Cold Spaghetti

We’ll be away from the kids for 20 days in May/early June while we’re in Peru. When we get back, we’re thinking of taking them to the beach for a few days for the four of us to reconnect with no other distractions.

Where: Anywhere along the gulf between Gulf Shores and Panama City. (We’ve been thinking Destin to Fort Walton Beach area)
What: 2-rooms with kitchen or kitchenette, W/D is plus (but not must), internet plus (possibly must), on the beach with available chairs/umbrellas, swimming pool

Days… 3 days between the 8th and 15th of June… we can be flexible.

Doesn’t need to be close to anything but the beach and the pool. We might venture out for go-carts or something, but mostly we’ll just hang out at the beach.

Can we find a decent place for, say, $100-130/night? We could go for a little bit more if some other things were included (W/D, free breakfast, other amenities, etc.)

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Will and a female friend, at school, speaking in their classroom:

FF: “Will, I need to change my clothes. I need some privacy.”
Will: “That’s okay. I like to look at bodies.”
FF: “Well I don’t! Would you like it if you were changing and everyone came in and looked at your penis?”
Will: “Yeah, I would!”

Paul and I have been married for almost 8 years and in that time, we have developed an excellent relationship based on great communication. For example, this afternoon, I heard Paul say to me: WE HAVE A WORKING LAUNDRY. TOMORROW, I WILL MAKE DINNER FOR NEXT WEEK AND PUT THE KIDS TO BED.

And it’s part true. He said those words. I just didn’t hear what was in between them: WE don’t HAVE hot water in the back, but we are close to having A WORKING LAUNDRY. I need to be under the house working on it all day TOMORROW, so I can’t handle WILL with me in the back. Also, I’ll need you to MAKE ahead some DINNER FOR NEXT WEEK when you have your board meetings. Remember that I’m working tonight AND you’ll be alone with the kids. I’m sorry that I can’t help you PUT THE KIDS TO BED.

This may explain why he reminded me repeatedly that he needed to go to work when I insisted he put Kate to bed. He’s a very good sport.

Similarly, when I told Paul about us having a naked salad with no dressing and chicken breasts for dinner, I’m pretty sure he only heard the words “NAKED” and “BREASTS,” which is maybe why he looked disappointed when he came in for dinner.

So maybe it stands to reason that our children do not hear anything that we say to them. Perhaps hearing the words people say takes the same kind of time and practice required for something like learning to read or riding a bike. Until they develop those skills, maybe it’s unfair to hold them accountable for their actions. Maybe it’s not that they are choosing not to hear, but just absolutely cannot hear due to a completely underdeveloped skill not yet at maturity.

So when we tell Will, “Wash your hands and sit down for dinner,” maybe then it’s not that unreasonable that he would hear “DUMP OUT THREE MORE PUZZLES AND TAKE OFF YOUR PANTS.” Or when we ask him to “Help Kate put on her shoes,” he hears “GRAB KATE’S SHOES AND RUN AWAY AS FAST AS YOU CAN. THEN TAKE OFF YOUR PANTS.”

It could be a completely developmental issue. So we can stop beating our exasperated heads against the wall.

“Mommy, why did Dinosaurs use volcanoes to hold their bones after they got extinct?”

We’re having a bad day.

The stress of everything is wearing us down… we’re making mistakes and starting to crack around the edges. We’re hoping that things will calm down after the end of this week, but it’s likely that we have another 2-3 weeks of this.

We’re working hard to keep up the house momentum. It’s so close to drywall… just a few more big pushes and we’re there. We got a tub (it’s sitting in the middle of the front room) which comes along with a wonderful story. The day we got the tub (Friday) was a wonderful, bright, sunny, and life-affirming day… and it must’ve used up all our karma, ’cause we’re in a rough spot now.

I took the kids out of town all weekend (through Monday night) so that Paul was free to turn off the household water supply and work on the plumbing. He estimates that he spent at least 20 hours under the house over those days… in a space too high to lay on your back to work and too low to be on your knees. Working with a blowtorch. And sewer lines. And electricity. Still, he figures that he made off better. Watching the kids at my parents’ house is a challenge and then coming home to a house with no food or provisions is awful.

The weekend is when I work my third (or is it fourth? or maybe fifth?) job: that of housewife. It’s a role I pretty much hate; it’s under-appreciated, I have to work nights and weekends almost exclusively, and it’s much more of a challenge in a house with no washer and dryer (have I mentioned we have had no laundry for almost 2 months?) On the weekends, I try to stock up the fridge for lunches and make ahead meals for the week to minimize how much housewife stuff interferes with my professional work. I care about doing the best for my family, but I’m not a robot… I have to think and plan meals ahead, on the weekends, when I can think about it. Experience has shown us that when this does not happen, we eat crap all week. Which is exactly what is playing out for us now. And probably why we are all cranky. The tofu dish I tried to make last week bombed majorly and I can’t get back into a cooking grove. Moreover, I can’t think enough to decide what to make, what to buy to make, or how to be creative with what we have (that last category can be described as “milk, 1/2 celery stalk, and a few cans of beans”). Paul usually helps me balance these home-maintenance tasks, but is pretty much either working on the house or working his jobs. (If you think he sleeps or eats between these working hours, he doesn’t.)

I’m not exactly sure where we are going to break here, but we will break.

Kate is into her aforementioned script a few days. Don’t ask me how many; I’ve already lost count.

We’ve forgotten a few doses. All but the first have required two people: one holding her down and the other forcing medicine down her throat. This method has a roughly 50% success rate at getting more than 75% of the dose down. Never is the dose complete. She always manages to spit, push, or drool some of it out. I have become expert at removing pink stains.

This is exactly why I swore off antibiotics when Will was her age. I can’t imagine that my experience is a-typical. I’m a good parent. I’m pretty on-top of things. And I’m savvy enough to try lots of angles at medicine-giving. Maybe the ability to give a child resisting medicine is a skill… but WHERE would any parent learn it, except with their child?

I know so many parents whose kids don’t even take Amoxicillin anymore because it does nothing for the child. Is this because all of these kids have been given it like Kate… in partial doses with occasional misses? Giving the drug the perfect opportunity to be rendered useless and creating a stronger, more efficient and persistent bacteria in the process?? Even if a parent can give a med now… could they during the first couple of times the antibiotic was prescribed? Bacteria doesn’t even cause ear infection pain… so why be in such a hurry to use a drug to get rid of something that is going to go away on it’s own in less than a day later?? I need to understand these details. I really, really, really need to get a better picture of this, because I grow more frustrated at myself everytime I have to hold my screaming child down and hold her nose to force her to swallow something I not only doubt she needs, but strongly feel will threaten her health later. (Not to mention undermine the health of world, but that’s another issue… it’s not like I’m not trying to be dramatic or anything.)

I can remember working with physicians in a nutritional outreach program in India, trying to figure out why they were reporting no success. It took about 4 seconds to figure it out. I asked folks (the actual people in the community, not the physicians) how they used their vitamins. They don’t. They throw them out. Tonics were the name of the game there… everyone wants a tonic. It’s the vogue treatment of choice, not unlike the power of pills here. Give out whatever you want, but if it’s not fully understood and appreciated… no one is going to follow the plan. One physician got it and changed the way he approached the use of the pills, explaining in more detail what they were and how they worked — and offering suggestions for ways to crush up and create tonics with the medicine. I think that the experience highlights how people tend to seek something specific from physicians, the same way we might “shop” for a particular item, and throw out whatever is not part of our expectations. So, maybe if we go to a physician seeking a prescription and don’t get one, that we feel it’s not worth the cost of admission. Perhaps telling the parent of a child with an ear infection to just treat with Tylenol and hot compresses would seem like a step back in medicine after so many years of antibiotic treatment. Even though the previous practice was inappropriate and we know that now, providing LESS medicine at an appointment strikes the patient as poor medicine, so physicians comply with what patients want simply to keep them coming in. It is a business, after all.

I question the efficacy of this drug and its current use on my child and I’m ticked off that I didn’t pursue the issue further. I’m not trying to challenge the doctor — I am not a physician and respect that specialized knowledge — but I have the capacity to understand the rationale for the treatment choice. And ultimately, that’s all I want to know. What is the rationale and does it make sense? Is it based on evidence-based care, or a social expectation? If I can’t make this kind of a stand, then how can good medicine ever be fully evaluated by patients?

Meanwhile, would it be better off to just stop the drug completely? Is it worse to stop midway through a poorly administered dosing schedule, or continue on with missed and partial doses until the 10 days are up? Either way, it’s not good… but which is more harmful?

Just a quick update for those who are bugging Paul for weekend pictures. These are from early on in the weekend. He accomplished a Herculean amount of work because I took the kids to another city. I offered to continue with that help by coming back this afternoon… puts a crunch on my workweek, but I am *desperate* for having a washer and dryer again.

See the laundry hook-ups? I love that Paul took the extra time and attention to put a protective box (meant for water, as on the left) for the gas line. I knew we were meant for each other when I found he was even more detail oriented that I am…

Sideways… sorry. This is the vent stack shared by the toliet, washer, and dryer.

Something has got to be screwed up when Al Gore can get a Nobel Peace Prize and this phenomenal guy holds a job with sucky benefits probably making less in a year than Gore gets from one speaking engagement. Yet, who is the one doing the work of making the world a more peaceful place?

While petunias have been a favorite for years, this year brings a new obsession… this shade of pink.

Here is the commercial airing on Channel 26 with the photography I did for our friends at La Divina… complete with pictures of the kids enjoying seriously delicious panini and gelato!