Send in the Clowns

(NOTE: This is long and overwrought and very emo, and possibly upsetting. This was a big ol' stream of consciousness thing that I wrote. You can skip it if you want -- the pictures aren't that great anyway. I almost didn't publish this, but I decided to anyway, for two reasons: (1) these are real feelings, and (2) I feel better for having gotten it out, which is kind of the reason why I started this blog in the first place. I'm fine. I'll be fine. I have to be, and I want to be. You can worry, but know that I have this stuff on the radar, and I am monitoring myself, and I won't actually GET out of control. I just FEEL out of control, sometimes. YMMV, and QED, and etc.)

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This time last year, I was was practically swimming in bliss, what with my team winning the World Series and my guy winning the election and things just generally going much more my way than things are right at this particular moment in time. I'm not exactly talking myself off the ledge, not quite, but ...

... well, let me put it this way: did you ever have one of those days when you have, like, tunnel vision, and all you can see is what's going on right in front of you, and that's probably okay anyway because what's happening off to the side there sounds a little bit terrifying, but anyway you're staring straight ahead trying to concentrate and then all of the sudden you notice that there is a very weighty darkness rapidly closing in around you and you feel this moist hot sulfurous breath on the back of your neck and then you blink and when you open your eyes all you can see is this pinpoint of light on the horizon and suddenly the panting is getting heavier behind you?

No? Just me?

G is still out of work, and right now I am the breadwinner in our family, and let me tell you something about that: my (not-so) inner feminist is at full-on DEFCON-5. It's one thing to be the moneymaker when you want to, when you and he are separate-but-equal-partners, when your marriage is new and you are both young and strong. But when you have to? When there are kids and pets and mortgage payments? When you've been constantly working for 10+ years without breaks except for the obligatory occasional week of vacation and you're old and tired? Whole 'nother ballgame, buster. This is quidditch on the moon.

The fact that there are only 40-something days until Christmas and I have barely started my shopping, barely even started thinking about my shopping, barely even started considering thinking about my shopping, probably gives away how bad things are getting, in my head at least. How can I worry about Christmas presents when I am busy worrying about how we're going to make two car payments and a mortgage payment and a daycare payment with only one job? It's come to this: I am having a hard time justifying spoiling my own child, the child we wanted so long and worked so hard for, because I just can't make the cost-benefit analysis work. Even as I say it myself, it's the saddest and stupidest thing I've ever heard.

And then I think, "If it's this bad for us, how bad must it be for others? The ones with no jobs, no severance, no unemployment, no nothing? How bad must it be for them?" And I can do something for them, I know I can, if I am willing to sacrifice some of the little bit we still have, but ... then again. Then again. They just did a round of layoffs where I work. I know I am lucky to have a job right now. I have survivor's guilt, I guess. I am becoming overwhelmed with all of it. Sometimes I worry myself right into nausea. I need to out my head between my knees. I can't hardly sleep.

I mean, maybe I exaggerate a little bit, but I am starting to hit panic mode right now and I'm not sure how to keep the sky from swirling over me while the earth spins out of control underneath my feet in this maelstrom of my own making. I am starting to crack under the pressure and I wonder sometimes if we're going to make it, G and I, our little family. I feel like I'm going looneypants. Some days I am sad, and some days I am angry, and some days it's a struggle to get out of bed, and some days I am so consumed with so many emotions at once that I force myself to feel absolutely nothing in self-defense. Fuck off, world! Die in a fire.

This is depression, probably a big one, and I know this. I can feel it like a giant octopus or a big hairy spider, twisting its legs around my ribs and squeezing until I can't run and can't move and can't breathe and can't scream. But I can't be bothered with this, I can't, I just can't be depressed right now, not with him depressed and people around me depressed and the whole damn world depressed. I'm the positive one. I'm the cockeyed optimist. I'm Little Miss Sunshine. I'm the Little Engine That Could.

And here I am, standing in the tunnel, and it's getting darker and darker and that panting behind me is getting louder and louder and that tiny point of light is getting farther and farther away and now I'm starting to hear calliope music, which means here come the horrible flesh-eating clowns, and I think it's going to be getting a lot worse before it gets better, and I'm barely hanging on to this high wire here already. Please, send help. And a flashlight.

Wordless Wednesday: Haycorns

The Other Public Option

Did you know that November is National Adoption Month, "a month set aside to raise awareness about the adoption of children and youth from foster care"? National Adoption Day is November 21st.

We're celebrating this month, in our own little ways. Mostly by running around and being a family and gasping for breath and do you have any idea how fast a 2½ year old is when she's avoiding a nap?

I can't say it enough: becoming foster parents, and eventually adoptive parents, is absolutely, positively, without a doubt the single best thing we've ever done in our lives. Full stop.

The theme of NAM for 2009 is "You don't have to be perfect to be a perfect parent." If ever there was proof of that, go back and read any random blog post of mine from March 2008 through and including the present.

If you know anyone who has considered, even for a minute, becoming a foster or adoptive parent, give them all the encouragement you can. They won't be sorry. Pinky swear.

Resources: AdoptUSKids.org 

Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption 

Child Welfare Information Gateway

Save the Stinkbug!

I am not sure how other parents do things, but we don't give Shae baths every night. Partly this is because of how bad this is for her hair -- being all coarse and curly, it is also very dry, and washing it every day is not advised -- but mostly it is because Bath Night at Casa Gonzales is a giant big-ass hour-long rigmarole involving approximately seven bottles of stuff, negotiations over types and quantities of tub toys, mud wrestling to get that kid out of her clothes, several fits of tears when I try to rinse shampoo out of that mop, etc. It's kind of a big deal, and when it's over, we're exhausted.

So recently we started a new routine on our off-nights. She gets regular full-on bubble baths two or three nights a week, and most of the rest of the time, she gets what have we been calling "bird baths." We put her Elmo mat in the bottom of the tub, turn on the water, give her some roll-on soap syrup, and let her have at it for about 10 minutes.

It's great, because we are using this as one of those "teachable moments" -- we're trying to get her into the habit of washing herself, and this is a big help. Of course we follow up with a washcloth on all the important bits, but it's fun to listen to her check off all her bits that need to be cleaned: feet, hands, neck, ears. And it's fun for her, of course, because she can kind of make a mess while she's washing up.

But of course the best part of this plan is one that I hadn't even really thought out, and it is that we get to relish in the best part of bath night -- the after-bath snuggling and giggling, when Shae is all clean and smells extra wonderful -- a lot sooner. And for a lot longer.

Back in the Saddle Again

Sorry that blogging has been so light in the last few days: someone -- and I am not saying who because it might be me -- ran over the camera cord with the computer chair, and we just this morning got it fixed. We've also been wallowing in our depression over the end of the world the other day, and we're still kind of down in the dumps about it.

Oh, and there's that whole situation where I've been working on two calendars at the same time for Christmas. Boy howdy, what was I thinking with that? But I promise: we'll be back on track this week. Thanks for your patience.

WFC's No More (For Now)

These words are not mine -- they are all other people's. Because all I have to say is, "Meh." I'm sorry the Phillies lost, I'm more sorry that the Phillies lost to the damn Yankees, but I am not devastated. Losing at this point last year probably would have killed me dead, but now I'm in a place where I can accept this loss with the knowledge -- or perhaps it is the hope? -- that we have done it before, and we can sure as hell do it again. I'm not a "next year" kind of girl, not really, but there is always next year. I am one of the "Phaithful."

As for this year? It's been hella fun, and now I can get some sleep. It's been hard staying up all night and amusing myself with Facebook games while I didn't actually watch the games because I'm superstitious.

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From The 700 Level: "This team has character, heart, and took us on one of the most amazing runs this city has ever seen. It was an awfully fun ride. While I'm sad to see it come to an end, I'm thankful for the fun it's been."

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From The Fightins: "At first, this recap felt like an obituary. Here lies the 2009 Philadelphia Phillies, it started out with. That theme continued for about 50 or so words, until I realized something: It’s wrong.

"It’s wrong, and I’ll tell you why: 2009 wasn’t the death of something. These Phillies aren’t getting taken apart from a fire sale spurred on by cheap management. There are no pending free agents that anchor the team, and the owner doesn’t have a beef with the skipper."

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From Beerleaguer: "2009 carried a different meaning ... one that mattered less about winning and more about the bonds the Phillies have created among us. Step back. Look around. What great pleasure, excitement and brotherhood the Phillies have stirred, at a time when unity and goodwill are in such short supply."

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From Phillie Phanatics: "This team is filled with a unique group of guys, gathered together from the various nooks and crannies of our country, who have gelled together unlike any team I’ve ever seen. They are a giant family, they all get along, and manage to find a way to do the impossible, get through a Major League season."

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There are some people I know, co-workers and friends and even some family members, who are going to gloat because their team won a World Series again. They have sent out bragging emails and posted smug Facebook status updates wherein they are waiting for excuses and begging for arguments. They'll get none from me, because I have none to give; their team won, and my team lost, and that's the way the cookie crumbles. It is what it is.

I refuse to tell them to take their 27 trophies and stick them sideways up their asses, because it's just not me. Not right now, anyway. And it's not what the late great Harry Kalas would want, I don't think. Let them be happy that their team won. Hooray for you! (Insert Monty Python-esque "great rejoicing" noises here.) Me? I'm happy that my TEAM -- all of them, barring unforeseen tragedy -- will be back together next year.

And I mean, really, what is one more loss, when we've already had 10,000 of them anyway? I feel the same way now that I did then: "Learn from the experience, but don't let it define you. 10,000 losses. Big whoop. Game over. Reset. Full steam ahead."

Next year, guys. We've got high-apple-pie-in-the-sky hopes.

Wordless Wednesday: Children of the Corn

Cupcake Calendar: November

Ugh, I look at these calendar pages now and I just ... well, suffice it to say that compared to what I have been working on for next year's Cupcake Calendar, the 2009 edition looks like it was assembled by a color-blind first-grader with Parkinson's or something. Or, to clarify: holy hell, this is a hot ghetto mess, isn't it?

But I still love these pictures -- they are some of my favorite from last year. The one on the bottom, of her in the middle of a fit of giggles with her crazy hair, never ceases to cheer me up, no matter what is going on. Her smiles are the most beautiful things in the world, and I just can't get enough of them. Yesterday I tickled her for 10 minutes, just to soak up some of her laughter.

And of course that picture of her with the guitar? Fuggeddaboudit. That was the moment, right there, when all doubts were erased and I knew this kid was something special. It took us almost a year to prove it, of course, but we got there eventually.

Time Of The Season

Okay, time to trot out the last of the Halloween pictures before I -- perhaps quite literally, this time -- run out of things to say.

This picture was originally in my Twitter feed. It's from the school Halloween parade on Friday. Oh boy, was that an unmitigated disaster, or what? Imagine 100 kids, aged 6 weeks-5 years, all in costumes, all freshly-awakened from their naps, after a big lunch, on a cool and cloudy day, while trying to stay in a straight line, and -- ooooh, look! There's a bug!

Yeah, it went about that well. And it was a bad day for Shae, because she was so tired, after waking up at 2:00 that day and pretty much refusing to go back to sleep. Obviously this picture has been edited, since it's all sepia-toned; I had wanted to make it "match" the pre-cyclone coloring of "The Wizard of Oz," but G says the sad, serious little face is very "Grapes of Wrath." Can't really argue.

Trick-or-treat went much better than the parade, in spite of the rain. At least it wasn't freezing, and there were so few actual kids out this year that Shae made quite an excellent haul. Being cute doesn't hurt, I guess. We ran into some people we knew, including Aidan, who went with us on vacation to the shore (and I can't believe that I never put up any pictures to prove it, but he was there).

BTW: Aidan has a little sister, Mia, who's birthday is tomorrow and also a cousin Kaine who is about 6 months old, and Mia and Kaine were dressed up as Thing 1 and Thing 2. Frickin' adorable. Cute kids in coordinated costumes FTW!

If there is any reason why I am glad for my iPhone, it is this: I am able to catch moments without having to get that giant-ass camera out. Yes, this picture isn't as great as some of the others, and yet I think it's even more awesome because there is no posing or pretense. This is my kid, tearing into the house and running right over to her "Nannie Hallman" to give her a hug. And Nana loves it, obviously.

OK, so that's it ... as of tomorrow, I have no idea what you're going to get. No more new pictures, and the weather doesn't look promising. Maybe I'll eat a bagful of Halloween candy and write something while I'm tweaking. That ought to be interesting.

Over The Rainbow

Okay, Halloween is over, and now I can go back to agonizing over next year's costume for trick or treat. I was thinking about doing her up as an Oktoberfest girl, but it's so hard to find "girly" costumes that aren't "princessy" while at the same time also not "slutty." So I guess it's a good thing I have a whole year to work things out.

Anyway ... know what you get when you combine the following ingredients, costing a total of maybe $12?

• One blue gingham dress from a bag of hand-me-downs from Brittany
• A white Hello Kitty tutu skirt bought on clearance at Macy's
• Some blue gingham pigtail holders from Wal-Mart
• And a pair of sparkleriffic red shoes from Target?

What you get is this:

Oh, and yes, I did send my kid trick-or-treating with a Longaberger basket. Don't you judge me!