thanks giving
So, truly and honesty, I am grateful for my little family. They make me crazy, I threaten to send the babies to the gypsies and the husband to the chicken house, but I wouldn't dare trade them.
My planned and hoped for baby, my Noel, who turned our world on its ear. I'm amazed every day at how much I didn't know before. If I had had my way, I would have had a typically easy to attain pregnancy, followed by a midwife assisted birth, and my completely perfect in every way and above average kid would be amazing and astounding everyone with his perfection.
Instead, I fought long and hard, I battled stupid doctors and gave myself hormone injections. I got into fights with my husband about how far to go with treatments, I worried about the monetary cost and the toll the road we were on was taking on our marriage. I had miscarriages, I had chemical pregnancies, I had many, many failed cycles. Then I got pregnant, and for the first several months, it was just like I expected. I was really, really good at being pregnant, and I as enjoying every second of it.
And then I had a prolonged relationship with the completely non-crunchy perinatologist. And I got booted from the birth center. And I got the diagnosis of Down syndrome. And my supposed to be perfect everything came crashing down around my feet. And I had to have a c-section. And I was afraid, and not having a good time, and it wasn't just like I expected. (as an aside, though, our wedding had to be completely replanned at the very last minute and there was that infertility thing, and you know? I should have known things change.. but.)
But then Noel was born, and I found out that what you expect and what you get aren't always the same thing, but good god, sometimes it's so much better.
I am thankful for Noel, not only because he was so hard to get- but because if he had been a typical baby, I would have been an ignorant insufferable bitch, I think. Not directly because of him having DS, either, but because I wouldn't have had all my plans undone. I would have never understood how things can change without your approval, so quickly, so totally.
After all that, I was feeling pretty good about myself, that I could be prepared for the unexpected and roll with it, you know?
But one day, we got rear ended, and I felt funny in a 'not like a car accident' way. Not that I could actually be pregnant, not with the history of Noel's beginnings in a petri dish. Of course, I was. Darrah's entire existence has been like that; surprise!
But not like Noel's surprises, more in an absurd way than anything else.
Surprise! You're pregnant! (not possible)
Surprise! She's over eight pounds! (I'm not even 5' tall)
Surprise! She's standing! (at 7.5 months?)
Surprise! She's got eight teeth! (all at once, too)
Her surprises are more like we notice the thing, shrug our shoulders, and say, "of course. it's not normal or typical or expected, but it's Darrah. Of course." And she just does things... she just does. She's pulling herself up to a stand and cruising on some things. That's my girl, doing.
She's practicing with her superior pincer grasp.
She's going to break her father's heart.
I am so very grateful for my husband, even though he truly does make me want to stab him in the eye with a spoon. I cannot think of another person I would dare go through this whole crazy rollercoaster with, not anyone in the world. We argue and stomp around occasionally, but when it comes down to it, I think we're good. I remember seeing the increased divorce rates for people who go through infertility, and then the increased divorce rates for couples with children who have special needs, and it just seems like sometimes we're really on the short end of that stick. We're still married, and still plugging along at it. We're probably both too stubborn to ever bother getting divorced, anyhow.
So.
For my firstborn, who impresses me all the time with his accomplishments and the work that goes into them, and my second born, who doesn't have to try nearly as hard, but impresses me with the ease in which she does them. For my husband who shakes his head and lets me be the mayor of crazytown, and our little house that needs all kinds of old-house work. For the chickens, because who saw that coming? For the dog we have and the dog we lost, and the tiny little pond in the backyard and the four fish in it. For the relatives that love us, even though we roll our eyes at them. For our friends and our neighbors.
I am grateful. Happy Thanksgiving, and may all the side dishes be delicious.
Thanks, Felicity!
Looks like Australia didn't want to be the bad guy, after all.
I mean, on the one hand, I can understand why it's a blanket rule- if you have socialized medicine, the cost of it is a genuine concern. Sometimes I think the cost of things shouldn't be measured in dollars. Which is lucky, because apparently we're all in for a bumpy ride around the checkbook area, right?
Only, I haven't written a check in nineteen gazillion years. But I have one, and there isn't much actual cash behind it, anyhow.
Hmm. Ramble much? Here's the Australia story:
Dr doesn't get the boot from AU
watch this.
My mother in law sent me this link, and she's a pretty good judge of worthwhile stuff on the internet. It's no
spaghetti cat, but it won't turn you stupid, either.
Thw Wisdom Project
success
Operation Rooster went off without a hitch. We arrived at the chicken swap and as soon as I put Pixie's crate down (I mean, as soon as my husband put it down. You think I'd be carrying a dog crate full of rooster with Darrah in my back carrier? Right) we had a lady and her husband and their cutie little three-ish girl standing there, all interested like in him. Pixie, not my husband. Or Noel, for that matter.
The lady asked me how much I wanted for him, and I told her truthfully- as long as he isn't in my backyard, and preferably not dinner, I didn't care. She gave me five bucks. I was happy. Pixie is going to be the rooster for a SEVENTEEN hen, free ranging flock. I'd say that's a decent rooster life, don't you think?
And then we got around to filling up the crate all over again, with two Key West hens. They're within weeks of laying, so we should have eggs sooner than we expected with the original pullets.
Because we were in Gainesville, we had to stop at
Burrito Brothers, and it was game day (of course). Can I tell you what kind of looks you get from the drunk and/or stoned college kids with two hens in the front seat and two carseats in the back? It was awesome.
Now we've got two hens in quarantine, and I'm at the absolute limit of how many hens will fit in my little backyard. Eggs are coming soon, though. Yay!
Crisis Averted!
I know everyone was concerned about my frostbitten toes and whatnot, but thankfully, last night's low was nowhere near 30. Or 40, for that matter. At eight this morning, it's a balmy 60 degrees... but we've got another cold front rolling in. Low to mid 40's tomorrow morning- and I can't just cancel our weekend because I need a heat lamp. We're driving north tomorrow to rehome Mr Pixie, the unfortunately named rooster.
But!
As a consolation prize, I may be coming home with two Key West chickens, so I am very excited. I found a photo, and normally I'm not a big fan of HDR photography, but I do really like this shot of the chicken. You can see how they're pretty leggy birds. Scrappy little buggers.
Some guy who wrote a photography book but more importantly, took a picture of a chicken in Key West.As an aside, not too far from where the photo was taken there's an awesome French bakery where you can get a croissant to die for.
I'm really a good mom.
But I don't care, I'm calling to cancel Noel's PT today.
1) It's freaking COLD. I don't feel like finding all the assorted and sundry bits and pieces to bundle two kids for 40 degree weather. I barely know where two pairs of socks are, let alone long pants and sweaters and long sleeved shirts. We live in FLORIDA for fuck's sake. There's a reason- we don't normally see cold-cold like this until January.
2)I promised a friend of ours that I would give her a hand. She just moved into her first house, practically in our backyard, and needs me to give her a hand listing her extra crap on craigslist. I'll be taking both munchkins along, which should be lots of entertainment... and I try to limit my days to
3)It's also playgroup day. Our Thursdays are always busy- we go from therapy to playgroup with the most brief stop in between for lunch. Nothing new in running ragged on Thursdays, but there's no speech today, as our therapist is in Vegas, baby. So we would go from PT to home for lunch to playgroup to friend's house to daddy's home to dinner. Do you see a nap in there? No? Me, either.
It's cold. I'm not leaving this house until the sun comes out and it gets above 50. (and yep, I was born here. I'm not a northern transplant, I'm a native- a rarity, and I'm cold. Sue me.)
uh oh
I think one of my girl chicks is really a boy chick.
It's not definite, but there are some things that make me wonder. I'm reserving my final opinion until I can get somebody who knows more than me to take a look, but we can't have a roo.
If I'm right, we'll have to rehome the little guy, and I'd like to send him somewhere that he can live out his chicken life getting some chicken tail and eating bugs, but I know most roosters go to the freezer farm.
Hmm.
New information indicates that we have two hens and a rooster. Damn.
brag, brag, brag...
I know. Noel's PT eval; well, I didn't actually hear the result. Our therapist planned on sitting down with the actual paper after we left. I know for a fact that he's making progress, but I also know that he is most significantly delayed with gross motor. I know. I just don't really care, much. He'll walk, sometime. When he's ready.
But our speech therapist went ahead and checked off all the little boxes while we were there today, and our latest language evaluation said this:
Expressive language, 18-24 months
Receptive language, 24 months with scattered skills to 30 months.
Wouldn't you know it? He's 31 months old. That's not so bad, if you ask me. It's certainly not the life of dismal intelligence I thought we were subject to when we got our diagnosis. Not that it really matters, because he's my boy, and I love him anyway. It's just one more way, though, that we were SO wrong.
Hack, revisited
So, I got a print order from my last portrait client. I did a final proof of the files and sent it to the company I use for printing. From them the prints go directly to the client. I got an email yesterday morning: "The black and white print looks alright, but the color ones are way too dark. They don't look anything like what we saw on screen" (I use an online gallery system)
Now I'm in the process of having a reprint- awesome guarantee with the printer I use, so it's not a huge big deal, but still. I don't like having things go wrong. I don't like that the end product didn't look exactly as it should have.
And I especially don't like that it was my fault. Fixable, of course, but still it was a problem on my end. Blech.
confident
I put off a pretty solid vibe, I think. If I'm not feeling totally confident that I can do something, I generally fake it until I do (and as an aside, if I don't know the answer to something, I will sometimes guess, and if you sound like you know, people believe you).
Anyway.
There are a lot of "photographers" in my area. The vast majority of them are totally worthy of the air quotes I'd use if I was talking to you face to face- "photographers"= some yahoo that got a nice dSLR and a scrap of muslin and now they're using their free craigslist ad and a super cheap website to hawk their services. Cheap.
Especially when you're talking about kid photography, and especially around the holidays.
Now, I've had actual portrait experience. From whiz-bang get'em in, get'em out huge numbers of kiddie shots before naptime to crappy studio work to much better studio work. I've done dogs and high school seniors with horses and newborns and pregnant chicks and eighteen month old twins (this was REALLY hard) and twenty person families.
I have done more critiqued black and white film art classes than I can count. I've processed my own film and developed my own negatives from the time I was 13. The kid work I've done started before I was pregnant with my own kid, although my own kids are what I use to practice some things these days- they weren't the impetus to 'be a photographer', with the flex schedule and the (what seems like) easy work.
There are some photographers in my area that do absolutely gorgeous work. They make me a little nervous. Not much, though, because there's always going to be someone better than you (me) at something- competition is usually a good thing.
But right now? I feel like a hack. I have business cards, and I'm telling people I've started freelancing again. Yesterday I volunteered for a young moms childbirth class to donate a newborn shoot (it's a prize, used to bribe the girls into staying for the whole class) and that doesn't bother me- once I get a commission, I know how to be a professional. I worry that people will assume that I'm one of the ones that's just trying to make a few bucks. I hope that my website looks polished enough that it's clear I'm not just starting. I hope that my portfolio doesn't scream 'part-time mommy shooter'. Because I'm not swimming in clients at the moment, I start second guessing myself, and I worry that I'm not good enough. My husband has the 'real' job, and while we budgeted for our bills and mortgage payments without the monthly bonus that he usually gets, the bonus is looking a little shaky lately. This economy is really starting to hurt. It would be really nice if I could pull in a couple extra dollars, for serious.
I have one family's Christmas card portrait session coming up, an engagement session after that, and in December I have a large family portrait session. It would be nice if I had more than the three in two months... but I'm glad to at least have that.
I want to find a way to market myself that isn't expensive, but doesn't put me in the same pile as the, ah, less serious shooters. So I can work on that, and doing something is better than worrying about it. The more pricey things will have to wait- stuff like joining
PPA and
SPKA or pulling ads in the local parenting glossy free mag I see laying around all over the place.
In the meantime, today I'm taking the kids to a downtown fresh market and on Sunday we start our CSA pickups. That's more fun than thinking about finances, anyhow.
Hell yeah, we did.
I tried to stay awake longer, I really did. We made brownies and popcorn and I made dinner in the crockpot so I could sit in front of the television and watch the polls close. And I made it in the living room until about 10, and moved to the bedroom where I dozed, missing chunks of electoral points, but woke up to see in blazing letters across the bottom of the screen- CNN projection: Barack Obama.
And then our neighborhood started shooting off fireworks. People were in the alley behind our house, shouting to the world that 'now, there ain't nuthin' we can't do'.
I worried about the chickens, and thought, man, those fireworks sound bigger than what got dragged out for New Year's Eve or the 4th. The husband was a little annoyed, because- well- it was late, and we were tired. And we live in a loud neighborhood (come on, really? y'all haven't figured that out yet? On a major busy street, old house, big city... we live in a section of town that is partially
gentrified, partially
section 8 and that's ok with us)
So anyhow, it got loud. I fell asleep anyway. I woke up to the actual numbers... Florida went blue! BLUE! And three states still are undetermined. And the last photo shoot I did has a print order.
All is looking up, you know?
And I thought everybody already voted
Seriously, the lines have been outrageously long here for early voting. Husband just texted me from our polling place, and four minutes after it opened, the line was halfway around the block.
It's just mindboggling, the turnout, or at least how it looks from here. I've been to three different early voting places in the last week, and at every one, there was a wait of at least 45 minutes.
And maybe things are different around here, but this time, it's not a choice between the better of two evils- the vast majority of people I've talked to are genuinely excited. Then again, most of the people I'm talking to are Obama supporters, so that probably has something to do with it.
I just hope that we can get out of today and into a new presidency, one that isn't hallmarked by fear and hate and intolerance. Wouldn't it be nice?
