goodbye, sweet friend.

olivia, 11/2006-2/2013

it is with a heavy heart (and swollen eyelids and stuffy nose) that i say goodbye to my dear friend today.  rather than focusing on the end of her life and the decisions and events leading up to it, i instead wanted to take a moment or two to honor all the greatness and beauty that preceded this saddest of days.

i'll be honest--i never was a cat person (though owning and loving a cat for the last six years has made it evident that i actually am a bit of a cat in a human's body...hard to be more of a cat person than that).  olivia entered my life in pursuit of a dog.  i had wanted a dog for two or twenty years depending on when you start counting, and finally free of roommates and living on my own in graduate school, i hoped my time had come.  unfortunately, finding dog-friendly rental housing proved challenging, and so i set my sights on the next most furry and interactive creature.

when people ask me how i chose olivia, i always say that actually, olivia chose me.  after scouring local shelters for months and one botched adoption on a different kitten, i finally spotted an ad for olivia's litter at the local humane society one january morning.  i rushed there immediately, and spent a long time observing the litter romping, chasing, and tumbling in that playful, kitten-like way.  i loved them all for fleeting moments, but olivia's beauty and spirit were so obvious, she was the clear favorite.  as i started to walk away, she reached her paw through the cage and grabbed my shirt, the only one to even acknowledge my presence.  i was sold.  then i learned all her siblings had already been adopted anyhow--it was meant to be.


those of you who have experienced the unadulterated joy of a kitten know what delight was to follow.  she slept on my neck, followed me around, explored, and grew both  more affectionate and mischievous each day.  when i would return home from class, i couldn't open the door more than an inch before she was off like lightening scaling the stairs from my basement apartment to the penthouse and back again, several times over.  when i visited my parents for long weekends, she came home with me.  when i studied, she sat on my lap.  when i cooked, i tied her in a scarf around my body like an infant.  when i was sick, she would not leave my side. when i took dog-sitting assignments, my disclaimer was that the home had to be cat friendly, because my kitten would be joining me for the duration.  the first time i had to leave her for a trip, i cried every night and called her sitter, my patient friend alyssa, for frequent updates.  we were inseparable.

cats have a reputation for being mercurial, unpredictable, dismissive and aloof.  i think those descriptors come from people who don't understand them, "dog" people, extroverts.  i suppose i can't speak for other cats, but olivia was never a mystery to me.  she was doting, affectionate, playful and attentive.  she was more observant and intuitive than most people i've met, and seemed always to know what i was thinking and feeling.  careful and considerate, i never had to train her to be gentle in her play.  never once did i worry about her around my children, who yanked her fur and chased her tail.  her adopted brother, who tortured her without pity for most of their shared existence, was an inconsolable mess when we relocated to chicago.  after our first night there, we could not find him in the morning, in spite of the small size and emptiness of our new apartment.  when we did finally locate him underneath the washer and dryer pipes, who was there beside him so he would not be alone?  thoughtfulness like that simply cannot be taught.

neither of us knew it at the time, but olivia entered my life at the brink of the most condensed, whirlwind period possible.  in her short life, she witnessed and supported me through one other cat, four apartments and one house, two engagments and one marriage, two masters degrees and two children.  that is quite a lot of change for two beings who do not welcome change or adapt to it very gracefully.  we muddled through together.

through all of these very notable ups and downs, she has been the one constant in my life.  like anyone who has known you for a long time through that type of transformation, particularly someone who watches and listens to you carefully every day, she knew me so well, better than most.  she showed her support through all the long nights of studying, her loyalty through some truly unpleasant nights of food poisoning.  it was her company that consoled me as i navigated a painful end to a relationship (and i know she offered the same for him, too).  it was her presence that comforted me when i brought my first child home from the hospital to care for alone when my husband immediately returned to his grueling work schedule. 

she was the truest, most honest kind of friend, the kind you can only find in an animal, because humans are inherently too selfish.  i cannot quite articulate the utter grief i feel at the loss of this relationship, and of an entity of such good leaving us too soon.  her death is a harsh reminder that this world lacks too much in justice and mercy.  but, her life is a tribute to purity, affection, consideration, gentleness and unconditional love.  her lessons are many, her love unsparing, and she will always be an integral part of the most vital years of my life.  for all the holes you filled in my heart, those i knew of and for the many that surprised me, for your love that healed me, i thank you.  goodbye, sweet friend, until we meet again.

olivia, july 2007

i'm still writing 2012 on everything accidentally.

i usually aim to write about one blog here a month, but i was really shocked to log in and see the last photos posted are from thanksgiving!  jeez, time just flies by, even when days sometimes seem to stretch on forever.

we had a pretty raucous little christmas here in davis california, a full house with the california rahmans and their bichon mandy, my parents and brother, later joined by my true blue buddy zach and his energetic black labs phoebe and joey...what an awesome little circus we had going for a few days!

most people would shudder at the thought of hosting double digits of family members over the holidays, but my fam is different.  benjamin franklin once so aptly stated, "fish and visitors smell after three days."  he might be right in most cases, but these rahmans really roll with the punches and make great houseguests (remember our adventures in the west virginia blackout this summer?).  for the duration of their stay, my home remained spotless, my children entertained, my refrigerator overflowing with freshly cooked goods daily.  i'd say i rather miss the big injection of life (and cleanliness) that came with all those guests.  here's hoping it becomes a new christmas tradition.


highlights of the holiday included a new standard for indian christmas eve dinner (in spite of the patriarch grinch trying to sabotage the effort), many games of dominoes, day trips to tahoe and napa, and a lot of food.  so much food.  wow.  and as usual, many people had great photo ops with our kids...we have precisely zero pictures with them ourselves--based on the photos of xmas 2012 onlookers will definitely wonder where david and i traveled to as company took over our house and assumed parenting responsibilities.
                           

                       
                       
                       

the month of december was pretty packed even before the holidays arrived.  with david's now more lenient schedule, we were at a different holiday party every weekend of the month, first for my running club, then for his hospital, and finally, in a grand romantic gesture, he whisked me away to see the nutcracker live and i think we both might have fallen asleep after confirming during the intermission that we had totally different interpretations of what the hell it's even about.  what can i say, at least we're equally unrefined.

david opted for more days off around christmas in exchange for working through new year's eve and day, leaving me to tuck in the kids at the end of 2012 and spend the last hours of the year just as i spent them each year of my life until age 23--on the couch, with my parents.  as it should be.

our end of year discussions revolved around the usual suspects...new goals for improving my knitting designs and skills, adventuring more into sewing, and more structured running...as i wondered if 2013 would be my marathon year, a ligament in my right leg began whining loudly in premature protest.  but i'm definitely not ruling it out.
                        
any new year discussion would be woefully incomplete without mentioning one very notable event in our family:  emily and eric welcomed their much anticipated twins, rosa and calvin on january 6.  i doubt i'll ever have to understand how parents of twin infants survive, but they seem to be doing quite well so far.  the competition now begins for who will be the most photographed children in the history of the world.

aside from all the excitement around the holidays, life has been droning on a little for us, or me at least, on the home front.  it almost doesn't surprise me anymore that i have *still* been unable to find work in a hospital.  i finally bit the bullet and began applying to some nursing agencies, which i'd reserved as a last resort because i never found agency nurses to be treated particularly well.  however, desperate times call for desperate measures, and i'm choosing to focus on the positive--fully deciding my own schedule, seeing several different hospital systems first hand, getting my foot in several doors (hopefully), etc.  i'm currently in the long process of completing an endless trail of paperwork, physicals, drug tests, vaccine titers, and online quizzes to gain compliance with all the major hospital systems in the sacramento valley.  perhaps in another month or so, i'll again find myself actually seeing patients, without a second of clinical orientation.  terrifying.  but, we always have to start somewhere.

my struggle to find work has put life on hold a bit, as i didn't want to enroll the kids in classes i couldn't shuttle them to, or to make other commitments we couldn't fulfill.  and, in spite of our temperatures still reaching the 50s regularly, i suppose winter is relative (northern california gets greener in the winter!  amazing!), and people still retreat indoors during these colder months (whereas in the midwest, any 50 degree day in january will have whole towns out in shorts playing frisbee and lighting up their grills).  just to seal the deal, at the advice of my personal podiatrist, i've was off the trails for two solid weeks, and i'm only now just inching back to my previous mileage.  this has all had an isolating effect on the three of us--the kids seem not to mind too much, but i have been getting major cabin fever, and that inevitably trickles down to them.

here's the thing.  parenting small children is hard.  very hard.  i imagine parenting large children is also hard, but can't yet speak from experience.  i realized quickly that while many moms in davis have the luxury of staying home with their children, because i fully believe that is what it is--a true luxury to be with your babies while they are babies, while they still idolize you and adore you, few of them are home with their kids all the time.  either one or all children attend school or daycare.  there are playgroups, activities, interests that allow adults to be adults, separate from their kids being kids.  and before we lived in such a highly individualized society, the whole village participated in the rearing of these little rascals.  not in this family.  it is all mom, almost all the time. not surprisingly then, one person doing the work of an entire village is exhausting and tireless, with little time and energy to appreciate the rewards.

i have given stay at home parenting a lot of thought now that i've really found myself in the thick of it, and really don't seem all too graceful or adept at it.  since i've started spending ALL my time with my kids, i'm suddenly overwhelmed with constant, nagging feelings of guilt and inadequacy i really never experienced when i worked part time.  struggling to appreciate my precious, ample time with them, trying to remember everything about them is so fleeting, that every day they are growing, that all too soon reese will lose that plump, open mouthed curvature of his cheeks when he looks down to focus on a project, a look only babies have, that bean has long since left behind.  and that she soon won't be looking so vocally for my approval, laughing at my funny faces, or asking me to stay with her in her [new big girl] bed.  i try, really i do, to remind myself that as we live and breathe daily, those delights, that magic, is all slipping through my fingers.

but, distance makes the heart grow fonder.  and with no distance, not for a moment, not in our home, not outside, not in the car, the shower or bathroom, not in my bedroom or on the couch, not while stirring a pot, pushing a vacuum, holding a book, fork, cup or pencil, is there every any distance.  and without a job, that is every minute of every day.  and so, it's easy to take it all for granted.  in fact, it's easy to feel really miserable amid the constant joy and miracles of watching two babies grow into beautiful little children.  if that doesn't make you feel guilty and inadequate, you have no soul.

as i see it, there are two ways to parent toddlers:  brute force, or constant psychological manipulation.  the former requires less mental energy, but more tolerance to screaming tantrums that can last hours.  i have always had freakishly sensitive ears.  i despise noise and relish in silence.  i request david watches football on mute.  so tempting as it is to make it clear by sitting atop them that if i say now is the time for a diaper change, NOW is the time for a diaper change, we almost always go for the latter.  which means that, depending on david's schedule, i might go days, plural, without ever having a conversation above a 2.5 year old's comprehension level involving an intricate and deft degree of manipulation leading them to believe what they are about to do is their idea.  with no adult to laugh off the absolute absurdity of this constant battle, it's all too easy to feel like a lunatic.

day after day, the routine, the feeding and brushing and changing and reasoning against reason, all carried along by a constant stream of perfectly timed, perfectly phrased suggestions to move from one activity to another without screaming, a daily operation that would put an fbi sting to shame.  any brief moment of escape is a reminder that again, laundry is calling to be folded, food to be prepared, dishes to clean, floors to sweep, though i just did exactly those things not a few hours ago.  in the constant repetition, it's easy to feel adrift, like nothing i do has any lasting impact or really matters (especially coming from a career where even on my worst day of work, i still probably changed someone's life for the better).  as a very task oriented person, it's incredibly challenging not to have the satisfaction of checking things off the list, because the same tasks just keep arising over and over again and are never permanently complete.  it's difficult to feel accomplished or content in that context, though of course my rational self is pointing to the obvious, that of COURSE what i do matters, that what i do when i care for my children matters more than anything else i could possibly hope to do.  but it doesn't feel that way.  which provokes a lot of guilt--how can this opportunity not be totally satisfying to me?

as parents, it is so easy to blame ourselves.  something must be wrong with me, that i do not find every day an utter joy to behold with two healthy, lovely little children who are the envy of all of davis with their manners and sweetness and remarkable hair.  how can i lose sight of the huge rewards, not be appreciative that their clinginess reflects their profound love for me, that their alarming intelligence arises from the ways i have taught and challenged them, that their maturity is born of the expectations i have firmly set, that their empathy for those around them, down to their tone of voice and wording, comes directly from the way their keen eyes and eager hearts have seen me speak and act toward others?  undoubtedly, i have a lot to be proud of in those two in the here and now, not to mention all they might accomplish in the future guided by the strong and loving presence of their mother.

mostly though, i'm pulling out my hair and begging desperately for a break.  i find myself simultaneously so under stimulated yet overstimulated (from the constant invasions of personal space and assault on my senses of sound, touch, and smell) that retreating into a cave in the forest sounds all too appealing.  that's not a joke.  i fantasize about living as a hermit in the sierras.  and that's just life, isn't it?  in my own mind, encompassed in a larger social fabric, no matter how much i remind myself to appreciate the present, i'm always too bogged down in the difficulties of the present, clawing through today to just get to tomorrow, totally missing the todays in the process.  carving out any "me" time seems selfish in spite of knowing it would make me a better mother.  if i'm going to sacrifice time with my children, it should be for a cause that contributes to our family in other ways, like augmenting our income.  but what kind of person abandons their children to nurture total strangers?

there's a pervading myth in our society that women can have it "all."   there have been so many advances in women's lib, increased rates of education and salary, career advancement, but with a continued strong sense of who we should be and what we should mean to our families borrowed from generations past.  they are socially impossible, contradictory ideas.  we have become so focussed on having it "all" that, i really believe we're chasing an unhealthy expectation.  we can't have it all (unless of course, we already believe we do).  there aren't enough hours in the day, synapses in our brains, or patience in our hearts to be the best at everything.  and somehow, we, i, feel really bad about that.  knowing i want to be the best possible mother is a no-brainer.  but looking into myself to discover what exactly that requires of me personally, that takes real courage and maturity and introspection difficult to fine tune.

i know this is a very real and honest look into our family and into my mind.  a little heavy for a blog, to be sure, and i have hesitated to speak so frankly about in the past.  but if i'm thinking and feeling these things, there must be many, many others (can i get a hell yes?).  it's so easy to make this space just a photo album, focussing on the memorable *good* moments we share.  but if it is to be our history, then i feel it ought to be honest.  time will heal these wounds as it always does, and distance as the years pass will make my heart grow fond of the days where i always had two children in my lap, the sound of bean singing like nobody is listening, or the sight of reese dancing like this (why are there two videos uploaded?  gotta love blogger.  enjoy it twice.):

maybe someday bean will have a moment of quiet when her own little ones are tucked away for the night, and will wonder to herself pitifully how her mother ever got through it.  and she can come here and see for herself, i just barely did.  and hopefully that will surprise her.  hopefully, she will remember only good things.

so, in addition to my ongoing efforts toward improving my running, my knitting, my sewing, my various creative endeavors, let 2013 also be a year where i find the strength to continue identifying what makes me the best possible mother, even if i don't like what it might require of me to arrive there (that's parenting in a nutshell).  to strive to achieve balance in my own mind and to quiet my soul, so that i might be able to hear all my children are saying to help me do just that, rather than perceiving their actions as the opposite.  let me fill their days with good things, so that can be what they remember, and what they seek the courage to do for their own children.
                      

december already?

thanksgiving 2012

not a creative title, but i just realized today is december 1, and i had to ask myself, december already?  fall does come to davis, but in november, not september or october.  it is cooler, highs in the 60s now, with more rainy days, and we have beautiful fall colors.  but i'm still running in shorts and tees and we rarely need jackets at the park when the sun is shining.  the wednesday before thanksgiving is usually the close to the farmer's markets in the midwest, but ours is just shifting gears to a bounty of fall and winter produce.  and so, i have to ask...december already?  no complaints here.




we had a great thanksgiving at jeannette's house.  cousins mary and jim joined us from walnut creek, and put on brave faces for what was to be a first for us all--vegetarian thanksgiving!  that's right!  blaspheme.  delicious, delicious blaspheme.  jeannette had fun experimenting with a bunch of new recipes, and we finished our early dinner full, but not too stuffed to eat most of the leftovers later that night.



and another thanksgiving first for me--skypegiving!  i missed a big family get together back in michigan, but was graciously there via computer.  it was slightly weird and fun.


as i continue in my prolonged period of unemployment (seriously, not a single interview.  seriously.  at least i'm getting better at running and sewing or i'd begin to believe every hospital in northern california that i am completely worthless.), the kids and i are spending all of our time together, which is wonderful.

it's still generally lovely enough weather to be outside most days, and i am reminded constantly of the importance, in my opinion, of children's ability to explore nature and follow their own curiosity.   i suppose they do miss out on many cultural references and some technological capacity as a result of our screen-free lifestyle, but i love they way their creativity continues to develop without concepts or ideas fed to them by media.

i treasure the ample time i spent outdoors as a child, learning about plants and animals and interacting with my surroundings.  with the increased outlets for sedentary, mindless activity, i'm more and more confident in the merits of avoiding it, and grateful to live in a place that makes it so apparent and so accessible to do just that.  collecting our favorite fall leaves has been a big hit for several weeks now, and never seems to get old.

we spend our time in doors reading and coloring, mainly.  bean has really taken to tutoring reese on his colors, numbers, and letters.  she quizzes him and congratulates or corrects him.  it's very cute and amazing to watch.  they've recently taken more of interest in the piano as well, especially reese.  he climbs on the bench and opens it himself, and then accompanies himself while he sings.  it's awesome.





the past two weeks he has really exploded in verbal development.  he's speaking completely in broken sentences now, 2-4 words usually.  his vocabulary is huge.  it's really interesting to see the younger sibling develop verbally since they have an example.  they have extended conversations together now that are becoming less and less one sided.  bean has also taken up the role of translator, and incredibly, she really can understand him better than the rest of us.  my favorite are his interrogatives, when he cocks his head at LEAST 45 degrees to the side and asks a question in an extremely high pitch.  it's this over exaggerated, wonderful, cute thing to watch, since it's clearly his interpretation of how we ask each other questions.

now, if only he would nap (MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY for the last hour).

david is still loving his job and coworkers, who we enjoy socializing with outside the hospital as well.  a really great group of people.  we were able to get away for a day recently and explore san francisco, which was a lot of fun.  that's a resource we can't tap into often because it's not (like most cities) super baby-friendly, but i'm really looking forward to taking advantage of its proximity as much as possible in the future.

aside from the kids, i continue to spend my time running and working on my craft projects, then blogging about them, which i treat like my job in the absence of a job.  something has to fill the void when you've been employed since age 10.  revving up big time for the holiday season, which we're so pumped to be hosting this year.  i had a few extra birthdays sprung on me, so i haven't scratched the surface of my christmas gifts yet, but we'll get there.  and now that it's officially december on the calendar, seems about time to get the tree up as well.  my turn to string the lights this year...

november already?

october has historically been my favorite month.  i think it began during childhood, with the wonder and excitement of halloween.  it evolved into a love of fall, when a break from the hot summer is welcome, as is the beginning of so much celebration and warmth during the holidays.  it was famously such a favorite time of mine, my future husband elected halloween for this moment:

 and of course, there was this...is tomorrow election day again?  it feels simultaneously like yesterday and 100 years ago that i was last at the voting booth.

 but, like many things in the chicago vortex, october blended in with everything else.  i remember the first year it rained almost every day, and the evil bean fetus was making me vomit frequently in public.  not my favorite october.  the next year, we tried to regain our footing with this valiant effort:
                                      
but spending our extraordinarily limited time carving pumpkins made it stressful and we all had colds.  we have no documentation of the next october, presumably because with the arrival of big boy, i was unaware that october even happened.

but this year, with our relocation to liberal utopia where everything is about family fun, i knew we could get back on track.  trick or treating at the down town shops?  yup.  charlie brown showing at the independent theater?  roger that.  whole streets decked out with halloween decor?  you betcha.  corn mazes and pumpkin patches?  indeed.  farmer's market with patrons in costume, games, activities and animals?  sure.  actual trick or treating?  more enticing with mobile children and not in a high rise.  we even hosted a halloween party for the neighborhood kids of which there are zero pictures since i was churning out quesadillas and trying to prevent said children from destroying the house (next year might be an outdoor party...).

we painted in lieu of carving pumpkins...the thought of curious little hands grabbing at our newly sharpened knife collection seemed like a bad idea.


we wore costumes.

and the kids even trick or treated!  at their grandma's.  where they received bananas.  but the tradition has begun!  

check out the differentiated radius and ulna on that skeleton!  you know a medical professional lovingly cut out every fossa.  david is actually supposed to be bean, not a terrifying cross dresser.  it did cool off a little the day of halloween (though now we're back to the 80s), but nothing like michigan where we either covered our costumes with coats, or had to creatively incorporate coats into the costume.  anyhow, they don't totally understand halloween yet, but they seemed to enjoy themselves, and bean has asked multiple times to paint pumpkins and trick or treat again.  success.

octobers seem to be a little hectic around here...apparently that and may are the big months for children's birthdays in this community (we can vouch for may in our house), and the halloween festivities are plenty.  but, in spite of the relative lack of obvious autumn markers, i'm happy to say it's making a comeback in our family.  i missed it.

otherwise, life has been good!  the kids continue to amaze, entertain, and inspire us with their growing grasp of the world and generally really impeccable behavior.  reese is talking more every day and putting together some very short sentences, as well as making progress on counting and letters.  he's also the cutest baby ever, still.  and just as suddenly as his naps ceased, three days ago for no apparent reason, he started snuggling up without a peep for 2 hours each afternoon.  i'm not prepared to say we're out of the woods since we're coming off two straight months of scream fests, but the last few days have sure been nice.

bean is a little wonder.  i love to hear what she's thinking and doing, which she explains to me constantly.  she is so verbose.  today we were walking home from the park and i crossed the street rather leisurely, and she said, "mom, can we get out of the street?  i want to go to the sidewalk.  the street has cars and it's not safe."  recently, she's become very enamored with coloring and will sit and color by herself for much of the day.  the neurosis about personal safety and contentedness in quiet solitude remind me eerily of myself.  she always wants to draw pictures of dinosaurs.  i don't know where this affinity came from since we've got no dinosaur books and they don't watch any tv.  they are fighting more over toys, mostly because bean wants to play with anything reese has and now he's putting up a fight.  but she's frequently very tender and nurturing with him as well.  

i continue to enjoy my temporary retirement since not a single hospital seems interested in even interviewing me.  don't be fooled by the alleged "nursing shortage."  while i'd anticipated difficulties finding a job, it's always humbling applying for nursing positions.  again, i feel like everything i've accomplished is worthless to potential employers.  but that's okay.  i'm having a great time with the kids, and i know i'm a damn good nurse who will one day again be valued by an institution.

and i can't say i'm really jonesing for crotchety old people to scream at me while i clean up their filth when this is my alternative:

the cutest.

eucalyptus grove, berkeley ca

mendocino, ca

so i'll keep waiting, thankyouverymuch.  what else?  we've had two lovely visits from nani, the first of which we really took advantage of and got away for a night sans babies in mendocino.  

this is a cute little town up the california coast about 3 hours from us.  i'm sure most people go wine tasting there as that is the thing to do in norcal, but we've yet to do any of that despite a few trips now to wine country.  instead, we drove in, grabbed some lunch, and found a nice spot for a hike and a picnic.

we spent the entire next day on an extended canoe trip up a river that begins at the ocean.  thus, you are able to spot some non-traditional river life, like seals.  i had a rather intimate encounter with one as i hung my backside off our boat to pee.  i think we both hope that never happens again.

david continues to love his new employer and his career.  he is currently buckling down to study for the latest in what feels like an endless onslaught of board exams, the latest installment coming up mid-november.  he's been gracious in making some free time for continued dayventures around beautiful northern california:

tahoe

berkeley

 

and even though kcwc ended, i have continued cranking out new projects at every opportunity.  after much thought, i started a new blog to record those projects so that i wouldn't continue clogging up this one with tales of torn seams and stained fabrics, among other compelling reasons.  if, however, you would like to see what i'm up to when the kids are sleeping, visit me at http://everythingelsewedo.wordpress.com.  i would love to see you there!  you can sign up for email updates at the bottom of the page.  unfortunately, it feels quite cumbersome to keep up these two blogs and beansngreens, so i plan to post recipes on the new blog as well.  not enough hours in the day, folks.

speaking of which, i've got to do a crash course on propositions before hitting up the ballot box first thing tomorrow morning.  thanks for stopping by, and we'll check back soon!