I feel like I should be writing.
I guess that is what thirty days of writing leads to – this habit that this is a space I should be filling, time I should be spending and maybe a bit more often than I have been to date.

We’ll see.

**

Last night a friend of mine came over for dinner. We sat down and our daughters played and she and I caught up on life and we talked about my tendency to not speak up, my tendency to stuff emotions rather than talk about them. The topic originated from the subject of passive aggressive Facebook status messages (Note: Don’t do that). I am still not entirely that great at saying what I’m thinking but if I have something to say, I would rather say it then post it on Facebook. If I believe it will be productive, I am really making an effort to “put it out there”.

No, I wasn’t always that way. To a great degree, I wasn’t. I hate conflict. I hate making waves.

But, chattering around on Facebook passive aggressively never makes me think, “WHOA, that person has really got their stuff together.”

Quite the contrary.

My point is. Well. I don’t know. Just… don’t do that. If you won’t, I won’t.

**

Gymnastics meets start today and this will be the first with The Princess at a higher level than she’s been. I don’t know how different the process or the judging will be, but I hope that she still has a good time. I hope that I can ignore the fact that her floor routine music is an instrumental version of “Pumped Up Kicks.”

**

I have a million television channels. Why isn’t anything ever on? It is my plan to get rid of cable someday soon and it’s a huge leap because I’m afraid I’ll miss it until I remember that I flipped through the guide three times before settling on an edited-for-television version of a movie that I already own on DVD. Why do I have cable again? (Why do I pay what I pay for cable again?)

**

Thank god it’s December

**

This has been a post. A pointless one. I just… couldn’t not write.

I may take a day off at some point, you know. It could happen. I do what I want.

The outrage has started already. Every year as Thanksgiving draws closer and talks of Black Friday deals begin, so does the criticism of Black Friday. Consumerism, selfish, greedy, blah blah blah. Same thing every year.

The thing is I don’t think Black Friday is awful – and in fact for the past several years, I’ve gone out the Friday after Thanksgiving to shop with my mom. It’s almost tradition.

I’m not gonna camp outside Best Buy for five days. Nor am I going to wake up at 3 a.m. to go ANYWHERE. But, you know, if I wake up at a decent time and venture out to the mall, well… I don’t mind the crowds. And I kind of enjoy the people watching. I never go with the NEED to buy anything, but if there happens to be a decent deal that I don’t have to trample anyone in order to get, well, who doesn’t like a deal? Often times, I come home after a few hours out with maybe one or two purchases crossed off my shopping list and a few interesting stories.

I’ve actually never encountered the kind of gruesome crowd that makes people cringe when they think of shopping on Black Friday. That could be because I’m not “busting any doors”, but what I’ve always found is that people are light hearted, helpful and chatty – all good things because the lines are a the worst part of it all.

With the plan to do a more low key holiday this year, I wouldn’t mind if I found some great deal on Friday – but frankly, I haven’t decided if I’ll even venture out. My daughters will be with their dad, so it’s not like there’s much else going on demanding my attention other than being a greedy selfish consumerist pig.

Besides, Pumpkin wants a Barbie Potty Training dog and so help me, if I can get away with not paying full price for that I’d sure like to.

Last night, The Princess cut out pieces of paper in the shape of tickets with one side that read “Polar Express”. She made hot cocoa and a big bowl of popcorn. She instructed me and her sister to “Wear your slippers. Meet in the car.” In the car, we drank our lukewarm cocoa, ate some popcorn and sat in the garage chatting and giggling until The Princess said, “Okay, now let’s go back in the house and watch the movie.” {Apparently, when she saw this described as Pinterest, it was as an activity to do closer to Christmas, usually initiated by a parent and involved driving around to see Christmas lights}

She set up The Polar Express on the DVD player and the three of us curled up together on the couch to watch the movie.

The whole thing – from the tickets to her putting on the movie was a lovely and delightful surprise out of nowhere that touched my heart and made me think so many times, “I am so unbelievably lucky.”

(We’ll disregard the part where she turned off all the lights and I nearly fell asleep halfway through the movie. It was a long weekend. I was tired.)

I love this about her.

I love this kind of thing in general.

Gestures are an amazing thing. It cost her nothing but time, and the three of us had a good night chilling out on the couch together, eating popcorn and telling the dog to not bite us. I am a fan of gestures, and like to think I am a somewhat thoughtful person, and you know what? It had never occurred to me. Sure, occasionally, I make a half-hearted attempt to wrangle the girls to watch a movie. Sometimes I’m even 50% successful, getting the attention of one child but not both.

Somehow The Princess made it fun and inviting and it was a good time and after the weekend we had, it was a breath of fresh air to just be, to laugh and to drink cocoa while watching a movie.

We’d spent the day together yesterday. With an unseasonably warm fall day, we took the dog for a walk (I had the added pleasure of carrying 50 pounds of Pumpkin on my back because her legs were too tired and or she couldn’t want to didn’t want to keep up – whatever, more exercise for me!). We ate leftover ropa vieja for lunch. We went to the hospital and spent the first 30 minutes in the cafeteria with my aunt because my grandfather was in physical therapy (“He flashes everyone when he does PT,” my aunt said. “No one wants to see his junk. Let’s go wait in the cafeteria.”). Thirty minutes in the cafeteria with my aunt and the girls, the girls happily snacking on hospital junk food (because why should food in a hospital be good for you?) until we could visit my grandpa. We then spent a bit of time visiting with my grandfather (he’s quite tired, the strength and sensation in his left side has quite a ways to go for recovery but his mental facilities are pretty much on point for him – a relief, for sure). Then to the park to further take advantage of the weather.

So, for The Princess to plan this movie event was quite possibly the perfect end to this day. This day of hanging out, being together, being a family – and we ended on a good note.

I’m not surprised she got the idea from Pinterest –  that seems to be where she gets all of her ideas lately, including the Christmas gifts she plans on making this year and can I please buy x, y and z and let her do chores to make extra money and “HEY MOM GUESS WHAT I SAW ON PINTEREST?”), and I love that she tweaked it to make it work somehow for our family. But I love that she took the time.

I said yesterday, I feel like I’m supposed to be learning something from all of this stuff lately. I don’t know what it is, exactly. What I do know that in the face of my grandfather’s medical emergency, I was able to somehow manage to add some peace to my weekend in the form of time with people I adore and surely that’s something.

There are some moments you don’t forget – and for me I vividly remember The Princess as a toddler, elevated fever. I remember getting ready to lower her into a bath to cool her down. And then I remember her face just looking…funny, unresponsive. And then she began seizing.

I had never seen a seizure before and I had no idea initially what was going on. I remember we carried her downstairs into the living room, and called 911.

I had no idea a seizure could last so long.

Princess’s dad was panicking and I remember his saying something worst-case-scenario-ish while I was talking to the 911 dispatcher who basically told him that he was going to need to stop talking.

They sent an ambulance. I remember putting her in her huge carseat and then putting the carseat in the ambulance. I sat up front while the EMT drove and one sat in the back with my daughter trying to make the seizure stop.

They gave her Versed.

She threw up.

And still the seizure went on.

I had no idea they could last that long.

We finally made it to the hospital.

I don’t remember when the seizure stopped, only that it finally did and that the Versed made her grind her teeth together so horribly – this awful noise coming from my little girl, the scraping together of teeth.

I remember being discharged to go home and I remember how little sleep I got that night, checking on my baby in her crib, making sure she was sleeping, making sure she wasn’t running a temperature, making sure she wasn’t having another seizure.

The doctor told us then, “She’ll never remember this, but you’ll probably never forget it.”

And so tonight… She’s ten now. A temperature of 103.8 blazing through her body. We’d been in the grocery store – she didn’t even ask for anything. I got one of those mammoth carts with the bench in the back for children to ride along. She barely moved from the seat. Usually she’s a “helpful” shopper, with suggestions of things we can make, things we should buy, things we need. Tonight, she was silent and when we got to the checkout, she didn’t even try to guess the final dollar amount – our bizarre game of The Price is Right that she always wins somehow, sometimes guessing within the dollar.

We got home and she immediately curled on the couch. Pumpkin away at a birthday party, the house was fairly silent, just me and my oldest. I put away groceries as she burrowed under a blanket on the sofa. She seemed sleepy. “Why don’t you go ahead and go to bed?” I said. “Here, let’s take your temperature first.”

She slid the digital thermometer under her tongue and we waited and when it was done, the read out of 103.8 caught me off guard. No wonder she’d been so listless. No wonder she didn’t even want to watch television. No wonder she didn’t beg for random junky things at the store.

Fevers that high still scare me. That’s too high. I still see my baby having a seizure when I see numbers like that.

A phone call to her doctor at home with a breath of gratitude that we have the kind of doctor that can be called at home. I met this woman, the doctor that is now the whole family’s doctor, when The Princess was one day old. I liked her so much, I switched practices so she’d be my doctor as well. And then I liked her so much she was the one to deliver Pumpkin, instead of some OB-GYN who could never learn my name (like when The Princess was born).

“There’s a nasty virus going around,” said the doctor. “High fevers are very much a part of it. In some cases, I’ve seen it last a week.”

Today was day four here, so I guess I should be relieved, glad that we may be on the downhill slope of this.

She advised me to alternate the Tylenol and ibuprofen – and I’ve been relieved that the Tylenol nudged the fever down enough that I can comfortably send my daughter to her room to sleep.  Turning down my offers of 7Up or watching shows on Food Network, The Princess was merely waiting until I was satisfied that her temperature had dropped enough that I would let her go to bed.

I sent her upstairs moments ago, and I anticipate that I will be checking in on her as the night goes on just like I did that night when she was much younger, hoping that whatever this virus is, it works its way through her system soon so my girl can feel like herself again and I can put away that memory for another while.

I opened up this page to write a new post. I typed some words. I deleted some words.

I wanted to share. I didn’t want to share.

That’s life these days – there are details that spin through my head – things I’m learning and adjusting to and it’s a different sort of life and it’s okay. And I’m doing it. I’m getting by. The kids are doing well. And who knows, things may snap into place as new routines are created. Sometimes I doubt my ability to carry me and the girls through – but I keep putting one foot in front of the other and things keep getting done and we get through each day no worse for the wear. I may wonder if I am able to do it, but here I am, doing it.

Not that any of it’s easy. Surely there are things I could do better (I am slowly improving with respect to my grocery shopping skills, but OH I HATE IT SO MUCH).

But for the days that are tough, we are really doing okay.  Me and my kids, we’re okay.

I type that, and I read the words over again.

Are we really okay? I ask myself.

Yes. Yes, I think we are okay.

I think these moments of doubt are natural and if they’re not, if other people don’t question their own strength, if they don’t question their abilities, if they’re not stressing about how they will accomplish everything, well… maybe something’s wrong with them. Maybe I’m the one who has it right.

—

The above photo was taken at a cocktail party I shot last week. Those are not my drinks. Nor did I have to wash those dishes. Thank god.