OmegaMom

Happy Big

About two years ago, OmegaDotter began asking me, “Are you happy little or happy big?” “Happy little” is accompanied by the thumb-and-forefinger-an-inch-apart gesture. These days, I am happy to say, I am almost always “happy big”. Contentment seems to be my thang right now. Yay. A little soupcon (how do I get the accent under that ‘c’?) of excitement for the future adds to it. Anyway, if there were a way to bottle the feeling of contented-cat that I’m feeling these days–emotionally lolling in the sun, as it were–I think I’d make a fortune.

Phoenix Rising?*

So for some odd reason, out of the blue, I decided I wanted to find Phoenix again. I was on an infertility listserv with her for eons. We were fairly good buds…then OmegaDotter erupted into our lives, and over time, my IF links became less frequently visited, then never visited at all. They just no longer were relevant to my life (sorry, IF folks, but that’s what happens sometimes!). It wasn’t a conscious thing, it just happened. Like drifting away from old friends.

Anyway, I googled “Phoenix Amon”, and, lo and behold, one of the hits was in a four-year-old post on an adoption blog I love, because the author writes thoughtful pieces about adoption, infertility, openness, race, etc.

Does anyone know where Phoenix is?

Other possible titles: “It’s a Small World” or “Six Degrees of Separation”.

Social Butterflies

Amazingly for such a bunch of homebodies as we are, the weekends between now and New Year’s are full to the brim. We have a “Lollipop concert” to go to next weekend–a kids’ downsized version of “Peter and the Wolf”. The next weekend, we have a guided tour of Arcosanti, Grandma’s 102nd birthday party (woohoo!), and the Nutcracker. The weekend after that, we are headed to SoCal. Then, of course, there’s Christmas. This is very unlike us.

Christmastime is Coming

So Dyson is having this sweet special these days: purchase a brand new Dyson, and get a FREE!!! toy Dyson.

Well, dayum. Why didn’t they have this neato-keeno freebie when I succumbed to my inner Yuppie this summer??

When OmegaDotter and I went to the mall to purchase frilly Christmas dresses and other stuff, we wandered through Sears. OmegaDotter was smitten with this stupid thing. As a result, I can almost understand the frenzies of the “gotta-have” Christmas toy.

I mean, I am almost tempted to spend $70 to get one of these things via a “Buy NOW!” on eBay. The kicker is that the folks in the UK and Australia can get them from their local toy stores–but can we U.S.ians? Oh, noooo. No, Dyson is having their lure-the-desperate-parents-in giveaway, deviously timed for the holiday season, and no toy stores in the U.S. are carrying them.

Wanna see this gem?

Image courtesy of one of the aforesaid UK toy stores, MailOrderExpress, which will gladly ship to Ireland, Wales, Scotland, the Guernsey Islands, but not to the U.S.

Bah. We do, however, have two Asian New Year barbies, courtesy of Amazon.com’s two-for-one, which swept like wildfire through the Chinese adoption community, courtesy of a posting on The Big List.

And some horses.

Categories: [This 'n That] [Family] [Cuteness]

Last night, while snuggling with OmegaDotter as she was striving to NOT go to sleep, she began to sing.

I heard this tiny, tremulous, soulful, emotional voice.

And it was singing:

“On top of spaghetti
All covered with cheese
I lost my poor meatball…”

And then she fell asleep.

Categories: [Cuteness] [Family]

Do you ever lie awake at night, with lists running through your head, that won’t go away and let you sleep?

If I’m not sacked out at 9 p.m. with OmegaDotter, I tend to stay up late. Then I’ll snuggle into bed with OmegaDad, striving to keep my ice-cold feet away from the lovely temptation of the back of his knees (succumbing to the temptation is, I am sure, a valid excuse for murder).

And then the lists begin.

Christmas letter…cards…have to put old Christmas letters up on the website so the folks who haven’t gotten one in three, four years can see what’s happening…what to get the Dotter…what to get OmegaDad…have to clear the top of the glass-front bookcase (dear Gawd, there’s a shitload of dusty stuff up there!) to put the mini-tree and other decorations on…have to peer at the top of the bookcase and entertainment center, clear those off…find some stocking hangers…oh, lord, I have to put together a basket or two for the holiday party raffle at work…I want an iPod or similar player…oooh, those laptop prices are sooo tempting…damn, I need to get my shit together and get the dependent care flex-account claim in, it’s not like it’s a real savings account…but I’m glad I haven’t done it since March, because it’ll be a nice chunk o’ change to have around the holidays…I’d really like to finish painting the beams in the living room…I wonder if we’ll have enough $$ so I can order those double-cell blinds…will that really help us save money in the winter?…I wonder how much they cost…damn, OmegaDad forgot to clean the air intake filter again this weekend…maybe I’ll just hire someone to come & crawl into the crawlspace to see how our floor insulation is doing…surely I can pull myself together to get my old clothes out of the old dresser, haul them off to the Goodwill…gotta do it before the end of the year, so we can get the deductions in this tax year…I can do one hour a night after work, right?…yeah, so I’m a lazy SOB, damn, you know I’m not going to do that…how the hell am I going to function at work tomorrow, I’ve got to get some sleep…we really, really need to get OmegaDotter’s room set up…

Blah, blah, blah.

It just gets started, and then there I am, it’s 2 a.m., the little mental rats are running faster and faster in their little exercise wheel. There’s a theory I’ve heard, that if you just turn on the light and write down all the to-dos on a pad, it short-circuits this roundabout.

And then I get to sleep, and an hour later OmegaDotter comes dashing out of the bedroom and snuggles into bed with us and starts doing The Foot Thing. Remember the tales of the “Chinese Water Torture”? Where the person being tortured is tied down, and a drop of water goes splish…splish…splish onto one spot on the torturee’s body until the physical sensation becomes excruciatingly painful? OmegaDotter’s Foot Thing can result in the same sensation. She’s learning–now, if I say, “No Foot Thing, Dotter!” in a grumpy, sleep-laden voice, she hears it subconsciously and tries to stop. But it’s a compulsion of hers. It makes her feel soothed and comfortable. I just wish she could transfer it to, say, a pillow rather than a body!

Can you tell I didn’t get much sleep last night?

Categories: [This 'n That]

What is Omegamom thankful for?

• Indoor plumbing.
• Thousands of years of glassmakers and the optometrists who piggybacked on them.
• LASIK surgery.
• Antibiotics–Zithromax RULES!
• Modern medicine. Multiple folks at Omegamom’s place of work have had to have stents put in recently. While OmegaGranddad’s stent operation didn’t work, and he died, it’s nice to know that so many folks out there can have their hearts repaired without cracking their chests open.
• Modern reproductive medicine. While it didn’t work for Omegamom and Omegadad, it’s worked for many, many people, and I’m happy for them.
• Our darling Omegadotter, who is turning into a little girl by leaps and bounds.
• OmegaGreatGrandma is still alive and kicking at–get this–102!
• Central heat, even with the cost of fuel so high this year.
• The Internet.
  Hmmmm. Maybe I shouldn’t be thankful for that–it’s a dreadful addiction…
• Omegadad, who is way cool. WAY cool.
• That it won’t be snowing when we drive down to OmegaGranny’s house.
• That last year’s sturm und drang in the family is gone, over with, finis. Thank god.
• Lots of good friends.

A hearty and happy Thanksgiving to all my vast (::snerk::) array of readers!

Categories: [Family] [This 'n That]

Jeanne Marie Laskas, a columnist for the Washington Post, adopted from China twice. She recently wrote a column about a friend being worried about bonding when they brought their baby home.

I love JML, and followed her columns as she went to China to adopt #1 and then #2. (In fact, I followed her columns before that, because she was temporarily on an infertility list I was on, too!)

It’s a great article–but there’s one thing I have to say:

If you meet your child and *don’t* feel that immediate bond, IT’S OKAY.

You’re not weird. You’re not strange. You’re not a cold, unfeeling person.

IT’S OKAY TO NOT BOND IMMEDIATELY.

And, yes, I’m shouting. Because I don’t want people who are soon to meet their babies thinking, if they don’t bond right away, that there is “something wrong” with them, with the baby, with the adoption.

Because there are lots of us who *didn’t* feel that immediate bond.

Oh, I felt “in love” right away, but I also felt, in a way, detached. It took at least six months for me to feel “love”. It took me a year to really, truly feel “bonded” to my daughter.

At this point, I can look at her when she’s just being herself, doing something goofy, and my heart aches with love for her. The kind of oh-my-god-she’s-so-wonderful-beautiful-smart-funny love that kicks you in the chest and takes your breath away.

(Of course, since she’s 3 [almost 4], I can also feel the utter exasperation and irritation that only a 3-year-old can bring you!)

But I didn’t feel that kind of love at first. It took time to grow.

And, of course, I feel that we got “the best one”!
Categories: [Our Adoption] [Adoption Issues]

Three years ago (well, plus 2 weeks, eek!), Omegamom and Omegadad were waiting for a referral. We had been waiting fourteen months since our dossier went to China.

When we first started the whole process, the wait between DTC (dossier to China) and referral was 8 months. By the time we got our dossier to China, that wait had crept up to 12 months. Within a few more months, the wait had crept up to 14 months. And there it stayed–because the Chinese Central Adoption Authority had slapped a quota system on, so they could catch up with the backlog.

So we waited. And we waited. And we waited.

Luckily, I was on A-Parent-China, the BIG Yahoo Group for people adopting from China. While it is, at times, a source of conflicting rumors, an endless collection of clueless questions from newbies (which I was once, so I’m not knocking it), discussions of ladybugs (good luck, supposedly) and red threads, it is also a grand place to keep up with The Wait, and know just where you stand. So, as time passed, we knew, at every step, just how much longer it should be taking.

I knew it was going to happen. I informed Omegadad. Omegadad had to go out in the field that week (boo!), but gave me the cellphone number for his work phone.

And on that day, I got the call.

I had been so prepared. I had a list of questions to ask. Did I ask them? Oooooh, no!

I was just so overwhelmed, it was a miracle I managed to write anything down on that sheet of paper.

An hour later, I got the email from our agency, with a pic of OmegaDotter. And I called Omegadad.

And we turned into sobbing messes.

Wow.

In all her early glory:

As she looks now:

It’s been a grand three years.

Categories: [Our Adoption] [Photo Posts]

So I have added an archive calendar to the blog. Way cool, check it out.

Alas, this means that I am aware of just how poorly I have been keeping the blog up-to-date, as there’s just one entry in November (now two), and just one entry in October.

Bad, bad Omegamom!

I will add more now!

Categories: [Bloggy Stuff]

This weekend, when OmegaDotter and I went to visit OmegaGranny (OmegaDad was working on a paper for his master’s level philosophy class), we all went to lunch at an awesome eatery. And I had a salad TO DIE FOR.

It was simple. Classic. Unutterably yummy.

So I went home, and informed OmegaDad that I had to try to duplicate the recipe, because it was high in fiber (thus good for me, as I have recently learned that my cholesterol is sky high), full of antioxidants, and just plain tasty.

Now, it ain’t quite what we had at lunch on Saturday, but it’s damned good.

First, a vinaigrette:

1/4 cup raspberry vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup (oh, just call it “a lot”) of chopped basil

Whisk it all together.

Now, grab a handful of baby spinach from your Big Bag From Sam’s. Make it a generous handful. Spread it on your plate.

Grab your bag of walnut halves, and break them up over the spinach. Do as much as you feel like.

Get some blue cheese (the original had gorgonzola, which seemed much creamier and mellower, so if you’ve got that, use it instead). Crumble chunks all around and over the spinach and walnuts.

Now, open a can of pear slices. Artistically arrange six or eight around the top of the salad. Store the remainder for an encore in another day or two.

Spoon some of the vinaigrette over the salad. Don’t go hog wild, but don’t skimp, either.

Enjoy with nine-grain toast or freshly baked French bread.

Oh. My. Gawd.

It is to die for.

Categories: [This 'n That] [Food]

I used to think that was a pretty awful saying. Now I think it’s merely descriptive. The OmegaDotter has been sick the past two days, running a gawd-awful temp of 105.3F when the Tylenol etc. wears off. In the midst of chills, leg pains, and fever, she has also Hurled Chunks.

TMI, I know. But there it is.

It’s not pneumonia (thank heavens). It’s not the flu. It’s Something Else. For which we have antibiotics. Zithromax, by the way, canNOT be flavored with chocolate. Learn from me: do not tell your child that her medicine will be chocolate flavor until you find out if that particular medicine can be flavored with chocolate. I, alas, did not.

From nicer days with The Dotter, obligatory Halloween pics:

The horsie in her full glory:

Preparing to Trick-or-Treat. Notice the grimace. This is what happens when Omegamom or Omegadad commands, “Smile!” It is a recent occurrence.

Categories: [Family] [Photo Posts]

….nyoooooowwwwww!

Wangedy-wang
Wangedy-wang
I’m a little airplane NYOOOOOWWWWWW!

Categories: [Cuteness] [Photo Posts]

In the world of families, what is “real”?

Before I met OmegaDotter, I feared the dreaded “I hate you!” I worried what I would do. How I would feel. Would the words pierce me like a spear through the heart? Would I fall into a decline, an amorphous depression, which would spread through my life like a big black blob?

OmegaDotter, being a toddler, gets told, on many occasions, “No.” Or, “NO!” Or, “OmegaDotter, I have told you ‘NO!’, and I mean NO!”

On these occasions, OmegaDotter’s lovely rosebud lips develop a lovely trembly pout, and she says, with a flounce in her voice, “You’re not my friend!”

The first time this happened, out of my mouth popped the words, “No, I’m not your ‘friend’. I am your mother!”

No trauma. No misery. No great big black blob spreading throughout my life to taint every waking minute.

Har.

So, the word “real” has great emotional implications in the minds of adoptive parents to be, especially those who are coming from years of infertility. The phrase, “You’re not my real mom!” conjures up fears, curdles the emotions. There’s an ongoing debate on almost any adoption list I am on, wherein adoptive mothers debate the phrase “real mom”. There’s a certain defensiveness. “I am the ‘real mom’!” comes the battle cry. There’s a group that denies the role of a birthmother (rarely do people discuss the birthfather or the remainder of the family). There’s a group that very carefully limns the role, talking about the birthmother in terms that put her into a very distant realm–phrases like Rosie O’Donnell’s “tummy lady” tend to crop up amongst this group, or “lady in China”. There’s a group that buys whole-heartedly into the Primal Wound philosophy, that all adoptive children are emotionally broken from the original abandonment.

On the blog of an infertile woman who is adopting that I frequent, there is a discussion of some of the things she recently said about adoption versus biological birth, prompted by pregnancy dreams. Those in the depths of struggling with IF race to her rescue. Those who have adopted race to defend the sanctity of the adoption bond. And in the midst of all of this, someone trying to reassure her about the “real” thing says, “Real has nothing to do with DNA.”

Um. Well, that’s not so, in my mind.

“Real” is a child who doesn’t look like you.

“Real” is a child who may have medical issues you haven’t got a clue about, which could rear their heads, ferociously, at a later date.

“Real” is a child who is into gymnastics, in a family where everyone sits around reading books, and “exercise” is a foul word. Or a child who is born wanting to play with numbers, in a family where poetry is a guiding principle. Or a child who constantly makes music, in a family where the children have always been into sports. Or a child who reveals an obsession with horsies at an ungodly early age, an obsession which Omegamom’s buddies who are into horses say is (given its early manifestation, and its insistence on real looking horsies) likely to continue–in a family where the dad considers horses to be much stupider than, say, cows or pigs and the mom is just somewhat stupefied.

On the other hand, “real” is also a child who will not be consoled by anyone else but mom. A child who has picked up so many of mom’s mannerisms that it’s scary.

“Real” is also a child who curls up on the seat and falls asleep snuggled up against mommy at the booth of the restaurant mommy and daddy and grandma have gone to for dinner after a long day at the pumpkin festival.

“Real” is a mommy who carries on a conversation with daddy and grandma while regularly checking said child’s temperature with her hand, as it rises.

“Real” is a mommy who, when said child begins heaving, surreptitiously grabs a cloth napkin from the table and holds it under child’s chin while child is throwing up, grabs another napkin, and another, and then carries the 35-pound lump out of the restaurant with damp arms clutched around her neck as if they’ll never let go. (Should I call the restaurant and apologize for leaving a heap of napkins with vomit on them? I didn’t even think of it until we were well on our way home, up the mountain.)

I try to inject OmegaDotter’s birthmom into conversations here and there. I am “real”. OmegaDotter’s birthmom is “real”, too. At some point in the future, this dichotomy may be something that matters to her…or it may not. I won’t deny DNA, but I also won’t deny that love is very strong. OmegaDotter has two moms, in my mind. But then, she has at least three grandmothers!

I will probably have the dreaded “You’re not my REAL mom!” hurled at me in the midst of an argument at some future point. I hope that both of us find it is merely another emotional stone to toss in the heat of the moment, and that neither of us find it a great chasm to divide us.

Categories: [Adoption Issues]

I have been remiss.

Apparently, my last entry, which I thought I had just saved, to continue later on, was actually posted mid-entry. Oops. I will finish the march of the flowers at some later date.

And then I became a blogging dilittant. (Digression: words that you use in conversation that you can’t spell. How many do you encounter? It’s rare for me, being one of those folks who won spelling bees in grammar school. Words fascinate me. There was one author–the guy who wrote The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant The Unbeliever–who relished in using words that no-one in their right mind would use. “Clinquant”. Who the hell uses “clinquant” in conversation? Nobody I know, that’s for sure. What the hell is wrong with “gleaming”? “Shining”? “Sparkling”? I had to sit with a dictionary near me while I read those books–damned rare.)

Anyway, life got in the way of blogging. OmegaDotter, who needs company to go to sleep, has been luring me into the arms of Nepenthe every night, then waking me up at odd intervals, so I plead sleeplessness, and the concurrent mental haze.

Categories: [Bloggy Stuff] [This 'n That]

Today, before heading off to a Labor Day picnic at our nextdoor neighbors’ house, I took The Dotter for her naptime drive. I like to drive along the Three Lakes Road for about a half an hour, then turn around and drive back–this is long enough so that by the time we return home, The Dotter is back in the land of the living again. (Digression: The Dotter is the only person I know of who wakes up from naps even snarkier and nastier than I do. The only thing to do is to grit your teeth and hold on for about half an hour, then she’s all bright & sunshiny & cheery. Just don’t pee in her Cheerios in that half an hour.)

The roads are lined with sunflowers right now. The scarlet gillia–which have had a banner year–are fading, and the little yellow flowers–goldfields, showy goldeneyes, goldenrod, etc.–are starting their September explosion to take their place.

The March of the Flowers is very orderly hereabouts.

In the spring, the first thing you’ll see are wild pink phlox. They hide out in clumps in the woods, dainty, delicate, pink little flowers, shy and hideaway.

Next comes the lupine. We have at least three varieties of lupines here, and they last all summer long. There are the tall blue/purple ones (with an occasional sport sporting pink or white blossoms), and there is the tiny, matted, fuzzy-leafed lupine whose blossoms fade into the background in the shadows.

Categories: [This 'n That]

At night, when I am snuggling up with OmegaDotter, getting her to fall asleep, Mr. Omegamom takes the OmegaDawg out for a nighttime stroll. Last night, when I emerged from the Dotter’s domain, sleepy-eyed and groggy, Mr. Omegamom informed me that he and OmegaDawg had gone to The Big Meadow, and the elk were out.

You know the old James Thurber cartoon where the woman is entertaining her friend in a living room draped with cats all over the place, and explains, “We have cats like some people have mice”?

We have elk.

When Mr. Omegamom and I drove here the first time, loaded with worldly goods and dragging a 21-foot trailer behind Blue, the pickup, we came through town at about 11 p.m. West of town, we were the third vehicle to encounter the scene…nice young lad of about 16 takes his dad’s new cherry red pickup out for a spin late at night on the highway, and hits an elk out for a stroll. This encounter included the idiot driver behind us who pulled out his ought 22 rifle out of his pickup, planning to “put that animal out of its misery!” Mr. Omegamom had A Talk with idiot about how a .22 wasn’t going to kill the animal, and, oh, by the way, you’re waving that gun in the direction of my wife and various and sundry other bystanders, so could you please put it away? The young man survived the elk encounter; the cherry-red pickup did not, nor did the elk, in the end. This was our introduction to The Elk Problem.

When driving back to the log home from visits to Grandma Julie, if it’s spring or fall, you are greeting at Natural Lake exit by large highway signs that flash:

CAUTION!
CAUTION!
CAUTION!

Then:

WATCH FOR
ELK
ELK
ELK

(In wintertime, this sign usually says things like, “Winter driving conditions ahead. 4-wheel drive or chains only.”)

Then, as you pull up over the rim of the plateau at dusk, you find yourself peering into the dimness, wondering, is this an elk herd? Is that? The phantom elk usually turn out to be some tree stumps in the gloaming, but still…Omegamom, normally a lead-footed driver on the highway, tends to go easy on the accelerator in these spots during Elk Season. The competition between a little Subaru Outback Sport and a 900 lb. elk will inevitably weigh more heavily (har!) on the elk’s side.

Shortly after Mr. Omegamom and I arrived in these climes, we went camping out on Three Lakes Road in mid September. Our method of finding a camping spot: turn off at the Three Lakes Road Country Store, drive down the dirt road, find another dirt road leading off in another direction, take it, find another, smaller dirt road, turn onto it, and so on. We found a lovely camping spot, parked the vehicle, unloaded and set up the tent, etc. (Digression: Why do so many people “camp” right at the edge of highways, rather than venturing further in? This is one of those things that has always puzzled me.) As dusk fell, an eerie sound started echoing through the trees…elk “bugling”.

For anyone who has only heard the phrase, not the real thing, it sounds more majestic than eerie. After all, it conjures up trumpets blaring a fanfare. But the reality is quite different. This was my first experience, and more than anything else, it reminded me of recordings of whale “songs”.

When elk are “in rut”, the bull elk have very macho encounters wherein they make lots of noise at each other, then rush each other, tangle their antlers together, and clash and bang for a while. A few years ago, while Mr. Omegamom was out in the field for a few days, I heard some very strange sounds in the neighborhood. It sounded like an animal was stuck in a neighbor’s utility shed, screeching and knocking over lumber. Screeech! Silence. Clatter, clatter, clatter. Silence. Clatter! Silence. Screech! Screech! Clatter! Silence. I padded out onto the back deck, wondering if I should contact Bill & Cindy next door, to see if the animal needed rescuing. I listened for a while, and finally realized that what I was hearing was a pair of bull elk in the Little Meadow, on the other side of B&C’s house, doing their manly thing.

A few years ago, in the Dry Year, the elk became our enemy. Our lovely little mailbox garden of hollyhocks, echinacea, yarrow, and daisies would grow, reach about 2 feet in height, be loaded with buds just about to burst into glorious bloom, and WHAMMO! The thirsty elk, wandering down our dirt road, would mow them down to 2-inch nubbins overnight. This happened multiple times. Mr. Omegamom swore revenge. He would waken in the middle of the night, hear rustlings and creakings, and march out to defend our precious poppies and dainty daisies in his white briefs, sandals, and nothing else, armed with a loud voice and a willingness to march belligerantly upon large, thirsty animals. One night, Mr. Omegamom was so incensed (this was about the fourth time our poor mailbox garden had tried to push forth blooms) that he marched out the front doors, scooped up some handfuls of cinders from the World’s Smallest Trailer Park landing pad, and ventured forth to do battle with The Evil Elk. He ended up chasing the elk down our dirt road (still dressed only in tighty whities and sandals), shouting and throwing cinders.

I will leave you with that image…

Okay, the real quote is “Work is love made visible”, by Kahlil Gibron. But I keep remembering it backward.

Love is not easy. Love is hard. Love is just plain work. It’s a constant give-and-take, on both sides. You have to really love to work that hard. And you have to really work to love that well.

I reached a point last winter with Mr. Omegamom where the love equals work equation was overloaded on the “work” side and underloaded on the “love” side. There was a very serious question in my mind as to whether it wouldn’t be better for all concerned if I took the OmegaDotter and left.

I tossed the dice. I gambled, big time, on Mr. Omegamom and his desire to make things work. And, thanking my lucky stars, it turns out that the gamble was less of a gamble than it seemed at the time, and that hard work on the part of Mr. Omegamom and me actually made our love weather through that time.

Mr. Omegamom loves rubber duckies. He grows a mean garden. He cries at the silliest of movies. New coworker, upon being introduced to Mr. Omegamom, confided in me later on that he was a “damned good looking guy!” He commits himself wholeheartedly to causes.

I Mr. Omegamom. Even though sometimes it’s “work”.

Categories: [Mr. OmegaMom] [Family] [Group Work]

So a group of us are going to do an entry each week on a common theme.

One week’s theme was a quote by Pearl Buck, “order is the shape upon which beauty depends.”

What is beauty? Humans have been debating this for thousands of years. Socrates (or maybe Plato, using Socrates as his mouthpiece) was all hyped on the idea of absolute essense. He argued that all we could see, as human beings, was the shadow of the Ultimate Reality. We see things we call beautiful, and in reality they are only reflections, or shadows on a cave wall, of the Real Thing, the Absolute Beauty.

There’s a damned lot of people in the world who think orderliness is beauty. I lived for a while in a West Texas city where people would plant one row of tulips, each tulip plant spaced an iron 12 inches from the next, in front of boxy yellow brick houses, with a large lawn in front, and nothing else. I must suppose, since this style of garden decor was quite common, that many people thought it was pretty. I made my rebellion by making sure I regularly drove by the house that had an English cottage garden in front. Mr. Omegamom’s rebellion was to transform our boxy little duplex’s teeny tiny yard–a patch of desolate dirt with lumps and valleys and a few tiny clumps of hardy grass growing here and there when we arrived–into a luxurious lawn surrounded by oodles of wildflowers.

To me, there’s a vast amount of beauty in what seems like wild chaos. Give me a vast thunderstorm, with winds whipping to and fro, and I feel invigorated, thrust into the moment, alive, in touch with Where The Wild Things Are. (Different styles: Mr. Omegamom gets rip-roaring headaches from wind, so it doesn’t make him feel alive. It makes him feel grumpy.)

Or take astronomical objects…to me, whirling clusters of gas illuminated by newborn stars awake awe and a breathless feeling. This, my heart says, is beauty!

These look shapeless, chaotic, disorderly.

But when you get right down to it, there is order at the heart of these things. It may not be order we can pinpoint as yet. Start with fluid dynamics…delve into fractals…and at the base, there are atoms–electrons whirling around neutrons in nice tidy orbits. Or do they? You learn a wee tad about quantum physics, and get told that those “nice, tidy orbits” are actually a quantum fuzziness, an approximation of where the electrons are. Disorderly once again.

But dig deeper–and you get into quarks. Charm, up, down, strange, top, bottom. And they start behaving very weirdly.

Is there order down there? Or does it all dissolve into a chaos of uncertainty?

While I ponder this question, I think I will go raid the freezer and get some Dibs. (lovely little ice cream morsels covered with chocolate–now that is beauty!)

Photos: Plato–Timothy Bays’ website, University of Notre Dame; Thunderstorm–LotsofCo.org; Nebula–FreeDesktopWallpapers.ru

Categories: [This 'n That] [Group Work]

The Omega family lives in a log home that was originally created as a vacation home. The problem with vacation homes is that–well–they’re for vacationing.

So the vacationers don’t give a hoot in hell about such practicalities as well-designed kitchens, bathrooms bigger than a breadbox, or closet space. Hey. All you do when you go to the vacation home is you lug in a suitcase and unpack it into the sparse closets, you prepare a few meals on the grill and wash dishes and don’t worry about the lost space in the kitchen, you shower and brush your teeth in the postage-stamp sized bathrooms.

I am now a closet closetaholic.

I yearn for closet space.

I lust for closet space.

I might even, if really pushed hard, kill for closet space.

Late at night when I suffer from insomnia, I redesign the house (cheaply) so that there is closet space.

Maybe there’s a Closet Space Anonymous for folks like me?

Categories: [This 'n That]

My lovely Aunt A. died last weekend. She died in her sleep, suddenly and unexpectedly. She was 71 years old.

Her brother, my dad, died last year. He was 75. Now my Aunt F., another lovely woman, has no siblings remaining.

A. was a sweet woman. She had a very interesting “fuzzy” voice. She was optimistic and forward-looking, and met challenges with vim and verve. She married very young and had one child, then divorced her husband within the year. Rather than moldering away, she moved back in with her parents and threw herself into work. When her son went to school, she did to, getting a degree in accounting.

She and I were very close when I was an adolescent/teenager. She introduced me to so much–we all piled into her car and went off to the Grand Canyon when I was 12 or 14. I remember clambering over the rocks on the edge of the canyon with my cousin K., who was ALMOST A GROWNUP! I also remember cousin K. losing Aunt A.’s car keys in the canyon. Not like dropping them in the woods type losing, keys falling out of pocket into the canyon type losing. So we got an extra few days of camping there while a new key was rushed to Aunt A.

For one glorious season, Aunt A. got me season tickets to the Chicago Lyric Opera. We would pile into her car, go to a fancy restaurant downtown, then go to the opera. It was a fantastic experience.

A few years ago, she had a heart bypass operation. Something went wrong afterwards. She had a stroke. This amazing woman fought back, regained her ability to speak, and kept on keeping on, traveling with her husband to World Cup competitions, painting, doing all her previous things as best she could. Then her husband died. Once again, she kept on keeping on, visiting all her grandchildren, traveling on excursions of her own, and sending out a yearly letter to all & sundry describing her adventures.

This last year, she greeted her first great-grandchild, cousin K.’s daughter’s son.

What a lovely life. What a peaceful way to go. May we all do the same.

Categories: [Family]

I am bleaching rubber duckies.

Long ago, in a life far away, I gave Mr. Omegamom a rubber ducky for his birthday on the very first one we shared. I also gave him a little Wee Pals type tug boat with a captain and a real anchor (woohoo!) plus an armload full of purple daisies.

I did not realize that Mr. Omegamom was a somewhat obsessive type, or I would have given him chocolate truffles. At least then I would have benefitted.

We now have around 100 rubber duckies in the house. They were ostensibly purchased for The Dotter-to-be and The Dotter-that-is. I know better. Mr. Omegamom knows better. Even The Dotter knows better. Those ducks, nominally belonging to The Dotter, are the joy and delight of Mr. Omegamom. He daydreams about redecorating his bathroom so that he has shelves to display his duckies.

One time my dad, upon going into the Shrine of The Duckies (oops. That would be the bathroom all guests use) was rather disturbed, and emerged with wry commentary that, boiled down, said that Mr. Omegamom could sometimes be a bit of a kook.

Anyway, the ducks have bathed with The Dotter many, many times. Mr. Omegamom, though a wonderful husband and father, lacks a few more housecleaning genes than I do. I leave his bathroom (TSOTD) alone, as I find it rather gross sometimes. But it also happens to be The Dotter’s bathatorium, mostly, and the ducks get variously dunked, squished, submerged, transformed into Willies (whales) or NayNays (horses). The ducks are left, post-bath, filled with water.

Mr. Omegamom, being on the verge of a business trip, did what any sane businessman on the verge of a business trip does: yesterday, he went on a cleaning rampage. I leave Mr. Omegamom severely alone when this happens, as his philosophy is “Chemicals. Making Life Better.” and he bombs the bathroom with various mixtures of Windex, Clorox, Tilex, and other noxious chemicals. He also believes that if a little bit of a chemical helps, then a Whole Lot of said chemical should help a Whole Lot. It’s logical, no? Anyway, he always emerges with a blasting headache, and if you open the door to the bathroom, it smells like a hospital.

In the midst of all this, he loaded up the dishwasher with rubber duckies.

This is good.

However, some of the rubber duckies, alas, have begun to grow interesting green scum inside.

Thus, after hauling Mr. Omegamom to his office at 7 a.m. so he could get his work truck to haul himself down to The Big City to catch an airplane, The Dotter and I were left to our own devices.

I thought I’d try some bleach.

Maybe I’ll write about Beauty, Order and Chaos in my next entry.

Categories: [Mr. OmegaMom] [This 'n That]

Way cool pic

Categories: [This 'n That]

I’ve been delving into blogs of adoptive moms & moms-to-be. One is at the stage of waiting for referral…she has her nursery all set up…but she’s still in that “OMG I can’t handle other people’s pregnancies/babies/etc.” stage. There’s been a death in the family, and her SIL is coming with 4-month-old baby in arms, and is staying with her. She is all trembly about sharing her baby’s crib–pristine, holy, set up just for M., site of dreams and hopes and repository of years’ worth of baby-longing–with the baby.

Sigh. I understand. But I don’t understand any more. Does this make sense?

At the worst of my IF times, yes, I was bitter, jealous, angry, emotionally fragile about babies, pregnant women, baby showers, everything. So I know exactly where she’s coming from.

But I have to admit–M. never got a nursery! No dainty frilly crib clothes, no fanciful baby-girl designs on the walls, no physical shrine wherein to cherish the coming baby-to-be. I just never got into that stuff. I was actually more scared that they would actually hand me–ME, Ms. I haven’t ever diapered a baby!–a child to take care of and cherish.

And as time got closer and closer to referral, my locked up emotions began to loosen. I began to emotionally venture forth. I actually threw an itty-bitty baby shower in my own home for a friend, because I was so excited for her and, by extension, for myself and my husband. We were going to have a baby!!!!

It was like the first tender green growths of wildflowers in an area that was only recently scorched by wildfire. Gentle nourishing rains instead of a torrential downpour that scours the hillsides and causes floods and landslides and catastrophes.

I knew I had really passed the oh-my-god-IF-is-so-horrid-awful-miserable-my-life-is-a-shambles-my-body-doesn’t-work-right-I’m-not-a-real-female-me-me-me-misery when I realized I hadn’t dipped into alt.infertility or my IVF groups in years.

I wish everyone who has suffered from IF could get to this point. I look back and realize how locked into misery I was. I read this gal’s blog and wish she could look at the baby-in-the-house as a harbinger of joy to come, rather than a reminder of pain in the past.

But emotion is emotion. You can say, till you’re blue in the face, “buck up! Joy is yet to come!”, but it doesn’t mean anything until the person you are talking to is ready to be in that place. I wasn’t then, I am now. And I praise the Kosmik All that I’ve reached this point in time.

Categories: [Family] [Our Adoption]

Well, hell, everyone else is doing it, I’m wasting more and more of my time on other people’s blogs, so I thought I’d do one of my own.

Categories: [Bloggy Stuff]