Jess and Michael's Window

Today is Evan’s 18 month birthday!  I wrote this post last night:

Time for a post.  I’m chillaxin’ on the front porch at my inlaws while the basketball fans are all inside watching game seven of the Lakers and Celtics.  Decided it would be a good time to catch up on my bloggin’.  I just hope to remain calm if a June bug lands on me, because there sure are a lot of them flying around this lamp.  I know they won’t hurt me, but I do have the typical creepy-crawlie insta-get-it-off-me reaction if they cling on as they are apt to do.  We’ll see how long I last.

**Interrupted by the B-ball fans coming out on half-time break. Celtics are up.**

So, Evan turns a year and a half tomorrow.  Half-way to two years old already!! Wow.  Since he’s starting to really be interested in how things work and experiencing new things, I’ve been spending a lot of time researching cool, new activity and craft books for us to do together.  It is SOOO fun to see some of the stuff we’ve been inputting into him for the last 18 months start to come out.  Like just the other day, as we counted something for the zillionth time….I said “one,” and he said “tewwww.”  Apparently, that is his favorite number, b/c he said “free” (3) one time, but usually our counting goes like this.  Me: “onnneee” Evan: “tewwww” Me: “threeee” Evan: “tewwww” and so on.  Ha ha.  This gives me and Mike a cute attack, so now we are counting everything just to hear him say his new word.  He still doesn’t say many words, and he’s abandoned some of his old faves…but suddenly in the last week or so, he’s busting out some new ones unprompted…like “shoes.”  (today he said “cheese” when we held up a camera!)  He still signs more than anything and is finally signing “please,” so now we can put an end to his whining when he wants something.  He signs “more, please.” for everything now and gets REALLY angry if you say no.  I’m sure he is thinking, “but I SAID PLEASE!!”  The best part about this age is the endless conversations in fake baby language.  I’m continually amazed at how good he is with inflections and tone so that you know exactly what he’s saying even though it’s total gibberish.  He asks questions and makes statements quite fluently in Evanese.  I can’t wait to see him with his 2 1/2 year old cousin who is learning Chinese.   Should be fun!

Here are some fun things we’ve done in the past month or so that are fresh in my mind:

1.  Zoo for the first time.  Not as mind-blowing (for Evan) as the aquarium, but still fun.  He liked the Mommy gorilla statue best and sat in her lap and cried when we had to take him away.  He loves kissing things he likes and was very sweet to her and her baby.  We (me and Mike) got to see a real gorilla baby too, that was awesome.  Evan pounds his chest like a gorilla thanks to a great Eric Carle book.

2.  Spent a morning at the beach on Lake Allatoona with some mommy-friends and their kiddos.  This was, sort of but not really, Evan’s first time at the beach since he doesn’t remember last summer and he had a blast.  He is very brave and insisted on walking up to his neck in the water (following the big kids he could see out swimming) and did NOT want me to touch him.  This place is a fantastic find, about 15 minutes from our house…nice beach sand, clear water complete with nibbly minnows and a shaded picnic area.

A couple cute Evan things I want to remember from the past few weeks:

1.  One evening he brought his teddy over to the table while we were eating, and offered the piece of food we gave him to the bear.  I said “oh is Teddy hungry?”  I got him an empty bowl and spoon and he then wanted Teddy to sit in his highchair to eat.  Then HE wanted to be in the high chair too.  He then proceeded to feed Teddy spoonfuls of invisible food from the empty bowl.  After that he wanted to feed everything including us and even insisted on bringing the bowl and spoon to bath-time where he fed all his bath toys.

2.  Making his rubber ducks in the bathtub kiss each other.  I always give him a big reaction saying “oh the ducks LOVE each other!”  He then kisses each one and makes me kiss them.  We all love each other.

K, if you are only interested in the fun side of our lives, stop reading now.  The rest of this post is kind of depressing.

Not to change the subject from all fun things, but I just have to mention something that has been weighing on my mind so heavily these days, especially in light of the Gulf oil spill.  Even before it happened, I was thinking about it, but now it definitely crosses my mind every day.  I have a lot, A LOT, of friends who have chosen not to have children and many of them say it’s because they don’t want to contribute to an already overly populated Earth.  I have always wanted kids and have made the argument that people like us (meaning smart, educated, caring, environmentalist, some of you are probably thinking crunchy hippie…yippee (yuppie-hippie), etc) should be the ones to have lots and lots of kids so that maybe someday one of them can solve the world’s problems (or at least outnumber/out vote those who don’t care or are too troubled to care).  Sadly, I know this is a lofty dream considering most of the world is more worried about where their next meal is coming from or whether or not they’ll be safe through the night.

It wasn’t until I had a kid that I started thinking, will he live to see something really bad happen to Earth…some really horrible environmental disaster of global proportions…will his kids live to see it?  I know that humankind and Earth will more than likely bounce back from something that could happen in the near future…but now I worry that my kids will live to see it, or worse suffer from it as so many people’s kids all over Earth are already suffering.

Will I be alive to see it?  I kind of feel like we’re on this precipice where people are finally starting to realize how bad things are getting and trying to do something about it.  Like, more and more companies (Publix, Target) are pushing their reusable grocery bags and more and more people are starting to use them, to try to do better, have less of an impact.  But then I read about the swirling, Texas-sized, floating mats of tangled up plastic trash floating out in the middle of the ocean and I wonder, is it too little too late?  Can we turn things around before something really bad happens?

Then this oil spill…one company, one drill, one pin prick in Earth’s crust and it is bleeding out like a hemophiliac.  Will paying out $20 billion in damages finally be the wake up call to all these risky businesses that take chances and fail to plan ahead for disaster?  That they could be wiped out of business and all their billions in profit in a single flash of unpreparedness?  Please let it be.  Please let it help be the harbinger of a new age of responsibility both social and environmental.  I’m just so scared for my kid and his kids.

I had a happy childhood playing carefree in a creek near my home, with a mild awareness that bad things were happening “out there.”  Even then it bothered me enough to try and do something about it.  My only hope of making a difference is raising Evan to continue what few changes I’ve tried to make in my vastly over-indulgent American lifestyle and hope that those who can make a bigger difference do so for all the world’s sake.  It is so depressing.  I just want him to have a clean creek to play in and an enough awareness about the outside world to know that he is lucky and be thankful for that.  I want him to care about those who don’t and want to help in whatever way he can.

I guess this oil spill is just getting to me.  Especially, when people in power speak up and say it’s not really a disaster or apologize to those responsible because they don’t feel they should have to pay for the lives and environments they’ve ruined.  When I hear these things, it’s just so discouraging and makes me feel helpless to do anything.  BP should have to pay for the damage…if they don’t, then who will?  Someone has to, and if not the company responsible, then who?  The government and the American taxpayers.  If half of America wants less government and less taxes and less people on welfare then when things like this happen, the company responsible is going to have to step up to the plate and cover the cost.

I’m just hoping that maybe some good will come out of this situation…that since its close to home, more Americans will realize how lucky we are and start moving forward in a better direction.  My sincerest hope for Evan is that he grows up in a generation of revolution…that he can be a witness to a massive change in attitude towards the way humans impact the Earth and each other.

It is so hard to change how we’re used to living…I don’t know how it will work.  All I know how to do is try in whatever very small ways I can.  I know I can do better and make better choices, I will try harder.  It’s just so scary to be such a small fish with no magic wand, and even more scary now that I’m a mom.  K, I think I’m done.  If you’ve read this far, thanks for listening.  I just needed to write about how I am feeling.

“It’s not that we don’t care…we just know that the fight ain’t fair….so we keep on waiting, waiting for the world to change.” –John Mayer

So it’s 5:30 am almost exactly 2 months to the day (24hours short) from my last post.  I must have some weird must-write-every-two-months gene or something.  Where is the time going?  Ok, so we were kind of busy, but still?  I need to learn how to just write shorter posts more often.

We’re moved into our new house now…it’s been about 3 weeks and we’re pretty good and settled in.  It’s amazing what you can get done when you have a resourceful toddler on your hands….things get babyproofed pretty fast.  We still have to get all our decor in the right places, pictures hung and that sort of thing, but for the most part its pretty darn close!  Plus, its nice to have an extra room to chuck everything that’s not unpacked yet…hope to work on that room this weekend. We really need to take some pictures!

The only thing I have to complain about right now is….Mableton/Smryna/Austell pals…I miss you guys!  If any of you read this, please know that I wish I could transplant you all up here.  I knew I was going to miss you, but I REALLY miss you!  So come visit me  soon!

Evan has adjusted well.  I think he was too young to realize anything out of the ordinary happened…at least he hasn’t acted like he misses home.  To him, it’s like “ok we live here now.”  He has especially enjoyed that there are a lot more interesting ceiling fans here (his favorite object) and never fails to “ask,” by signing, to see the one in our room as he’s climbing up the stairs.  He’s also enjoyed free reign of climbing on the sofa since now there’s no risk of a two-story fall (the sofa used to be against a loft railing).  Dancing on the coffee table is also another favorite.  So far he has not discovered how to push chairs around to climb the kitchen table or counters yet…with “yet” being the key word.  Some members of our family may be delighted to know that Evan is definitely a train man.  Saying “woo-woo” while pumping his fist up and down is what comes out of his mouth most often during the day…even if it’s only b/c a button on daddy’s shirt reminds him of a train wheel.  Kennesaw is heavy in the train culture department, so that is lucky for Evan…he gets to see them every time we go downtown for an event.  Evan never stops moving…the last time he sat still for 30 seconds I thought he might be getting sick.  Evan has three major loves:  ceiling fans, trains and music.  This kid will stop to dance for a beat even if its only his playmates beating a plastic hammer on a cardboard box or daddy attempting a beatbox rhythm.  Hmmmm, what career involves spinning objects, trains and music?  DJ on a cross-country train tour?

Ok, one last thing.  Stealing one of my blogging friend’s ideas (Thanks Drena!), here’s a short list of big and little things I’m thankful for right now:

1.  Being able to make waffles after a year of not being able to b/c my waffle iron isn’t packed up in a box somewhere

2.  Having all of Evan’s toys in one place (rather than in pockets all around the house, where whatever he wants isn’t available)

3.  Swinging in the hammock with Mike after Evan goes to bed under our very own pine trees.

4.  Seeing two bunnies, a chipmunk, a squirrel and too many birds to count at our birdfeeder right outside the window where even Evan could see them.

5.  Being awakened by a symphony of birds instead of the air conditioner, though it would be nice if they slept a little later

6.  Having a blank canvas of flower beds to fanatasize over until I actually find time to plant them.

7.  The beautiful forested walking trail and creek within safe walking distance of our house where Evan can have the childhood I was so lucky to have had.

8.  Seeing small treasures on the mantle place from friends and family that have been packed up for a year.

9.  Being close to my sister and her family and being better able to host friends and family when they come to visit.

10.  A husband who is willing to fight I75 traffic even if it takes him an hour and a half to get home on Friday night to make this all happen.

First of all, I can’t BELIEVE it has been 2 MONTHS since my last post.  I knew it had been a while, but whoa…did not realize.  I can tell you the reason.  I wanted to post many, many times, in the last few weeks especially, but I had this “I do not want to mess with the ether right now” vibe going on.  We were on the cusp of selling our house after having been on the market for almost a year,  and somehow, I thought, if I write about this, it will wreck.  So I kept it all to myself, satisfying the urge with obscure status updates on facebook that I knew some people would get enough to ask questions.

So superstition be darned, I am writing about it now because 1) it is 5:30 in the morning and I’m awake 2) I finally feel like a quasi-normal human being as this freak show of a common cold the whole family suffered is finally winding down and 3) I finally feel safe enough to feel like YES it is actually going to happen….WE’RE MOVING!!

In my best Axl Rose… “knock knock knockin’ on cyber woooooood.”

I guess the stress of going through this process (which was way more stressful than the year of attempting to keep a pristine house with a baby/toddler in it…who knew?) got the better of our immune systems.  I had what I described to be the worst bug of the year by myself first (thankfully Evan and Mike didn’t get it) and then when they started to get sick, I thought they finally got it.  But unfortunately for me, this was a new bug, and it made the old bug look like Rainbow Brite.  I haven’t been this sick since my college days when Stress was study buddy.  I went to the doctor and got some antibiotics so my brain doesn’t feel like it’s going to burst out of my eardrum if I lean too far forward anymore, so that’s good.  Poor little Evan has woken up for the last two nights…but I am happy to report that besides these two nights, he is finally sleeping really well.  Yipee!  But anyway, he’s the reason I’m up…and since it’s early morning already, and there’s no way I can go back to sleep, I decided I’m way overdue for a post.  K, ’nuff about yucky stuff.  We’re going to live.  On to the fun stuff.

So, just in time for Evan to start climbing up on furniture, we are moving out of our townhome. With four flights of stairs and the lovely loft, perfect for climbing the sofa and launching yourself out into upper dining room stratosphere, I am glad that we are moving to a house that is a little more mommy-nerve friendly.  This has been a great place to live, especially when we were kidless.   I will miss it…especially all the memories that were created here:  dating Mike, being engaged to Mike, getting married to Mike,  bringing home Evan, watching him grow from baby into toddler.  It is sad to know that Evan will never remember his first home.  But, we need to move on.  We need a more practical space and a yard to call our own where we can set up a sand box and leave our toys in the grass.  I’m going to miss my Mableton friends too…at least we are not moving across country!

This past year has been an ordeal of sorts, but nothing compared to what I’d call hardship in the sense so many people are experiencing right now…and for that, I’m extremely grateful.  I’m just really excited that, in a little more than a month, I can finally unpack my family portraits and my art stuff and everything we had to pack away to make our home become someone else’s.  YAY!!

So we lost money on our house.  Oh well.  A bitter pill to swallow but we made it up on the other side.  We found a home in a great n’bhood that we would never in a million years be able to afford five years ago.  One thing about this process that surprised us is that we thought it would be easy to find our perfect new home and it was NOT.  We had a wishlist that was reasonable I thought, especially with so much inventory out there.  We must’ve looked at over 50 houses before we found the right one, and even the one we found did not knock us over the first time we walked through.  It grew on us, and now we are really excited about it.  We had to compromise on our wishlist, but I think we compromised well.  It is a huge house, with plenty of room to grow into…with a perfect backyard.  Plenty of space to play and maybe have a garden if we get it fenced in…which we will have to eventually.  And the best thing about it, after experiencing the loss over this home, is that it feels like a very safe investment.  It is the least expensive home in a n’bhood that has held most of its value from what we can tell and since we will be there for a long time, I don’t think we can lose.  That was a really important factor in choosing this house because we ended up at the top of our price range, instead of the middle.  We are a little anxious about that, but I think it will prove the smart choice in the end.  The location is great too…right smack in the middle of where my West Cobb mom’s club hangs out, and in a great school district.  I love it and I’m so excited.  I’ve started packing already!

Now, I have to wait and see if Mike will let me publish this now, because he is even mor paranoid than me that something will happen if we disturb the ether.  So, for now, I will have to be happy with just getting it out of my brain.

And some Evan stuff:

Current age:  14 1/2 months.  Current weight:  22.8lbs.  Words he can say:  Dights! (Light), Uh-oh, No, Eyes (hasn’t said this in a long time, was his first after dada), MomMomMom (usually when begging and sounding pitiful), Hot (whispered around hot and cold things), Hat (also whispered, b/c it sounds like hot?).  Words he can sign:  Music, Fan, Eat, More, All Done.  Body parts he knows:  belly button (proudly displayed with shirt up), head, hair, tongue/teeth (same difference, right?).  Favorite Dance:  The Hokey Pokey (shakes head and turns himself around randomly during song).  Favorite activities:  Putting on hats or draping things over his head and shoulders and looking at himself in the fireplace glass, and dancing to music, which he asks to be put on whenever it’s off.  We will have to get him a mirror for the new house.  Recent milestones:  can follow simple directions like “put your clothes in the dirty clothes basket,” or “close the door.”  Can climb up and go down the slide at the park entirely on his own.  Climbs up onto chairs or upside down containers.  My favorite thing I’ve taught him recently:  giving eskimo kisses!

I never in my life planned on being one of those people that got rid of the dog after the baby was born.  In fact, before I had a kid, I looked upon those people with such distaste…never wanting to hear what I thought were lame excuses.  Except in cases of extreme aggression, I could just never stomach why anyone could dream of packing off their pup as soon as the baby was born.  And yet, here I am, facing the fact that Kite will never again be as happy in our house with us as she was before Evan came and turned her life upside down.  We have to find her a new home and I’ve been an emotional wreck ever since I came to this conclusion.

I adopted Kite in Oregon as a retired racer who never really raced when she was just two years old.  I was dying to have a dog after I moved there in 2003 and found Kite before I even found a place to live.  But I have to admit she was an impulse on my part and if I’d done my research I may have chosen a different breed other than a greyhound.  I didn’t have a clue what I was getting into and the entire first year I had her I thought it was a huge mistake.  She was a mess.  She was afraid of everything from other dogs to slippery floors to woolybear caterpillars (though it was kind of funny to watch an 80lb dog walk a 20ft circle around one to avoid it) and even was aggressive, growling at me and my friends whenever we approached her on the ground.  But all my new greyhound friends (who’s dogs were so friendly and outgoing) told me to hang in there, that their dogs were the same way at first, and she would come around.

So I did (hang in there) and she did (become my best friend).  My constant companion, I took this dog everywhere I went (even to work while in Oregon… she hung out in the car and played with us on our lunch breaks).  She was even amazing off leash, which is not common for greyhounds, and went hiking with me all over the place.  But, she never got over some of her greyhound-isms and one of those things is her timidity around children.  In my heart, I feared this day would come early on, but I just hoped that she could get used to her own kid when the time came.

After nearly seven years of being my orbiting satellite, that time has come.  Kite has gotten better with kids and seems to know that it is our job to protect her from them so that she doesn’t do the job, but I just know I can never completely trust her.  She growled at Evan once and I put the fear of God (aka me) into her when it happened, but that was before he got mobile and I have no idea what she’d do if he ever pounced on her.  My guess is that she would just jump up and scream her drama-queen scream and at the most, Evan would be tossed across the room and perhaps have the bejeezus scared out of him.  But I don’t know for sure.

So ever since he’s been on the move, we have had to keep them separated, which means for her that I, her God, her planet, her one true love, is always behind a fence.  As a result, she has quickly turned into the most depressed and mopey animal I have ever seen that hasn’t been physically abused.  For her, this is emotional abuse.  She just doesn’t understand why, now that this little person is living in our house, she can’t be with us anymore and she has grown so despondent that she doesn’t always get up to greet us when we come home.  How heartbreaking is that?

Kite is, and will always be, my first baby.  If ever there was a dog to be the perfect training wheel for a kid, she’s it.  I had to deal with pee, poop and vomit all over the car, all over the house, everywhere.  She has sleep incontinence, food intolerances and irrational neuroses, kind of like a toddler, right?  I didn’t care, I loved her, and before Evan, I had all the time in the world to deal with her problems.  But I’ve noticed changes in myself lately.  And these changes are so contradictory to everything I ever thought I was that it makes me sick to my stomach.  Here I am, the ultimate animal lover… or so I thought.  Having a baby has brought out a side of me I never knew was there… the side that puts people first and animals second… that once treated the dog as the baby, but now treats her as the dog.  The side that made me hate the owners in Lady and the Tramp when I was a kid now has sympathy for them.  I can’t believe the guilt I feel over this change, I really, truly hate it.  It is a constant plague.

But what can I do?  The older Evan gets, the more patience I need to save for him and the less I have for Kite.  Poor Kite, who has never been yelled at (except for any signs of aggression) has suddenly found her Mommy to have the shortest of fuses.  I even slapped her on the butt one time when she wouldn’t listen to me, which I know caused her huge emotional pain (greyhounds are extremely sensitive to physical abuse and cannot tolerate it… even a harsh word causes many to cower).  After this incidence, I knew something had to change.  It occurred to me that the way things are, are the way things will be for the rest of Kite’s life.  If we are lucky with our family, we will have a toddler in the house for the next 6 or 7 years maybe.  Is it really fair to subject Kite to that kind of life when she can’t understand why it has to be that way?  I decided it’s not.  She deserves better than that.

And what about us?  Is it fair to Evan to have such an enticing animal in the house that he is not allowed to play with?  To grow up learning that dogs are something to be feared, or that they are fragile and sensitive creatures?  How do I explain to him that it’s fine to wrestle with his nana and papaw’s dog but not his own? Is it fair to us to have to constantly protect them from each other and worry about it all the time?

If Kite were more outwardly aggressive, of course this would be a ton easier.  If she were more predictable, more like a dog and less like a cat, it would be a ton easier.  In fact, Tuna, our cat, is more like the tolerant dog Evan needs than Kite!  I just feel so horrible.  I made a promise to Kite and myself when I got her, that no matter what I would be her forever home.  Breaking this promise is really hard.  I am really sad and I wish it could be different.  I’m trying to tell myself, that is life.  You cry about it, then you make the best choice you can and hopefully everyone is happier in the end.

So what happens to Kite?  Well, I’ve contacted the local greyhound club and without hesitation or judgement (in fact they did their best to convince me I’m doing the right thing), they’ve agreed to place Kite in a foster home until she finds a new home.  I worry that no one will want to adopt such and old dog and all her attached problems, but they tell me they have great luck with special needs dogs.  Anyway she will not have to go to a kennel, and more than likely there will be other greyhounds to play with.  She will love that.  They tell me she will not mourn me like I think she will.  I hope that is true. 

We won’t be getting any more dogs until everyone in this house is out of diapers.  Tuna is a good enough dog for Evan till then.  Thanks for listening and I apologize to all those who came before me for my secret (or outwardly expressed) bad voodoo vibes.  I now understand the pain you went through.  And thank you to my dear husband for listening to me blubber in all hours of the night and for letting me come to this conclusion on my own… he never once suggested that the answer to all of our pain and frustration was to “get rid” of Kite (though I’m sure he must’ve though it).