Ding, dong, the witch is dead...now what?

Pretty much nothing has happened for the past week except this predator sex scandal in my dance community. It's all anyone can think about, talk about, post about, or email about. Including me. 

Can I just say how glad I am my event isn't until September??? There's a lot of overkill and hysteria right now (and subsequent people being mad that I'm using the word "hysteria") and I'm so glad I won't have to deal with this in any real world way for many months. 

People are so raw right now that nobody is thinking clearly or being practical. Lots of graduate students are throwing around lots of long words. Suddenly everyone who dips you on the dance floor is a dangerous sexual predator. People think it's a good idea to stop every dance right in the middle, bring up the lights, and give a long lecture on rape culture and sexual harassment. When I say this is ridiculous, I'm accused of "minimizing". So, yes, as per usual, I'm the asshole. Pleased to meet you, won't you guess my name?

Anyway. Coming from a religion that thought it could fix everything (sickness, the weather, death), I well understand the human need to make sense of things and try to fix it. But what nobody wants to admit is...there is zero solution here. As much as I truly believe this is an isolated incident - one very disturbed man's sick impulse to have sex with every vulnerable young girl he could whether she wanted to or not - there will always be star-struck young girls, and there will always be men in power who use that power to have sex with them.

The good news is you always get a vibe from these guys. I years ago had a male teacher who couldn't hold his liquor and started hitting on some young men, or at least making lascivious comments while I was in earshot, and I thought, "that guy is a liability" and never hired him again...nor has anyone else. It's not rocket science, people.

So yes, as business owners we need to have a policy in place, and as the women leaders we need to stand up and make ourselves clear as women who will listen and believe you and take action if you feel unsafe or have had a traumatic experience. I can do all that. Beyond that...y'all need to look out for yourselves, or your minors. 

Nobody wants to hear this - everyone wants us event organizers to bear the entire burden and fix it; but it's not our problem alone to fix (and I still maintain it's no longer a problem at all - I mean, ding dong, the witch is dead, let's all keep our eyes open and move on, you know?).

One thing nobody wants to talk about is everybody needs to stop getting drunk at events. But, that's my being impractical. I'm savvy enough to recognize that's never going to happen.

In other news, I need to open for registration on Sunday and one of the price points is malfunctioning and the guy who can fix it isn't answering any of my emails, Theo is teething like a motherfucker, and my gas bill for the month is $200. Awesome.

...and then that happened

Something happened shortly after I wrote my last post - it's nothing to do with me and shouldn't affect my dance event, but we've had a bit of a scandal in our little dance world and everything's been turned upside down. I'm pretty traumatized and have been able to do little else the last few days but think about it, read about it, and try to figure out why I'm so upset when, again, it's not about me.

Turns out one of our most revered dance instructors, one of the few who's been active since the 80s and someone I always admired and honored, has been secretly grooming, sometimes drugging, and raping young girls in our scene. For decades. I found out because one of the brave girls finally came forward and wrote a blog post all about events that happened when she was a teenager and of course it blew up all over Facebook. Much like with Bill Cosby, the minute this girl opened the door, tons of other women have started chiming in, many of whom I know personally. I've been obsessively reading the hundreds of comments on the girl's blog, offering support where I can, and feeling betrayed and like everything I've been taught is a lie. That sounds histrionic but many people in the scene, men and women, have told me they feel this way too.

I haven't written here because I've been trying to figure out how to articulate my feelings. But I really don't know how - they're such a jumble - so I'll just take a stab at it.

One, I'm angry that my "safe place" has been violated. The dance world I'm involved in has always been squeaky clean and a-sexual - an escape from the bar and club scene, a place to be out at night and enjoy male company without fear of being hit on, without the presence of drugs or alcohol which I hate. The idea that this guy was using that innocence to lure women and take advantage of them makes me ill and angry. 

So many women have come forward with stories of abuse either at his hands or another's that it makes me feel like I must be one of the only women alive who has never been made to do something sexually that I didn't want to do. I'd like to think it's because I'm smart and have self-esteem...but if I'm honest, it's probably just because I'm lucky. And I don't drink.

But since many of the women weren't actually raped but had more subtle experiences - coercion, grooming, mind control, fear of being ostracized, etc, it has made me look back on a couple of experiences I had as a young girl in a new (ish) light.

One was the abusive relationship I was in when I was seventeen with my twenty-eight-year-old film teacher. I was there of my own free will - we "loved" each other - but it was a very unhealthy relationship in which I felt completely controlled and out of control. He did threaten me that if I left him something bad would happen to me, and did grab my chin and slam me against a wall once. It was my first and last abusive relationship. Somehow I summoned the strength to leave. But the power and control aspects of that experience haunted me for a long time. Maybe still do.

Another very different experience was when I first moved to LA. I knew next to no one, so a much older man I met at church, probably in his fifties, took me under his wing. It started with him offering to help fix my '62 Falcon, and soon became lunches and dinners and going to church functions together. Everyone was abuzz that we were dating which repulsed me since I was 20 at the time and he was an odd duck - used to hold eye contact for way too long and always seemed kind of out of it. I very naively thought we were just friends and why can't a much older man and a young girl be friends...? We actually went camping together in Mexico, a fact that horrifies me now when I think about it. Although the trip went fine, the night we got back to LA he somehow made it so he'd have to sleep at my small apartment - some excuse I don't remember now. I set him up on the couch but felt very uneasy about it. Next thing I know it's the middle of the night and he's climbing into bed with me. I asked him what he thought he was doing and he said we'd slept in sleeping bags just feet away from each other for days, what was the big deal? I said absolutely not and thank God he got the message and went back to the couch. I remember telling my mother about this later and her referring to him as a "dirty hippie" which made me laugh. Needless to say I felt betrayed and disgusted (much as I do now) and he disappeared shortly after - either out of embarrassment or the realization that his long grooming session had failed. 

It makes me so mad that however far women have come in this world, we still have to worry about rape all the time. Men never have to ask themselves if they should really travel to that third world country alone or walk to their car alone or take that isolated hike. They never have to worry that a female friend is secretly trying to sleep with them or that a male authority figure is going to abuse their power. This is the world we live in, fellas, every single day. 

One of this dance instructor's victims gave a very emotional account of her (actual) rape back in 2000 at the dance camp I may sing at in June (!) via video; she recounts being an inexperienced teenager at the time excited by this man's flattery and attention, that he offered to give her a private dance lesson, lured her to a quiet place, and just told her to drop her pants, and she did. Because when you're young like that and vulnerable you just do what you're told. It's heartbreaking. The pain on her face in this video as she tells her story is almost too much to bear.

So, what happens now? Probably nothing from the legal front - none of the women were under 18 and most of these incidents were decades ago. I know as an event organizer I now feel I need to reach out to my instructors and ask them to please report to me anything going on at my event that doesn't look right, and also have a code of conduct on my website from now on to set the tone that we're not going to tolerate victimization of our young people (or any people). I know this man only slightly and never hired him so my hands are clean there. His career is done at least so there's some retribution. But other than that...he's pretty much going to get away with it, other than our mass community shunning.

And all this right after I was starting, even in the smallest way, to consider having a man in my life again. I'll get over it but right now I'm just kind of disgusted by men in general. 

Do you believe in miracles?

Thankfully, I was able to get Theo back on the boob. It is the teething. If I give him Tylenol and a little time for it to take effect, he nurses happily. Which is sad when you think how much pain he must be in to be afraid of the boobie. Poor guy! Again, Bobby never had this issue with teething. I really wish Theo would just do everything exactly the way his brother did so I can respond appropriately. That would make things way more convenient for me.

In other news, I kind of asked a guy on a date last night. Wh-what??? Miss "that's the last thing I'm thinking about, I don't want the trouble, I'm proud to not be a part of the heterosexual military complex," etc etc? Let me explain.

First, the jasmine is blooming all over LA and it is intoxicating. That is enough reason right there. But I'll explain further.

2) my hormones are going nuts, as evidenced by the zits on my chin and strange things coming out of my nether regions the likes of which I have not seen since before I conceived Theo. So this strange impulse is almost entirely (or maybe entirely) to be blamed on this sudden surge of estrogen/testosterone/whateverthefuck

3) talked with a friend of a friend at a party who just had a baby six weeks ago as a single mother (baby daddy not in the picture) and has been going out on dates for weeks. Huh? She showed me her upcoming dates on Tinder of all things - all 40-something dads, nice guys, and really cute, like, just my type. She's been out five times with one of them. Who knew?

4) one of the MCs of my event, an old friend and a quirky bachelor in his fifties who I have never known to have a girlfriend just married a beautiful young woman last weekend. He asked me to sing at his wedding but alas couldn't line up a sitter.

5) two of my closest friends who have been dating for seventeen years just decided to get married, to the astonishment of our entire dance world 

6) I started watching Friends to Lovers? on Bravo, kind of a dumb show but an interesting look at what happens when people try to kick their relationships up a notch

7) my love interest just moved to my neighborhood and has his days free so I saw an opportunity and took it

After all this, for the record he said no, haha. Well, what happened was I sent him a text welcoming him to the neighborhood and asked if he'd like to check out a new restaurant on Friday. First I got a text from someone saying this guy has a new number (that's how often I text this guy - never). Then I resent and got this:

"Ugh!  Can't join Friday.  Still deep into the move. But would love to get lunch once I'm settled in Feb."

So it's kind of a yes and kind of a no, for now. Which is very much like him, since the last time I asked him out ten years ago he kind of said yes and no, too - he wanted to see a movie with me but had already agreed to see it with a mutual friend, could he come, too? So we all saw the movie. Friend zone-!

What do you think? Why did he use the word "love"? That's good, right? But why is he moving on a Friday in the middle of January? I mean, I'm a cute girl, he's a guy, he should drop everything and have lunch with me and my donor-conceived baby, right? Does he sound like he has a girlfriend? Tell me more, tell me more, like does he have a car, a-ha, a-ha, a-ha?

I would like it to be known that the above paragraph is entirely tongue-in-cheek. Kind of.

Who is this guy? Oh, just a friend of a friend I've had a crush on for like twenty years because he looks like John Lennon and takes care of his diabetic cats and never has a girlfriend. He's totally emotionally unavailable. Yes, he's the one I declared un-dateable at the beginning of this blog, who callously left me playing Words With Friends with a total stranger when he accidentally gave me the wrong user name. The guy who, as mentioned, brought a friend to our last "date". Who has never expressed the slightest interest in me other than as an acquaintance. That guy.

But he once wrote a screenplay so staggeringly beautiful I still think about it decades later. He moved his sick mother across the country so he could look after her. He babysits my friends' kids and they love him. He's a good guy. I think he just has zero confidence when it comes to women and kind of gave up...much like me.

But since my kids were born I can now say I am a believer in miracles. Can people change their life's path? Absolutely they can. What do I want from him? Do I want him to marry me, be a father to my boys, move into my cramped house? No, hell no. No.

But my hormones were raging and the jasmine was blooming and I felt like asking someone out on a date, so I did.

I'll hit him back up in February when he's "settled". If nothing else I'll have a pleasant lunch with a friend new to the neighborhood. I can live with that.

Strike!

I believe I am experiencing a nursing strike. Last night T did not want his pre-bedtime nurse; he flailed and screamed. I assumed he was overtired; he had eaten so I figured he just needed sleep. Slept well all night. Then this morning - same thing; angry screaming and turning away, pushing my nipple angrily and not wanting it anywhere near him. It even took a while to calm him down because he was so upset. I was pretty full and uncomfortable all day, but there was no moment to pump so I tried another pre-bedtime nurse (no dice) and then pumped out 5 oz once everyone was asleep. 

I've googled and posted on my various FB groups and all I can think is it's either a) teething (his eye teeth are coming in which were a bear for Bumpus but in a totally different way), b) he's just done with the boob and I need to let him be, or c) some unknown (ear infection, sickness, I taste weird, he's weirded out by sleeping in the attic, etc etc). 

Nothing out of the ordinary has happened, though, except for the change in sleeping arrangements, but we've been in separate rooms for ages. And he's eating well and not tugging on his ears or acting sick or out of sorts at all. Bobby was momentarily freaked out when I stopped wearing the silicone nipple shields and my nipple texture changed, but he got over it very quickly. So, what's up with my youngest???

It doesn't bother me much other than it doesn't fit into my plan for when I wanted to wean him...and I am worried I am overlooking something potentially important or serious (sickness of some kind). As long as I have a pump I can at least relieve the discomfort which is considerable (for those who don't know, at best it's that unsettling feeling of being constipated and out of sorts - at worst it's extremely painful). But he just gets so upset when I even try; tonight I just started to pull my shirt up and he started screaming and tried to launch himself off the bed to get away from me. You would think I drew a scary face on my boob like that character in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

Anyway, all I can do is keep trying. Maybe I'll take him to the ped. But if he's over it and eating food well...maybe it's time to let it go.

Anatomy of Getting in the Car

In light of the fact that my Facebook feed is full of women utterly fed up with their two-year-olds, I thought I would do a little breakdown of our daily routine of Getting in the Car.

Bobby, it's time to get our shoes on.

Noooooooooo!

Come on, Bobby, don't you want to wear your Thomas shoes?

Nooo! I playing! Continues to run Dollar Store dump truck across coffee table. At this point I decide to put the baby in the Ergo even though bending over to put Bobby's shoes on while the baby is on my chest kills my back. Wrap up baby in Ergo, stick his wubbanub in the pocket, then retrieve socks and shoes from bedroom.

Come on, Bobby! Let's get on socks and shoes!

Bobby runs into bedroom, starts jumping on the bed.

I jumping!

Yeah, that's great. Let's put on shoes, hon.

No, I jumping!

Ok, see you later!

I walk out, fill his sippy cup with water, and put it in the bag. 

Come on, Bobby! You don't want to go out with no shoes and socks, your feet'll get cold!

From bedroom: I jumping!

Bobby appears in the kitchen dragging my duvet on the floor. 

I driving! He says, plunking down in the middle of the white duvet and steering.

Oh, Bobby, put that back, hon, I don't want it to get dirty!

Bobby ignores me and runs into the living room, jumping into the glider and rocking it so hard it is in danger of toppling backwards. But his bare feet are out so I take this opportunity to squat down in front of his kicking feet and hastily shove his socks and shoes on. Then I run into the kitchen, grab the duvet and throw it onto the bed.

Ok, here we go! I set the alarm, sling the bag over my shoulder, throw some sunglasses on my head, and unlock the door. Bobby, don't push the screen-" 

Bobby pushes the screen through the screen door so it hangs loose for the bajillionth time. Mental note I will have to painstakingly repair this later. For the bajillionth time.

Oh! Hi kitty! Hi kitty! Bobby sees the stray cat that hangs out on our porch. Runs to it, cat wisely runs away. Bobby attempts to climb on the dirty porch swing. 

Come on, buddy, we gotta go!

I walk down the house steps to the first landing. Baby pulls his arms out of the Ergo and starts lunging and whining. 

Come on, buddy! I urge him as he hesitates at the top step - pointing at the sky, he says, it's raining!

No, it's sunny today.

It's too hot.

Yes, it's too hot. Come on down, buddy!

He takes a cautious step.

I wanna- help.

I walk back up the steps and offer my hand. He refuses it.

I doing it myself. He takes a sip of his sippy cup and starts down the stairs. He stops at the large succulent.

What's this?

That's our plant.

Plant. What's this?

That's our plant. Come on, buddy!

I start down the second set of stairs. The baby lunges suddenly and nearly throws me off balance. 

Come on, buddy!

No, I playing!

Bobby stops and sits down on a step, running his truck along the cement.

Do you need help? I walk back up the steps and offer my hand.

No, mama, I doing it. Bobby finishes the second set of steps, jumps off the final step and stumbles forward.

You ok, buddy?

Bobby gets up and starts for the third set of steps. My nose starts running. I fish in my back pocket for a wadded up tissue and wipe it. I sing to him:

Take a step. Take a step. Cause we're going down the stairs we'll take a step.

He marches right along to the song. Works like a charm. I open the front gate and step into the street, checking for cars or trucks racing dangerously fast down our street. I stand in the street with the lunging baby and beckon Bobby.

Come on, buddy. Let's get in the car!

Bobby gets to the gate and starts fingering the metal.

What's this? What's this?

That's the hole part.

Hole part.

What's this? What's this?

The hole part.

Hole part.

Bobby finally steps onto the sidewalk. Victory. Until.

I need-a jump.

Climbs back up the stairs, jumps off final step.

Me: whoa! Big jump!

Bobby runs down the street to my garage, giving me a minor heart attack as a bus whizzes by just feet away, stirring up a giant dust cloud. I wipe my nose again.

We squeeze around the driver's side of the car into the dark, damp garage.

Wet! Bobby says, stomping in the puddles that could be from my sprinklers or could be homeless pee.

Oh, don't get your Thomas shoes all wet, hon!

I scramble for my keys and unlock the front door, throwing my giant awkward diaper bag onto the front seat.

Bobby is running his hands all over the car's sides and wheels. His hands are now black. He wipes his running nose all over his face. He now has black streaks on his face. I'll have to get those later.

I open his back door.

Come on, hon, let's get in!

What's this? What's this? What's this?

Bobby touches every part of the car. I make things up. I put my keys and sunglasses on top of the car where I won't have to stoop to retrieve them. Baby lunges and whines. I think the same thing every single day - I wish I could put the baby in his car seat first. But this would be far too dangerous with the cars zipping by inches away. Can't take the risk.

Bobby discovers the toys left along the sides of his car seat and starts playing with them. 

Come on, hon, let's get in! 

No, I playing!

Do you need help???

No, I doing it!

Magic. He starts climbing up to his seat. 

I wanna touch-a buttons!

Climbs back down, starts pushing buttons in car door.

Do you need help?

I lean over and start to lift him by his ribs. He shakes me off.

No, I doing it!

The baby has made a break for it and is trying to touch the filthy cement wall of the garage.

Bebess is touching the wall!

Yup, he sure is!

Bobby scrambles back down from the car and starts patting the garage wall.

Oh, come on, Bobby, we gotta go, hon!

I start to lift him and he finally squirms into his seat, starts fiddling with the mirror, and turning the dome light on and off.

Come on, gotta sit!

I try to put his car seat straps on but he fights his way out, I wanna touch-a hande!

He grabs the handle and lets it go several times. Doesn't clunk!

Nope, doesn't clunk!

He finally lets me grab his feet and pull him down into his seat. I do his straps as fast as I can while the baby paws him and he slaps the baby's hands off. 

Here - drink, books, etch-a-sketch...I throw everything I can think of into his lap so I don't have to do it while driving. I shut the door and run to the other side, putting the baby in his seat in about half a second. I get in my seat, get my phone ready for playing various Beatles songs on request, turn on my talk show, and head out. 

Getting out of the car and up the stairs takes about twice as long. Ah, two!

Operation Baby in the Attic

So Theo sleeping in the attic is pretty much the best thing ever. First night he went right to sleep and slept all night. Last night he fussed a bit but still ended up doing well all night after about 20 minutes. I still have some concerns about temperature control up there and still have anxiety because it just feels weird to have my baby on a whole different floor than me, but it is so frigging awesome to be back in my bedroom!

Today I folded up the ol' Port-A-Crib and moved the pack 'n play that had stood useless in the dining room into the bedroom; I find I need a place to set the baby down in the bedroom a lot more often (morning routine, etc). My dining room now looks huge. I am going to attempt to sell the vintage buggy and Port-A-Crib to anyone crazy enough to use toxic vintage baby devices like me. This may prove to be quite difficult.

I'm a bit sad to part with the crib. I put two babies to bed there hundreds of times. I would love to hang onto it, but...for what? There will be no more babies, and I doubt my (possible) grandchildren would want to be in said toxic vintage baby devices. I have a million pictures of it. That should be enough to keep the memory of it, right?

I am already sleeping much better in my own bed. It's so great not to have to tiptoe around the house at night anymore. But one major problem is with the baby monitor on I can't listen to podcasts on my phone to go to sleep (something I've done for many years) or use the Roku box to watch anything interesting on TV. It sucks but I don't know what solution there is since I can't turn the monitor off without causing myself major anxiety (what if there's a fire up there? A carbon monoxide leak? A spider? A rat on the loose?). Maybe I can download the podcasts during the day to listen to later...? I'll have to look into it. Or just get in the habit of going to sleep in silence ((shudder)).

Today I put a down payment on a birthday venue for B & T's combo birthday party which will be March 22. Bring it, Pinterest!!!

New stages

As often happens, I rather spontaneously decided to move Theo to the attic to sleep tonight. I was going to wait until Friday night when we won't have a nighttime sitter for a few days, but I got the room set up in advance today and thought, what the heck? Now's as good a time as any. I set up the pack 'n play that Bobby spent much of his second year in, moved the baby monitor up there, cleaned up all the toys, removed any potential hazards, and took a deep breath and put him to bed when we all came back from B's school.

He went right to sleep. I miss this age where transitions like this were so simple! Bobby gets so upset over every little thing - God forbid you use the wrong towel, cup, pair of socks, etc - here I take this baby and put him in an entirely different crib in a different room and he doesn't even care. Babies are so easy. *sigh*

I have minor anxiety about the possibility of a fire or a carbon monoxide leak or something...it's not easy to get up there to him if something did happen...but the room has been in place for two years, my sister and babysitter have spent many nights up there with no problems. Temperature regulation may be an issue; at least I have the new A/C unit for summer. 

Already I'm sensing the benefits. B and I can stomp around a bit more after T goes to bed; I can do laundry after hours and actually put everything away; I can get dressed to go out without worrying about waking him up; and best of all I can sleep in my own freaking bed again! Alone in the room! The last time I did that was March 11, 2014.

I also set up this clip-on baby seat on the kitchen table in an effort to have us all have meals together for once. I have now had two breakfasts with both boys at the same time. It's not fun for me. But I can't just leave T screaming in the bedroom forever, and it's time for him to learn to self feed a bit; he's getting the hang of baby crackers but the poofs he can't quite manage yet. So mainly it's me with one hand feeding T and one feeding B (yes, he has of course decided I must feed him like a baby again...ughhh) and my breakfast going cold right under my nose because I don't have a third hand to feed myself. I still have to have lunch out and stagger our dinners because I just can't manage that level of multi-tasking three times a day. 

Still, I'm excited for the new changes. If it works out, T should be good up there until he and B can share a room (that's going to be a while) and this meal setup should last for at least another year. Here we go!

The stories we tell ourselves

Had a really scary incident last night. Bobby woke up screaming just about every hour on the hour. The first time I asked if his tummy hurt and he said yes, so rather than have him throw up all over his bed and soft toys I shuffled him into the bathroom where he got much more upset and started screaming "I don't! I don't!" I rubbed his back and told him I was there and I know being sick is yucky. He got more and more upset and started writhing around and I had a moment of absolute adrenalin-spiked panic: ohmygod my son is dying right in front of me! Will we make it to an emergency room? I thought burst appendix, meningitis??? My mother was right about one thing - it's so scary when your children are too little to tell you what's wrong. On the verge of waking the baby and throwing him into the carrier and dragging us all to the ER in our pjs...suddenly B seemed to settle down. And just wanted a hug. I asked him if he wanted to lie down and he said yes, so I put him back in bed and lay down next to him until he fell asleep. He woke up about six times after this. And never threw up or did anything else. I didn't sleep. At all.

The next morning I discovered the culprit. Hard, rock-like poop. Fuck me.

We're going to have to work on this kid's diet a little. 

Went to my "atheist church" for the second time today. I wanted to hear the speaker who was a guy who was a Seventh Day Adventist preacher who decided to try being an atheist for a year and never went back. I was hoping he'd talk in depth about that, but didn't - he spoke instead about discovering the story you've been told, whether it be your religious story or The American Dream or anything else, is in fact a lie, and how to cope with that.

Other than discovering my religion was a lie, I'd have to say the other big lie of my life was The Nuclear Family. Finding the perfect guy and having the perfect family. I still deal with the fallout of this (no pun intended) and will forever, as will any SMC who did not set out to pursue this path as Plan A (some women actually always wanted to be single parents but I believe they are extremely rare). I think most people find The Nuclear Family to be a lie - anyone who divorces, gets cheated on, or just is perpetually unhappy in their new role as spouse and parent. So, what's the point of a belief system that excludes tons of people - those who choose not or can't have children, those who choose to have children alone or end up alone with children, the gay??? I don't want to be a part of that. I'm kind of proud I'm not, honestly, scary midnight bathroom episodes notwithstanding.

Spoke too soon...

I was all proud of us for having survived the holidays with no puking episodes while all around us friends were falling victim to the yearly stomach bug. Proud, like not being sick (yet) is some kind of accomplishment (knowing my past with this stuff that would make sense to you). Well, had Bobby all dressed up and ready to go to school and BAM all over the carpet (why is it always the one tiny stretch of carpet? Why???). Which probably explains why he was upset the night before and definitely why he's been off his food for days and days and was exceptionally clingy that morning. Gah.

Cleaned the poor kid up and set to scrubbing the carpet (and I of course have no appropriate cleaning supplies for this kind of job) and then had a flurry of phone calls and texts to cancel everything that was supposed to happen that day. And here we were, after surviving all those days with nothing to do...now stuck yet again with no school and nothing to do until Wednesday. I kind of wanted to kill myself.

Still, made the best of it. I tried to get B into bed but of course he wouldn't, so I figured I would take us out to our filthy back yard where at least if he threw up again I could just hose us all down. But he seemed to rally and just wanted to eat and eat. I was leery of getting in the car (I just don't know what I'd do if he threw up in the car...again, killing myself comes to mind) so I busted out the umbrella stroller and figured we could walk down to the ghetto park in our neighborhood which was the mainstay when my sister was here and I was having Theo.

Surprisingly it turned out to be a fun day. I met a nice lady with a little girl and we exchanged numbers for future play dates, and the weather was spectacular and it was great to be out and about. B was perfectly fine although not so much into lunch or dinner. Last night was rough - baby woke up a lot (never happens) and Bobby woke up crying several times too - not knowing if he was sick again I kept visiting him which normally I don't unless he sounds really distressed. I feel like I didn't sleep at all. Considering how rarely this happens, though, I'll stop complaining.

The worst part is I am also sick, kind of. I've been off my food for at least a week, also, and yesterday started to feel really nauseated. I remembered my friend had brought over these little white pills called nux vomica back last spring when I had that weird vomiting episode and it stopped it in its tracks; I took them again and felt well enough to have dinner. Today I felt like crap periodically but just kept placing these pills under my tongue and some time later would notice I didn't feel like hurling anymore. I am nearly out but will buy more tomorrow. Does it actually work or am I just imagining things??? Is it the placebo effect? I'm extremely skeptical about homeopathic remedies but I have to say...if somehow these little pills can prevent me and/or the kids from enduring this (apparently) yearly torture of constant projectile vomiting, I'm stocking the eff up!

Looks like we made it

I was in major dread of the last few days with no school and minimal plans - which all ended up getting canceled due to other's illnesses ('tis the season). But we got through it. I took us on a hike in Malibu. We played in the attic. We walked the Silverlake reservoir with the crappy old stroller which hardly steers anymore. We drove around a lot. Bobby watched the PBS Kids app on the Roku while I fed and tended to the baby. Bobby learned lots of new Beatles songs thanks to YouTube - Get Back is his current favorite, followed by Hey Jude because he likes when Paul starts yelling at the end. Last night he had a bit of a freak out after I put him to bed - I went in three times to comfort him but he kept yelling, "I need a hug! I need a hug!" Finally I went in and just lay down with him for a while because I could tell he was really distressed about something. I think he got scared by this thing in a Cat in the Hat episode where the characters got stuck in some nectar - he was screaming and crying and I had to turn it off and convince him they were ok and they got out safely. And I saw The Shining when I was eight. How's that for generational differences?