cindy's world

Yesterday, I found herself where I’d never expected to be: on Team Meddling Moms in a public place trying to protect a strange toddler from an even stranger mom intent on creating a traumatic memory for the little terrified girl.

Mr. W and I took Allie to a large chain retail store to buy baby wipes and sand toys (bucket, spade, etc). While there, we heard a kid wail. That’s nothing new, and we moved on. The wailing continued. I turned, and saw a little toddler girl at the end of our aisle turning slowly in a circle, looking around, crying. Other women had paused and were looking at her, talking to each other. I thought that surely, with her crying that loudly, the mom would find her little girl. She was way too young to be far from her mom. Other moms watching must’ve been thinking the same thing, because people just kind of stood around, keeping an eye on the girl, and waited. Mr. W started pushing Allie away in the shopping cart, and I started to follow, both of us looking back toward the girl, still wandering, still sobbing. “Go take care of that,” he shooed me.

I walked up to the girl, knelt down, and said, “Are you looking for your mommy?” She nodded, crying so hard she couldn’t talk. I decided to take her to the front so I could ask a cashier or the customer service people to make an announcement on the intercom. She looked so bewildered that I just picked her up. She quieted down, although she was still sobbing quietly. “What’s your mommy’s name?” I asked her. She didn’t answer. I asked again, wondering if she didn’t understand English, although I didn’t know enough Spanish to try that. One of the other women who had stopped asked me what I was going to do. I said I was bringing her to the front to have her mom paged on intercom.

Halfway down that section, a woman approached me and said, “Oh, she’s just –” and waved her hand dismissively.
I looked at her without understanding. “I’m sorry?”
“She’s just –” She gestured again, kind of rolling her eyes, as if to say the girl was acting up for no reason.
“Is this your daughter?” I asked.
“Yes.” The woman made no attempt to take the girl from me, and I looked at the girl dubiously, who also made no attempt to reach for the woman. Unsure of what to do, I put the girl down, and she was quiet now, and followed the woman, so I walked away. I noticed when I returned to my aisle that the women who had been watching were STILL watching, and heard the girl start wailing again. Since I had turned into my aisle and couldn’t see what was happening, the older woman who’d asked me what I was planning to do with the girl said to me, “She’s just telling her, ‘Go, go away, I don’t want you with me.’ She’s waving the girl off.”
I frowned. “What? Why would she do that?” The wailing was sounding hysterical again.
“She’s still doing it,” the woman said, watching something out of my view. “She’s saying, ‘Go away, go.'” The woman imitated the gesture of lifting her arm forward and making a shooing motion with her wrist, pointing away from herself. “She keeps walking away from the little girl.” I looked, and the little girl was once again walking by herself, turning in circles, looking bewildered, wailing. The older woman beelined for the mom. “I’m going to say something to her. This is really making me mad.” I couldn’t see the confrontation, but I watched other women still standing as spectators and gawking. The older woman eventually came back, found me, and said that the mom put the girl in her shopping cart now. “She didn’t want to do it, but she did.” Everything was quiet now.
“Why would she want to do this to her daughter here? The girl’s, what, three?”
“I wouldn’t say she’s even that old. Two, maybe.” Geez.
“I’m glad you said something,” I told her.

I later saw the mom pushing her shopping cart with the now calm toddler in the basket. There was an older girl also there, teen or just pre-teen. I feel like maybe the mom felt like she was punishing the toddler, who maybe didn’t to follow or didn’t want to hold her hand or something, so the mom was doing the overly-dramatic, “Fine then, if you don’t want to be by me, then go away.” She probably thinks she’s teaching the girl a lesson, or she’s immaturely retaliating against the girl’s uncooperation, but I don’t believe this kind of parenting is effective. At this age, the girl’s just terrified and unsure of what to do with her mother, her perceived lifeline, rejecting her and withholding love and security from her. The toddler followed because she didn’t know what else to do, was afraid to approach too closely because she was being continuously rejected, and cried because she was and felt lost. Flashback to me following my mom doing the exact same thing, crying, at one point on my knees begging for forgiveness and even kowtowing and swearing I loved her as my mom either turned her back or looked way coldly, and my sick fear of abandonment. Many times I’ve chased after her as she told me to go away, begging her to take me with her. I must’ve been between ages 4-6, way older than this girl. I wonder if the little girl at the store will remember this, too.

When I returned to Allie, she was quiet and had been observing, wide-eyed. She had seen the crying girl first, before the girl had gotten that hysterical, and had pointed the girl out to me, saying, “Baby.” I kissed my little girl on her fuzzy head, and hoped that she would always be this happy and secure.

Allie and I took a couple of trips to playground parks this past weekend. Both days, it seemed to have been Daddy Day. I can only imagine that the dads were out with their kids because the moms were at home making Super Bowl food. *shrug*
I noticed while at the park with Allie that she’s past the “parallel play” point and is now fully interactive with other kids. She gets really excited when she sees kids and will go right up to them, try to hold their hand, wave and say “hi,” hand them her most precious asset (a leaf, rock or twig she’d found moments ago on the ground). She watched and followed and played along with a crowd of 5 kids crawling around a wooden playhouse boat over the weekend. She didn’t climb the counters and stuff like the older kids did, but she was inside the house and looking through the windows and touching the kids’ arms and exchanging leaves and twigs with them. A little girl who couldn’t have been more than 4 years old or so said to me, “What’s her name?”
“This is Allie.”
“Allie. You have a really cute baby.” I’m amazed because I have never been into babies, even as a kid, and it was most noticeable who the nurturing girlfriends were as teens because they’d coo and go right up to a kid and talk about how cute some kid was when I would hardly realize a kid were there. Now I’m thinking it’s a personality trait (to be nurturing and kid-oriented) from very, very young. That little girl would make a great big sister, how gentle she was with Allie. When Allie handed her a fallen leaf, she took it, held onto it for a few seconds, and when Allie reached again, she gave it back. She watched Allie carefully, moved slowly and attentively so she didn’t scare Allie or knock her over.

On the other side of the spectrum, when Allie was at a different park on Sunday morning, she was standing by a zebra rocker and a 3-4 year old girl with curly dark hair pushed between Allie and the zebra, wanting to get on the zebra. I pulled Allie back a bit as Allie watched, fascinated by the rocking motion. After Allie stared for awhile, I walked on and said to Allie, “Come on, baby, let’s leave her alone to play.” Allie still watched the other girl. “Come on, Allie, let’s go on the slide.” I reached out my hand, which Allie took, feet still firmly planted and unmoving. The little girl actually said to Allie, in an almost-whisper as if she thought I wouldn’t hear, “Go away! Go on, go away! Leave! Go!” How rude. That probably would’ve been me at that age. Someday she’d have to tolerate her mom telling her to have kids despite not liking kids because “It’ll be different when it’s YOUR kid.”

Actually, it IS different when it’s your kid, cuz when it’s your kid, you think the smallest thing is hilarious. Like when Allie was doing something funny over the weekend and I said to her, “You goofball.” She ran off and then ran back holding her big rubber ball out to me, saying, “Ball.” And when Mr. W was ticking off his grocery list to make almond-anise biscotti from scratch, he said, “Butter, sliced almonds, white flour –” and Allie interrupted with a loud “*SNIFF SNIFF*” “Haha, that’s a different kind of ‘flower,’ baby.” “*SNIFF SNIFF*”

Speaking of tolerating what moms say, my mom told me this weekend to have Allie watch TV. According to my mom, Allie isn’t talking because she has no TV to learn speech from. As if we don’t talk to her! As if she’s not talking! As if TV is good for her developing brain! I didn’t bother to go into that and dealt with it how I always deal with unsolicited advice from my mom — by biting my tongue.

The other day at work, I bent over at the hips to pick something up off the floor, and saw my hair sweep the floor. This was especially gross because I was in the shared restroom. Time for a haircut. I figured Friday was a good day, as I had taken the day off to get my annual physical checkup, and was still having Jayne come over to care for Allie so that I could have a “me” day.

Turns out I’m not used to thinking in terms of “me” anymore because I had a hard time the whole day feeling comfortable. I felt like I was plopped in a body and said, “Here, take care of this body for today” and I didn’t quite know how to do it and was fumbling around. After leaving Allie with Jayne, I drove off to the vet’s to get Dodo some prescription cat food, and realized on the drive that I forgot to medicate him this morning, so I had to go back home. Good thing I’d left early and my doctor’s appointment wasn’t until much later. And then in leaving, I was about to go to the wrong Kaiser clinic location when it suddenly occurred to me that my ob/gyn was in a different facility.
The checkup was uneventful. Doctor said I looked great, saw/felt nothing abnormal in the exam, my weight was 118 lbs and blood pressure was 118/56, pulse was a little high (for me) at 73, but my OB was happy. It’s nice to know where I stand with the numbers once a year, since I don’t weigh myself at home anymore. Of course, it’s not exactly a cholesterol screening, either. I noted as I was getting dressed that Allie’s birth announcement card was tacked up on the bulletin board of that particular exam room. I snapped a photo of that on my phone and texted it to Mr. W.
Then after that, the day was mine. I had a massage appointment at 2:30p and that was it. I already got the cat food, so that was the important errand. Next on priorities is the haircut, and buying some healthy-grain pasta for Allie so that I could make her another one-pot meal, and I needed some facial cleansing cloths I’ve seen at Costco. I’ve also purchased a variety pack of small semolina pastas at Costco, so I figured I’d go there. But first I was hungry and it was brunch time.

I tried to approach the plan logically. I know where my haircut place should be; I’d been going to the same salon since I discovered it after moving to the current residence in 2008. So the meal should be some place close to it. I decided to give Break of Dawn restaurant another try. College roommie Diana had suggested we all try it when she and her hubby visited some time ago, and Mr. W and I had found the food a little rich for our liking. Nevertheless, after looking the location up on my smartphone, I put in the info on my nav and off I went.

The small restaurant was at least half-full and I was seated immediately at a table by the window. The menu threw me a little; the descriptions didn’t tell me enough about what each item was, the form they were served in, so altho I was drawn immediately to some kabocha soup, I needed some help. A guy who may have been the owner came by and asked if I was ready to order, and I kind of was, I just needed some clarification. The 3-course meal included the kabocha squash soup and a choice of an entrée and I was interested in the chicken stew option, and it had a dessert, but I wasn’t STARVING, so I asked him about portion size. He said it’s enough to make me full but that stew and kabocha soup wasn’t good together because it’s 2 “watery” things. Okay, so I asked about something else, and he asked what it is I’m looking for. I said I wanted to try the soup, but ordering the soup entrée came with 2 items of fried things and I don’t want to eat anything fried, so I asked for his recommendation. He told me he doesn’t recommend things and that he doesn’t know what I want or am looking for so I should just study the menu longer and order later, and then he walked away. Good thing I wasn’t rushed for time. Geez. The busboy who had seated me and brought me the menu and water soon came by and asked if I was ready to order, as it was clear the other guy was by now ignoring me. I just ordered the chicken curry stew and left it at that. The food was fine. But it didn’t fill me up. I left anyway without ordering anything additional. Pretty uncomfortable experience. The Vietnamese owner guy never came back to my table.

Off to the important thing on my list: the haircut. I pumped in my car in a secluded area of a parking lot near the salon (that was fun), then drove to the salon. I was happy to see that the guy whom I’d gone to exclusively to cut my hair for the past 5 years was there, altho he was giving an order man a haircut so it looks like there would be a wait. I could wait a little bit given the time. Richard looked up and smiled at me and I happily said, “Hi!”
“Hi,” he took a few steps toward me. “Can I help you?”
It dawned on me that Richard did not recognize me. Has it been that long? I’d gotten one haircut after giving birth and sure it was almost a year ago, but he ALWAYS cut my hair and we would chat and he’d kid around with me and asked how my pregnancy was going and blah blah! Could it be he’d NEVER recognized me in all the years I’d been going there? That can’t be it; he’d told me before when I was 8 months pregnant that the time I’d been there previously, the owner of the salon asked him if I’d gained a little weight, and he had laughed and told her I was pregnant, and that when the owner asked how far along I was, she was shocked that I didn’t look MORE pregnant. Maybe he’d fallen and hit his head some time in the past year and now has amnesia, but somehow retained the knowledge of how to cut hair. Anyway, after ascertaining that he would be unable to fit me in until 2:30, the same time as my massage appointment, I said I’d come back another day and left.

I now had time to go to Costco before my massage appointment after all, but the Costco closer to the massage place, and one I was unfamiliar with, was only a couple of miles from my earlier doctor’s appointment. As I drove back the way I’d come, I thought about how this was so poorly planned as to make it un-executable. I should’ve just stayed in this area and I could’ve avoided the discomfort at Break of Dawn, and the trip-for-nothing at the salon. I even drove unsteadily, the reflexes operating when to go, how to smoothly merge into traffic, making snap judgments on whether I could pull out and turn left all now rusty due to lack of use.
Turns out the Costco I’d found was the puniest Costco ever. I circled the place twice and the only pasta they had was one brand of spaghetti. Plus their layout was different from other Costcos so I had a hard time doing the quick beelines to the stuff I needed to get. At least it helped me in accomplishing the impossible: getting out of Costco with only $26 in purchases. Mr. W, the big Costco fan, had never done THAT.

I got to the massage appointment early, so I had half an hour to visit a coffeehouse a few doors down, and things started going right after that. I ordered a blueberry muffin (cuz I was still hungry from brunch) and a spiced Chai tea latte, and while I waited for the tea, was able to rinse out my pump parts in the tidy restroom. I enjoyed my beverage and snack while reading a chapter on my Kindle (A Storm of Swords, the 3rd volume in George R.R. Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire” series, aka “Game of Thrones” series), then with 5 minutes to spare, walked to the massage place.

The massage was needed and very relaxing, and as usual after it was over all too quickly, I thought about how great it would be if they’d allow the option of renting the massage room after a massage so that patrons could take a nap.

Last thing before heading home: I went to the healthy/organics grocery store across the street from the house and bought Allie some organic whole grain baby waffles and other stuff. And then I got home, beating Mr. W by only half an hour or so as he returned from work.

I don’t think I’m gonna need a “me” day for awhile. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Even with little Allie’s phlegmy coughs that she’s had for the past 2 days (Jayne has a cold), she still makes me happier than having a whole day with endless possibilities to myself. Especially when she now added a part in the morning routine when she’d pull off during nursing and then struggle to sit up and pull herself up to my face, just to plant a kiss on my lips, followed by a gleeful smile with solid eye contact.

What makes me happy and hopeful that Allie truly is the “wonderful person” Rebecca had seen when I was pregnant and/or when Allie was a newborn, is when Allie shows spontaneous unprompted signs of a loving personality. Earlier, I was at the kitchen sink rinsing out her breakfast bowls and prepping some peaches and cherries to make into a pureed snack (or dip) for her, and I heard the playful “wap wap wap” of her feet when she’s running with deliberate small but loud steps. Then I felt her tiny arms around my left leg. Before I could turn around, I felt and heard her plant a kiss on my butt (which is where her lips reach against me). I looked down and she looked up. We smiled at each other. “Hi, baby!” I said. I would’ve hugged her or patted her head but my hands were wet. She released and I went back to what I was doing. I felt her arms around my leg again for a second hug. And then she wapped off to the breakfast nook to find Mr. W.

On a detached level, it’s interesting to see how quickly the paranoia comes back.

Allie skipped her second (afternoon) nap twice in the last 3 days. She was in her crib on time, but instead of napping, it became a quiet playtime. She ran laps, played peek-a-boo by herself with her blanket, pulled off her sock and threw it over the crib railing to watch it drop, tried to drop her blanket over the crib rail as well, tugged at the bumper ties, figured out how to undo the velcro straps on the crib rail protectors, practiced half-somersaults (rolling out sideways instead of turning all the way over vertically). Both missed naps, she was in there for 1.5 hours goofing off, and I went and got her at 3p. The evening of the first missed nap, I started her bedtime routine an hour earlier than normal, she conked out nursing, woke up at the crib transfer and protested, but then went right back to sleep. The second time last night, I tried again to put her to bed an hour earlier, and she again fell asleep nursing (which she normally doesn’t do anymore) at about 6p, but after she awoke at the crib transfer, she stayed awake until almost 8p. 🙁

So I’m immediately googling how much sleep a 13-month-old baby needs. Looks like it’s still 13-15 hours, so with the missed nap yesterday and the early rise times (Allie has beaten me waking up every morning for the past few days, so I don’t know when she’s up, but it’s before 6am), I think she’s getting more like 12. It could be she’s at that awkward transition period where 2 naps are too much but 1 is not enough, but I wasn’t expecting this to happen until she’s closer to 15 months old. Plus, the morning nap is supposed to be the one to go next, not the afternoon nap.

If she keeps missing her afternoon nap, I think we’re just going to have to do away with it and slowly move her morning nap back to be more of a noon nap.

I’m hoping this isn’t a sign that she’s sick; a few days ago, we were at Pretend City and Allie was playing with her back turned to me at the toddler area, and suddenly I realized with horror that the green object in her hands isn’t a toy, it’s some random sippy cup left behind by an unaware parent. Before I could get to her, it was in her mouth and I heard the “suck suck” sound as I was leaping over the low wall and flying over foam toys and telling her, “Noooo!” Gross!!! The only other parent there, a dad with 2 toddlers, said it wasn’t his sippy. If Allie gets sick from the foreign stuff introduced straight into her mouth, oh well. She’s only been sick once so far, so maybe she’s due. She doesn’t have any symptoms of discomfort though; even with the missed naps she’s happy and playful and goofy as usual. Me, on the other hand, I’m a nervous wreck. =P

Well hey, look at the date! I do believe I’m blogging BEYOND the end of the Mayan calendar. So where are we now? In a new cycle, of course. A new calendar. Moving on…

There’s a quote a friend posted on the social networking site, attributed to Lucille Ball:

I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done.

This is a popular notion and I’ve heard it in various forms. I don’t know if I’m a fuddy duddy or fatalistic or what the problem is, but I’ve always found the thought of that uncomfortable. To regret the things I’ve done would mean I’ve done something “negative.” To regret not doing something would mean I’ve missed out on something “positive.” I still think I’d rather miss out on doing something positive than to have done something bad that could negatively affect others. I would never think it’s okay to get crazy drunk out in public because I’m throwing caution to the wind to have fun so I don’t regret missing out, and then on my drive home, plow my car into a innocent driver. I can handle missing out on something fun; I can learn from that. But no amount of learning from doing an easily preventable damaging act could ever make things okay for the people involved. Go ahead and laugh at me for being no fun, being overly conservative, being the only sober one at a Vegas party. That is infinitely better to me than the morning after, doing the Walk of Shame, or waking up in jail or the hospital.

…until I finish building my time machine.

I had this email exchange earlier with my mom:

From: Mom
To: Cindy
Subject: END OF the WORLD

DEAR CINDY,
Does your boss give you a day off on this Friday 12-12-12 to stay with family? Get together with family for the day of end of the world!

***

From: Cindy
To: Mom
Subject: Re: END OF the WORLD

are you kidding? you’re joking, right?

***

From: Mom
To: Cindy
Subject: Re: Re: END OF the WORLD

Oh, so you don’t get day off then. It’s my regular day off anyway!
Some private co. in China gives their employee a day off to stay with family. Isn’t that nice? Die together if it happened, no one survived, no one feel heart broken.

***
This just reminds me of my mom’s fatalistic romanticized Asian-drama inspired statements told to me pretty often since I was 5, 6 years old, i.e. that we should all pack in a car and drive into a wall or off a bridge to die together as a family, and that way none of us will ever have to live to mourn the death of another of us. This statement usually comes after her reported news that someone she knows is potentially terminally ill, or has been very hurtful to another family member. It did not sit comfortably with me even at that young age, and I’d only hoped my mom wouldn’t have opportunity to do something to kill us all, hoped that none of us are ever diagnosed with a bad illness, because I knew that I did not want to die (yet). But to my mom, this was “the best way to go.” What if I wasn’t ready to go? Didn’t matter. Welcome to an Asian soap opera. Yes, that’s one example of the culture gap that you may have been deprived of if you don’t come from Asian immigrant parents.
***

From: Cindy
To: Mom
Subject: Re: Re: Re: END OF the WORLD

It’s not the end of the world! The Mayans can’t draw a calendar FOREVER.

***
My mom hadn’t responded, but I couldn’t help going onto the social networking site, where my mom has access to see my postings, and write (JUST in case there are others out there who are actually losing sleep on this):
“Cindy’s hubby saw a reporter’s interview with the Mayans, who are totally unconcerned about the 12/21/12 thing. Why? They say that 1. Nobody (i.e., no Mayans) even uses that calendar, and 2. No ancient Mayans ever said that day is doomsday; the calendar was made a looong time ago and they had to stop drawing it at SOME point, so they finished off this planetary cycle and were done making it. Basically, people freaking out about the end of the Mayan calendar may as well freak out every December when the calendars hanging on their walls don’t have another month behind it to turn to.”

I brought this up with my court staff earlier and my judge said jokingly, “Sounds like you’re pretty confident. I think there’s a lack of personal knowledge.” (Lack of personal knowledge — legal ground for an objection.)
I said, “Is ‘knowledge’ defined as information obtained solely from the 5 senses? Or can I use a 6th sense?”
Judge laughed and said, “I don’t think Witkin gets into that.” (Witkin is the published summary/analysis of California law.)

And for those of you who are God-loving AND pensive, I read this at a spiritual retail store when I was pregnant:
A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.
I just discovered this week alone that two of my cousins are now expecting, and that another friend-couple is expecting their second. I know many more babies are being planned. I won’t be joining you all on this new baby adventure, but I will follow your stories, because the world will go on.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We are not doing a thing for Thanksgiving this year. Not a thing. For that I am so grateful; Allie’s got a big weekend, so today is low-key day. Right now, Allie’s napping, Mr. W’s watching some movie on TV using his TV Ears headphones, and we’re all 3 still in our pajamas. Dodo’s napping, too, and I guess arguably, he is also still in his pajamas. He’s doing a lot better — even seems to have gained some weight back. His ribs and spine are still palpable, but he doesn’t feel like just fur and bones anymore.

Mr. W’s parents are driving here tomorrow. We’ve made arrangements to put them up in a nearby classy spa hotel, hope they enjoy being pampered a little bit. Mr. W and I have been wanting to visit that hotel since we pass it daily going to work. Then Saturday is Allie’s 1-day belated bday meal. Mr. W invited Jayne and her husband over for cake if they’re not doing anything that afternoon. Given that we were against celebrating until very recently, it’s amazing and humbling how many presents Allie has already received from coworkers and Jayne. We’re going to let her dig into the wrapping on Saturday; she’ll probably enjoy that more than what’s concealed. I’m a little nervous about making her cake, but since I’m doing them in mini bundts, if it comes out horrible, nobody has to eat it and we don’t have to serve it. We’ll just call it props and back-up props for Allie’s smash cake photos. =P

It’s hard to believe that a year ago today, I was whining about how my OB couldn’t do a membrane sweep to help encourage labor, since I was only dilated 1.5 cm and he can’t fit his finger in through that. Allie was already 1 day past her due date, but unbeknownst to me, I’d get my first labor contraction that night/early morning.

Allie had been waking up and staying up on her own between 5am and 5:30am for the past month, and we don’t know why. She did well with the time change, however, and was still getting up between 5-5:30am, occasionally as late as 5:45a, but it was the “new” 5:30a or whenever. Over the weekend, we finally turned on the central heater, and she slept in to her old time of past 6am, and yesterday on Veteran’s Day, as late as a few minutes past 7am. So it could be that even though I’d been double-bagging her with a onesie inside her fleece zip-up footsie sleep-n-plays, it has simply been so much colder in the mornings that when she wakes up in the morning, she has been unable to go back to sleep. She doesn’t make noise or demand anything, just playing on her own in her crib until we go in to get her, be it half an hour, an hour or more.

We attended a birthday party over the weekend, thrown by a coworker for her grandson’s first birthday. She went all-out and turned her large backyard into an old-fashioned carnival, complete with game booths, prizes, props, popcorn machine, hot dog “vendor” booth, game tickets, photo booth, cotton candy cart, face painters. And the details! Little goldfish in round bowls, cupcakes that look exactly like little buckets of popcorn (“popcorn” made with twisted mini marshmallows lightly sprayed with yellow food coloring), everything was bright red and blue. I would’ve taken photos, except Allie threw my cell phone into some crevice in the car and Mr. W said I didn’t need it so we were rushed inside. There went my primary mode of photodocumentation. Given the many many kids and babies at the party (we’re talking 100+ guests), everyone seemed to be an expert in parenting. We got lots of unsolicited commentary on Allie. They were mostly kind comments, such as how cute she is and how well she walks given her age, but more and more she’s receiving comments of how tall she is. People assume she’s 14-15 months and are surprised when they learn she’s 11. She towered over the 1-year-old birthday boy. I can see that she’ll be expected to act like a young adult when she’s just a small child and wants to come up to me to be held when she’s my height. =P

Yesterday was Veteran’s Day and a holiday. We used the day off to bring Allie to the doctor for her 2nd dose of the flu shot. She did well, crying in protest when we forced her to lie back on the table, having the same fit she gives us when we make her lie back for a diaper change. She was so busy fussing about that, that she didn’t know the shot had come and gone already, so she stopped crying as soon as we let her sit up again. I asked how many shots Allie will get for her 1-year appointment, and the nurse said six. SIX! Two on each thigh, and one under each upper arm. That would be the most shots she’d received at once, and the first shots on her arms. I’m not looking forward to that appointment in a couple of weeks. I asked when the next series of vaccinations after that would be, and was told 18 months. That would be a nice break from all the shooting up every time she’s gone to the doctor, and after that, her booster shots would come at age 2. And then even bigger gaps after that. So her only regular shots after that would be her annual flu shots, which would still be a child-sized half-dose, but only 1 shot. I was told she got the double-shot this year only because it’s her first time.

I asked Mr. W if he had any pre-scanned photos of himself in uniform that I could post to do a Veteran’s Day blog entry. He thought a long time and said no. All his photos are hard copies only, nothing digital. I figured as much, it was a long time ago. When we had been at the Toyota dealership last month buying the new Prius V, I’d noted that the fleet saleswoman had a framed portrait on her desk of a young man in a Marine Corps uniform. I asked her about it, and she said it’s her 23-year-old son currently stationed in Afghanistan. That’s Mr. W’s son’s age. Later, we were sent to finalize documents with a finance person and I noticed a similar shot behind him. The finance guy said that’s his 21-year-old son, currently a Marine in Iraq. I told him I hoped his son would be home soon, and he said the military had said he’d be home on Thanksgiving. I brightened and said that’s great. The finance guy chortled and said, “Oh, you know our military. They SAY Thanksgiving, and then when that comes and goes, they say, ‘Oh, did we say Thanksgiving? We meant Christmas.’ And then, ‘We meant Christmas NEXT year.'” The finance guy came from a military family of Marines, altho he himself had been Army because he got almost lethally seasick. He was good-natured about his son, who is Mr. W’s daughter’s age, being away from home this long with an indefinite end in sight. It’s amazing the characters of our military, also amazing how life has to go on for their family members at home, even though I’m sure they don’t sleep easily at night.
“If the Marine motto is The few, the proud, how come it seems like almost every military or ex-military person we know of is a Marine?” I asked Mr. W, the former Marine, whose father was also a Marine.
He was too busy trying to figure out Windows8 to give me much of a response.

Win8. Yeah, still not loving it. It’s turned our PC much, much less user-friendly. Being on the PC now feels like I’m back in Italy in the rain and hostile environment without a guidebook or map or a translator. (Italy will forever now be the place I compare negativity to.)

Ugh. It makes me nervous when a bajillion prospective jurors are given access to the jury room to use the restrooms during jury selection, like now, cuz my pump parts are disassembled, washed and drying in there and I’d kill someone if I saw a curious juror handling them. Yay, a 2-week criminal trial for a doctor (ex-doctor, I should say) for filing false tax returns (2 counts) and for failing to file a tax return (1 count). Yes, people, they really do prosecute for that. This guy faces up to 4 years in state prison.

I read a touching story contributed for Sylvia Browne’s book “All Pets Go To Heaven” about a big blonde labrador retriever named Chance who had passed, and how he’d pulled strings from the Other Side to bring his grieving owners to another dog like him to take his place in their home. It was a fascinating story, but my favorite part of the anecdote is a poem from the submitter of the story.

“I am attaching a poem that I wrote; for about a week each morning I would wake up, and I had more and more of this poem in my head. Well, I think Chance sent it to me to write; in fact, I know he did. Thanks to Sylvia and reading her books for so long, I have no doubt that Chance is home, with us, and waiting for us to join him when our time comes.
I’m Still Here
Your heart has been heavy since that day —
The day you thought I went away.
I haven’t left you I never would —
You just can’t see me, though I wish that you could.
It might ease the pain that you feel in your heart —
The pain that you’ve felt since you’ve believed us to part.
Try and think of it this way, it might help you see —
That I am right there with you and always will be.

Until that day comes don’t think that I’ve gone —
I’m here right beside you, and my love it lives on.”

I think it’s an old Cherokee saying (I could be wrong about the source, I just don’t remember) that goes, “There is no death — there is merely a change of worlds.” It’s an interesting point that the poem (or, Chance himself) brings up; we teach our babies object permanence as one of the earliest lessons. We play peek-a-boo, we play “Where’s Baby/Mommy/Daddy?”, so that the baby knows that just because it can’t see a person or object doesn’t mean the person/object is gone. And yet, that’s all we believe as adults. For many people, if we can’t see it, we have a really hard time believing it exists. But there is so much more than meets the eye. (And now I have the Transformers theme song in my head.)