I will always love you
I love you so much
I love you so much I can’t believe how much I love you
I love you so much I will never forgive you
Even if you hit me
I will never forgive you
I love you sooooo much

I can’t figure out if he means, I will never forget you, or if he thinks forgive means the opposite of what it means. Either way, it’s quite precious.

On a related note, the 18mo has just gone to sleep for the second night in her toddler bed. With little to no help from me, and her sweet older brother providing the soundtrack. We ax the crib early around here, because 2 of my 3 have been extraordinarily talented climbers at a very early age. And the 3rd makes up for lost time now on the furniture and the tree in our front yard.

Mama, did you know Santa was born in Guatemala? Just like me! He lived there before his mama came to pick him up. And then she did, and he lives at the North Pole now.

In fact, I got to visit Santa at the North Pole before you came to pick me up. [Ed. note: Plausible, since he was born in July and came home in March....he had to celebrate that first Christmas somehow, right?] I took the Polar Express to the North Pole and then came back to Guatemala. My foster mom went with me.

Merry Christmas!

It’s not a big a problem as it could be, since our back yard is fenced and that’s where the kids play. But I do worry that having these stray dogs there will inspire our dog to try to leave the yard whenever we open the gate.

I’ve contemplated calling animal control about them, but these are wily dogs who only appear when animal control is closed. And I am just tender-hearted enough to dislike the idea of sending them to a kill shelter when they are clearly just worn-out old stray dogs who enjoy the shade in our yard. So mostly, I’m just annoyed by them with no real way to resolve the situation.

Today, we drove up into the drive and the 4yo and I had a discussion that offered some alternative ideas.

Me: I’m so annoyed. Look, those dogs are here again.
4yo: I hate them!
Me: Do they bother you too? [Thinking, I am going to have to do something about this. We can't have the 4yo being scared at his own house.]
4yo: Yes. I don’t like them.
Slight pause.
4yo, with the enthusiasm born of a brilliant idea: Maybe we can have Sally fight them! [Sally is our 14yo, very slow, gentle, and passive dog. No aggressive. Just passive.]
Me: I don’t think that’s a good idea somehow.
4yo: I know! We can have those two dogs go chase a CAT! [With such enthusiasm, again, that it was clear the point was to catch and dismember the cat.]

Let me know if you need a new perspective on your situation. We can rent him out.

Today, the 4yo brought Noah with us on the ride to school. And he was happily chattering away to Noah in the back of the van, when suddenly I caught a snippet and felt compelled to interrupt.

4yo: “And the parents killed people.”

Me: “WHAT???”

4yo: “I said, the parents killed people.”

Me [racing in my head to think, I can't say parents don't kill people, because sometimes they do. But heaven forbid, does he think that's normal? What the hell am I supposed to say??]: “Well, let’s hope not!” [and thinking, that sounded lame.]

4yo: “God is going to kill them.”

Me: “Now, I know that God does not kill people.”

4yo, in his most exasperated tone: “Mom, it’s just a story.”

He then proceeded with several minutes of what God does and doesn’t like. For the record, God likes mommies, daddies, babies, boys named with the 4yo’s name, trees, ladders and houses. God does NOT like older sisters, motorcycles or steps.

You heard it here first.

I love no holiday more than Thanksgiving — a gathering of family and friends, careful preparations and a groaning table.

And I have been thinking about how this feels like a very positive part of my life, this love of food and sharing it with my friends and family. And I notice that the 10yo — honestly — could care less about food. She eats every day, but much more because she is hungry than because she likes food, per se. She’s a fan of Cheetos like any other 10yo, but her food cravings and desires don’t go far beyond that.

There’s a part of me that can read all that and say, OK, probably a healthy thing. Why on earth would you be concerned about a child who eats when she’s hungry?

I’m not really. But I wonder about what created this love of food in me, and I wonder if there’s a way to consciously share that. I enjoy thinking about how to make better tasting, more nutritious meals for my family. And in this day of instant anything, that seems to me like an enormous gift to them.

So I’ve deleted the Yahoo group, and we’re back in business at the old location:
http://groups.google.com/group/East-Nashville

What I learned:

• Google is not a benevolent dictator. It’s a bit of an oblivious bully. That sounds contradictory, but over the 10 days or so I was dealing with this mess, I saw both clueless and churlish behavior on the part of Google’s representatives. Neither impressed me.
• Apparently there’s a decent chunk of the web-going population out there who believes that Google retaliates against its critics, as well. So if I suddenly stop appearing in Google search results, I guess we’ll all know why. I’m not quite that much of a conspiracy theorist, myself.
• More people than I could hope to personally thank helped spread the word about the list situation. My gratitude to you all!

And all that was fine, really — no one likes the last month of pregnancy anyway — until we learned that the double-whammy of showing up more than 3 weeks early and having been exposed to Pitocin during delivery [because my water broke -- they really want the baby out within 12 hours if possible -- so, Pitocin if your contractions aren't moving along fast enough] made her all the more likely to spike a high bilirubin level. Which she did, and then had to spend 24 hours in the phototherapy box, and to date has had at least 6 heel sticks to check her blood level. We’re hoping the last one will be tomorrow morning — and all signs look good on that front.

That just wasn’t enough for us. We like to do things in a big way. So, Friday night, as we were waiting for both our dads to arrive in town, Ashby decided to go and develop a fairly scary allergy to pomegranate seeds.

He’d been wanting to try them again for some time. The 9yo has a friend who brings them to school for lunch fairly often, and we’d just been discussing them at the house — how they were the trendy food, and supposed to be so good for you, and we really needed to try some, etc. Ashby had had some years ago but didn’t quite remember what they were like. So, when he ran by the store recently, he picked some up to try.

All I can say is, thank heavens he didn’t try them one of the two nights he was home alone this week with the 3yo while the baby and I were still at the hospital.

Late Friday afternoon, he sat down and had a few for a snack. Then I had him hold the baby while I was busy with something. I came back in the room a few minutes later, and he mentioned sneezing. Whereupon I snatched the baby out of his hands and said, “I’ve been freaking out about swine flu all week and here YOU are, sneezing on the baby???” So he gets up and says not only that, but now his head feels stuffy and maybe he’ll take a shower. I sent him out of the room with a warning that I was now serious about having him spend the night with his dad in Hopkinsville.

While he was in the shower, he developed a horrifying hacking cough. He emerged not 10 minutes later with his eyes nearly swollen shut.

At which point I hollered for my mother — thank goodness she was here! — and the two of them hopped in the car and headed for an urgent care place. They gave him epinephrine which stopped the reaction, but he didn’t improve. So they hustled him off to Baptist in an ambulance.

Meanwhile, I’m having to get the play-by-play from my mom via cell phone, because Ashby really couldn’t talk at this point. Breathe, just enough. Talk, no.

So, then he got more epinephrine, some steroids, and still didn’t get better. They were going to admit him overnight to the ICU! for more epinephrine and continuous monitoring, but they didn’t have a bed, so he spent the night in the ER. Somewhere in there, his dad arrived to stay with him, my mom came home, and things settled down.

The whole time he was gone, I couldn’t talk to him — first because he couldn’t talk, and then because they didn’t have cell phone reception in the area of the hospital where they were. So, I sat home worrying about him and feeling bad for saying I was going to send him to Hopkinsville for his “cold.”

He came home Saturday morning and seems back to normal now, thank goodness. We’re crossing our fingers for an uneventful week of late-night feedings and the usual chaos, with no additional medical emergencies.

He gets here and takes a load of stuff to the car. And we’re waiting, waiting, waiting on the pediatrician. Who finally shows up and says we’re not going anywhere.

Harper [I will spare you the "2-day-old" or in our Fixin' Supper nomenclature, the 2do, abbreviations] has jaundice, which I had kind of noticed late yesterday in the back of my head, but wasn’t really paying a lot of attention to. Seeing as how we have doctors to pay attention to that sort of thing for us.

And I get the idea that he doesn’t think it’s a HUGE deal, but especially because she’s a bit early [born just shy of 37 weeks], it’s perhaps not just a breastfeeding issue [slight jaundice is practically de rigeur for the bf set and no cause for worry], but instead, an immature liver issue. So, right now we are hoping that 24 hours or so under the bright lights [and on top of this cool electric blue light blanket] will take care of things. We’ll know more in the morning — she’ll have another blood draw at 5a on Wednesday. If that looks good, they’ll take her out of the lights for observation [and, I'm sure, another blood draw :( ] to make sure her bilirubin level doesn’t spike back up. If all goes well we can go home tomorrow night, it looks like.

I will say, I am not an emotional person [not even while pregnant! -- though apparently I am bossier while pg], but it takes someone more stoic than I to see her newborn baby with patches over her eyes, half-naked and lying uncomfortably on her back, alone in a plastic case and not shed a tear. It’s the alone part that bothers me so. I am massively grateful for the health of all of my children, and all present indications say this is nothing more than a speed bump for Harper — but newborn babies are made for cuddling 24/7 in my book [actually, if you want "my book" on parenting, you'll be reading Katie Allison Granju's Attachment Parenting and every word that the Sears have written], and her holding my finger through a hole in a plastic wall don’t cut it.

Send us your good thoughts and wishes for going home tomorrow!

Harper Corley Barnes
Born 4/26/2009
4:05 p.m.
6 lbs., 9 oz.
19 3/4 inches

Please make me be not so stupid. Last year I got remarried, and I jokingly said to friends, Now I don’t have to hire a babysitter to go to meetings anymore! But truthfully, that’s a major benefit of being married when you’re a do-gooder, because do-gooders tend to accumulate evening meetings like other people collect pennies.

So, next time I am tempted to say to my sweet, dear husband, “Sure dear, you work late; I’ll take the kids to the meeting with me,” please help me to remember how that is not a good idea with a very active 3yo boy who tends not to take naps anymore.

Love,

Me