babies to the pet store for a water bottle holder to put in a separate cage to make sure Snowball wouldn't eat them. Because this batch (yes, she's pregnant again) will be his, I *think* they will be okay in the same cage, but we'll see. There is plenty of food and water and space, so he shouldn't feel threatened enough to eat them, I guess we'll find out. They should be born today or tommorow if I've calculated correctly.


My dad and Pam and Kara, Tuesday, and Kane all came in to town for Fourth of July and that was really fun. I wish we lived closer, it's awful seeing the kids and barely recognizing them because they've grown so much since last time they were here. And, they all got to see Ice Cream's babies (because, you know, my dad thinks it isn't weird at all that we have pet rats, having pet rats with babies is just dandy). It was a great visit. I got to see Kara's new engagement ring. She seems very happy and she deserves it! They all like Doug, even my dad, whew!

I am officially the mom of a teenager. Levi turned thirteen last month and I have to say that if I have to have a teenager, he's an okay one to get. :-) He really is a great kid. For his birthday, *I* wanted to go to The City Museum in St. Louis on Monday and then stay the night and go to Six Flags on Tuesday. As it turns out, it wasn't *my* birthday so we went to Levi's last ballgame on Monday and then to Six Flags. I guess it's good that he didn't want to miss a ballgame, but :::whine::: The City Museum is so fun! LOL My favorite ride is the Superman (below), I love that free-falling, flying feeling. I forgot my camera (and I probably would have ended up losing it anyway), so that's the only pic I took with my phone, but trust me that a good time was had by all. Levi's favorite was the Tony Hawk. Both kids went on two other coasters, too. I was so proud of them for trying!

Other things we've done since I last posted:

The kids and I went on the coolest slip and slide ever at a homeschool play day. Super fun!

Paige went to Anna's 8th birthday party. It was a "glamour" party where they had a fashion show, did hair and makeup and nails, the whole nine yards. I thought my tomboy would be bored, but she had a lot of fun.

We went swimming lots.

We had lots of ball games.

I think that about wraps it up. Pretty good life, eh?

Why at home?

I used to subscribe to Mothering Magazine but haven't read it for quite some time. This article (Candles not required) was passed on to me through the Friends of Missouri Midwives email list and it is really well written and addresses a lot of preconceptions about who chooses to homebirth and why. An excerpt:

...after exploring my options, I decided I wanted to give my baby and I the best natural childbirth experience I could. That was paramount for me. What I wanted could not be found where I was looking and I chose to look elsewhere.

So think of me as you may. Be it martyr, fruitcake, anti-establishment chick, or hippie-wanna-be. I prefer to consider myself a woman who found what she was looking for in the last place she looked: right at home.

Consequently, I also found out that while having a homebirth, chanting is optional, new age music is your choice, and candles are not required.

The return to the Pirate

My Sapphires career is finally, blissfully, not a moment too soon OVER! It is the most miserable place I have ever worked (and I'm including my first job at Tonanzio's). If it were not for my fellow servers, I would have never made it through. And so that ushers in the new season at Jolly Roger's!

Because I'm a paranoid, silly girl, I was a little nervous on the drive down, but as soon as I walked in, I felt at home. It is the greatest, most laid-back place. I knew Joe and Christy (the owners) were terrific bosses, but now with the stark contrast to John, Miquel and Vic, they seem angelic. They do crazy things like ask you to perform tasks instead of barking (sometimes nonsensical) orders. They say, "please" and, "thank you" and ask your opinion and actually listen to your response. They can write a coherent schedule. They run food and bus tables to be helpful, not to try to make you seem incompetent. When they give an instruction, it remains true, never changing moments later.

And, the money is great, too. The money at Sapphires was good when there were guests, but it wasn't reliable. We are weather dependent so there will be days that are really bad, but for the most part I can budget a predictable amount. I might finally get caught up from the first several months at Sapphires when I made virtually no money and had to rely on my credit to get by. Also, I can trust my paycheck to actually be right. What a refreshing change! In fairness, we get our tips every night so there are fewer opportunities for error, but I would trust Christy to get it right even if she had to calculate tips. Any complaints I have are nearly insignificant considering the tremendous weight given to simply liking my job. Sigh... I love it.

Argh! Common sense, anyone?

It is sad when people die. Really, I'm not saying that we shouldn't care, but stop obsessing over every stinkin' illness with a fancy name.

People seem to forget that Mexico has 109 MILLION people and 108,999,000 of those are NOT sick, 108,999,900 have managed to stay alive. The US has 306 MILLION people, 305,999,960 of whom have managed to barely escape this deadly, frightening, terrifying pandemic and 306,000,000 million who have been able to hang on to their lives.

You know what kills 100,000 - 200,000 people every year? The regular ol' flu. Know what kills millions of people every year? Mosquitos. 630,000 people die from falls every year for heaven's sake.

Also, you know what crazy, nearly impossible to perform tricks we are being forced to subject ourselves to in order to avoid this terrifying menace? We are instructed to wash our hands, not sneeze or cough on other people, and stay home from work or school if we're sick. I mean, how the heck are we supposed to do ALL of those things?? We're not magicians!

So stop trying to scare us! Stop sensationlizing diseases! Just because you have 24 hours to fill on your news stations doesn't mean you have to make up stories!


Here are a few facts:

The 1968 Hong Kong flu pandemic killed 33,800 people. While no pandemics have surfaced since 1968, other pandemic "threats" have occurred in the 20th century, including the 1976 "killer flu" (later named "swine flu") threat in the United States which killed one person and led to a mass vaccinations, which killed approximately 25 people by giving them Guillain-Barré syndrome.

The most recent pandemic threats occurred in 1997 and 1999. Hundreds of people became infected with the avian flu virus, or bird flu, which killed six people. This virus was different as it moved from chickens to people, rather than moving through pigs first. Around 1.5 million poultry were slaughtered in Hong Kong to contain the threat.

This newest threat has hit Mexico: 86 deaths had been deemed "likely linked" to a deadly new strain of the flu virus by health authorities there. Viral testing has confirmed 20 cases, said Dr. Jose A. Cordova Villalobos, Mexico's health secretary, and Mexican authorities are investigating at least 1,000 cases of illness.

CDC overreaction (but in their defense, that's their job): CDC-swineflu

And now for the ridiculous reporting:

Mexico swine flu deaths spur global epidemic fears

My tattoos

Most people are surprised to find out that I have a tattoo. They are blown away by the fact that I have four! I like that my personality and interests are varied, it makes me able to relate to a lot of different groups which, incidentally, makes me well-suited to my job. I also enjoy breaking stereotypes. So, what are the tats?

On each ankle I have a kidlet's name. These were my first ones. I had wanted a tattoo for years and my (now ex-) husband would never let me get one. Basically, he thought/thinks they are trashy stemming from the fact that his ex-girlfriend left him for a tattoo artist (and frankly, was a bit trashy). Finally, when Paige was six weeks old (2001) he relented when I said I wanted the kids' names. So off I went, becoming the first person to nurse while Frank tattooed. :-) They are actually the same size and intensity, I'm just a lousy photographer.

The next one has a long, somewhat more personal story than I need to put here, but the final product (2004) is a reminder that even when things seem to be going poorly, I always make it through. God obviously designed me to be resilient and I need to be reminded to give thanks sometimes. The Roman numerals for 2003 signify a pretty bad year when looked at from the outside; my car was broken into, my house burned down, my grandma got really sick, I was hospitalized, etc. You name it, I think it happened but every one of those things had some sort of silver lining and I not only made it through, but I am a better person for it. The ocean motif signifies where I belong and where I will be when Paige graduates high school.

The newest addition (2008) is incredibly, um, unique. LOL It's a giraffe and treehouse. Sometimes in life I start to get bogged down and fantasize about a perfect, easy life of leisure where I just lounge about and maybe live in a beautiful, serene treehouse where wood nymphs bring me things and unicorns take me places and maybe I have a pet giraffe... Then I remember that in order to truly appreciate the easy times I need to work for them. If everything was handed to me then what would I have to look forward to but more of the same. This perfect life would become mundane, not having any troubles would become boring. And remember, life is exactly that ridiculous, don't take it so seriously! The giraffe is also an inside joke with a very good friend. It has come to be a reminder that there is at least one person who thinks I'm fantastic and worth all the trouble it takes to be my friend and that I shouldn't settle for someone who I can't be myself around. I came across this unattributed quote that sums up lot of what this tat is supposed to remind me of: "Until you decide you are worthy of more, you will be content with less."

So that's the breakdown of my body art. I love all of them and will probably get more (they are so addictive!) someday. I like that they signify important periods of my life and all have real meaning, I didn't just get them because everyone else has one. I mean, not that a dolphin or butterfly wouldn't be pretty, it's just not my style to fit in. The placement also follows that same thought, the two big ones are on my legs where I can see easily them and the names are on my ankles where it's not a lot of effort to see them. I don't want to have to contort my body or use a system of mirrors to see them, they are for me, not the person sitting behind me!