Archive for the 'Family Adventures' Category
September 1, 2008 @ 3:51 pm | Filed under: Family Adventures
Thank you all so much for your comments and well-wishes. I am making a good recovery. The food poisoning or stomach bug or whatever it was has finally left me alone, and yesterday I was even allowed out of bed for a while by my very protective husband. 
Today I am feeling more like my old self, though I find I run out of steam very quickly. I guess we’ll be laying low here at Casa Bonny Glen for a while.
To address a few questions from the comments (and comments, by the way, are split between the Typepad and Wordpress blogs because some readers still seem to be landing on the old site instead of the new one):
1) Yes, I am looking for a new doctor. Possibly a new hospital as well (though we like how close this one is to home, especially since I tend to have very fast labors). I’m sure I would fare better in the Labor & Delivery ward during a real delivery than I did under last week’s circumstances. The nurses there just weren’t geared to take care of sick people. (And as my night nurse said to me at discharge: “You were one sick lady!”)
I would probably have been better off in the ER for the hydration and potassium treatments, but they were just too scared to keep a woman who was having contractions.
2) No, I am not eating lots of bananas! I’m afraid bananas are the food I loathe above all others. Can’t abide even the merest hint of banana flavor in a smoothie or anything. But no fear. Knowing this, and having suffered from bad leg cramps during my very first pregnancy—which all the books said meant my potassium was low—I have ever since made an effort to get LOTS of potassium from other sources. Peaches, melon, spinach, oranges, orange juice, and lima beans, to name a few. Dried apricots are especially high in potassium, but I’m thinking it’s best to go easy on the dried fruit for a bit longer.
Also, I’m taking pre-natal vitamins, of course. I don’t think I headed into this illness with low potassium; I think its sudden onset and severity just depleted my reserves. Of everything. I also think, now that it’s over and I’ve had time to do some reading, that I am fortunate the whole thing didn’t turn out much, much worse. ::::shudder::::
Back in her chemo days, Jane used to sometimes get high doses of potassium. This was always a serious business: she had to be hooked up to a heart monitor during the hours-long i/v drip, and a doctor was required to be present in the room the entire time, watching the monitor. That last part was actually a very good thing for us: usually it was one of the young interns assigned to babysit the monitor, a twenty-something first-year doctor fresh out of med school. Scott and I were twenty-somethings ourselves, so we generally hit it off with these docs and wound up making friends with many of the people caring for our little girl. This helped so much as the months of treatment wore on: when your doctors feel that kind of personal attachment to you and your child, they really listen to you. They respect your judgment. You get better medical care that way.
This OB barely knew me—I had only had one appointment with him. My first choice of OB retired over the summer and sold his practice to this fellow.
Anyway, back to the heart monitor: I was a bit surprised nothing like that was mentioned during the four hours I was getting those potassium boluses. No one so much as brought a stethoscope into the room. They did use the Doppler thingie to listen to the baby’s heartbeat once or twice, but not during the potassium treatment. I can tell, now, how sick I was because I never asked about it. It is NOT like me to keep a question to myself. Looking back, I’m shocked at that part. But that’s the trouble with hospital stays, isn’t it? When you most need to advocate for yourself, you’re least likely to be able to do it.
At any rate, I’m glad it’s over. I’m glad we all had a four-day weekend to recuperate in.
A few sweet moments from that awful day:
On Thursday morning, while I was waiting for my OB to return my phone calls, Wonderboy climbed up next to me on the bed and said, “You sad, Mommy?” “Oh, no, sweetie,” I told him, “Mommy’s just sick. My tummy hurts.” He laid a gentle hand on my belly, his brow furrowed with concern.
“I go get you a band-aid?”
Melt, melt, melt.
Also, there is something indescribably sweet about using your husband’s cell phone to call home and seeing, when you dial the number, that the name that pops up onscreen is: Love.
Have I mentioned I’m glad to be home?
August 29, 2008 @ 4:34 pm | Filed under: Family Adventures
We had a bit of an adventure yesterday. Not the good kind. But before I go on, I’ll hasten to say that the baby is fine, and I’m okay, and all will be well.
Whew.
I seem to have contracted some kind of stomach bug or food poisoning. No one else in the family is sick (a good thing). I woke up early yesterday and the vomiting started right away, along with other kinds of g/i nastiness. When Scott got up and saw what kind of shape I was in, he called his office to say he’d be taking the day off. Which turned out to be a very good thing.
Jane had an early-morning orthodontist appointment scheduled. This was going to be a big day for her: she was supposed to get braces. Scott decided to take her himself since I clearly wasn’t up to it. He dropped the other three girls off at a friend’s house, as planned, and took Wonderboy with him. But: no braces after all: not this day. The orthodontist had decided, upon reviewing Jane’s X-rays, that a consult with an oral surgeon is necessary. Why this information couldn’t have been transmitted over the phone instead of requiring a long car ride and an hour and a half of my husband’s time is a mystery: but that’s a subject for another post.
At any rate, home came Scott, Jane, and Wonderboy about an hour ahead of schedule. This, too, turned out to be a good thing. I had spent their absence alternately lying on the bathroom floor and hovering over the toilet. I had put in a call to my OB to make sure this illness wasn’t putting the baby in any risk and was awaiting the promised callback.
It took two more phone calls before we finally got the doctor on the phone. By this point it was about noon. In addition to the g/i misery, I had begun having contractions. I was also having stomach cramps, but the contractions (which included the kind of burning lower-back pain I have only ever experienced during labor) were real and unmistakable, and they were coming every seven or eight minutes. I am only 22 weeks pregnant, so needless to say this was a bit alarming.
Also, by the time the doctor finally called, my hands and feet were tingling. Pins and needles. Very strange sensation.
The doctor did not believe they were contractions: stomach cramps, he insisted. Since I was having both, I knew the difference. He wasn’t buying it. Said colon cramping might feel similar to uterine contractions. Advised me to drink lots of fluids (I told him I couldn’t keep anything down, not even Gatorade) and get some rest, and said it would take at least twelve hours of throwing up before I got so dehydrated that it would be problematic. But, he added appeasingly, if you get scared enough, just head over to the hospital and check in at Labor and Delivery. Even if all I needed was hydration, I’d have to check in at L&D instead of the ER because I am past twenty weeks.
We didn’t wait anything like six more hours (I had at that point been throwing up for six already): between the contractions and the tingling extremities, Scott wanted me to get some i/v fluids right away. So we arranged for Rose, Bean, and Rilla to stay at the friend’s house for a while longer, dropped Jane and Wonderboy off at another friend’s house, and drove to the hospital.
By then things were getting kind of scary. The contractions were fierce and regular, the stomach cramps were brutal, the tingling had extended to my arms and legs, and—scariest of all—my fingers were contracted into claw-hands, and I couldn’t get them to stay open.
Scott told me later that I was somewhat incoherent during the car ride. All I remember is the pain, and not being able to open my hands.
He pulled up to the entrance of L&D and left me in the car while he ran in to ask for a wheelchair. My leg muscles were cramping too, by that point. I threw up into a bowl balanced precariously between my claw-hands. He came back with no wheelchair (none available) and helped me hobble into the lobby. Wicked contractions. Don’t much care to remember them.
The nurses took me into triage and first made sure that I wasn’t in labor. All good there: no dilation or anything. Baby’s heartbeat sounded great. They hooked me up to a monitor, and sure enough, I was having uterine contractions. The nurse even felt one with her hand on my belly. So: not in labor, but suffering from extreme dehydration or something else severe enough to cause muscular contractions all over my body including the place we don’t want contractions to occur for another 18 weeks. The nurse prepared to hang a bag of i/v fluid.
Just then, another nurse came into the room, or maybe she was a resident. She had just gotten off the phone with my OB. He said that since I was definitely not in labor, they needed to send me to the ER for hydration. He had said, and this new person relayed, that the claw-hands and everything else were probably caused by erratic breathing, and that I should remain calm.
I pointed out that any erratic breathing was because of the pain and the fact that I couldn’t straighten my fingers: not the other way around. In severe pain, you pant, you breathe funny. I hadn’t started hyperventilating and then developed muscle contractions. The contractions came first. I was trying to breathe slowly, but then another contraction would grip me.
At any rate, the verdict was that I needed to be taken to the ER. Also, I should be given some Tums. This will come into the story later, in an unimportant but mildly amusing way.
My nurse wanted to just get the i/v started first but she was told no, they would do that in the ER. They got me into a wheelchair and an aide took me on a fifteen-minute journey to another check-in desk. Scott was right behind her with my bag. Sitting in the chair, my contractions were even more intense. I had four of them on the way to the ER, and two more at check-in.
Before we got to the ER, while we were waiting for an elevator which Scott told me later turned out to be the wrong elevator, and we had to come back and find another one, I felt myself growing dizzy and lightheaded, as if I were going to pass out. I knew I need to get my head down and I would be all right. I leaned forward in the wheelchair, but the kindly aide thought I was slumping over from the pain, and she took my shoulders and pulled me back upright. The room swirled. I made myself as sideways as I could in the chair, and the dizziness subsided a little. Then another contraction hit, and that was all that existed in the universe.
“Your doctor says they aren’t contractions; they’re stomach cramps,” said the ER supervisor who was checking me in.
“He’s wrong,” I gritted out. “I’m having stomach cramps too. I have had—five children—and I know—what a contraction feels like!”
He typed “patients says she is in labor” into his computer. I saw it on the screen and said, “No, I’m not in labor. I am having contractions. I want you to make them stop.”
He made the change, which was the last thing I paid attention to before another contraction took over. After a while they got me into a curtained room, and a bed, and all the ER docs and nurses began to freak out because they thought I was in labor. “Why did they send her down here?? Do we have a delivery kit?”
“You don’t need one,” I said, or at least I think I did. “I’m not having the baby now. It’s too early. You have to make the contractions stop.”
Scott asked if we could get i/v fluids going immediately. There was some hesitation: they needed a doctor’s orders for that. I don’t remember things clearly from this period because by then the contractions were two or three minutes apart, and they were REAL, and all of a sudden my hand was on fire like it had been dipped in acid, and I was yelling “My hand is burning!” and no one seemed at all concerned about that, they were so busy tracking down the gosh-darn delivery kit. Finally Scott figured out what was wrong and murmured that it was okay, they were just taking my blood pressure (for the third time that day), and I understood through the fog of pain that the burning was just what happens when your tingling hand gets tinglier from the squeezing of the blood pressure cuff.
And then there was some blood-drawing for labs and a brief catheterization for urine, and by brief I mean an eternity of pain, and the ER doctor checked me again to confirm that I was not in active labor, cervix high and closed as it should be at 22 weeks, and they got the i/v running, beginning the hydration at last. I still couldn’t unclaw my hands.
“I bet you’re a natural childbirth person, aren’t you,” said the very nice tech who was doing a lot of the bustling in the room. I nodded: contraction: couldn’t speak. “I thought so. Your breathing is so good.”
Which made me realize I was doing my Bradley breathing techniques and that was probably the opposite of what I should be doing at that moment, because the Bradley method is all about relaxing into the contraction and letting the muscles pull your cervix open. So then I almost wanted to laugh, because panicky pain-breathing was wrong and calm breathe-through-it breathing was wrong, and holding my breath was wrong. I couldn’t do the math.
About halfway through the bag of fluids, word came that I was to be transferred back to Labor & Delivery. The ER was uncomfortable dealing with a pregnant woman who was having contractions. But they kept the i/v running, and that was the important thing.
The nice tech wheeled me back to L&D and they got me back into the same triage bed as before. “You again!” exclaimed the nurse.
Lots of chatter back and forth above my head. Scott was called away to deal with more paperwork. We learned later that three separate accounts had been opened for me: first L&D admission; ER admission; 2nd L&D admission. This would cause all sorts of confusion and delays before long.
I was on my second bag of i/v fluid. My hands were beginning to uncurl a little. It seemed to me the contractions were coming farther apart now: a very good thing. The baby’s heartbeat still sounded good. I was still dry-heaving occasionally but even that was less violent. Still a lot of pain, but getting better, I hoped.
Scott and I were left alone in the triage room for long stretches of time. Eventually my OB paid us a visit. Really dreadful stomach cramps, he commiserated, again pooh-poohing my insistence that there were also real contractions. The nurses believed me; the entire ER staff was in terror over them; but the doctor never did buy it. But, he said, clearly I was dehydrated and in pain too severe to let it go, and he ordered a medication to ease the effects of the stomach virus or food poisoning or whatever it was.
So that’s how they discovered that there were three separate accounts for my name, and since my bloodwork had been initiated by the ER, the lab results were stuck under a now-closed account. The L&D nurses had kept pulling up my file on the computer to see if my labs were back, and being surprised that it was taking so long, when in fact the labs had been sitting there for hours by this point: in another account.
When they finally figured it out, they were all somewhat dismayed to discover that my potassium level was low. Dangerously low, in fact.
Hey, guess what? This morning I looked up symptoms of low potassium. Muscle contractions, tingling extremeties, weakness. You don’t say!
Anyway. My OB was hastily consulted and equally hastily ordered a very large dose of high-concentration potassium. This was to run via i/v over the course of four hours. He also ordered: Gatorade, to be given immediately. I was throwing up less often, so everyone hoped I’d be able to keep it down.
It took about two hours for the Gatorade to arrive. It was a small bottle, the same kind you buy at 7-11. I laughed and wondered why we hadn’t just had Scott run down to the vending machine hours ago. At least then I could have picked out a tolerable flavor instead of the horrible red punch they brought me. Not that anyone expected the Gatorade to help with the low-potassium problem. It was just to test whether I could keep anything down yet.
Two hours, but still the Gatorade beat the potassium. These were very long hours with all the contracting and cramping continuing, though growing steadily less severe than they had been. I could tell the hydration was helping a great deal. But my nurse was worried about the potassium taking so long to show up. She’d been given the impression that it was urgent they bring my potassium level up immediately.
Finally she tracked it down: I think it had been sent to the ER.
The first bolus was hung and began to drip into my i/v. Suddenly a line of fire shot up my arm from elbow to shoulder. It felt like army ants were marching up the tunnel of my vein, chewing as they went. I was gasping and writhing, and the nurse said, “Oh, does it hurt?” and told me she’d never administered potassium at this concentration before, had never even heard of it being done, and maybe it was painful in that concentration. She connected a line of saline to the tubing, and after a while the army ants ceased their munching, and merely crept up the tunnel on pointy little feet.
But my contractions had completely stopped by now, and I didn’t care about much else. Baby was going to stay put. That’s why I’d come.
I said I didn’t care about much else; there was one other thing I cared about intensely and had been caring about for quite some time. I was freezing cold, shivering, even sometimes shaking from the cold. In the ER they had discovered that I had a fever. Back in L&D, my temp was 101. Not a high fever, but high enough. The nurse would not let me have a blanket. I begged for one, but she laughed indulgently as if I were a naughty child and said, “Not until that fever comes down!” I asked for some Tylenol, but the doctor hadn’t ordered any, so I couldn’t have any until they tracked him back down. I never did get anything for the fever, although I asked a couple of nurses. “Is there any chance the fever could harm the baby?” I asked, and my nurse said, “Oh, let’s check your temp again and see how you’re doing,” and stuck a thermometer in my mouth, and said merrily, “Look at that! You’re down to 99.7! If you hit 98.6 I’ll let you have a blanket!” and whisked out of the room before I could tell her I had just taken a drink of ice water (this was before the Gatorade arrived) and that’s probably why my oral temp was so much lower, so quickly. But she was gone, and then I had to lie there debating whether to make her understand about the fever so I could have some medicine for it, or whether to suck on some ice so that she would give me a rassafrassin’ blanket.
The first bag of potassium was hung around 6:30. Shift change was at seven. When my i/v beeped at 7:30, ready for the next bag of potassium, the nurse who came in was not assigned to me and therefore didn’t know I was on blanket restrictions, and when she saw me shivering she said, “Oh honey! Are you cold? Why didn’t you ask for a blanket?” and bustled out and came right back in with two blankets—warm ones, fresh from the blanket-warmer, the kind they give you in Labor and Delivery when you have actually had a baby instead of just being a pesky, dehydrated, potassium-depleted, ER-staff-terrifying stomach ailment patient. I snuggled down under my deliciously warm blankets and finally, finally began to feel human for the first time all day.
Scott had left around six to collect the children from our friends’ houses, but after he got them ready for bed, he arranged for yet another friend to come over and stay with them while he came back to see me. (And yes, we are exceedingly blessed in the friends department. I don’t know what we’d have done without them yesterday. I’ve also been given to understand that yet another friend is bringing dinner for the rest of my family tonight. I am still subsisting on a diet of Gatorade and chicken-and-stars soup.)
It was still up in the air as to whether I would get to go home last night or stay until morning. They had me on a 23-hour watch but said if my potassium levels came up high enough, I might get to go home. After 3 1/2 bags of potassium, a lab tech drew more blood. I think it was around 10:30, just after the last bag of potassium was finishing up, that we got the news that I was just barely over the line into the low end of acceptable, and if I wanted to go home, I could.
I did. I have spent more nights than I care to remember in hospitals, and one thing I know is that they are not a place for rest. The i/v beeping, the blood-pressure checks, the banging open of doors, the loud voices and bright lights in the halls. And after everything that happened yesterday, I needed rest. I needed my own bed, with blankets or not, at my discretion.
The nurse went to print up my discharge papers. She returned laughing, waving a tiny plastic-wrapped package of Tums.
“The doctor ordered these for you!”
Um, yes, eleven hours ago.
It was funny at the time, because Tums (or lack thereof) were the least of my concerns yesterday. Became somewhat less funny today, when I checked in with the doctor by phone, as ordered. Turned out he’d ordered those Tums right away because he thought a calcium deficiency was what was causing my hands to turn into claws.
His diagnosis had been wrong, which, as it turns out, is kind of a good thing. Because if I’d really needed that calcium to correct what was going wrong with me, eleven hours would have been an awful long time to go without treatment in such critical circumstances.
At any rate, I eventually got the fluids and potassium that my body was evidently in desperate need of. And I came home, and I’m doing much better, no more contractions, no more claw-hands. Still battling the original g/i unpleasantness, but have managed to keep some toast and Gatorade down. I have a killer headache and I feel achy all over as if I’d been hit by a truck. But I’m happy to be home with my family. I’m glad the baby is fine. I’m glad I can have whatever I need right away instead of hours later. I’m glad yesterday is over.
Scott wanted me to write it all down before I forgot it, so I did. And now I’m going to take another nap.
Whew.
August 15, 2008 @ 7:34 pm | Filed under: Family Adventures, Hearing Loss, Wonderboy
Today was the Solemnity of the Assumption, a holy day for us. We went to the 9 a.m. Mass at the chapel of a local nursing home run by Carmelite sisters. The kids and I sat in the last row, but the boy grew too noisy, and I had to take the two little ones out to the lobby. By “too noisy” I mean he’s in this phase where his favorite favorite thing is to ruff-ruff like a puppy. There we were in this tiny little chapel full of nuns and elderly people, and my son was barking. During the homily. Embarrassing much? You could say that.
So I spent the rest of Mass in the lobby, my cheeks burning, trying to keep the barking to a whisper. Trouble is, Wonderboy can’t HEAR a whisper. This has a somewhat limiting effect upon his desire to vocalize sotto voce. I was kicking myself for not getting the crew up and out early enough to make the 8 a.m. Mass at our own parish, which has a soundproofed cry room.
When Mass was over, the priest, an elderly fellow himself, walked straight through the chapel doors to the lobby where I was standing. He smiled at us, shook my hand, admired the beautiful children. I apologized for Wonderboy’s noise.
The priest held a hand to his ear.
“Eh? What’s that?” he shouted, in the unmistakable tones of the hard-of-hearing.
It is impossible for me to convey the deliciousness of that moment. In an instant, my mortification was gone. Of course I still wished that Wonderboy had kept quiet (he’s been so good during Sunday Mass the last couple of months—and we sit right near the front of the church, not in the cry room, which is a rowdy, unpleasant place on a Sunday), but I realized once again what experience has taught me so many times. We’re never as great a nuisance as I think we are in situations like this. Hardly ever is anyone judging us as sternly as I am, behind my flaming cheeks.
“What’s that you said?” the priest repeated.
I raised my voice, as if I were talking to my semi-deaf son. “I’M SORRY MY LITTLE BOY WAS SO NOISY DURING MASS!”
The priest gave a hearty laugh. “It’s not like I would notice!”
He laid a hand on Wonderboy’s head, gnarled fingers patting the white-blond hair above the blue hearing aids.
“My brother had fourteen children,” he said. “Fourteen nieces and nephews, I had. Now those children could make some noise!”
The congregation began to file out: white-haired ladies with walkers, old men leaning on canes, beaming Carmelite sisters in their brown habits—every one of them stopping to smile at the children, ruffle a head of hair, shake a hand. There was no hint of reproof or censure in anyone’s manner: only warm smiles, friendly greetings, huge peals of laughter when Wonderboy, God bless him, ruff-ruffed at them. These good souls seemed universally delighted to see—and yes, even hear—youngsters in the aisles of their nursing home which, perhaps, come to think of it, is sometimes all too quiet.
August 14, 2008 @ 7:52 pm | Filed under: Books, Family Adventures, Fun Educational Stuff, Fun Learning Stuff, History, Unschooling, homeschooling
Originally published in Februrary 2005.
It’s been a rough morning. Our wagon tipped over while fording a river, and we lost fifty pounds of salt pork and our only shotgun. Then Rose took sick—cholera, we think—and died before we could do anything about it.
My girls are undaunted by this stunning double tragedy. They push on across the prairie, estimating the number of miles to the next fort. Maybe we can trade our mule for a new gun.
“At least we still have the fishing pole,” says Rose. She seems to have accepted her own death gracefully.
“I don’t like wattlesnakes,” announces Beanie.
Jane cracks up. “Who does? Remember when I got bit, back before we crossed the Platte?”
We found ourselves on the Oregon Trail by way of a great read-aloud, one that vaulted unexpectedly to the top of our Family Favorites list: By the Great Horn Spoon
Our westward journey has occurred at a fairly brisk speed. After Great Horn Spoon deposited us in the thick of the California Gold Rush, there was much conversation about the many reasons and ways in which people migrated west. Our trail led to other books: Moccasin Trail
I don’t know what lies around the next bend in the trail. I’ve stopped trying to pave the road ahead of time. The best adventures, it seems, are to be found in the bumps and detours. We’re well outfitted for the journey with books and maps and eyes and ears and that burning appetite for knowledge that can make a hearty meal out of buffalo grass and brambles.
—Excerpted from an article appearing in the Virginia Homeschoolers newsletter.
August 11, 2008 @ 6:25 am | Filed under: Family Adventures, Fun Educational Stuff, Fun Learning Stuff, Games, Language Arts
Originally published in November, 2005 as “The Purple Cow Hula-Hooped Boisterously.”
This is a game we played in the car yesterday, all the way to town and back. I assigned each of the girls a part of speech: noun, verb, adjective, adverb (one girl had to take two parts in each round). From there it went something like this:
Me: Miss Noun, what is it?
Beanie: A giraffe!
Me: Miss Adjective, what kind of giraffe?
Jane: A hungry giraffe.
Me: Miss Verb, what did the hungry giraffe do?
Rose: It bounced!
Me: Miss Adverb, how did the hungry giraffe bounce?
Jane: Enthusiastically!
All together: THE HUNGRY GIRAFFE BOUNCED ENTHUSIASTICALLY!
Wonderboy: Huh?
Games, grammar, parts of speech
August 1, 2008 @ 5:55 am | Filed under: Comic Books, Family Adventures
Funny story. I went out into the lobby to unpack all the paper wadding from the new bag so I could put my own stuff inside it. (Clerk: “Do you want a bag for your bag?” Me: “This IS a bag for my bag!”) I knelt against a wall, as many other con-goers were doing, resting their tired feet, and commenced setting up housekeeping in the loverly new bag. A guy leaning against the wall nearby complimented me on my purchase, particularly on its lime green hue. I thanked him and said I’d been torn between the green one and the black one, but I figured there were a million black bags in the world, so I went for the more unusual one.
Well, all the con-walking must have gone to this guy’s head, because he began waxing philosophical about the dramatic effect this decision to go with the green instead of the black was going to have on my life. “Think about it,” he said, glancing at me, observing, no doubt, my extremely tame appearance—brown t-shirt, jeans, self-inflicted haircut—against the colorful Comic-Con backdrop of superheroes, pirates, and stormtroopers. “Until now, you’ve probably moved through life invisibly, escaping notice. But now it will all be different, now that you’ve made this leap into the Different by choosing the green bag—”
And I couldn’t help it: I burst out laughing. Buddy, I’ve got five kids. This is probably the only day of the year you’ll catch me alone. We travel in a pack. I can’t move through anywhere invisibly.
Actually, selective invisibility sounds like a pretty good superpower to me. Guess I’d have to leave the green bag at home, though.
comic con, San Diego Comic-Con, SDCC, shopping
July 31, 2008 @ 7:53 am | Filed under: Clippings, Comic Books, Family Adventures, Fun Learning Stuff, Uncategorized
And I was only there for half of it.
Whew. As has always been my comic book convention experience, the weekend was exhausting but sooo much fun. That it fell on this particular weekend was a bummer, though, because a bunch of my girlfriends were at an entirely different conference on the other side of the country, and I (sob) could not be in two places at once.
Looking at all the beautiful pictures from the FCL Conference gave me such a smile, because talk about a study in contrasts! Here’s what their weekend looked like.
Here’s what mine looked like.
Scott had to work at the con Wednesday night, Thursday, Friday, and through the weekend. My mother arrived bright and early Saturday morning, and I brought her home from the airport, gave her a hug, and abandoned her with the children for the next two days. More or less.
On Saturday, while Scott worked at the WildStorm booth and did portfolio review and all that editor stuff they pay him for, I strolled up and down the convention center taking in the sights. There is always a lot to take in.
View from the DC Comics green room.
Saw eye to eye, Yoda and I did.
After a while, you’ve seen so much it all becomes a blur.
Sometimes you just need to sit down and take a little breather.
Fortunately, Scott got a late lunch break just in time for us to hook up with our beloved (and gorgeous) college friend Kristen, her husband Vinny, and Vinny’s Attack of the Show co-producer, Joshua. We survived the cattle crossing that is the big intersection right outside the convention center
and wandered into the Gaslamp District in search of a good place to eat.
Speaking of cattle crossings, we passed these characters just hanging out on a streetcorner.
Rumor has it they were a promo for the TV show Fringe.
The restaurant that boasted of having award-winning meatloaf had a 45-minute wait, so hmph to them. We found ourselves at Fred’s Mexican Cafe, and oh my goodness. The complimentary chips and salsa were so good they nearly made us weep.
Kristen took this picture of me basking in post-salsa contentment.
She also got much better Comic-Con pix than I did.
After stuffing ourselves with cajun shrimp tacos (oh. my. goodness.) and carnitas burritos, we waddled back down the street toward the Con. OK, I waddled. Scott had to dash ahead to get back for booth duty. Kristen and I took our time. We passed Joss Whedon on the street. Kristen greeted him with what is now my favorite greeting ever. (”Hey, Joss Whedon! Yay!”) He grinned. Then we reached Kristen’s hotel and said a weepy goodbye. L.A. is just too dang far away. At least, as the car drives.
Back to the Con for me, where I visited artist friends until Scott was finished at the booth. Tim Sale shook his head in amazement at the news that we are expecting again. I told him we figure there won’t be any Social Security by the time we’re old enough to draw it, so we’re making sure we have plenty of children around to take care of us. He said, “Good point. It’ll be an agrarian society by then anyway, so you’ll need all those kids to work the farm.” Ha.
It was around that time that I had a little bag crisis. The bag I’d brought with me (this delicious creation by Beauty That Moves) turned out to be just a leetle too small for the event. My camera was perched too near the top, just begging to be snatched. What choice did I have? There was this booth full of big ole bags with zippers, and one of them was lime green. Seriously, what choice did I have. OK. I admit it. I have a little problem when it comes to bags. In fact, just minutes later when my husband was introducing me to one of his favorite writers in the comics industry (Kelley Puckett, whom I’ve been hearing about—and reading—for fifteen years, but somehow had never met until this weekend!), he broke off in mid-sentence and said, “Hey, is that a new bag?” I said, “Hmm? What?” And he turned to Kelley and said, “My wife has only two flaws.” (He’s wrong about that, but it was sweet.) “Number one: her ridiculous affection for me. Number two: her compulsion for bags.” I can’t deny it. I am so thrifty and purchase-cautious when it comes to clothes and furniture and household items and pretty much everything except books and handbags. I mean, it’s not like I buy a bag a month or anything like that. But three or four a year, yeah, maybe. It’s a quest, see, for the perfect bag. As pretty as this one but with lots of pockets and a sturdy bottom and some kind of inherent magic that will make me always be able to locate my keys when I need to. That kind of bag.
But I digress.
Our Saturday evening wrapped up with what is for me the best part of a comic book convention. We wound up in the Hyatt bar eating appetizers and drinking beer (ginger ale for me) with a group of writers and artists. I love this, the jovial camaraderie and stimulating discussion of a community of creative colleagues. Our Barcelona pal Andy Diggle was there (but no Jock, alas), and Kelley Puckett joined us, and Fiona Staples (Scott’s artist on Jack Hawksmoor), and a bunch of WildStorm people, and assorted other folks wandering in and out. We stayed up talking too late and dragged ourselves home well past midnight.
And then poor Scott had to start all over at 9 a.m. on Sunday. I lingered at home, took the girls to Mass, played with my little ones. I didn’t want to take a second car into the convention-center madness, so I parked at the trolley station near our house and took the orange line downtown. And what an interesting trolley ride that was. I Twittered the experience (scroll down to “waiting for the trolley” and read upwards) and was probably lucky the Loud Girl didn’t know I was recording her rantings for all the internet to see. I told Scott you know it’s been a freaky train ride when it’s a relief to get back to all the nice, sane people at Comic-Con.
Like these guys.
I am proud to say I bought no bags on Sunday (although the blue soldier guy’s messenger bag up there is kind of cute, isn’t it). I took in the sights and drank free DC Comics cranberry juice and met more nice artists and attended the WildStorm panel. And then it was back to the Hyatt for more food & fun with Fiona and Andy (but no Kelley this time) and Mike Costa and Neil Googe and other engaging, talented folks. Scott, Mike, Andy, and I spent a good three hours talking about the nature of story. That, my friends, is why I go to comic conventions.
Later we stopped by a party hosted by Mark Buckingham, Bill Willingham, and Matt Sturges, but I was too tired to stay long. My obliging hubby took me home where I snuggled up next to my baby who is no longer a baby and dreamed about absolutely nothing, because I was that wiped out.
Comic Books, comic con, San Diego Comic-Con, SDCC
July 23, 2008 @ 6:24 am | Filed under: Family, Family Adventures, Uncategorized
Last Friday Jane and her friends had the great fun of making blankets together for a service project headed by my sweet and generous friend Katie. All the volunteers were sent home with giant bags of fabric, fleece and cotton, to be used in making more blankets for the pro-life center and anything else the girls want to tackle for themselves or their families. Jane spent the weekend making fleece blankets and pillows, some knotted, some hand-sewn. I promised to work on making a space for her to have easy access to the sewing machine: all three big girls very much want to learn to sew, really sew, on the machine. So that was Monday’s project: finishing the big overhaul of the craft room that I started while the girls were in Colorado.
What I had done while they were gone was: tidy and reorganize the shelves, especially the craft-supply shelves under the window. Now it was time to tackle the closet. Jane was on hand to bag the trash I pitched onto the floor behind me. One of the first treasures I unearthed was a big book of placemats to color in, a German publication I remembering buying two-for-a-dollar at a Hearthsong sale many years ago. This felicitous find kept Beanie busy for most of the day, perched at the table behind me in the middle of the craft room. And Rose worked her magic on the little ones, entertaining them, guarding them from harm, answering countless requests for the refilling of sippy cups.
About this “craft room.” It ought sensibly to be a bedroom. We are (for now) seven people in a 1700-square-foot house. Rilla still sleeps in my bed. She’ll most likely move to a toddler bed next to mine sometime before the baby comes. That’s been our pattern with all the others and it has worked beautifully four times. Wonderboy has his own room, sort of: it’s also Scott’s office and laundry-folding center, and the boy’s closet absorbs a lot of the overflow from the rest of the house. The three older girls share a bedroom, from which we can hear them giggling and talking until late into the night.
The craft room (I call it that because it’s where the girls do most of their drawing and painting and Sculpey-ing and snipping of tiny bits of paper for their own inscrutable purposes) has three tall bookcases full of kids’ books, one tall bookcase full of Scott’s CDs, a fifth tall bookcase half full of more books and, until yesterday, half full of craftsy overflow such as crumpled origami paper, dried-up glue sticks, and eraserless pencils. We must make a lot of mistakes around here, because never in my life have I seen so many pencils with erasers worn away to the metal.
There’s a small desk in the craft room amid all the bookcases. This used to be my desk—since college days, actually—but in this house I wanted to make sure Jane had a corner all her own, so it’s her desk now. She has my old laptop set up there (no internet access, unfortunately—it’s too old for anything but dial-up) as well as all her beading, crocheting, sewing, paperfolding, etc, supplies. What we did on Monday was clear off some shelves beside the desk for her personal use and add a small end table in the corner for the laptop to go on when she wants the desk clear for sewing. And we moved the sewing machine to her desk. Jane’s in heaven.
Rose has long wanted a desk of her own too, and as soon as the dramatic emptying and organizing of the craft-room closet (you can imagine what it looked like before) was complete, she claimed her nook. We have an old children’s table from IKEA in there—I was using it as a kind of shelf. It’s Rose’s desk now, and I think what she loves about it is that it is inside the closet. Safe from sneaky spies, you understand, and prying toddler hands. She found a chair that fits the table and discovered she can store it on the table when the closet door is closed.
Beanie does not yet crave a desk of her own. “I like to be wherever you are, Mommy,” she says, causing me to kiss her all over her face.
Yesterday, Tuesday, we tackled the laundry room and Wonderboy’s room. Stunning progress, if I do say so myself. It may be the last boastful thing I’ll say all week, because the San Diego Comicon begins today (at least, Scott’s work-required wining and dining of the talent does), and just knowing I’m on bedtime duty for the next three days has already sapped all my energy. Also I have to go grocery shopping today and you know how that brings out the wilting lily in me. Do you hear that swell of sad violins? Waaah…
But my marvelous mama arrives bright and early Saturday morning and then I’ll become, for the weekend, a Mary Lennox’s mother kind of mother, gadding off to parties with an airy farewell wave of the hand. Okay, maybe that’s overstating a bit. (Tangent: a Rose quote from the other day: “Mom, I can definitely tell that Rilla is our baby. She’s prone to hyperbole just like you and Daddy. I just offered her a drink of water and she was grumpy and shouted, ‘NO! I never gon’ have water a-more!”)
Poor Rilla. Is it her fault she’s not a morning person?
Anyway, so maybe I won’t be quite as bad as Mrs. Lennox, but I do plan to spend a good bit of time at Con-related festivities. That’s the whole entire reason my mother is flying out here this weekend. Isn’t she the best? (And that, my friends, is no hyperbole.)
Ahead today: Shakespeare Club. I hope. In my closet-cleaning frenzy yesterday I forgot to send out a reminder email to the other moms. Even Mrs. Lennox had better manners than that.
July 2, 2008 @ 6:29 am | Filed under: Family Adventures
So far:
A trip to the pool with their beloved cousin.
Kitty cats to cuddle.
Grandma’s home cooking—believe me, there is nothing better in this world.
Three days in the mountains!
The Continental Divide.
Wildflowers.
Alpine sliding.
Horseback riding.
Roller skating.
Stepping in snow for the first time since leaving Virginia.
Making crafts at the YMCA camp.
Tour of alpaca farm. Baby llamas up close. Wool to take home.
More crafting!
A trip to a lake? The phone was cutting out at this point so I’m fuzzy on the details.
And from the sound of it, numerous gift shop excursions. “I got a hat, and a tiny horse with bridle, and…”
Are these children ever going to want to come home?
June 30, 2008 @ 7:23 am | Filed under: Family Adventures
This is going to be a strange week. My three big girls are off in Colorado visiting my parents. And my sisters, and my twelve-year-old niece. And the Continental Divide. And the awesome alpine slide I loved as a kid. Not that I’m jealous or anything.
Well, the little ones and I have an exciting week planned right here at home. For example: potty training! Woot woot! And closet-cleaning. And under-the-beds cleaning. And bookshelf-purging. Oh, the heartpounding thrill of it all!
Now who’s jealous?
)
