Month: August 2011

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Children in flight

So this past weekend I shocked my sister M and her fiance C by showing up on their doorstep in Colorado. Surprise! My youngest sister A threw them a joint wedding shower on Saturday (what they call a “jack and jill party”), so I wanted to be there for the festivities. As such, I bid R and sweet baby D a fond farewell, hopped on a plane Friday night, spent a great weekend with my sisters and their significant others out west, and flew back Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately I didn’t take a camera, so I’ll have to get M to send me some of the pictures she took at the par-tay. We are a cute trio of sisters.

Anyhoo… I learned that since becoming a mom, children on planes don’t really bother me anymore. Big deal, SM, that’s boring, who cares? No, really – being confined in a flying metal pencil with children, plural, does not make me want to huff and pout and glare anymore. Because I totally used to be one of those people who saw a baby on a plane and instantly wanted to turn around and de-board. For how was I possibly going to endure an entire flight with a screaming, annoying kid? I wasn’t going to be able to sleep, or read, or anything. I was going to have to listen to the inconsolable obnoxiousness and hope I didn’t strain my eyeballs from rolling them so hard the whole time. Har.

So you can imagine my attitudinal surprise when, on my flight out Friday night, I was surrounded by 6 children in the rows immediately in front of and behind me, and I actually found them enjoyable. Gasp! I know, crazy, right? (i just realized i’m using a lot of italics in this post, but trust me, the emphasis is warranted) There was an adorable 1 year old boy right behind me who was having a great time smiling at and generally entertaining the passengers near him. I chatted with his parents a bit since that was his first flight, D’s first flight is coming up in a few weeks on the exact same route as that one on which we were flying, and this boy was behaving wonderfully. There were 2 kids directly in front of me, maybe 10 and 7, somewhere around there. Then there were 3 boys 2 rows behind me and across the aisle, ages I would guess of 5, 3, and a newborn. That whole family of 5 sat together in the 3 seats on that side, so it was a full house back there. The baby cried a couple times, no big deal. What I did find odd, though, was upon our descent into Denver, the oldest of the 3 boys started screaming wildly, “I’m falling! I’m falling!” I thought hmm, that’s a little strange, for the parents weren’t really doing a whole lot to comfort or quiet him. The middle boy even said, “Mason, it’s ok, you’re not falling.” So although I found it weird, it didn’t cause me to want to aim spit wads at the kid like it would have a year ago.

There was a girl sitting in the middle seat of the row in front of that family, who I did see turn around and give a tongue click and a side-eye at one point, but I think one of the boys was repeatedly kicking her chair. Ok, that’s a little different. And the mom did apologize, saying her husband was trying to find the boy’s pacifier to calm him down. She (the tongue-clicker) seemed fine from that point on after the apology. I still couldn’t help but think, oh honey, just you wait until you have little ones of your own. It’s soo different.

This one did make me give a mom a second look, though. On my flight home Sunday, I was seated in the midst of another family of 5. Mom and the 2 older kids, a girl maybe 12ish and a boy maybe 8ish, were seated across the aisle from me, and Dad and the youngest kid, a boy maybe 4ish, were seated center and window on my side. This was all fine, but at one point the girl dropped the portable dvd player, and the mom goes, “Oh way to go, Einstein!” Whaaat? Was that really necessary? Now if she’d said it as a big joke and they all started laughing, like that was a family catch phrase or something, that’d be one thing. But she was serious. Like ugh, why are you so stupid? The girl looked kind of degraded after the comment, and I thought man, that was a little harsh. The dvd player wasn’t broken, this was no major disaster. Did you really need to make your daughter feel like an idiot? I don’t know – I just seem to view everyday things so differently now, since I always relate them to D and how I’d feel or what I’d do if she were involved. And hopefully I wouldn’t see the need to make her feel like junk over something so trivial. Or ever.

But back to the flight out, I was trying to take note of the parents behind me on that one, to see how they were occupying their little guy. He gave a couple little shouts and some tongue-wagging, but he was just having fun, not crying. I noticed he was playing with an assortment of toy balls in what looked like a small tennis ball tube, which is something I think D would like too. Anyone out there have any suggestions for a successful 2.5 hour flight with a 1 year old? I must admit, it’s kind of making me nervous.

 

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Things they don’t tell you about pregnancy – #9

All of you who are now or have ever been pregnant are already well aware of the myriad aches and pains that come with the territory of a fairly rapidly expanding body. So this one will come as no surprise – things hurt. And sometimes things that you didn’t even know could hurt (or even know you had!) hurt.

One of the pains that I remember most distinctly was sacroiliac pain. What the what? Yes, sacroiliac pain. Mine manifested itself as a lot of lower back/butt/hips area pain. Not always a sharp, shooting pain like with a pinched nerve (sometimes i did feel that kind of pain but not as a rule), but an overall uncomfortable soreness in that general area. Being the self-diagnosing wonder that I am, I ruled out sciatica, which can also become an ailment during the latter months of pregnancy. For I didn’t have that tell-tale pain and/or numbness radiating down the backs of my legs that is associated with the sciatic nerve being pinched.

My pain was much more a feeling of man, something is out of whack back there, not ow, my leg hurts. So after some tooling around on the interwebz I figured it was sacroiliac pain. You have 2 sacroiliac joints – 1 on either side of your spine where it joins your pelvis in your lower back. As your pregnancy progresses and your body gets ready for delivery (read – wider and wider!), your pelvic ligaments begin to loosen as well in anticipation of the widening of the birth canal for baby to escape. This loosening of the ligaments in turn causes a concurrent “loosening” of your joints, if you will. So specifically with the sacroiliac joints, as they move out of their regular position, you may very well feel this pain. Delicious, isn’t it?

I think my pain became really noticeable toward the end of the second trimester, when my belly started pulling its weight, literally. It was weird too, because up until that point I honestly hadn’t had too much discomfort. But I started noticing more pain in my butt and hips during weight-bearing activities like standing and walking, obviously, but also during ones you never give much thought to until you’re the size of a small VW, like rolling over in bed. Getting out of bed became painful for that area too. I did ask my doctor about it during one of my visits and she agreed that I was very likely experiencing sacroiliac pain, and not sciatica. For in actuality, true sciatica is fairly rare for women who are otherwise having a generally healthy, problem-free pregnancy.

So if your burgeoning babe is becoming a pain in your pregnant butt in the most literal sense of the phrase, check it out or ask your doc. There’s a very good chance that you, too, may be enjoying some delightful misalignment of your sacroiliac joints. It gets more fun by the day, doesn’t it?

 

** Side note – it’s not only your pelvic ligaments and joints that loosen during pregnancy, they all do. So be careful! If you find yourself twisting your ankles or tripping more often than usual, you’re not just getting super clumsy. You’re getting ready to have a baby!

 

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Good deed?

Yesterday morning on my way to work I gave a homeless man some money. It was the first time I’d actually done so, even though I’ve seen numerous homeless people with signs asking for help over the years. And many of them I’ve seen on the same corner on which this man was standing with his small hand-written sign that read “HOMELESS PLEASE HELP GOD BLESS”.

Was I scammed? Was he really not homeless and just trying to get some extra money? Was he some sort of addict and turned right around to use my money to buy drugs or alcohol instead of a meal or other necessity? I don’t know. But what I do know is that every time I see a homeless person holding a sign asking for help and I drive right by, pretending I don’t see him to avoid actually catching his eye, I feel ashamed. For what if he really is homeless? What if he really does need help and will use whatever money he gets to find a meal or save enough for a shirt or a shower? What if he really has exhausted every other avenue and has finally been reduced to the humiliation of standing on a street corner with a small, unassuming sign, putting himself at the mercy of total strangers to spare some change or even a dollar? If those “what ifs” are true, then who am I to speed right past him, not even acknowledging that another human needs help, and deem him unworthy of my assistance?

So today I finally gave. Do I want a gold star for my generosity? No, I’m just telling an anecdote. I had seen this particular man once before, and I just felt like helping. I wanted to give him $5, but all I had was a $10 this morning, so I guess today was his lucky day.

And it may have really been his lucky day if he was, in fact, just out there scamming people and already had a boat-load of money and didn’t actually need to be standing there. He might have yelled “Sucker!” as I rolled up my window and drove away. But all I heard was his quiet, “Thank you,” and this time I wasn’t ashamed.

 

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Last of his tribe

Things like this amaze and fascinate me. The fact that there are still uncontacted tribes in the jungles and forests of the world. That there are still indigenous peoples living among us, on a planet that we generally think of as fully civilized. How awesome is that?

The “Last of his Tribe”

I can’t even imagine this man’s life. A single, solitary soul in his native jungle land, the lone survivor of his entire people. Fending off cattle ranchers that would gladly hunt him down, trying to grow food for subsistence while having to harvest it undercover so as not to be poached like the rest of his tribe. Having no one with whom to communicate, as the people documenting and trying to preserve his existence have no idea whatsoever of the language he speaks. And not even knowing that some of those strangers following him through the land are really trying to protect him, not kill him.

Could I survive as he does? Probably not. How does he do it? How does he find the strength to keep on in the face of the constant reminder that everyone he has ever known and loved is gone and he will never again find anyone like him? I don’t know that I could. Or does he even know that? Does he know that there is no one else like him out there? Or are there really more and we are the clueless ones? Maybe he’s a lot more cunning than we assume.

I would love to catch even a tiny first-hand glimpse into worlds like these. Worlds so entirely different from the one I’ve always known. Worlds so unique and astonishing that we will never be able to fully appreciate them from the comfort of our 4-walled, heated and air conditioned, fully wireless living rooms. Worlds that might make us really appreciate all that we do have and admire and respect those that have none of it yet are equally happy and well-off if not more so than we are. Worlds that force us to realize we aren’t the only ones living here, so stop trashing the place.

There’s much to learn from the Last Man. I hope we can.

 

p.s. another one of our friends had her baby boy early this morning! congratulations T, with baby S!!!

 

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August is a popular month

Happy birthday, R!! This has been an amazing past year. We became parents for the first time 8 days before your last birthday, and things have only gotten better since. Watching you with D fills my heart so much it practically explodes. You are, without a doubt, the most wonderful father she could ever have gotten.

And you’ve been my best friend for a decade now. A decade? Seriously?? Wow. I am so lucky. Truly. And I can’t wait for decade upon decade upon decades more with you.

To the man who refused to listen to Kid Rock’s “All Summer Long” (one of my faves!) until he heard the line “We were smoking funny things,” I love you.

 

 

 

p.s. sorry to make you share your post, r, but i want to jot down my run stats from last night so i don’t forget them. i ran 3.66 miles in 32:49, for a 8:57 pace. it was the first run during which i had to stop, due to a stitch in my side that turned into a scalpel when i could neither breathe nor stretch nor massage it out. so as much as i hated to i took about a minute to try to get rid of the pain, failed to do so, then just started up again. it finally subsided after about the first mile. then at one point i thought i was going to poop my pants, but fortunately that didn’t occur. it did feel good to get the legs pumping again.

 

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Appalling

Are you kidding me? This shit still happens? Am I just utterly naive to think racially motivated killings were a thing of the past, or are we experiencing a whole new and disturbing era of racial unrest? Last week we had the mobs of black teens and young adults beating white fair goers outside the WI State Fairgrounds, London has been enduring clashes between rioters and police in one of its predominantly Afro-Caribbean suburbs, and now this? It’s sickening, saddening, and worst of all, I don’t see how it’s going to be fixed. Racism is such a sensitive and heated issue, and unfortunately stories like this one prove that it apparently is still alive and festering.

Warning – this video contains some gruesome footage that might be disturbing to some.

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Things they don’t tell you about pregnancy – #8

This next one I had completely forgotten about until the other day. Why I suddenly remembered it, I have no idea, but it’s a good one.

So by the end of the second trimester I had finally begun showing. I know, I know – what, SM? Shut your mouth, that’s hardly fair. But it’s true.

I remember a day at work when I was almost 6 months pregnant, and whoever I was talking to had no idea that I was even expecting. Hey, I’m tall – almost 6′ – there’s plenty of room for things to spread out before popping horizontally. Like to my ass.

But anyway. Around that time my stomach started to itch like crazy. And I mean iiiitch. It was like I constantly had itching powder in my shirts, and it was annoying as hell.

At a Memorial Day party last year I asked one of my friends who had a baby exactly 1 year before I had D if that was normal and she was like oh yeah, I forgot to tell you about that. It’s totally normal. All right, it may be uncomfortable and a little embarrassing walking around scratching my belly all the time like it’s my beer gut and I’m just wasting time til the next possum hunt with Jethro, but at least it’s not just me.

And when you think about it, it makes total sense. Your skin is being stretched further and further past normal to contain the growing babe, so that’s bound to be somewhat irritating. Yet this was another one of those simple and most logical of facts that totally escaped me until it actually happened.

I would look at my stomach sometimes after a particularly itchy session and could see the reddish/purple streaks where I had been clawing myself. I always put lotion on my stomach after my showers while I was pregnant, which did temporarily help soothe the itching, but in order for it to have masked it completely I think I would have had to bathe in the stuff twice daily. Sorry, didn’t have time for that. And have you ever tried to get lotion out of your hair? Gross.

So there you have it. Those of you in the later stages of pregnancy are probably reading this right now nodding and scratching without even knowing it. Those of you still in the beginning, just wait. You’ll soon resemble a cat at a scratching post. Except you’re both the cat and the post. Fun, fun!

 

p.s. one of our friends had her baby boy this past saturday! congratulations, K with baby O!!