Originally published at kristyk.org. You can comment here or there.
Echo follows the markers at White Sands
Which way is the right way? The answer is different for everyone. We all find our own way, navigating the complexities of this life using our experiences as a guide. What is important to me may be meaningless to you. And that's okay. It is good to be different. Our differences are what makes life interesting. But at the same time, there has to be some common ground... something that we all agree on that makes it possible to coexist peacefully.
Saturday, Mica and Mikal wanted to go to their mom's house and spend the night. Their brother was turning five and they wanted to be there with him. The details aren't important, but we ended up going to get them that night. As much as we want them to know and love their mom, we aren't willing to leave them in a bad situation. As usual, they were upset. This time, though, they weren't crying for themselves. They were sad to leave their brother behind.
Apparently, there was a lot of drinking at his 'party'. When it came time for his birthday cake, someone (a cousin's boyfriend?) shoved his face in the cake with the candles still lit and his face was burned. The girls wanted him to have a good birthday so we invited him over yesterday. We bought him some toys and a cake. I think he had fun. He is such a cute kid! The burn that the girls told us about was worse than I expected. Every time I looked at him I got more upset. He said they hadn't done anything for the burn, but that he washed it with water. I cleaned it for him and put on some antibacterial cream.
I'm so upset right now. It isn't the burn itself that bothers me so much. Kids get hurt. Just yesterday, Jon got scratched by the cat (when he wouldn't put it down) and Butterfly got a nasty bruise on her chest when she fell on her bike (again!). But to me, there is a big difference between kids being kids and getting hurt and an adult intentionally being cruel to a child.
So we are back to the original question. Mike's ex seems to think that as long as she isn't caught breaking any laws, what she does is okay. Butjust because something isn't wrong doesn't mean it's right. Maybe the common ground we need is kindness... simple human decency. Choose your own way, but watch out for those along for the ride.
Originally published at kristyk.org. You can comment here or there.
Yesterday I threw caution to the wind and got the hell out of Dodge Las Cruces. Mike was working in Alamogordo, so I took Echo to the zoo there. As zoos go, it is pretty weak but he is young enough not to notice. We ate lunch with Mike and stopped at White Sands on the way home. My yearly pass expires on February 1st so I want to get my money's worth. It was nice to take a break and forget about laundry and cleaning and doctors and medicine. Mike has the day off today. I'm anxiously waiting for him to wake up so we can have an adventure together with the kids...
Originally published at kristyk.org. You can comment here or there.
Originally published at kristyk.org. You can comment here or there.
Originally published at kristyk.org. You can comment here or there.
Looking for the good in a pile of trash...
Yesterday was interesting. I took Butterfly to the doctor to get her chin checked out. A couple of days ago she fell off her bike and hit it on the handlebars. Normally, I wouldn't worry but Butterfly has an unusual tolerance for pain. It is difficult to tell if she is seriously injured because she doesn't complain or cry like the rest of the kids. When she broke her finger, she didn't cry at all. The only reason I took her that time was because her finger was so swollen. In fact, I felt a little silly taking such a happy kid to the emergency room. This time we were lucky because she didn't have a fracture, just a bad bruise.
I had to talk to Butterfly about being more careful on her bike. It turns out the kids took the skateboard ramp to the park and they were riding the bikes off of it. Not only that, they were
JUMPING OVER EACH OTHER
. Can you say DANGER? Beebo had taken my camera over to document it and naturally they didn't tell me until after the fact. So, the new rule is that the skateboard ramp stays in the back yard and is only used for skateboards. Period. You would think that after getting hurt so many times my kids would get a little common sense knocked into them...
Speaking of common sense, yesterday we had a discussion with Mia about her back. She wants to pole vault in addition to running track. Her coaches don't think it is a good idea. We don't know how well her body is going to handle the running and adding the jumping and falling isn't smart. She was extremely upset about it and started crying. She doesn't want anyone telling her that she CAN'T do something. In her mind, she is the one dealing with the pain and she should be able to decide how much she can take. As a parent, it hurts me to see her hurting so I want her to be careful. We'll have to wait and see how it goes, but this morning she is paying for the stress of last night. She could barely move and couldn't stand to be touched. She is going to have to learn to choose her battles. There is no way she can do everything.
Originally published at kristyk.org. You can comment here or there.
w/ vivitar at white sands, click through for larger imagesÂ
I like to take pictures of my kids together. They groan every time I tell them to line up, but someday they'll appreciate the record. I hope.
Counting Kids on flickr: set | slideshowÂ
Originally published at kristyk.org. You can comment here or there.
Yesterday, the White Sands Monument turned 75 years young. It is one of my favorite places, so we drove over this morning to celebrate. They had new Junior Ranger booklets, free popcorn and lemonade and a children's photo contest. We took DJ this time and he was such a good dog. He only barked once in the four hours we were gone and that was when a border patrol officer got too close to the van. Bad border patrol!
Originally published at kristyk.org. You can comment here or there.
Echo at the laundromat in his pajamas, Vivitar
thankful
adj.
- Aware and appreciative of a benefit; grateful.
- Expressive of gratitude: a thankful smile.
I am thankful for an uneventful day. I am thankful that my sister came to visit and helped the kids with their homework. I am thankful that we ordered pizza for dinner and I didn't have to cook. I am thankful that my mother-in-law gave me blankets to replace the ones that were burned. I am thankful that our washer and dryer work and I don't have to lug everything to the laundromat.
What are you thankful for?
Originally published at kristyk.org. You can comment here or there.
shots I took and sent to Julie for Sight Unseen. More Info Here.
the good
- We took Mia to another doctor, one that deals with this sort of thing, for a second opinion. He agreed with the diagnosis but said that some other things, like rheumatoid arthritis and chronic fatigue syndrome, needed to be ruled out. He did another series of blood tests and sent her for xrays. We go back in three weeks for the results. He changed her medication. Now she is taking an anti-inflammatory every morning and something else at night to help with the pain so she can sleep. In the first day we saw a huge improvement. He was very positive and optimistic about helping her deal with this without giving up the things she loves.
- Bleu won his class spelling bee so he will be participating in the school wide competition on Friday.
- Julie posted some of the pictures I sent her for Sight Unseen. I bought the disposable camera at a gas station for $5. It claimed to be the best, even giving directions to reuse it. Bleh. The film is so messed up: light leaks, red streaks, blue spots. Oh well, it was fun seeing the pictures because I didn't remember what I had taken.
- Butterfly spun around holding her yogurt [the JOY! of a good snack] and managed to fling it out of the cup and onto the couch/walls/floor/table in a perfect arc. What a mess.
- Bleu has taken to sniffing freshly ground pepper because he loves to sneeze so much. Apparently, it makes him feel alive.
Yesterday, Echo was behaving much better than normal. Usually, he is a wild one but he happily went along with everything I suggested. I should have known it was too good to be true. I was in the kitchen making a blueberry cobbler for dinner and Echo came in demanding that I stop and come to his room because Pingu was going to something important and I needed to watch it with him NOW. When I refused, he got mad and turned off the cooking show I was listening to on the living room tv. I listened to him storm into the hallway and heard him strike a match. Mike has a hard time believing that I could hear a match that far away, but I have MOMMA EARS. Jon went through a fire phase and I spent a great deal of time preventing him from hiding and using matches. I yelled for Echo to stop and heard a door slam shut. I caught up with him running down the hall. We sat down on the floor and started talking about not playing with matches. I thought I could smell something burning so I asked Echo what he did with the match. He had 'hidden' it on my bed.
As soon as I opened the door to my room, I knew there was trouble. The air was filled with smoke. I watched as a small flame on my bed engulfed a pillow and the entire thing went up in an instant. The flames were halfway to the ceiling. I grabbed a blanket and threw it over the fire. The next thirty seconds lasted forever. Bits of burning pillow flew all over my room.The smoke was burning my lungs. I got the fire out but the smoke was still terrible. I filled a trash can with water and soaked my bed and the surrounding floor. All I could think about was getting out of there. I opened the windows, tied the dog outside and we drove to Mike's job. My face and neck were black and streaked with tears and soot, not very attractive! As soon as Mike was with us, I broke down. I've been so stressed out that I couldn't handle the crisis very well.
The good news is that there wasn't a lot of damage. All of our bedding was ruined. The mattress has a hole burned in it, but I flipped it over and it will do until we can get a new one. Our red couch has some burn marks and a couple of holes. Other than that, our room just needs a good cleaning. The smoke clung to all the spider webs I didn't know were there and now we have black garlands decorating the corners. I have my work cut out for me today...
Originally published at kristyk.org. You can comment here or there.
C requested a blog post about our family portrait project. She also linked to this blog contest: What brings out your inner sunshine when the gloom takes over? In the spirit of killing two birds with one stone, I will say with absolute certainty that my family is my sunshine. No matter what happens, their love is a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy world. And we've had a bit of gloom lately...
After Mike painted the living room yellow, I wanted to hang our portraits in a grid ~ Brady Bunch style. For one second I thought about The Simpsons, but NO! I controlled myself. Since the wall was so bright, I wanted to stick to vivid pictures that would show our personality. This is what I came up with. Of course, I used 8x10s and these are square, so the crop is off but you get the general idea. Every time I see these pictures on the wall I have to smile. Each of the kids is so different and they have so much energy and personality!
Another thing we all love is music. It's crazy, but I have NOTHING to listen to music with except for my computer and it is in my office/bedroom. We used to have digital cable and would listen to the music channels, but since we scaled back our package we don't get them. Did you know that MTV and VH1 don't play music anymore? Don't get me wrong, I love America's Next Top Model as much as the next person but please... sometimes I'd love a little music! I used to have some mini fm radios/alarm clocks but every single one has ended up at Mike's shop. The kids don't mind as much because they all have mp3 players. Anyway, Sunday night we needed a little sunshine. The kids wanted to dance for me. Did they let the lack of music stop them? Heck no! Click on the extended entry to watch my kids let loose.
Who needs music? from kristyk on Vimeo.
