get closer to Canada . . .

terrible-horrible-no good-very bad.

Speaking of the terrible, senseless things people do ... Sometime ago D told me a story about a baby who had been severely abused. This baby, at two months old need to be care flighted to a more sophisticated hospital because of the severity of her injuries.  She had broken ribs, broken legs, head contusions and two occasions of bleeding on the brain just to start.  She was experiencing convulsions because of her head injuries, and I'm sure there were far more things wrong with that tiny baby that I didn't hear about.

No matter how frustrating a newborn can be- what kind of monster would hurt a baby like that? If you don't want to deal with a baby- give it away- it's that easy.  That's what those "safe place" signs are all about.

That baby has been in protective care for the past 7+ months.  I heard more of the story yesterday.  The parents are a young couple.  The couple was living in a house with the mother's parents and one other family member. The grandparents were caring for the baby.  The parents were both working or otherwise away from the baby on a regular basis.

When the baby stopped breathing because of the seizures the parents took her to the ER.  At the ER the assessment was that she needed more sophisticated care than could be given at that ER.  She was care flighted to a bigger facility.  At the bigger hospital the doctors immediately recognized abuse and called CPS. CPS took custody of the baby and she has been in foster care since that time.

The young couple maintains that they were not the abusers, and suspect it was the grandparents, or possibly this other unnamed family member.  CPS only knows that the parents should be responsible, and that there is no proof they didn't do the abuse, or at least know about the abuse.  Its a "he said-she said" situation.

The attorney of the young couple suggested that if they broke up the mother would have a much better change of getting the baby back, because blame would slide to the father of the child.  The young woman refuses to take this advice, being sure both she and her boyfriend are innocent.  The grandparents are suing for custody of the baby- the young mother insists that she would rather see that baby anywhere else than with her parents.

The young couple has been advised to find an adoptive home for the baby or CPS will take the baby permanently.

The person telling us this story is the great aunt of the baby.  She is looking forward to her own children graduating from university and retiring from her job in the coming years.  She confesses that she is from a family of drama- she is the logical-rational-determined one who got out of the family business of trouble and drama.  She's the only one to go to university- to work her way to the top of her field. She's the one they asked to take the baby.

She's not unkind, but she just isn't in a place to take a baby in.  She raised her kids alone- she has her own medical issues- she's busy at work. She has her life. She doesn't want a baby.

When we heard this story D and I both said, "We do. We want a baby. We're ready- we've got all the stuff for girls."

Our story teller said, "This baby might be special needs after the abuses she suffered."
I said, "When you have a baby, you don't know what you're going to get- taking this baby would be just like having one- we would take her as she was, and help her to be her best."

She said, "What would you think about letting the parents see her?" She thought they were telling the truth, and they really were not the abusers.
I said, "I'm sure that would be court mandated, but I wouldn't be opposed to supervised visits and seeing what happens from there."
She said, "I think you guys are crazy- are you serious? If you are serious I'll tell the parents."
We said we were serious.

If that baby came to us- it would only be God giving her to us.

I told D before we got married that I would be interested in adopting- I just don't know the logistics of the whole thing.

God doesn't always deal in logistics.

I just wanted a taco

Yesterday I wasn't feeling well, so I decided to stop at one of my favorite places for lunch.  It was a headache-and-I-think-I-need-some-protein- kind of unwell.
I went to Taco Cabana.  I had a super yummy bean and cheese taco plate and highly enjoyed to salsa bar.  I was feeling good when I came out and started the car.  I saw I had a tire with low pressure, so I got out to check it out and I saw that I had a 4 inch slash on the side of my tire.

Seriously? Why so angry tire shasher?

I'm just a white girl enjoying a taco!

D came to change the tire (theoretically I could do it myself, but lets face it- tire changing is certainly a perk of having a man around) and he was trying to be optimistic and said, "Maybe it was a really sharp piece of re-bar you drove by."   That kind of gash would have deflated the tire immediately- so I thought, "Maybe it is was a crazy person with a really sharp knife."

It turned out that crazy-pants-cutter chose to slash the one tire I had with a road hazard warranty.  Weird.  I messed up the previous tire  when I slid off a county road in the rain.  I didn't need 4 new tires so I just got that one new- and bam! Another new one!

It makes me really wonder what is wrong with people.  I mean I know people do terrible-horrible-disgusting things on a regular basis- but when it doesn't directly effect you- you can push it aside. This is something so small- an inconvenience- but what makes a person so angry to lash out at a stranger for no reason? What makes them think destruction of someone else's property is ok?

non-posh jars

I've taken lately to putting everything in glass cars (plastic for the babies.)  My breakfast and lunch jars are sitting on my desk, looking empty and forlorn.

My Campbell's black bean cilantro soup was a mistake. The hazelnut chocolate milk on the other hand was yummers.

My jars are not Mason jars- just baby food jars and salsa jars- juice jars and pickle jars.  One day I will break a jar in an unfortunate place and my jar-love will cease.

a flash of my future

Lailah will be walking soon.  She cruises and stretches all of her 27 inches to reach the next piece of furniture- she stands alone when she's not thinking about it, and has *pretty good* control of when and where she sits down.  Lailah is a busy body, who loves to be held, but hates to be held down. She's squirmy and wiggly and willful. Lailah, like her sister has "ape arms" she can reach faster and farther than you would think possible for a baby.

Eowyn is still not happy with Lailah.  Occasionally she is sweet to her baby sister, but most of the time it's "No Lailah! No touch!" or "Lailah hurt my princess!"  Which is translated as "Lailah touched my dress." (Major crime in Eowyn's mind)

Lailah, on the other hand, loves everything about Eowyn. Before she could crawl she would watch her sister and giggle.  Now that she's mobile, Lailah is everywhere Eowyn is.  Lailah wants the eat the same food, drink the same drink, and play with the same toys.  Lailah wants to be next to her all the time.  Eowyn wants Lailah to be anywhere else.

I keep hoping that when Lailah becomes a steady walker Eowyn will learn how fun Lailah can be.

I had a glimpse of what I can expect when by little angels start working together.  I had a full glass of water.  I put it in the middle of the coffee table, which is- for now, one of the few places Lailah still can't reach. I was knitting something, and not looking at the girls when I heard my glass of water spilling onto the floor. I looked up to see Eowyn holding the glass up for Lailah to drink, and the water dripping down the front of Lailah's shirt.  I saw two sets of blue eyes looking at me with this expression of "That's not what we wanted to happen at all- are we in trouble?"

At that moment I knew what my future would look like- those sweet blonde haired, blue eyed angels wreaking all manner of havoc- then giving me those innocent-scarred looks.

What could I say?  It was one of the few times that Eowyn was being sweet to Lailah without any prompting from me or Daniel. I didn't want to scold Eowyn for trying to be nice to her sister- her poor thirsty baby sister who couldn't reach the water.

I didn't say anything- just went to get a towel, and another glass of water.

Monster on the ceiling

Conversations with a two year old:

OE: Mama! I'm scared! (hiding and shaking- she's really good at pretending to be scared)
ME: What are you afraid of?
OE: A dragon!
ME: A dragon? Where?
OE: In the bath room!
ME: What color was it?
OE: (high pitched shaky voice) Pink!

Then she skips away happy as can be, because this a regular conversation.  She's not really scared of dragons, she loves to see dragons on tv, and has toy dragons.  She likes to roar like a dragon, "RARRR!"

I say this to point out that she generally not generally afraid of things other kids find scary at that age.

Last night she stayed at her grandparents house as part of the first ever "cousins sleep over." Everyone had said night-night, the lights were out, they were laying down together- which is quite an accomplishment for two 3 year-olds and one 2 year old.

Suddenly they heard the ceiling fan clicking, and somebody said, "What's that?" and Liam said, "It's a monster!" and calmly got up and left.  His arm was itchy and he wanted more medicine.  That left the two girls in there to think about the monster.  Tia went back in the room to get the medicine for Liam.  She turned on a bathroom light, which cast shadows across the clicking fan.  And Eowyn Lost It. "It's a monster! I want my Mama!" She was I-have-been-playing-hard-and-didn't-get-a-nap-today-and now-it's-way-past-my-bed-time-in-a-strange-place-with-a-monster-two-year-old-Hysterical.

It was pathetic.

ME: What's wrong?
OE: Monster! (sobbing)
ME: Where?
OE: In there (still sobbing and trying to catch her breath)
ME: What color was it?
OE: (starting to calm down) Pink ...
ME: Pink? Pink's a good color. Do you like pink?
OE: yeah ...

Then she stayed up for another hour or more.

Then we left- so I hope the rest of the first ever cousin sleep over went well.

Conversations with OE

Conversations with a two year old:
OE: Mama, you're my favorite.
ME: Oh, I'm your favorite? Is Daddy your favorite?
OE: Yes
ME: Is Liam your favorite? (cousin)
OE: Yes
ME: Is Noni your favorite? (grandmother)
OE: Yes
ME: Is Grandpa your favorite?
OE: Yes
ME: Is Lailah your favorite? (sister)
OE: (pause) Um, No....
EVERY TIME!

self reflection

Self reflection is what the purpose of my blog was way back in the day.  I didn't really expect anyone to want to read it.  I still have pretty low expectations.  I fell out of the self expression game.  Then came facebook, where self expression comes in the form of memes and shared news stories.  It is much easier- very little effort is involved.

I've been going to Toast Masters meetings.  It's not because I have a deep desire to be a better public speaker, it is because I teach a class on public speaking and taking my students to these meetings gives them a chance to hear Americans speak on a variety of topics, and shows them what I expect from them.  Of course it doesn't hurt me at all to get paid for an hour of work I got some body else to do for me.

One of the speeches today was about the "Starving Baker"  The guy who gets so busy taking care of everyone else that he doesn't have time to eat, or take care of himself.  The girl who spoke said that she felt she had let herself get too busy, so she took a step back and determined to do somethings she wanted to do instead of only things she felt like she had to do.  One of the things she wanted to do was join Toast Masters (of all things) and the other was to take more time for self reflection through writing in her journal.

That reminded me that my poor blog was her languishing for years.  And maybe I could benefit from some self reflection too.

My reflection for today is this.  I really enjoy my job.  Teaching is fun, and getting to meet and talk to students from all around the world is interesting.  However, sometimes I wish I had a desk job.  I wish I could go to work and sit down with a cup of coffee and browse the internet for 20-30 minutes in the morning while I got settled.  I wish I could randomly, in between projects start reading about topics that interest me.  I wish I had time- time that I had to be sitting at my desk anyway, to look busy by writing on my blog about all the things that I learned about in the random reading I did on company time.

I know that's not very aspirational.  I don't want to be a boss- I don't want to be in charge- I just want to sit at a desk, do my work, waste some time and go home at the end of the work day without having to think about my work at all again until I get up and go back in the next day.

Sometimes I think I really should have been a librarian, but they don't get the awesome holidays that teachers get.

grading...grading

Some of my favorite sentences as I grade my final exams and tests:

A lot of house pets are eatable, so the human can care of them to eat them, and it depends on the society and the culture.
The last point is that servise pets are not for eat, but in some culture people grow pets for food.
When you want to talk with other people, a dog usually get ready to chat with you.
When you want to say some bad words or sentences to someone, a dog can become that person, it just listen, never say.
Pets and humans are friends, we should protect them.  We cannot hurt them.  If you always hurt them, you will hurt pet's heart.
On the other hand, pets responsibilities are greeting you when you come home, eating, barking, and peeing on your sofa.  That's it.

Manana

Yesterday my socks matched my outfit perfectly.  Unfortunately, they did not match each other. This is the story of my life at this time.  There is a mountain of laundry in the garage.  Most of it is clean, but heaped up in the corner.  We go out there and rummage though it every morning for socks and underwear.I need a new system.  D said, "If you can't keep up with the laundry, you should ask me for help."  I replied, "If you notice I can't keep up with the laundry, you should help."

EJ's socks never match.  Keeping up with a toddler's socks is near impossible. She takes them off and tosses them in random places, but never both of them in the same place.  I will find one in the car, another in the bathroom; one in the living room, another in her bed.  I'm doing well to give her matching shoes each day.

My little shoe princess... she is perfectly positioned to be that girl everyone, both guys a girls love because of her varied interests.  If you give her a choice between pink and any other color, she chooses pink.  If she sees something that sparkles or shines, it's hers.  If she sees a car or a truck, especially a monster truck (or as she calls it a "truckatruck) she goes wild.  If she had to choose between shoes and a truck I can't say I don't know what she would do.  She would take both, declaring them, "MINE!"

She used to be very interested in trains and planes.  Recently; however, she is concerned they are going to "get you."  By 'you' she means herself, but she's only two and pronouns are hard.  Her daddy says, "I'm going to get you!"  She says, "Daddy get you!"  = Daddy got me!  In the past we would hear a plane or train and I would say, "You hear that? What is it? It's a train/plane."  She would say, "Hear train/plane? It's a train/plane." Now when she hears a train or plane, she runs to me and says, "Train/Plane get you!" She's scared and worried.  I'm not sure why- I'm pretty sure she's never been close enough to a plane or a train to realize how big and (sort of scary) the really are.

She will also say, "Help you mama."  This is modeled after my question, "Do you want me to help you?"

This morning she picked up a banana and "Manana!"  Then she followed me around the house with the banana saying, "Mama, manana!"  Of course my thought was, "Mehnamehna ...do-do-do-do-do!"
I looked at her and said, "Say banana."
She said, "Manana."
Me: "Banana."
Her: "Manana!"
Me: "Ba-nan-a!"
Her: "Ma-nan-a!"
Me: "Banana."
Her: "Banana."
Me: "Good!"
Her: "My banana!"
Me: "Okay."
Her: "Manana!"
Me: "Fine."

The nice thing about personal blogging is that it is impossible to get off topic- because the topic is what ever I want!