Out of Pocket

I have been trying really hard to keep my once a week blogging pledge, but for the next couple of weeks I will be taking a break because....drum roll please....WE MOVED!!! After four months of painstaking work we are finally living in our house! I am so excited, but also completely overwhelmed by the amount of work I have to do in order to get things put away. I have to say that this is the first time we have moved, out of seven moves, where we had a church family to lend a hand, and it was AWESOME. We (five guys from church, Matt, my parents, the pastor's wife, my cousin and her daughter) got everything packed up and then unpacked in less than three hours. It brings tears to my eyes to think about how much help everyone was, and how happy they were to come and toil so that we could make this happen. That, people, is what church community is all about. Not only did they help, but I have a house-warming apple pie and banana bread in my kitchen. Of course we also had wonderful help from my real (as in non-church) family, too, and that was also greatly appreciated.

So, hopefully I can get some pictures up soon. I will not even have Internet service at the new address until Tuesday, so we will see what happens.

A Fabulous Night

Last night we celebrated dropped Camille off for a fun over-night with Grandma and headed to Austin to celebrate Christmas!!! Matt and I, both without knowing it before hand, decided to give each other experiences for Christmas, and it was lovely. I got him a trigger point/myofascial release massage to help with the chronic knee pain that has been standing in the way of his weight lifting, and he got me tickets to Cirque du Soleil!

When we lived in Nevada, and were relatively close at hand to several permanent Cirque du Soleil shows in Vegas, I was constantly trying to figure out a way that we could have that experience. As we were moving to Texas, I told Matt that seeing one of their shows was on my life to-do list, which was just becoming exponentially harder seeing as Temple, Texas is not known for it's big-name shows. I doubt that Matt remembered that exact conversation, but he knew that I would love tickets, and fate smiled on him and whispered in his ear that the show was coming to Austin in time to buy tickets for my Christmas gift.

People, it was beyond fabulous. I am not even going to try to paint the acrobatic acts we saw into words. I think it will suffice to say that it exceeded my expectations, and how often do you get to say that? Here is a video of Alegria:

After the show we continued our night by going to Estancia Churrascaria, a Brazilian steakhouse.

http://www.estanciachurrascaria.com/

If you have never had the experience of a Brazilian steakhouse, I would highly recommend finding one for your next special occasion. It was so wonderful to have the night to ourselves, to reconnect and spend time doing something completely for enjoyment, without having to think about all the stress of say, moving, or having a second child.

Rantings and other news.

I am going to use this forum to share one of the biggest frustrations of my life, at this particular moment. That frustration is the parents of the kids at my job. Seriously, how badly can we mess up our kids and still sleep at night. Today I had two kids in a row who are so messed up from their parent's piss-poor parenting that I just want to go out into the waiting room and give them a piece of my mind.

The first one, a 'mistake' child just prior to a very messy divorce, is so out of control with bad behavior that he has not met a single goal in SIX MONTHS because he cannot handle being challenged. I am talking bad, BAD, BAD behavior. Today he got really mad at me because I would not "Shit out my baby." So mad that he took off his shoe and threw it at the door and then crawled under the desk and would not come out. Luckily for me I am not this kids primary therapist and only have to see him on the very rare occasion. What makes me so mad is not that this kid is an out of control monster, but that we have seen his parents display their awful parenting in our waiting room...mom begs junior to behave and could literally count down from 100 (if I had a dollar for every time I heard, "Don't make me say zero, Don't make me say zero...") and then just give up and turn her head the other way, dad screams like a lunatic and calls the kid all kinds of names. Sigh....

The next kid of the day was escorted to the clinic by his dad, followed by his mom and her lesbian partner. Now, they have just recently gone through a very messy divorce and are in the process of an even messier custody battle. Mom is DETERMINED that her significant other is going to be a part of the therapy process, and dad is DETERMINED that she is not going anywhere near the therapy setting. So they, the three adults, proceed to engage in an all out screaming match in our waiting room. It got so bad that we told them if they all did not leave this minute we were calling the cops. We did manage to whisk the kiddo back to therapy, but not before the screaming started. It just makes me sick. When I evaluated this kid mom told me, with her own words, that "he was normal until his dad and I separated and then he just stopped talking." It just makes me want to bang my head on the wall, or bang their head on the wall, or something!

I would say that a good 75% of the parents I deal with on a daily basis are fantastic people who are trying to do the best they can for their kids. I am thankful for these parents, and I try to give the other parents the benefit of a doubt, or at least try to help them realize by saying gentle comments that maybe their behavior is having a direct impact on the emotional well being of their child. Heavy sigh...it has been a hard day. I do not know why I felt like I needed to tell all of this mess to you, other than that I really have a hard time carrying it all by myself. It affects me profoundly because I want so badly to make a difference and I know that for these kids with such screwed up home lives, really, I am meeting their needs? True, if I can help them be successful in school or become more independent in their self-care that helps them feel a level of achievement, but how does 45 minutes twice a week off-set 24/7 of a bad environment. How do we help those who REALLY need it??!?

In other news...I am have officially entered the gauntlet known as the third trimester. I am huge, really, really HUGE, but still feel pretty good. I think we have decided on a name....which should really not be a surprise to anyone because I have been saying it all along....but Matt conceded on Valentines to Tabitha Joy. I think it goes very well with Camille Hope, and Joy can do double duty by blessing Matt's mom and fitting so nicely into our middle name scheme. I still have not started getting together new things for Tabitha, like a crib and whatnot, but I have plenty of time, right? We are DETERMINED to move by the end of this month, and the house is pretty much ready to inhabit a toddler. Once that small obstacle is completed I am planning on going nesting crazy and decorating a nursery and gathering what few items we need.

To have a child....

...means your heart will forever live outside of your body.

Right now I am sitting here listening to my husband read our daughter Goodnight Moon for bedtime and catching up on blogs I love. I read this:

http://www.coffeestainedclarity.com/2010/02/heart-extension/

I sat here listening and reading with tears rolling down my face. To love so much is a hard and wonderful thing indeed. I am glad when others, better writers, put into words what I feel with every cell in my body.

Busy, busy, busy!!

These last few weeks I feel like I have hit the ground running every morning and not stopped until late at night. I am sure this feeling is exaggerated, but it just seems like there is not enough time in the day to get everything done! I have been talking to my friends with TWO kids and I shudder to think of how much busier things can/will get when you add in the needs of another person. Especially when that new person is a newborn with zero self-help ability. Just the thought of it makes me tired.

One of the things I have been trying to do, in the midst of paper work for my job and play-dates for Camille, is researching seeds for this years garden. I am sooooo excited about trying out some cool seeds this year. Our (my mom and myself) garden was a stunning success last year. I am sure it has less to do with what we did, and more to do with the fact that we happen to live in an area that is known for the quality of it's soil. Last year was historically hot and dry and we still had a terrific yield. This year is supposed to be significantly cooler and wetter, which will mean a cheaper water bill and better crops. Vegetables know when they are getting rain and when it is the chlorinated stuff that comes out of the tap.

This year I am thinking that I really want to stick to the things that grew well for us last year, but experiment with different types of those things to improve our technique. For example, which variety of pepper grows best for us. We have a fairly big garden, so I am wanting to grow tomatoes, summer and winter squash, green beans, snow and sugar peas, cucumbers, okra, black-eyed peas, and peppers. This is actually way less than we tried to grow last year, but we realized that Texas in the summer is too hot for some items. With that said, hopefully we can do a fall/winter garden to do some of the veggies that do not tolerate the heat as well.

I have been cruising several different websites to decide on which seeds I want to try and I think I am going to order most of my seeds from Burpee. For those that need it, I am really wanting to start a lot of the seeds myself, instead of purchasing plants. We are lucky because Texas has such a long growing season that you can plant most of your veggies directly into your soil, but things like tomatoes and peppers do better if started indoors. Because of my ever-growing pregnant self, I feel kind of limited in what I am going to be able to contribute, at least at the beginning of the garden season, so I am glad that I can do this part.

If we are blessed with a good season, I also am hoping to do a LOT more preserving of the veggies from our garden for the non-garden months. Like I said, Texas' growing season is ridiculously long, so I should be able to store up several months of produce throughout that time. I am definitely planning on freezing a bunch of stuff, but the biggest project will be to tackle the art of canning. All this could go out the window if June rolls around and I have a fussy baby who does not discover the art of sleeping at an early age. I keep having visions of a cow in the freezer surround by bags of fresh frozen green beans, and jars of tomatoes in the pantry. I know it is possible, it just takes a whole lot of planning and work!

I would love to hear about other people's garden plans, experience with canning, hopes for happier, healthier meals. My desire and passion for this runs really deep, and I could talk for hours about how important I think it is to not only eat health, but to be able to grow food and be responsible about the stuff we put in our bodies. Also, I love the money saving aspect, because who likes dropping a fist-full of cash on vegetables sprayed with poison??