Monday, April 30, 2012

I Am Not Responsible For What I Write Today

Let me tell you, having a neurotransmitter disorder, insomnia and teeth that are slowly going bad due to the side effect known as "cotton mouth" or "dry mouth" really is not a walk in the park. The NTD makes it so that pain is amplified - that's ALL pain. So when I am having toothaches in the middle of the night they literally wake me up from the pain. That means that I was up last night

EVERY

TWO

HOURS.

Now, as if that wasn't bad enough, I have slow-sleep insomnia so it takes me a bit longer to get to sleep or to go back to sleep. Sometimes it's as "short" as 15 minutes and sometimes it's as long as two to three hours. The first time I woke up, I was only awake for about half an hour to 45 minutes before I went back to sleep so that was ok. But still ... if I couldn't get to sleep until AFTER 2 and woke up at 4 then was awake for about half an hour - well, you do the math. Next I woke up at about 6:15 and was UP such that I knew that it would be at least an hour before I would feel sleepy again, and then if I went back to sleep I would lie there anticipating RP waking up so I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. So I just stayed up.

Now, I'm NOT a morning person ... I'm an "owl" (hence the late bedtime). RP goes back and forth between getting up "early" (before 8:30) and getting up "late" (after 9:00) but seems to be moving towards being an owl and Patrick is an owl as well. My child ... who USED to wake me up at 5 am for his breakfast and then continued to wake me up at about 6 even after he stopped nursing (thus making for an exhausted Mommy) is happily staying awake until after MIDNIGHT - even when I put him to bed earlier. But anyway ... that's a bit off track from the opening phrase from this paragraph. I do not reach "peak" until after 3 pm - which played havoc with my schooling - and have a "second wind" that kicks in sometime about 9 or 10 PM instead of 5 or 6 PM for most people. Needless to say, I've been grumpy and cranky or even maybe B!TCHY (take your pick) all day. Poor little guy has had to put up with a cranky Mommy. *sigh*

My brain is MUSH. I feel if I shake my head hard right now that it will drip out of my ears or nose like so much lumpy, watery oatmeal. I texted the dear hubby that I am not up for talking tonight and that I would talk to him tomorrow night and why. He actually understands - at least somewhat.

Now, I DID get a very broken nap today which added MAYBE another 2 hours to the 3 1/2 I got last night. That's still only 5 1/2 hours ... which for me is so much less than my body NEEDS that it's pitiful. I'm currently plotting how to get the kid into bed early tonight so that I can get to bed early.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Guppies and Lizards and Chaos, OH MY!

Well, our fancy guppy population seems to be swelling every time I look at the aquarium. I swear we now have at least 3 spawnings swimming around with all the adults. My friend who was going to take babies off my hands has decided that the 6 she got are enough since they'll populate her tank in no time. I may be able to get my SIL to take a few off our hands since my nephew has a tank that has nothing in it at the moment. But what to do with the rest of them now and in the future?

My two males

Fishies EVERYWHERE!
Luckily, I can use the Internet (it WAS my job once to help others use an Internet site). I have found a few pet stores not owned by the two major chains (that start with Pet). One has already responded that they can and will take fry off my hands. I'll contact the third one on my list tomorrow to see if they're interested and also search for others in the region that may be able to help me out. If I can get 2 or more stores interested, then I can alternate stores so that I'm not flooding the market so to speak. I may keep a few of the babies of these pairings because they promise to be really pretty (even though I have failed in my quest to have a BLUE fancy guppy). I may keep a female or two and see if I can find a blue fancy somewhere to further mix up the gene pool or I may just ignore the conventional breeding wisdom and just go get a male blue.

As if fish stress wasn't enough, I have lizard worries as well. Virginia is home to a variety of types of skinks - at least that's the type of lizard we have living in our yard. The prettier one is called a five-lined skink. They have five lines running from their heads down to their tails (which would be why they are called five-lined) and when the tail is the original tail it is a very pretty blue color, at least until they reach full adulthood. The heads of the five-lined skinks for the males turn a brighter orangey-color for mating purposes in the spring. We also have broad headed skinks in our yard which  closely resemble the five-lined skinks except that they are larger and tend not to have the stripes.

A male 5-lined skink ready for wooing his female. Note the blue in his lines indicating it's his original tail.
This may be an adult broad-headed skink also ready for love.
Skinks are very beneficial in the yard and garden because they eat BUGS. They are not harmful at all and are pretty skittish when confronted by humans. My cats found out the hard way that at least for felines, they do not agree with the digestive tract. They actually are rather interesting creatures since their tails can pop off and writhe in a convincingly lifelike manner while the rest of the skink runs off to safety. I rather like them in my garden and around the outside of the house. But we have a problem.

I have a VERY large stainless steel bowl outside for water for when Aine decides to spend a fair amount of time in the yard. She likes having water and it's a safety issue for her to have access since she is a rather dark-coated LARGE dog. In the past week or two, I started having to rescue skinks from Aine's water dish. They are able to use the concrete steps to climb up to the lip and jump in, but the sides are so steep and slippery to them that they can't get OUT. Today alone I rescued two different skinks while Aine looked on and then tried to chase them (to play) once I got them out of the dish. The two today may be old tenants of our yard since they actually allowed me to pick them up to gently deposit them outside of the dish. I know some of the past years' skinks have become almost blase about me being out and about in the yard and don't bother to run and hide.

Chaos? That's just the current state of my house and my mind. In a way I can't wait for RP to go to school so I can have some time every day to get the house in order without someone complaining that they were playing with that (4 hours ago or yesterday) and throwing a temper tantrum. 

Friday, April 20, 2012

I'm NOT Christian, But I AM a Good Mother

There's been a lot that has happened since my last blog post. I guess the best way to tackle this would be to go chronologically.

RP is registered for Kindergarten. Yay? I filled in all the forms (and got hand cramps doing it), turned in his physical form, allowed someone from the school to take my precious child away and "test" his readiness for Kindergarten and did it all without a single tear. It was a madhouse since they were running behind with the testing of the kids and the school nurse had to go take care of mid-day medications while we were there, so there was a LOT of waiting. It's a good thing that Mommy has GAMES on her cell phone to occupy a 5 year old while we waited for the testing to happen. We arrived at the same time as another mommy and her little girl and RP introduced himself and started to play with the little girl right away as I filled out form after form after form. The paperwork part went fairly smoothly since I had everything at hand and had my cell phone for phone numbers. The hitch came after they took my baby away to test him. It just seemed to take FOREVER for him to come back. There were kids who left AFTER he did that came back BEFORE he did, and my paranoia went crazy worrying that he is woefully unprepared. When he finally DID come back, I was informed that he "very smart and very imaginative". Apparently he talked the tester's ear off and read a few of the words in a book that they were using to test story-telling ability (tell the story of the picture). Out of 100 "points" he scored 96. WHAT??? Doesn't that translate into an "A" if he were actually in school? I mean, I knew he was kinda bright (and expected him to be since both Patrick and I are) since I don't know of any other kid who at 18 months knew the word "contraption" and could use it correctly in a sentence ... but that kind of floored me. Our instructions for preparing him? "Have a great summer!" Oh, and continue to read to/with him.

Now, I have NOT been pushing stuff like sight-words, math, penmanship (obviously, his is AWFUL!), calculus, playing the violin ... so I was afraid that he would need some help in order to get ready for school in the fall. We HAVE been reading to him for as long as I can remember (I can't remember when we started) and we always tried to speak in complete sentences since before he was born ... we refused to do "baby talk" and asked our families to also speak normally to him. I admit that we allowed ourselves to repeat mispronunciations  like "hospible" (What is that, anyway? A hospitable hospital?) when talking to him, but we always started out with the correct ones until he insisted that WE were wrong. But I have been so anti-pushing him to learn on MY schedule that I was afraid that I was doing him a dis-service by not pushing things. I guess I was actually doing it RIGHT? I mean, I was the one who was home with him all the time. Patrick and Grandma had some influence, but it was ME who was the one who decided to let him learn more organically.

BUT - this result from the Kindergarten testing has me worried. I remember how BORED I was in school in Middle School and High School. I sought out things to learn about on my own even in Elementary School because I wanted to know MORE about the subjects that were taught. I have been a voracious reader all of my life (and was a bit more advanced at reading that RP is when I started Kindergarten) so THAT helped me to learn even more. I have been concerned ever since he appeared to be learning things quickly that I would really have to help supplement his learning as he gets older. Oh well ... I'll figure it out.

Now, on to the other half of this blog entry ...

At the request of my Mother-In-Law and my husband (who just wanted to SHUT HER UP on feeling that I was preventing RP from attending Sunday School at her church), I started allowing RP to go to church with Grandma. I had very grave misgivings about it since my entire side of the family is either agnostic or some flavor of "pagan", but it seemed to be important to Grandma and I DO want RP to have access to a variety of religions and religious instruction. I personally am NOT Christian and I DO NOT like Grandma's church because they are just this side of Southern Baptist, but I still let him go with Grandma. I figured it would help give him some experience at following directions in a classroom setting and give him even more socialization. But we have come to a problem, in my opinion.

I was sick last week and RP said he would pray to Jesus for me to feel better. When I pointed out that he could ALSO pray to the Goddess, he said that his Sunday School teacher said I could pray to whomever I wanted but that she wants HIM to pray to Jesus. Um ... wait a fucking second, lady ... I am his mother, not you. You have now effectively started undermining me by that instruction. What ever happened to the commandment to "honor thy father and mother"? I guess that's only for "non-heathen" Christian or Jewish children. It made me honestly feel COLD inside. It also made me very angry.

I am trying very hard to raise a child who is tolerant of differences in other people, especially when it comes to religious matters. I am a moral person - I have to be. I was raised by a commissioned Air Force officer. My child is being raised to be polite, have respect for authority (but not blindly follow authority if it means harm to him or others) and to treat others the way they want to be treated. He is being raised with "An ye harm none, do as ye will" as the guiding principle in his life ... and the 10 commandments boil down to just that. Lying harms both yourself and other people. Murder, well that one should be obvious that it is hurting another person. Coveting/Jealousy hurts yourself and the relationship with the person you are jealous of. Keeping one day "holy" for rest is to prevent you from harming yourself with overwork. Honoring your elders is to prevent you from harming the relationship with them and to maintain your community ties. As far as the "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me" ... well, putting Jesus ahead of God is just that, as well as the Virgin Mary and myriad of Saints in the Catholic church . The no graven images is broken by most churches who have pictures of Jesus AND GOD in the church, as well as the aforementioned Mary and the Saints. I have no images of any gods in my home, and I break down my Higher Power into a masculine and feminine who are EQUAL (thus no god is put before another). Technically I am following those commandments better than the Christians are in my eyes. I am not anti-Christian. I am anti what people have done with the religion. I don't understand why over half of the New Testament consists of letters purportedly by a man who never actually MET Jesus and who spouted misogyny at every chance he could. I just don't understand it.

One of my main concerns stems from my Father-In-Law's funeral where the "preacher" told a story about his dentist and what a lovely man he is. This dentist is gentle, giving, compassionate and a very moral man according to the "preacher". What a shame that the dentist is GOING TO HELL because he's JEWISH. This set off alarm bells in my mind. What the hell are they going to tell my son about his Grammy who is Wiccan? Or MOMMY who has done a lot of comparative religious study and blended aspects of many religions into her own spirituality? I ascribe to aspects of Wicca, Druidry and Shamanism. These are my HERITAGE. I am part Lakota and very Celtic in other parts ... so these religions come from my ancestors. My father always felt more in tune with his Higher Power when out in nature (which makes sense since my Druidry comes to me through his family tree). I descend from Picts, Druids, Angles, Saxons, Galls, Norsemen/Norsewomen, Lakota, Romans and even supposedly Jews (specifically, Joseph of Aramathea). I honor ALL of my ancestors in my spirituality. Isn't that what I am SUPPOSED to do? Isn't that what my son is supposed to do? I am scared that he will be POISONED against his family because of this church.

Ugh.