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Friday, September 29, 2006

Fear, illogical fear

How I long for a nice anonymous, boring life with nothing but the laundry and a three-year-old's tantrums to piss me off.

I don't want any hosptial staffers to know us by name. I don't want anymore exciting ambulance rides. And I don't want to be afraid of what might happen next. I'm just sick of it. Everyday I worry that my son will get an infection that his weak immune system won't be able to battle. Everyday I worry that his heart will get worse and he'll need that transplant sooner rather than later. Everyday I think of the hollow life I will have after we lose him. Everyday I worry that my husband won't come home from riding his bike. His most recent crash landed him in the ER just four hours after we got Toddler in Chief home from the hospital last week.

Have I been afraid all my life? Or do I become more afraid of things as I get older? Am I more jaded? Am I just more of a realist? Or have I just seen too much tragedy to feel safe, cushioned? Fear. Illogical. Fear. Mostly, I think I'm just tired of seeing the people I love hurt and banged up. I know that my son's health problems are not the same as my husband's bang-ups, but I just can't take it anymore. I feel like my head is going to explode worrying about people, worrying about things that I cannot control.

I shared my fears with Father in Chief, and he listened with compassion. And being the logical and rational guy that he is, he set about to fix my fears with knowledge. He emailed me some statistics about how safe road cycling is compared to other life activities, and how the benefits of cycling outweigh the risks of cycling. I appreciate the effort, but that doesn't change how I feel. Feelings aren't logical or rational. If only it were as easy as reading a few thousand words on the topic. If only there was some pill I could take or salve I could apply. Maybe I've just been through too many emotional blenders this year to be able to step back and brush off the illogical, emotional mind-fuck that life is playing on me.

If only I could rewind my life back to when my biggest problem was who is going to walk the dogs. I'd be well-rested, physically fit, and emotionally stable. And my boobs wouldn't be quite as saggy either.

Friday, September 22, 2006

TIC hospitalized

For the 15 of you still reading my very slow moving blog, I wanted to let you know that Toddler in Chief was admitted to the ER on Tuesday afternoon before being transferred by ambulance to UCSF. After a couple of days of trying to diagnose the problem, it seems that he is having complications from his surgery this past March. You can find more details and updates here.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

It really was just 15 minutes

I guess my kind of fame is very short lived. Almost as soon as I posted about my Internet fame, it was gone. Easy come, easy go. Good thing I saved a copy locally. Sadly the copy I saved is just a fraction of the actual photo. The real version has much more sky and weeds, etc. Ah...it was nice while it lasted.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

I'm practically famous

One of my biggest regrets from my first pregnancy is that it wasn't properly documented. Sure we had the mandatory monthly belly snapshots taken in our living room. But I wanted to have real portraits done. And yet I didn't manage to get my act together enough to actually do it. Then I got another chance--I got pregnant again. We already know that second kids are destined to a life of hand-me-downs and that they get significantly less one-on-one time with mom and dad. But this second kid will have something his big brother doesn't have--very cool pictures of him in my belly. Not that he will care about that at all.

Yes, that is me and my eight-month-pregnant belly featured on my very talented photographer's web site. Ah, fame is just a web site away.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Another new family member

About three weeks ago we welcomed a nice Toyota Prius into our family. This replaced my wonderfully reliable Honda CRV. I have had to do some mourning over not being able to charge into and out of our very steep driveway. I need to slowly and carefully back out into the street. If I don't do it just so, then I scrape the underside of my car. And sadly, I can only back out one way. That means if I need to go the other direction down our street, I need to turn around in our neighbors driveway. Seems silly. And I'm sure it will be very annoying when I'm in a big hurry.

We've been learning how to drive our new baby to get the best mileage out of it. But so far, we're only averaging in the high 30s. I suspect this is because we live on a hill. Every time I go out for an errand and have to drive up the hill to get to our house, my overall mileage dips. Still, even with less than stellar mileage and having to go at a snails-pace in and out of my driveway, I feel better that I'm a bit less reliant on fuel. Even if I continue to get in the high 30s, I'm getting 50 percent more miles than my CRV got.

And to the obnoxious Hummer owner on my street (I don't know you, but I know you're obnoxious simply because you purchased a Hummer): sure you could drive up and down our driveway no problem (not that you're welcome here), but you can't fit into your own garage. So there. And by the way, I hate you.