er- the show, not us

I wasn't feeling it.

I started watching the show "er" when the pilot aired on TV some 15 years ago and I immediately loved it. I loved the plot lines, the chemistry, the medical aspect, the actors, the camera work, the setting in Chicago, all of it.

I have been with "er" longer than I have been with my husband.
I have been with "er" through moves to more than 10 different cities.
I have been with "er" longer than I have fit into any one size of jeans.
I have been with "er" long enough to know when the divorce had to happen that the time had come. The break up was hard, painful, and there was much backsliding if I am going to be honest. The final death- blow to the relationship was when the last original doctor was whisked away to Africa. The plot lines practically decomposed and the chemistry between the actors fizzled and it all flopped around like a dying fish on the floor.

I was looking forward to the last few episodes as the series is at an end. There have been promises of return visits by all the doctors and all the original cast. Of course, Dr. Greene was dead, so not him. But even George Clooney put in an appearance as Dr Doug Ross on the episode last night. (This may explain why he was unable to attend my after hours award party in Los Angeles a few weeks ago, but it does not forgive). And I gotta' say, it just didn't work for me.

Dr Benton was back, and his relationship with Dr Carter had it's old pizazz. The old Doug and Carol storyline, which was so powerful for so many of the first few years, was resolved and showed them living happily ever after. Kind of an old boring married couple.

Just, ya' know, a fizzler. Normally I wouldn't spend a whole post on a TV show, but this one has been one of the only constants in my life for the past decade and a half! It was emotional, and it had its moments. It got good ratings and the message boards I read had most people happy and satisfied.

It felt like a reunion. Like a reunion of all the boys who ever dumped me without explanation. Nice to see them, sure. Right, ok I am so totally over it, it has been years, but I would still want to hear why. I don't actively care anymore and haven't cared for forever, but I am willing to sit for an hour and listen to your story. That's how it felt. And the explanation was, hmmm, I guess the word 'flat' describes it. Bluh.

Well there are a few ep 's left. We shall see.

AWARDs!!!

Dooo do do DOOOOO!!!!! (that is supposed to be like horns blaring)
This is very exciting for me! I have been given this award 2 times, one each from :

The amazing and brilliant Lisa http://lisajordanpuddin.blogspot.com/

AND, the from the brilliant and amazing http://allcrazyhere.blogspot.com/
The Dardos Award is given in "recognition of cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing. These stamps were created with the intention of promoting fraternization between bloggers, a way of showing affection and gratitude for work that adds value to the Web."


The rules:
1) Accept the award by posting it on your blog along with the name of the person that has granted the award and a link to his/her blog.
2) Pass the award to another five blogs that are worthy of this acknowledgment, remembering to contact each of them to let them know they have been selected for this award.

I seem to be completely unable to make a link with any finesse whatsoever, so here are the full links:

http://www.lisajordanpuddin.blogspot.com/ You my dear, are the Big Mom. The Madea if you will. You are the one who always checks in and I see you digging out new-to- blogging- moms all the time who are facing the same unusual struggles as we are, gently kicking and shoving us all 'into the light' (all the while with no curse words). I don't care if I am not supposed to do it this way. Too bad.

http://www.paulaperry.blogspot.com/ An almost ph.d with dyslexia from England living in Taiwan with her newly adopted daughter, teaching English and learning Chinese, what more do I need to say?

http://www.parentingthehoovers.com/ oh my unholy hell, I had to sit down and read this blog all the way through one day, laughing so hard with tears streaming down my face my stomach actually hurt. I had to take a break in the middle to recover. Talk about making the net a better place!

http://www.dooce.com/ of course this is the woman who got me going in the first place. She is my intimidation, I have never even commented but she gets anywhere from 800 to 20,000 comments on any given post so she might not notice anyway!

http://alwayswanted4.blogspot.com/ Definitely Rachael ! She keeps me from forgetting what normal is supposed to look like!

So there you go. At the risk of sounding like a dumbass at the Academy Awards, this really does mean a lot to me! I have noticed peoples awards and have never gotten one before. Then, I got 2 at the same time- wooo hooo! Made my day. Seriously!

THANK YOU!!!!!!!

If they can send a man to the moon,

If they can send a man to the moon, why, why, does nothing work to minimize my pores? Seriously. You could go swimming in there.

I Can't Remember

So, years ago I was reading an article about Marie Osmond and how she has many children. Some adopted and some biological. And when people asked her who was who, she would say "I can't remember". I thought that was so cool and a great line. Part of the article discussed adoption and unthinking comments people can make. The point being I think, that all her children were her children and there was no distinction in her mind regarding how anyone appeared in her home.

When The Husband and I were first getting into the process of this adoption, we were handed huge stacks of old faded copies of information to read. Our agency was not the best so a lot of it was repetitive, or outdated. However there was a cord that ran through all of the binders that said, yours and your child's adoption is none of any one's business. Some folks may ask intrusive questions such as "which one is your real child?" and they gave a canned answer for you in case of iffin' you couldn't think of any, to say um, both my children are real did you think they were plastic? It was certainly insinuated that as an adoptive parent, it was somewhat of a duty to have a sassy remark at the ready and to clear up, one meddling person at a time, that questions such as ''was it expensive or did you get a discount" are not appropriate. You must carry this torch and do your part. Aggressively if need be. Okay, count me in.

Yesterday on one of the silly Hollywood TV ahem, 'news' shows, a woman is claiming to be a child of Jerry Lewis. The chippy lady 'reporter' said, he has 6 children all boys, and an adopted daughter. My radar immediately went up, ding ding ding, they shouldn't have said that! Prejudicing comment. Incorrect use of language. Discriminatory use of terminology. They should have said ol' Jer has 7 children and left it at that. Call the PC police. Schedule a protest. Schedule an adoption pride parade immediately following the protest.

That got me to thinking (ack! lol), but wait, if I say things like I can't remember then isn't that saying by default being born here is best or better? If the comment is meant to neutralize the question, when some dipshit asks me who is real and who is adopted, and I tell them I don't know, or they both are real then isn't there a hint that if I won't say who is adopted then being adopted must be second best? Or that being biological is second best from the other side? If my kids hear me not saying all the time, won't they think something is wrong and it must be one of them? I understand there is no good answer to the question especially when you have several children. You don't want to stand there going 'her, and her and him are the real ones". When your family is made up of visually different cultures then that is another level of rudeness. And I think it is rude for people to ask. Really rude. But sometimes I tell people who is who. There is nothing to hide nor be ashamed of. I am proud of both my girls and how they got here. Then I change the subject.

Sometimes I say, one was a gift and one we picked special! We got the best of both! I try to emphasize that both girls arrived in a special way, but I also firmly believe it. If I say I can't remember, doesn't that take away the specialness of both children as individuals? I don't think adoption is something to hide and I want both of my girls to know it and live it. Being the birthed one isn't the better or the worse either.

Then, where I might actually want to 'educate' people or carry the torch is to nudge and say, you can do it too- see? There is nothing special about me and nothing special about you either. You can adopt a child with special needs or older or with medical problems too. See? Here is mine, and she has no horns. Yeah it's hard, a lot of shit is hard. So? It doesn't take a 'very special person', that is an excuse people use that is code for, thank god you did it so I don't have to. 'I could never do that' is the excuse for ugh, I don't want to.


Someday, and someday soon, I will be turning the responsibility over to my girls themselves. They will tell people whatever the heck they want. They will probably make mistakes in judgement and they will hopefully learn from it. They will probably make some stuff up and lie to tweak peoples nerves or check their reactions for fun. They can tell people they are twin aliens if they want to.

These are my thoughts today. I would love to hear what other people think! There are FAR more educated and experienced people than me out there and I would love to hear how you handle intrusive questions and why and what your thought process is. Happy Monday.

thats MRS Dumb- Bum to you

My head hangs low as I type, preparing to confess to about the dumbest mom mistake ever. Weakly, I offer the protest that it was with good intention. I meant well. Sigh. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, lay me down cross ways over the path.

The Pee- Free Wonder Girl asked for something special today. Well actually last night, and I told her she could do it today. This kid of mine has pee'd only in designated pee receptacles, still, since last Friday. Amazing. Earth Shattering really.


I.
I., uh, oh man.

Errrrrrr.

Can we keep this just between us?

Don't tell anyone ok?


Uhh. I let her....

I let her take............aw......


I let her take a nap in my bed.
I got nothing else to say.

Picture is worth a thousand words

Am I getting that old saying right? A picture is worth a thousand words? Well, I don't have a thousand, but maybe a few.
This is a picture of Genea having lunch. On this particular day, she was desperately trying to keep herself in the good and out of trouble. She wanted something, to go to her friends house I think. Genuine smile there hey? Looks like her face is gonna' crack. Yikes!
So since she is being calm and quiet, our cat for the very first time, went to share her seat. This is Boo Boo, cat of compulsions and habits. He is a cranky old man these days.
The jade colored can has sugar in it. The Husband insists, insists, that no one will eat the generic uncolored undyed un- sugar- bombed toy-less and fun-free cereal that I buy without adding heaps of sugar. He considers it child abuse to even consider presenting it to our children as food. Naturally he left the can on the table from earlier. Or even the night before. Oh, and btw, the kids do too eat it, and naked. I mean the cereal is naked, not them.

Our handy dandy dust- buster sits on the floor next to the table. Actually it lays on the floor closest to Teena's chair. Cuz that is where most of the busting needs to happen. If my children were vacuums, they would be Dyson and Dirt Devil. Guess who is who lol.
And, my favorite part of the picture is the ginormous tower of paper on the right. It starts in the little white bin on the bottem. These are Genea's papers from school. Seriously. Every single day we have a minimum of 5 papers, and up to 15 or so on occassion. Art projects, practice sheets, newsletters, notes from the teacher. Market Day catalogs, book catalogs, mini- books, hats and hat bands. Every day when Genea gets home we go through her back pack and pull out all the papers they sent. Unless I directly need it, it all goes into the pile. She is the Princess of Pack Rats this kid, do not dare even hint that you are not going to treat her precious piece of important, crucial to the continuation of life, crap like a piece of crap. She would be crushed and the sound of her howl will echo in your ears until the end of your days. OH- and this pile is only from December. After the first semester, and after I realized how much paper would be coming home, I told her to pick a few things, 2 or 3, that were important to her to save and we were going to pitch the rest. Genea being Genea, (ie, don't try to find the logic, just go with it) she didn't want any of them. Sure, just huck them all. (although now that I am thinking about it, I bet she took one look at Junk Tower and thought, hell no I am not going to spend my whole day on that!)
Yes, I have silly placemats that feature catsup and hamburgers. They were on clearance at Target. The glass is from my Fiesta Ware collection. I had 8 of the small and 8 large in chartreuse. I now have 5 and 4 left. Oh well, who needs it. I am sure college will be less expensive in the future and we won't need these investments. (YES, they are TOO investments, just like my handbags)I am continuing my other investment strategy in curios from Dollar Tree, where I have much more to show for my money than any silly stock.

WHY? Why? why?.....why?......wh..

2 steps forward, 497 back.

Since Genea has rather abruptly decided pull- ups are for babies, she has not dispensed of urine in any way other than the expected general way. That is to say, she be peein' in the potty.

However, it appears that we only get one. The universe has decided that in this house, we only get one good thing. And if we get one good thing, we have to give up a separate good thing in order to balance out. Being as the universe evidently has a sick sense of humor (psychotic jerkoffed basta'd, whatever), we are not people who move up. We stay. Lateral moves only. This is better than moving down, and yet, I yearn for more (ok I can use the word in a sentence but not so much on the spelling). See, it's the kind of thing where if I win $50.00 on a lottery ticket, I will get a $50 ticket for parking in an unmarked fire lane while I go to cash it.

Since all of Genea's powers are being sent to her bladder these days, her ability to oh I don't know, approximate any sort of behavior similar to the socially acceptable or at least inoffensive neurotypicals, shoots off everywhere else. The biggest thing to go is staying quiet until 7 am. Stealing food, rude, snotty, lying, lying again, breaking rules and making sure I see her, all the fun stuff. Gagging on her food, binging her drink, need want need want. Howling, wailing, instigating, forcing attention to herself, deliberate opposition, etc. Right, this all sounds like stuff all kids do. The difference is that a regular kid will have regular moments in between all the wild stuff. The difference is in the duration, the frequency and the severity and she topped out all categories, yay!

WHY can't she have both, WHY??? Why can't she stay quiet until 7 AND have a dry butt? She can stop herself from pee-ing but not from calling out at 5 am progressively louder and more agitated until she is having a full blown meltdown and we haven't even started the day yet. WHY?

The good news is, Genea has not wet the bed or used a pull up since Friday! Woo Hoo- take your prizes where you can get 'em!

She will get it together, I know this. It won't take long and she will be just fine. I just hate to see her regress like this. It takes her 3 times the energy as other kids, every little step is a colossal battle for her. She can't take on something as big as staying dry all night and not let a few things out in between, it is just so hard for her. I wish it wasn't.

Really.

A dry night again.
Seriously.

(is it awful that I am thinking what else can I attack with this momentum?)
(well so be it lol)