Psst...

I don't like turkey.

There, I've said it. Every year I dread Thanksgiving, when someone is bound to shove an over-hyped piece of turkey meat at me and expect me to eat it. Add in the family's 'traditional' Stove Top brand stuffing mix, some canned cranberry sauce, and either brown and serve rolls or potato rolls and frankly I'm not very interested. In fact, I could quite easily say that Thanksgiving is one of the days of the year when I DON'T eat much. Really. Ok, I will eat dessert, but pretty much the entire meal would get poked at on my plate but not actually ingested.

This year it was just our own little nuclear family at the Thanksgiving table--just me, DH, DD, and DS. Given that two of the participants are under the age of 3, DH and I felt free to chart our own course for the meal. We bought a roasting chicken and tested out a Guy Fieri recipe which involved sticking half a can of beer up the bird's posterior, and various other forms of spicy abuse prior to roasting it in the oven. We bought Costco's rolls--the GOOD ones, to accompany the meal. DH made his own chicken gravy from the drippings, and it was so good DD was practically licking it off her plate. We cooked the corn in chicken stock...mmmmm good. We even deep fried Irish-style chips instead of mashed potatoes or potato croquettes. DH even made some stuffing from scratch, with just bread crumbs, onion, butter, and tiny bit of garlic. That was it. And it was GOOD. I actually ATE the stuffing. Who knew it could actually taste, well, good?? That roasted chicken was GORGEOUS. We loved every scrap of it. I completely ignored my frozen stash of apple pie in a bag (homemade goodness, but for another day) and created my own recipe for a fig tart using fresh figs, ricotta cheese, and coconut. YUM-MY!!

I am now planning how to have another roast chicken for Christmas dinner. My parents will be with us so I think they will be expecting a turkey, but I have developed a cunning plan. Dad passed on his old electric smoker to us when he bought his new super jazzy grill-cum-smoker. We have never used it. Dad and Mom both loved smoked turkey. Do you see where I'm going with this? Dad can "teach" DH how to use the smoker and cook a turkey breast to their satisfaction for Christmas dinner, which leaves the oven wide open for a glorious roast chicken. Yes, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas (dinner that is... ).

Medical Mistake

I was referred for a thyroid scan due to an enlarged thyroid. Not a big deal, something that is relatively common, right? Except, my doctor forgot to note that I am breastfeeding my son, 9 months old. And the clinic personnel didn't ask. And I, unforgivably, did not think to look up the potential side effects of radioactive iodine on breastmilk until AFTER I had taken the d#$n pills! And guess what??? It's concentrated in breastmilk!!!

I was extremely upset after reading this (naturally), and a flurry of phone calls ensued between me and my doctor's office. First they said to pump and dump for 48 hours. Then they said they spoke to the chief radiologist and it wasn't really necessary to pump and dump, the percentages that were expressed in breastmilk were so small, but to be conservative I could pump and dump for 24 hours. And then they called my pediatrician for me and she recommended pumping and dumping for 24 hours.

What followed that evening can only be described as sheer hell, as I listened to my son wailing non-stop for me, then escalate to screaming non-stop for over an hour, even with my husband holding him. AND I COULDN'T NURSE HIM. I just really cannot express in words the sheer hellishness of knowing your child is crying FOR YOU and you can't give him what he needs. We gave him milk that I had frozen (fortunately, as with no warning I hadn't had a chance to prepare a stash of stored milk) but he just needed the comfort of nursing. I ended up nursing him 16+ hours after taking the I¹²³, because I figured out that he would not be getting much at that point, based on some journal articles I found online. (Thank God for my degree!)

My son tossed and turned all night, woke repeatedly crying, and in general was inconsolable until I was finally able to nurse him. Then all was well with his world again.

What is really p!ssing me off about this whole thing is that after researching this online, I find that post-partum thyroiditis is common and can last up to 18 months postpartum! Eighteen months!! So I didn't even need to have this test! It could have waited until my son was weaned! They could have just checked my TSH levels in my blood occasionally and if it was still present at 18 months postpartum, THEN we could have gone down this road. So my son and I went through this for no good reason!

And, I am really pissed off that there was no standard information sheet given to me about this radioactive iodine, nor was I required to sign any permission form, nothing that might have said, "Tell your doctor if you are pregnant or breastfeeding." Heck, my doctor KNEW I was breastfeeding, and still sent me for this test (a mistake!). And the technician administering the test didn't even ask if I was pregnant! Not one check before I could have been giving my kid potentially damaging doses of radioactivity straight to his tiny thyroid gland. Thank the Lord I looked it up, because I then knew the seriousness and that if I had nursed him 6 hours after taking it, he would have gotten a significant dose of radiation! Come on!

I am going to be following up on this with the clinic and my doctor. They assured me they will be changing all their literature to ensure it doesn't happen again, but my point is, what literature? I wasn't given anything, I was not asked to sign anything. So they really need to do some serious retraining, because someone else could have done this and then gone home and merrily dosed their little baby up with radioactive iodine. What if it was a smaller baby, or a relative newborn, or a baby with some immune-compromising disorder? I mean, COME ON PEOPLE!!! I don't intend to sue them, but there had better be more that comes out of this than some rapid heinie-covering behavior with me on the phone and absolutely zero follow up the next day. They were supposed to call a lactation consultant and get back to me with her advice, too, but I haven't heard a d@mn thing back about that. Hello?

As you can tell, I am still very upset about the whole thing. For something so important to be missing, well, that's a huge problem. I just don't want anyone else to have to go through this, and I don't want some little baby to be exposed to something when it's so easily prevented. And I don't like knowing I was sent for a test that I probably didn't need to have right now, which caused such excruciating pain for me and my son. I pumped ELEVEN OUNCES of breastmilk from one side within an hour that night, and I STILL had a hard spot and some symptoms of mastitis that night. I was not happy. I'm still not happy. I'd better see some real changes and concern from this clinic, or I'm going to be talking to the director.

Get Your Own

...computer, that is. Because, my laptop is broken. Hard drive-toasted. Data-recovered by masterful DH with Ubuntu. So, here I am, at the slow, crappy, prone to multiple errors and random crashes old desktop.

This computer is now usually the purview of DD, who is allowed to play computer games from a website on here. She is not even three, but has gotten quite good at navigating through that website and finding the games she wants to play, and using the mouse to work through the "levels" of these preschool games. It's quite impressive really. However, it does become a trifle annoying when I'm checking my email and DD comes in and quite insistently says she needs to play her games and it's HER computer.

Of course it's even more annoying that we have encouraged her to feel a sense of ownership in this system, because it keeps her away from our laptops. So I can hardly scold her for a feeling I've encouraged, and she certainly feels that I'm poaching when I use this computer here.

So I have been relegated to using the computer surreptitiously (for the most part), to avoid constant demands for the Elmo games and indignant looks that I find amusing as well as annoying. And, it seems, DH likes to use this system for checking Facebook and other minutiae that he doesn't feel merit hauling out his work laptop, so I have come in to find all my windows closed and Facebook open. Grrrr.

I've admitted it freely before, but I really don't like sharing a computer with my DH. We do things differently, and have different opinions about operating systems and programs, etc. Whereas DH will jump on new software and platforms to play with them, I will be torn shrieking away from my older programs and OS begrudgingly accept changes to my system, often with an irascible shrieking and complaint that caused arguments in the early years of our marriage. Now DH knows better and just leaves my computer alone except for important safety updates, because every time he changes something (however small) on my system it provokes an argument and heated discussion about the necessity for the new thing.

So here I am, back to sharing a computer with DH and now DD. I don't like it. I want my laptop back NOW, TYVM, and I'm already ticked about the ridiculousness of a warranty process that requires me to send my whole laptop away when DH (a certified technician and about twelve technical competency levels above the yahoo who will end up servicing my computer) already knows it is a bad drive and just needs a new hard drive installed. Like THAT requires me to send my computer away for days, perhaps weeks, when I know DH could do it in about twenty minutes! Pfff!!! *grouse* Stupid computers...

A Tough Day

It's near the beginning of my day, and I can tell it's going to be a tough day. Not because of anything my children are doing in particular, but just because I'm tired, a bit grouchy, and want a bit of time to myself. And that is not going to happen today, I'm afraid! *LOL*

At least I can laugh at my grouchy self. My DD has wisely picked up on my grouchiness and is entertaining herself with PlayDoh for the time being. My DS has been exiled to his crib for his morning nap, and His Highness was being a super grouch as well and I was not willing to placate him for another 30 minutes to try to even out his naps. He's mildly fussing but not really crying, which tells me it was the right choice for him, as he will likely be asleep within five minutes.

I'm irritated with myself already today because I forgot about 2 regular bills, which hit our checking account and thus overdrew our account onto our credit card. *sigh* It's not a big deal, I just thought for some reason they came out on the 15th instead of the 1st of the month. Grrr. I just can't seem to keep all these financial balls in the air at the same time, and I need to get a workable system in place so that I DON'T mistake when bills are due, etc. I'm seriously considering buying the Dave Ramsey envelope system, because DH & I know we do better on a strictly cash budget. Some friends of ours just bought the deluxe system, so my cheap frugal self wants to examine this 'system' before I shell out the bucks for one for us. I figure if it's something we can duplicate using paper envelopes we already have, so much the better.

And I know I have to finish the Christmas party invitations and get them in the mail, since it's exactly 1 month from today. I am seriously thinking I might do Evite for our friends and do the paper invites to our neighbors, since I have almost enough of them made to cover the neighbors. Easy, simple, and makes my life simpler. I just don't want to do it, to be honest, because as soon as they are done then there is no excuse for postponing the start of Christmas card writing: something which I alternately love and despise as I plow through approximately 140 cards.

And I am not happy to look at the calendar and see that the "extra" paycheck of November is a myth, that in fact it's just getting ahead of bills and eliminating the shuffle back and forth between savings and checking; and there is no magic "extra" money to funnel back to various NEEDS (yes, not wants, but NEEDS) in the various e-funds and assorted requirements for moola. *sigh* Depressing.

And, what exactly am I going to buy for my parents and husband for Christmas, hmm? No clue. None. DH's sweater languishes in the corner (largely for want of time to work on it) and I need to reaffirm with my brother & sister that we aren't giving each other gifts, right? Or maybe set a $5 limit on them, something like that.

It all just makes me want to bury my head in the sand, peeps!! I want to lounge around eating Halloween candy, drinking coffee, and knitting whatever I want to make or doing a craft or wrapping the presents I have already bought for my kiddos. Anything but the depressing realities of our finances, or required Christmas cards, or planning our fixed budget.

Well, I suppose that's enough of a pity party. Time for me to go attack our mountain of laundry. Oh the joy.

A Mommy Time-Out

Well, here I am at the end of another insane day, and I just need a bit of space. Yesterday DH had to stay late in work for a "team building" dinner (and you know how fond I am of those) and after dealing with the kids all day by myself, I really needed a break THEN. However, that was not possible, obviously, so I am doing the next best thing, which is a break now. I have given myself permission to have a cocktail, to put my feet up on my bed, surf the net, watch an egregiously 'chick' flick ("Emma", if you must know), and pretend to fold some laundry but not really crank it out, just fold enough so that we can actually sleep in our bed tonight.

I might even have dinner in here. Considering that all I want to eat is a salad, this is quite appealing. There are positives here for everyone, except perhaps DH, who is tired after working all day. Of course, as he well appreciates, I have been working all day too. The end of the day is a tiring time for everyone--moms, dads, and kids. Let us hope we can all get through it with gracious aplomb and not a sea of moaning and irritation.

Part of today's chaos was holiday-related, naturally. I had set myself a semi-serious deadline of TODAY to mail off the IL's Christmas gifts, after having the panic of postal delays in previous years. I did my small grocery shop this morning with two somewhat cranky kids in tow, and of course I had forgotten entirely about my mail-in ballot for today's elections. Since I was determined to vote, that meant we had to go out again this afternoon, and thus I was unable to come up with a good excuse to delay further on boxing up all the IL's gifts and sending them on their way.

Naturally, I forgot until the last second the little souvenirs we bought for everybody from our Yellowstone vacation, which granted me another small bounty of gifts that needed to be agonized over, slowly deciding who should get what jam or tea towels to be wrapped. DD was of great help with the tags, lovingly embellishing with her script or jazzy happy faces. She was also most insistent on putting on the tape by herself, thank you very much Mommy! And DS was bemused by the flurry and somewhat annoyed that he was confined away from the action. When I finally freed DS from his confinement in his exersaucer, he happily surprised me and entertained himself with the wrapping paper (fine) instead of the packing peanuts (choking hazard).

Then, having found the one box sans egregious moving company labels (unacceptable on international packages), I laboriously patched the couple of weak points with packaging tape, and sealed it all up...to turn around and find a lone gift, removed by DD--"I was helping you, Mommy!" Er, thanks! Luckily, I already have to mail another smaller box, due to some items that are on order, so I can just toss that one in too. *phew*

The kids were (mostly) behaved at the post office, I choked at the price of international postage for the (large) box and sweated bullets while the postal clerk consulted his enormous book to make sure my box wasn't too big for An Post. I squeaked under the limits on that one, and got my ballot mailed off. Mission accomplished. I even managed to do a craft with DD this morning, which was quite spur of the moment and quite a hit.

So it really was a good day, even with the insanity of holiday parcels and post offices and shopping. That being said, I still find it necessary to recuperate from yesterday's irritations, including a very irritable DS and an annoyed DD, who was quite peeved when Daddy wasn't home at the appointed time. And it's good for the kids to get some one-on-one time with Daddy when I'm not in the same room. I just hope the kids continue being SO GOOD, for DH's sake. I know he's tired too...I just need a bit of a mommy time-out. And thankfully, DH is a BRILLIANT MAN and understands this need. Thank the good LORD for good husbands!

A Revolutionary Concept

Just do it. No, not the Nike ad tagline. Just pick up that stray sock. Just put away those toys. Just empty the dishwasher. Just do it.

There, that's simple. You'd think it would be easy to encapsulate those three little words into everyday life. But in actuality, it's quite difficult. Because life intrudes, you see. Your daughter gets frustrated with her computer games, and demands your attention while you're dealing with the dirty dishes. Your son pulls himself up on the open dishwasher and tries to pull out every dirty piece of silverware he can reach. Your husband comes home and wants five minutes of peace and quiet before preparing dinner or entertaining the kids so you can prepare (or finish preparing) dinner.

It's a simple concept, but not that easy to practice. It's well and dandy to say it glibly, and even demonstrate it a few times in front of a perceived careless spouse. I do it to my DH, he does it to me. Sometimes we both get frustrated with each other over the gradual slide into messiness and clutter that we find ourselves enmeshed in on a routine basis. And like spawning salmon we struggle valiantly upstream, to be rewarded with a mostly clean house, and a week later we find ourselves sliding with the tide back out to sea again.

It's frustrating. It really is. I look at our behemoth laundry pile and whine to myself, "I just DID that." And every morning I grumble about the d@rn dishes. Why couldn't someone invent a dishwasher that puts away the dishes after they're clean...and while they're at it they could invent a machine to take the dirty dishes from the table to the dishwasher, I grumble to myself. And I get tired of doing the same things I do all the time, so sometimes, I just don't do them. And hopefully DH will step up and do them while I take a little "la la la" vacation from my usual chores, but usually not. And the same things happen with DH. He gets tired of doing all the stuff he normally does, he stops doing it and has his own "la la la" break, and we end up back out to sea in our messy cluttered house.

*sigh* It's a mundanity of life, and sometimes I get really irritated by it. But then that little voice inside me reminds me of how blessed I am to HAVE so much STUFF, and to HAVE enough dishes to go three meals without needing to wash anything...and well, I get my perspective reoriented. I just read an article about Burma and life in a refugee camp, and well, I am humbled by my poor spirit (and that's NOT poor-spiritedness in the Beatitudes way, either). Yep, I can (and often am) a pretty ungrateful bugger. I'm glad God hasn't washed His hands of me and all my grousing.