bedtime

I think I need to go to sleep.

Tomorrow will certainly be a long and difficult work day and I said that I'd go in early, which means I have to leave the house before 7am.

It's hard sometimes, working on Saturday, knowing that my husband and Daniel are at home hanging out. playing Mario on the Wii, eating waffles.

But I think its good too, for them to have their time together, when the grown-up relationship doesn't interfere with Daniel and his dad.

But still working 9 or so hours on a Saturday can wear a person down.

On the other hand, NaBloPoMo is over, so I'll be taking a break this weekend as we attempt to make homemade pasta for the first time ever (well, ok, my husband has done it before, but not me)

Here's a photo of warmer days:

If you click on the photo, you can see the larger version of it, which is kind of wild with it's very narrow focal range. And that stray hair or something that just jumps out at you right in the middle of the picture. Niiice.

Stupid American Dream

I'm sure I could have come up with something worthwhile to write about tonight, but I was too busy trying to dig up dirt on the miserable sob's who are standing in the way of the house that I have been negotiating to buy for FORTY days!

It's almost like they don't want to sell it. Or maybe they just don't want to sell it to ME.

I may be finished with all this. Renting isn't that bad. Right? God knows I've been doing it for the last 15 years.

Must go back to Google and search until my fingers bleed.

Deal with it

For the last two years Daniel was classified as special ed. One of the perks, or not - depending on your point of view, is the short bus, and last year he had a bus all to himself with an awesome driver and aide to keep him company.

This year he is no longer in special ed, and takes a regular bus to school. It's worked out ok for the most part.

But recently he has been talking about how all the kids on the bus hate him.

When you have a kid who's different, no matter what the issues may be, you know this day will come. There's always at least one kid who specializes in picking on, and bullying the other kids.

I have to say, that it seems like for the most part, the kids in his class are ok with Daniel. Although there have been some small issues with some kids and Daniel's "adult-like" behavior and "know-it-all-ness". His teacher has a good handle on the class and they have an integrated program on tolerance.

The bus, however, is a different story.

He's trying his best to handle it, but it's never easy. His dad and I have shared our own stories about our experiences with bullies and teasing and the inevitableness of it. He asked us what our parents did to make the situation better, but the response from both of us was, "Um, nothing. They weren't able, or willing to help." It was the seventies after all, no one stood up for their kids. Remember the clothes they made us wear? If parents cared for their children in the seventies they would not have made us wear orange plaid wool bell bottoms. I'm just saying.

But in a discussion with his dad the other night Daniel commented:

"I have to learn how to deal with it, because it's not like I can expect all the other kids to go to therapy to learn how to deal with me."

Hmm, speaking of therapy, maybe it's time for another visit.

peaceful

The last few days Daniel has come home from school happy and relaxed. We have been able to make the transition from school to home easily, and he hasn't cried (at all) over his homework. In fact, since he hasn't flipped out about his homework, he has been able to finish it very quickly and then have time to play.

It's weird.

But really nice. I hope we can hold onto this peacefulness for a little longer.

It's always nice to be home again, you know?

I was looking for a photo for today's post and I discovered this one...

It's another view of the lighthouse that I photographed in that New England town.

Too morbid for first grade?

I ordered a book for my friend about talking to kids about death, and it finally came today.

Just a few nights ago, Daniel got freaked out at bedtime and demanded that I tell him EXACTLY WHAT IT IS LIKE WHEN YOU DIE.

I don't have any first hand knowledge of this, so I did what countless parents before me have done - I fudged and hemmed and hawed and offered platitudes in the hopes that he would just drop the subject or go to sleep already.

Not surprisingly, it didn't work and only served to make him more anxious and unwilling to go to sleep.

It's not that he was afraid of dying.

He was just really curious as to what the moment of death was like.

Since I loused that encounter up so badly, I thought I might look at the book I got for my friend before I gave it to her.

The book is a slim volume called What on Earth Do You Do When Someone Dies?

It's written for kids, but it doesn't talk down to them and respects various beliefs while offering comforting words in a matter of fact way.

I decided to show it to Daniel, and see what his reaction would be.

The book is written for kids who have experienced a death recently, and since that doesn't resonate with him, we focused on the parts he was specifically interested in, namely what dying is like and what happens to the body after death.

The brief section about what dying is like was met with skepticism until the author mentions that he was present when a young friend of his died, and this experience makes him believe that death is calm and peaceful because she had a very peaceful smile when she passed.

That satisfied Daniel in his quest to know what death is like. It was like a switch had been flipped and he was able to let the topic go.

But before we put the book away to give to my friend, we looked over the other topics covered to see if any sounded interesting, and the one about what happens to the person's body sounded interesting to him.

The author talked briefly about coffins and burial and what a dead body looks like when viewed at a wake, and then he talks about cremation as another option.

This prompted a discussion for Daniel and I since we are mixed family in terms of race and religion. I come from a Catholic background and my husband is Buddhist and we do our best to include both traditions in our daily life, but while my background favors burial, my husbands tradition is cremation. Long ago we talked about this, he and I and decided on cremation for both of us, and today in explaining these things to Daniel, he got very excited and proclaimed that he also wanted to be cremated.

Then he became serious and asked me,

"Who do I need to tell?"

"About being cremated? Well, daddy and I and then your partner when you get older and your kids when they are old enough."

"What about in the hospital? Who makes that decision? Who do I need to tell?"

"The hospital doesn't actually have anything to do with after you die. You don't need to tell them."

But he wouldn't let it go. He kept asking and asking and slowly it dawned on me what he wanted. So the next time he asked I told him:

"You can have a legal document called a will written and in it you can say what you want to happen to your body after you die and everyone has to do what you say."

"No way?!! A legal document? That is exactly what I was thinking of, but I didn't even know it! How do we do it? Is it hard? Can we do it now?"

"No it's not hard, all you have to do is write down on a piece of paper, I, Daniel Elliott, being of sound mind and body do declare that I wish to be cremated when I die. And then you sign and date it."

He was excited for about 30 seconds and then got serious again and asked,

"Does it have to be signed in cursive?"

"No, you can print it since you're only seven."

"Oh, good."

Because it just ain't Sunday if you don't visit 3 petshops

Today we busted out an old ten gallon tank and filled it with guppies.

Why?

Because moving TWO fishtanks is so much more fun than moving ONE.

That, and those sunken pirate ships need to have little fish swimming through them to live up to their full entertainment potential.

Drifting

After a visit with family, I'm always a bit...untethered, drifting. I find myself wandering the house, going from one room ... to the other room, and back again looking for an anchor.

My brain is searching for itself, and so for today I've got a photo of a very old lighthouse I found in one of those old New England port towns.

I love the old brick and rusted metal. The beauty of this utilitarian building. As I took the shot, I wondered what the inside was like, all the men and women who had manned it over the years, the stories it held.

What gossip did the locals have about this building? Were there legends surrounding it? Does it still light the night and guide the fishing boats home?

In a day or so I'll have found my mooring again, and tomorrow is nothing but family time, which I am really looking forward to, playing games and the Wii and taking pictures and playing with the guitar.

The day after Thanksgiving

We have to do a lot of traveling today. Let's hope we can get through it without any mishaps. I figure I won't be in any shape to write when we get home because the combination of decompressing from my mother's house AND traveling usually makes me fairly comatose so let's just leave it at that.

Tomorrow I'm working, and I hope that it will be a quiet day, but I know that it will be filled with many emergencies, both real and imagined.

Isn't it funny?  I really like my job.

All the stuff that I learned from my mom - how to cater to her every whim, and anticipate her needs.... it serves me well in this job.

And the part that I like best? The people I deal with are appreciative of my efforts and .....

None of them are related to me.

That's the best part right there. I go home and they aren't there. My interaction with them is fleeting, relatively speaking.

I try to make them feel better, and then they go away.

It's beautiful.

Please pass the tofurkey.

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us to you and your family. I hope you are all having a nice time.

I'm not sure if I am, but we'll have more on that later. Have a great day everyone.

I shouldn't talk about it...but since I already am...

So... I think I should probably just keep my mouth shut about all the drama over here with our attempt to buy a house. But since I've opened the door to it already, I might as well talk about it one last time.

It's looking hopeful once again, but I just can't tell with this seller. It could still fall apart at the eleventh hour.

The good news is that all the feet-dragging that is going on is pushing the closing date back, which is nothing but good news for us.

And then of course there's a sizable amount of work the seller has said they will do to fix all the problems they caused with the renovation.

Oh, but we are all dreaming about this particular house now. Planting flowers in the spring, relaxing on the porch, maybe even shoveling the snow - providing we are moved in while it is still winter. Having larger bedrooms! And lots of windows! And more than one bathroom!

I guess I have to resign myself to the fact that I won't know if we will actually get this house until they hand is the keys at the closing - whenever that will be.

I suppose that gives me lots of time to procrastinate on packing.

photo by Mr. Greenjeans.