why i love my life and why shaved heads don't equal crazy

again with the lists. this time a scanned version of my usual gratitude-fest.


and seriously, why does the media equate shaved heads with being crazy? i'm in no way trying to defend britney spears, but i'm really getting sick of everyone talking about how she's crazy just because she shaved her damn head. i shaved my head many-a-times before (my husband shaved it the first time) and i'm not crazy (cough cough!). many of you have asked for visual proof that i did in fact shave my head. here's a photo of my not-so-newly shaved head, during a solo-cross-country trip during the college years:

i'm not saying it looks good. i'm just saying i wasn't crazy.

my boobs aren't invincible

holy hot titty, i've gone and got myself a serious case of mastitis.

my boobies, in fact, are not invincible after all.

after years of nursing and pulling and head-butting and being slung up and down and pressed and bit and all that jazz, my nearly-weaned left one is hot, swollen, and bothered. r.e.a.l.l.y. bothered. so bothered, in fact, that i carted me and my cranky, teething one year old over to a clinic in order to be flirted with in the waiting room by a man of questionable mental integrity. (he reeeeaaaaaaly liked my scarf and earrings and everything else, by the way. he also whipped out his wallet and showed me some pictures. holy self-confession, why do i attract these weirdos?!?) anywho, i whipped out the boobers to a stranger-doctor, only to be made to feel badly about quitting cold turkey. "it's not best for the breast to do it that way!" ok sister, it's best for me, and it's a done deal, so can you just feel up my sad boober and let me be on my way? my son is getting a glimpse of the missed goodies and it's not a good thing. needless to say, i've got a serious case of crazy-milk-duct-blockage, something i've never dealt with before. i literally found myself saying to the doctor, "i'm not a boob-pain wimp, but this is PAIN". so i actually filled a prescription for antibiotics, even though my better judgement tells me NO. no hot packs or massage or all those other trickies have works. so here i go, choking down the horsie pills, hoping the titters are feeling fine again soon.

i'd post a picture, but i figured i'd spare you all. :)

photobooth friday: the weaning edition

this week has been hard, but also incredibly liberating. i feel like i have a new lease on life, which is sort of sad for me to admit to the world, because i really did love nursing so much. in a sense, i've been addicted to breastfeeding...it's been my way of life for the past couple of years...and the routine and beautiful monotony of it shapes my days and my nights. monday morning i woke up, fed the boy, and while in the shower afterwards had an epiphany- that was the last time feeding him. while most normal people like to wean their beans gradually, what works best for me is cold turkey. i can't really explain it except to say that i sat both of my kiddies down, and explained to them that mama's milk is all gone, and for both of them, they took the news and absorbed it and went with it. i'd never stop nursing if i weaned gradually. so since monday i've been up and down, fighting hormonal roller-coasters and watching my boy bloom. it's really horrible to admit this, but since monday, he's been a different child. free to play and read and waaay more talkative and interactive and happy. seriously happy. no whining and clinging and crying every time i step away. which sadly leads me to believe that he was ready. i just wasn't.

i've been dealing with crazy emotions, and a serious case of wanderlust. so yesterday, instead of coming home as usual after dropping gray off at school to put joey to bed, i just kept driving. me and the boy ended up in the city, stuck in over an hour of traffic, just to get a raspberry lime rickey, sans lime and with lemon instead, all to get out of the house. we went into little bookstores and shared an organic muffin and overpriced superjuice and then i let him wander all around the coffee shop. it's one of those places with signs and lights and bikes hanging from the ceiling and art everywhere, so he thought it was the coolest place on earth. the photobooth itself is ridonkulously overpriced, $4! but i would gladly pay much more than that to capture me and my sweet little man's weaning adventure in the city, me engorged and wearing three (!) bras to bind my playboy boobies, and him happy and at awe with the glow. i'd pay $100 just for the fourth picture in the strip...his face looks doll-like and surprised and the most perfect thing in the universe.

indulge me

these are a few of my favorite things- the ultimate indulgences:

fingerless gloves, brown paper bags filled with organic treats and oils, multiple colorful bags slung over my shoulder, listening to my folk radio show in the morning in the car with the heat blasted on my face, essential oils in the shower, whole milk yogurt with tons of granola on top and waiting until the granola gets all soft and mushy, spreading out crafting supplies on the floor and getting achy knees from all the crafting activity, martin sexton, red hot chili peppers bringing me back to my adolescence, "relax" riesling, big plates of pulled pork with my hubbie's special bbq sauce, cream and sugar in my coffee every morning, bagels with lots of butter melted on top, the smell of whole food markets (should be bottled and sold), burt's bees pepperminty lip gloss, my white fuzzy-inside frye booties keeping my feet warm, wearing hats to hide my badly-growing-in hair, massaging interesting people with stories to tell, powerful friend conversations with healing powers, homemade postcards, big gaudy homemade beaded earrings, stacks and stacks of books and magazines all waiting at attention to be picked up and loved, the feel of john's feet in bed, the way grace slams into our room in the morning starting off the day like the gunshot at the begining of a race, the way joey's nose gets really red when he's cold and it stays like that most of the rest of the day, bowls of steaming hot chili with lots of cheese, maple bacon, getting tucked in, tylenol PM, surprise meal drop-offs from dear friends, falling asleep to the sounds of games being played, natalie portman, finally clearing out my inbox, new issues of magazines, upcoming massage parties, hand-written notes and saving them for the future so i can remember.

why i love my husband, in three parts

exhibit A
exhibit B
and evidence

my day was filled with love. i hope yours was, too. i was so overwhelmed by the lubbins that me and my sore lobies passed out on the floor with a piece of chocolate in my mouth at 7:30p.

valentines day, in pictures

first off, let me just say to all my dearest peeps:

i heart packages. especially on valentines day.

this deeeelicious package pictured above is sent by one of my favorite bloggie peeps, ani at pancakemama. she knows me, that's for sure. how much did i need my all-time favorite chocolate yesterday, you ask? enough to rip into a bar before i could snap a picture. and the little springy drawing put a much-needed spring in my step.

shell seeking, another one of my real-life soul sister peeps, sent me a package filled with eye candy and i can't stop gorging on all its goodness. my girl has already ripped through the stickers and painted the shells, surprise surprise. thank you!

today is filled with the sounds of swan lake and ballet shows from the girl. the light is soft and dreamy and time is slow and quiet.

a snow day. we have daddy home. he is downstairs practicing letters and reading with the girl. the boy is sleeping. mama is catching up on the emails that she's drowning in.

i wish for you: wine glasses, bottles of your favorite wine, and some chocolate kisses.

the best days include: endless supplies of love, and a boy reading baby versions of frida kahlo's life.

my final valentine offering: a string strung with the most imperfectly perfect painted hearts.

i heart you.

chocolate chip drag queens

my my my, it's certainly been a strange couple of weeks. it's funny how you can be going along in these ho-hum doldrums of winter and then POW things get all shook up. my days now include breathing machines and medicines and tubes and a big whiny clinging little man who's traumatized. and follow-ups and doctor consults and such. joey is doing much, much better but his oxygen levels are mysteriously and frustratingly low. we go back tomorrow for yet another appointment to access the situation. here's hoping that his o2 is high and his lungs are filled with healing energy.

my mother-in-law angelonearth, unfortunately, has been in the hospital since joey got home. she has pnemonia (which i have a terrible time spelling, evidently). so it's been more hospital time for our family, even though our bean is home. big batches of homemade chocolate chip cookies to be delivered. gray dressed up as a "healing fairy" (aka tinkerbell) on saturday and surprised nana in the hospital despite the huge sign that forbade her to (oops). when nana's in need, there's no law we won't break to deliver the goods (cookies and hugs).

this weekend was filled with the best sorts of things- movie date nights with gelato (pistachio and canoli shell) and coffees, and tacos, and trips to the beach for hot steaming slices of pizza, and family snuggle attack time in the van (we must have looked like complete freaks), and then black bean pie and wine fest, and then a party and catching up with old friends, and then some drag queens and cross-dressing, and self portraits and pictures of loved ones, and then a trip into the big city (two times in one weekend) to watch uncle booboo dressed in drag jump into the ocean for a fundraiser, followed by roast beef sandwiches with extra sauce, followed by an extra helping of anthony kiedis's trainwreck of a life and gatorade and then some grammy action.

so despite the craziness and sickness and sadness, there are lots of diamonds in the rough.

thursday thank yous

let me just update you and say that we are home. joey seems to be doing better but i'm a bit skeptical about being out of the woods. we are home, but are we home for good? i feel so untrusting of my little man's lungs. i hope he's strong enough to get through the next couple of days. but let me tell you...he's a happy guy. i've never seen him so happy to be home...running from toy to toy, cradling his books, and tickling his big sister. and jumping off the couches. we'll be lucky if we don't end up back at the hospital for some broken bones.

on with the thanks!:

*thank you to my dear head nurse angel-on-earth jeanne who put up with my unbrushed teeth and ridonkulous intake of coffee and my son who was not really into (understatement of the year) being restrained on a hourly basis for various medical procedures. it's angels like this that make me want to get into nursing...the calm and patient and unjaded and connected souls that bring hope to me. she even personally called me to tell me that i left my handmade (and most favoritest) quilt at the hospital, instead of chucking it in the garbage.

*thank you to my bloggie friends and family for all your well wishes. i'm not kidding you when i tell you that when i was at my breaking point at the hospital i called john who was at home with grace at had him log on to the computer and read me your messages. each and every one of them brought tears to my eyes and made me so thankful to have such a supportive and encouraging tribe surrounding me in my darkest hours. each email was a vitamin that i swallowed down, chased it with a comment or two. seriously. i can't thank you enough.

*thank you to my husband who gets up in the middle of the night and turns on the hideous breathing machine and gives my son treatments so i can stay in bed (awake and scared, but still in bed)

*thank you to my strong and brave daughter who never faltered over the past couple of days even though i'm sure she was scared out of her tree (nerves have a funny way of presenting themselves...like at 1am this morning when she had the poop shoot riots all over her bed and her jammies- my poor girl). she's been taking caramel with serious doses of lobey-therapy...she had three days without hanging on to the lobes, so there's lots to make up for.

*thank you to my friends and family who drop in with soft teddies and bottles of water and big steamy plates of food and buffalo chicken calzones and bottles of wine and take my daughter to school and pick her up and keep calling me and leaving messages and go to the pharmacy and pick up prescriptions.

*thank you respiratory therapists of the world.

*thank you to roommates in the hospital that make the best of bad situations and find common ground even though it's not immediately obvious what that ground is. thank you for putting up with all my visitors who not only want to love on my sick child, but also yours, because their hearts are so big. thank you for watching american idol and house with me, even though it was a scary respiratory episode, and our kids were hooked up to machines. thank you for offering to get me treats, even though i was cracked out on tylenol pm and did i mention i wasn't up to par on brushing my teeth?

*thank you lysol for your super germ killing abilities. i may have doubted you in the past, but i've basked in your glory over the past 24 hours. i feel like it's ok to embrace lysol as long as i'm simultaneously embracing the powers of nag champa.

*thank you joey for feeling better. your spirit and strength and old-soulishness amaze me.

tears for fears

i've said it before, and i'll say it again: i'm not a big crier.

with that being said, let me just tell you that i've been crying like a baby for the last 24 hours. a bit dramatic, yes, but my sweet baby boy is in the hospital, hence me being MIA. i just ran home to brush my teeth, take a quick shower, and see my girl home from school (haven't seen her in 24 hours either).

what, you ask, is wrong? well, all i know is that the boy was feeling a bit pooey over the weekend, so i took him into the doctors yesterday morning. and then he was immediately admitted into the hospital and that's where i've been living ever since, watching my boy get stuck and shoved and prodded and woken and living in a metal cage (uuuh, crib). i've been trying to channel the strength of darlene and all of the other parents that have had to go through much more horrible experiences watching their children suffer. joey has RSV, a respiratory infection that isn't a big deal for adults or people with stronger immune systems, but this virus has taken hold of his little body. he can't really breathe without oxygen, and he needs a IV with steroids and other goodies to keep him going. it's funny how fast your world can change- last night while i was semi-sleeping in a chair with my head resting up against the metal bars...i couldn't help but cry for all the parents with severely or terminally ill children.

this broke my heart...but i couldn't help but take a picture of the pathetic-ness:

(joey in a baby wheelchair with oxygen pre-IV going down for chest x-rays that we still haven't gotten the results of yet 24 hours later)

so that's where i'll be for the next couple of days at least- living at the hospital. the people are nice, and my friends and family rock. (although i do think there should be some sort of rule that you shouldn't have to have roommates if you are in the pediatric ward...it's been the crying wars all night with two babies who are on different schedules- a complete nightmare if you ask me). if i don't get back to your calls or messages, it's because i'm there trying to contain a wanting-to-walk 13 month old in a tiny bed, hoping he doesn't rip his little IV out of his hand. pooh.

thank you in advance (and not-in-advance for some of you) for all your well-wishes. you rock!



i miss this happy baby (taken at our favorite hippie restaurant last weekend)

i will be accepting large donations of love and support at your convenience.

photobooth friday- the today show

taken in the movie theater lobby about an hour or two ago- this just sums it all up lately...joey fighting and screaming and itching for independence, and gray all snuggly and non-personal-space-ish and sweet as pie. and me all blissed out and in another world, just trying to get through the day.

the brand-spankin'-new frye boots i just bought for a mere $36 didn't hurt, either. but of course, the preoccupied lady at the store left the security tag on, so i had to truck back later in the day with the maniacs in tow for her to desecurify them.

anywho, i've been tagged by the wonderous and inspiring knittingmama, so i offer you my five weird things:

1. i'm a head-banger. not like 'awesome hair bands of the eighties' head-banger, but more like those marginal cases of children you hear about banging the crap out of their heads head-banger. i was supposed to grow out of it (by the time i was six months, evidently) but here i am, twenty eight years later, still banging my head. i stopped banging my head on my headboard for a couple years during my pregnancies, but just started doing it again a couple of weeks ago and i.love.it. why the hell did i ever stop? one of those things that you can't really believe or understand until you see it. and then you just think i'm weird.

2. anchovies are my favorite food. my dad and i eat them straight out of the can.

3. i went through this phase when i spelt my name with a y. everything's cooler with a y, right? looking back i realize it was totally toolbaggish, but part of me still thinks back on the old nyna fondly. i wasn't afraid to use it in school, either.

4. i hate cleaning. if your lucky, before you come over i'll run a (hopefully not used) baby wipe over the tv and call it a day. i let my kids eat off the floor. it is what it is.

5. i used to have this thing for peeing on the street, right through my clothes. when i was a teenager. for laughs. especially on hot days. then i would get the hose and spray the crap out of myself. all my friends would be inside the house, upstairs in the big picture window. i'm not sure how it ever started, but sometimes i wonder the memories some people have of me. like "oh nyna, she was always good for a laugh with the peeing on the street thing."

hope you all have weekends filled with bucketloads of steaming street pee! xoxo

the bright spots

(gray's self portrait of her feet on mine- one of the fifty in the series)

update: still no baby...water not broken...we're all waiting with baited breath and sending mama all the good vibes that we can! thank you for all your kind comments and support, making my journey even sweeter than it already is.


this week has been borderline overwhelming, but it's weeks like this that make me appreciate everything and everyone that i have holding me up. if i were to give shout-outs to all those people, this post would take forever and never end. so i offer you some of the brightest spots:

*singing the abc's to joey while he sits in the high chair outside of the shower, and peeking out from behind the curtain, watching the smile spread across his face

*sitting at the dinner table last night, watching the faces of my family and my friends eating food and talking and drinking and laughing and eating endless biscuits. i'm a big fan of biscuits.

*watching grace put on her new (new to us- love hand-me-downs) outfit for school this morning, and then walking into her classroom all shy and don't-you-just-love-my-bedazzled-jean-dress look on her face. me fighting the urge to cringe at the pink jewels.

*hugs in the kitchen, secret debriefing

*exploring new hospitals and watching mamas laboring in waiting rooms

*diet gingseng green tea saving my life

*endless cups of hot green tea

*seeing gray and c. snuggling on the couch

*news of a dearest friend expecting a baby

*library storytime mamas and their babes and their patience with my baby who tries to conquer the world

*the "big city" (aka boston's) skyline at dusk

*fleece hats that hide my unwashed hairs

*big bags on m&m's

*large amounts of cheese

*hub getting two deals in a day

*watching the shorties rollplay

*not getting upset about making a big hole in the knee of my favorite (read: only) pair of jeans because i know it got there by going round on my hands and knees, chasing joey around the dining room table (read: only table)

i hope your days are filled with the brightest of spots, even when things don't turned out as planned. happy thursday.