Uppercase Woman

Strength *EDITED*

I was at a meeting this morning and while the topic was technically about fear I found myself focusing on strength instead. The room was full of all these incredible women (ok, a couple of men too, but mostly women) who have all been through the motherfucking wringer of life--in the biggest ways you can imagine--and are all sitting there, these incredible pillars of strength, offering caring and support to others by baring their souls and sharing their vulnerabilities. It's just an amazing thing to see. I was really overwhelmed with the power and generosity of these women today.

This got me thinking about strong women in general, something I've been thinking about anyway as I've been slowly finding myself leaning back toward Hillary Clinton again in this election saga (sorry, I just keep going back and forth and I can't help but feel attracted to her). I think about all the shit she's been through, our Hillary, the fucking sexism she's had to endure (Emily reminded me of the South Park episode that had terrorists hide a bomb in her vagina, for fuck's sake), the ridicule, the hatred... and all this makes me want to vote for her. I look at Geraldine Ferraro, being treated like fucking crap in the press because she had the audacity to mention race (I realize that I'm a. coming from a place of white priviledge and b. blinded a bit because Ms. Ferraro is totally one of my childhood heroes, but I really don't understand what is bad about what she said*, nor do I understand what it is about what she said that's even inaccurate) and I see the steel in these women and I want to honor that.

I've been thinking too about the women I know personally that have set out to accomplish these incredibly difficult goals--like my mom. She was a single mother, working a crap ass job as a book keeper at a trucking company when she said fuck this shit and went back to school and worked her ass off and eventually got a PhD, all while she raised me, the hellion alcoholic child. I mean, how amazing is that?

And there's my friend Sarah--my best friend--who decided a few years ago to buy herself a nice camera and try her hand at being a photographer because she thought just maybe she'd inherited a touch of her mother's incredible eye (Sarah's mom is an amazing painter). And completely self-taught, just by trial and error, she started taking shots and putting them up on the web, and putting herself out there and then she began this journey of taking self-portraits and she got better and better at it and it became everything to her, her true calling, her true art--and damn if it didn't fucking pay off. If you haven't read about it already at her blog, three of Sarah's self-portraits are going to be featured in May's issue of Fitness Magazine. And she's getting PAID. I am SO PROUD OF HER. And to think, thirteen years ago we were huddled in a dark bedroom together shooting up drugs. Baby, we have come a long fucking ass way. I am actually crying when I think about this.

This morning someone said at my meeting that "Courage is fear that has said its prayers" and I think Sarah is one of the most courageous people I know. I know for sure that she has been the answer to my prayers. I've had many great friends over the years--lots of whom are still in my life, thank god--but Sarah is special. I'm so grateful that she is in my life, as is my mom, and are all the other brave, strong women that have made my life as it is today possible.

Who is it your life that makes you shine? What woman made you rise up? I'm feeling so high I want to hear about your strong women. Share away!

*Alright, I give on the Ferraro thing. Looking at the whole quote, I can see why it bothers people.

That Time of Year

I'm sure it hasn't escaped your notice that March 1st would have been Nicholas and Zachary's third birthday (had they been born on their due date, unlikely, of course, with twins). Last year and the year before I took note of the day and talked about how I was feeling about it. This year, while I noted the date to myself and Charlie, I found that I didn't have a strong urge to write a post about it. But I've spent the last ten days watching the early signs of spring arrive and being reminded of that spring after I'd lost the twins, how dead inside I felt, and I've wondered why I didn't feel much of a need to publicly mark the boy's birthday before now.

The grief is still there--of course--and it always will be. But now it's more like an arthritic ache rather than a sharp stabbing pain. And, frankly, with so much life around me in a the form of a frisky toddler, it is really difficult to spend a great deal of time on regret and sadness. Sometimes I see a little three year old boy and I feel a pang of what might of been, and other times... well, other times, like when Tori lies thrashing on the floor screaming because I made the mistake of singing along with Elmo during Sesame Street I must admit to feeling just a teeny, tiny, itsy bit of relief that I only have one toddler at time to cope with.

There, I said the terrible thought out loud. I'll admit it; as much as I loved the boys and wanted the boys desperately, I am very, very happy with how my life has turned out. Tori is perfect in every way, and exactly as much as I can manage.

But I still watch everyone's daffodils coming up and feel waves of sadness washing over me (for those that don't know, for Nicholas and Zachary's memorial service we had our friends plant daffodil bulbs since we lost them at the end of October but their due date was in March). I often wish things had turned out differently, that I'd had a normal pregnancy and things had gone just fine.

But then Tori runs to me and gives me a hug for no reason, and I can't imagine life without her. Life without Tori seems to me a life without sunshine. Maybe that was God's plan all along--a twisted, fucked up, demented plan, but one with a happy ending. Tori is the light of my life, and I'm lucky to have her.

Sleep safely, my little lost boys. Mommy misses you, but wishes you nothing but peace.

Antibiotics and Nudity

I'm now on round two of antibiotics in less than a month. Yeah. The very first day we were home from the trip Tori brought home something from morning care (I suppose she could have gotten it on the plane as well) and Charlie got it a few days later and last Thursday it was clear that I was coming down with it as well. By Friday night my throat was so sore I could barely swallow and it continued that way through the whole weekend, and I finally broke down and saw my doctor yesterday who looked at my throat and actually took a step back when she saw it and hastily wrote a script for some hard core antibiotics. It's just red--no tell tale white spots--but it really hurts. It's just a bit better this morning but I am totally wiped out. I fell asleep probably forty times yesterday, including while sitting at my computer trying to write a piece for work. Not good.

I hate day care crud.

So, in other news, I did not link to my nekkid picture the other day randomly. Part of my journey toward self-love and self-acceptance in this whole fat acceptance thing--this idea of loving myself at the size I am now, and not waiting to love myself when I'm a size 18, or 14, or 12--has made me look at my body differently and try, if I can, to see its beauty. Since I decided to join Sarah in her self-portrait journey (albeit on a much smaller scale), I thought this would a good challenge for me. And part of that is actually looking at what my body looks like naked. Well, no, let's go back further--part of that means looking at my whole body. I started by taking this photograph. As you can see, I had to couch it with a self-deprecating title (does this tree make me look fat?) and I felt very, very awkward about it. But not too long after that I took a shot of myself standing in my basement draped in christmas lights--completely naked--and I allowed a very small select group of women (and Charlie) I trusted see it (no, I'm not going to link to it--I'm not there yet). Those friends were very nice to me and called me brave.

I took a few other shots where I draped my body in blankets, another partial nude with christmas lights, *edited to add* a very out-of-focus partial black and white nude, and then a silly photoshop project using a whole body shot, but it was that most recent shot where I got really brave. And wow, you guys were so nice! I can't believe how many people looked at it, and maybe the comments did devolve into a bit of a "my boobs are bigger" contest (Nancy, you win, hands down--no one else comes close)--but still, it was awesome. After feeling like a fat lump for the last ten years, it's really nice to get a little bit of a nudge in the opposite direction.

Several of you said you wanted to take similar photos--I say, go for it! It's totally empowering.

That said, I'm not perfect on the fat acceptance thing. I lost about ten pounds on our trip, and that pleased me no end and I'm trying to keep it off. Also, most of the pictures I take for my 52 Weeks project look like this--close ups of my face, safe and thin-looking.

It's all about progress, right? Sigh.

21 Months

My darling Tori Anne,

Yesterday you turned 21 months old. But everyone agrees that you are mature for your age, and that you, in fact, have hit what folks like to call "the terrible twos." I'm not going to say that you are terrible. No, I'm not that kind of mother. I'm just going to say that you are, well, demanding. Challenging. Exasperating. OK, wait, even that sound too negative. It's just that your brain is firing on 25 cylinders, and I only have 12, and I can't quite keep up. It's not your fault, it's just that the world is such that toddlers aren't able to be raised in the wild where they can run all day long at will anymore, and as a result, we grown ups that are in charge of you can't quite cope with your incessant need to pry, poke, twist, climb, and pull on everything in the universe. We don't get it. Basically, you need to go live at a place like the Ikea foam ball bin until you are four or five. Then it will be fine.

Are you familiar with the old Celtic Myth of the changelings? This is a myth where parents believed that faeries or elves replaced human children with their own, leaving in their place a much wiser and more wily child that they would have to raise. Sometimes the human parents would take these kids and leave them outside for several days in the elements until they were so weak with hunger that they believed that the elves had switched the children back and they would bring the kid inside again. I think this was really all about the start of the so-called terrible twos because, honestly, one day you were this sweet cuddly and mostly rational child with reasonable requests and then suddenly a switch was flipped and you became this maniac that we could not seem to please. I find myself suddenly being somewhat empathetic with parents that created a myth that involved leaving their child outside for a few days until they become a bit quieter. Not that I'd ever do that to you--I promise, I would NEVER. But if you see me standing in the corner of the room banging my head on the wall because you just yelled "No! No! No! No! No!" and threw the third meal I'd offered you to the floor and the dog ate it all and now you are crying because it's gone, know that I'm doing that because I love you and the head banging is my alternative to surrendering you to the elements.

You've become very fussy about food in the last month. Sometimes you chow down on anything--when we were on vacation (we'll get to the vacation in a moment) you ate a LOT of beans and rice, and luckily, we were in a place where that was very easy to get. But you've developed a great deal of very specific preferences lately, such as food must be in its wrapper--if you are eating a fruit leather strip (very healthy, organic, I promise), and it falls out of the wrapper, you become completely dismayed and demand for us to fix it. And when you get to the last bite--you know, the one you can't get out without taking it out of the wrapper? Well, then it's just the end of the world and we have to give you a NEW piece of fruit leather. So our lives are full of half-eaten things now.

But you've also become much more playful and silly in the last month. You like to dress up a lot more, wearing your cowboy hat and your tiaras a lot more, and wearing my shoes around the house and doing very cute and silly things like putting pants on your head.

As I mentioned we did take you this month on an extended vacation, and I have to say, as difficult as it was for you, you were really pretty awesome. Your daddy and I really should have planned to take more time for ourselves so we got a bit less stressed out, and your mommy got pretty sick on the trip too, but overall, you really were a trooper.

By the end you were done with being in hotel rooms and away from home, but you tolerated eating out three times a day (we only had to leave two restaurants the whole trip because you couldn't take it anymore, and that's amazing in two and half weeks), crappy hotel cribs, and constant long car trips. You met new people every day including new relatives and even managed to bring out the kid in my rock-n-roll buddy Dave.

Since we've been home, things are slowly returning to normal. We're adapting to your new preferences, which are pretty clear: you hate airports, holding my hand or your daddy's hand for any reason (especially when you need to go down stairs or cross a street), eating with baby utensils (you prefer an adult fork if possible), and you prefer to get your own toys when you fling them rather than have us find them for you. We do our best to accommodate these, except the hand holding on the street. That's non-negotiable.

The only thing that's been a bit crazy lately is that you are very, very attached to your mommy right now. I'm not surprised since you just stopped nursing this month, but really, your daddy is special beyond measure and you have no idea how lucky you are to have him. He loves you more than anything in the world and plays with you constantly, so be sure to treat him gently. He's crazy about you.

Tori, you do continue to delight me on a daily basis. You are the cutest and sweetest baby I know most of the time, and those times you aren't adorable are so rare that's why they stand out. I do understand that you are just at a development point where you are exploring your world, and I'm trying to keep you safe and that's why we're clashing. I expect we'll do this for the rest of your life. But that's why I'm here. To love you and keep you safe to the best of my ability.

But while you're in the phase, you'll have to forgive me for thinking that right now, the easiest part of my day comes when you decide to go to sleep. Luckily for me, you are an easy kid when it comes to bedtime--you go right down without a fuss. When you go to bed at night, sometimes your daddy and I just sit still and don't move for a whole hour thankful that we all made it through another day without anyone getting injured.

Tori Anne, I know it sounds like I didn't like you very much this month, and that couldn't be farther from the truth. Toddlers are challenging, and I hope that someday you get to find that out for yourself. But I love you more than anything, and you are the sunshine that brightens my day EVERY day, no matter how difficult and frustrating some moments can be. I love you, you are my bunnyboo--and you always will be, my darling girl.

Love,

Mommy

Five Random Things Because I'm Too Lame To Write A Real Post

1. My migraines were much better for a bit, after I discovered, with the help of my new headache specialist, that most of them were actually rebound headaches caused by one of my medications. That lasted about four weeks. Sadly, the migraines are back, and today I went to get an MRI (just routine, nothing to worry about). But guess what? I am NOT a good MRI candidate. I got about half way into the MRI machine before I freaked the fuck out and demanded to be removed IMMEDIATELY from the terrifying tube of plastic. I'm going to see if a cat-scan will do, and if not, maybe try an "open" MRI machine (it's not really open, it's just a bit bigger and a little shorter), perhaps with some valium or something (seriously, as much as I cherish recovery, I am not getting into a tube of plastic inches from my face and lying still for a half hour without some help). That was truly awful, that MRI machine.

2. Tori is doing much better, but is still full of strange whims and random rules like "only Mommy can hold the puzzle" and "only Mommy can walk the dog" and "only Mommy can hold my hand." Note the common thread--MOMMY is involved. She's become very, very dependent on me.

3. My theory about her super Mommy attachment has to do with the fact that Tori weaned while we were away. She was only nursing about three minutes in the morning at most anyway, and we were getting up and going and not hanging out in the hotel room and the nursing just fell away naturally, which was great, because the last Friday we were away I upped my Topoma*x dose to a level that it was no longer safe for her to nurse anymore anyway. I'm not sure if that explains her super attachment, but it's a theory.

4. After we've Tori time to recover from weaning from the almighty boob, we've GOT to get her off the pacifier. Her new thing is to throw pacifiers; in the car, from the crib, in the living room--and then get really, really angry that she doesn't have a pacifier. Yes, we know they have those things you can attach to either a kid or a carseat--she gets them off and throws them too. She also wakes up at night after losing the pacifier in her mouth and we have to go replace it for her (she won't find it on her own). It's a little annoying. NO, it's a LOT annoying. Any tips?

5. I got really brave the other day and took nekkid photos of myself (it's all Sarah's fault). And posted them on the internet. Wanna see? It's tasteful (I think), but I'm not sure if it's "safe for work." Enjoy! And yes, it's amazing how plump and full your boobs look when you are laying on your back. Heh.

Monkey Girl

Before I cop out on an easy post today, Kate mentioned in the comments that Obama has "scary Nation of Islam connections." Now, I googled that, and all I came up with is blowhard Sean Hannity (well known for spouting half-truths and flat out lies) blathering about it-- NOT ANY ACTUAL PROOF. Obama has a tenuous connection to a church that gave the head of the Nation of Islam an award that Obama denounced, but he, in fact, does NOT have any connections.

Come on, if you are going to say something like that you HAVE to have more than Fox TV commentators to back you up. Please.

Anyway, on a lighter note.

We've had a couple of days of nice weather and since Tori feels pretty good in the middle of the day (unlike at night, where she spikes fevers--last night was 103.2--yikes. God bless infant ibuprofen), we've been hitting the playground. Remember when I talked about the climbing? Well, here's your proof. Tori is not only able to climb to the very top of the big kid slide, but she's now also taught the rest of the under two set at our local playground how to do it as well. :) You'll note the quick shot of Charlie kicking the ball for Hammer, the best dog ever™, in the background at one point. Oh, and my shortness of breath is related to my leftover bronchitis from the trip. Heh.

Why I Switched to Obama

So, sorry for the long delay between posts. I've been busy catching up on work (ah, blessed, blessed work, how I do love thee), seeing friends (you should have seen Tori's face when she saw Sarah's daughter--a happier child did not exist at that moment), attending a training session for this, a cool organization that is hopefully going to help us find ways to get money to fix up our church, and seeing Sarah's daughter perform in Mulan. It's been a whirlwind, but it's been great to be home.

Tori has been, as most of you predicted, returning to her lovely self. She's been much less, oh, let's say psychotic, and much more the easy-going happy child we love since we got home. Sadly, either on the plane or at morning care she caught a nice cold so she's been coughing and snurfling quite a bit and is sleeping a lot but is otherwise in good spirits. She also seems very, very happy to see all her toys again and is resisting, mightily, any attempts to put them away. She has them spread about the living room and visits each of them in turn throughout the day. It's very cute.

Anyway, this post is not about Tori, it's about how I switched from being a die-hard Hillary Clinton supporter to being a Barack Obama supporter.

As I mentioned back in this post, I've always liked Obama. When I listen to him speak, I feel inspired. There is no doubt that he stirs the souls more than any politician in years when he reads from the teleprompter (not so strong off the cuff--although he gets better every day, and he always manages to look relaxed). But I, like many, worried about his small amount of experience and how well he would stand up to the fucking Swiftboating bullshit that will be coming his way, particularly with his tenuous Muslim connections (such as his middle name, recently used at a McCain rally, etc).

But as it became clear that John McCain was going to be the Republican nominee for President, I immediately knew that Obama would be the better candidate to run against him, primarily because Obama has a wide appeal to voters that are registered as Independents (scroll down to see link), something that Hillary does not. Since McCain is also well known for appealing to independents, this is an important thing to consider, and since it's already clear that I'm a tactical voter and not an idealistic one, this a big factor for me.

Because I live in Pennsylvania, I'm not used to having my primary vote actually fucking matter, so I'm finding that I really have to THINK about this for once. So. The final nail in the coffin for me for Hillary, so to speak, came from this excellent article by the oh-so-nerdy-but-still-hot Fareed Zakaria (at least when he's on the Daily Show) in Newsweek a few weeks ago.

This article articulated perfectly something about Hillary that a few commenters mentioned that bothered me about her as well; the fact is, Hillary isn't really "blue" so much as she's "purple". Fareed puts it best in this paragraph here:

Bill and Hillary Clinton grew up in an era of Republican dominance. For much of the last 30 years, the Republican Party has been the party of ideas (a point made repeatedly by Daniel Patrick Moynihan), and Ronald Reagan was seen by much of the country to have rescued America from malaise and retreat. The Clintons' careers have been shaped by the belief that for a Democrat to succeed, he or she had to work within this conservative ideological framework. Otherwise one would be pilloried for being weak on national security, partial to taxes and big government and out of touch with Middle America's social values.

That's exactly the problem. We have a chance--finally--to see progressivism--oh, fuck that shit let's just call it what it is because I, for one, don't believe that LIBERAL is a bad word--to see LIBERALISM actually get somewhere in this country, and I want to vote into office someone who isn't afraid to actually stand firm and hold to their beliefs. Someone who doesn't believe in good enough. Someone who thinks that they do NOT have to work within the Republican party's framework to succeed. And I'm hoping that someone is Barack Obama.

So, there you have it. If you are headed to the polls tomorrow, good luck making your choice. It's tough this year. Rarely--if EVER--have we had such wonderful individuals to choose from. What a blessing! What a gift! I guess we can be thankful that Bush JR gave us that much, eh?

Sadly, as many folks have noted, as excited as the country might be to vote for a black man or a woman in the primaries this year, when it comes to actually voting for President? Well, a 73-year-old white man might be all they are comfortable with, right? Sigh.