(no subject)
Today I was banned from Mothering for telling someone that I thought it was against the rules to link to your professional photography (something I was issued a 'warning' for earlier this year when I actually just linked to images of my own kids). Anyway, I let someone know she might see her thread removed. I was banned for "Criticizing and debating the moderators in a public forum" with a side of "adversarial and baiting or inflammatory remarks".
Earlier, I was issued a warning for disagreeing with someone. And I quote, "Your opinion is fine to post but please do not address the other poster or take issue with her posts on the thread"
For real.
(For the curious: The 'straw man' comment was my saying, "That's a straw man argument". I was asked to remove all reference to those words because they were offensive. Upon clarification that this was a real term, and not something I made up, another mod responded that they "didn't see any straw men" therefore it's offensive to mention).
They send me a follow up email asking if I'd like to "discuss the issue". Right, because that will go somewhere.
MDC has become seriously insane. You can't even have a conversation there anymore. As shown above, it's actually against the rules to disagree with someone, unless you just sort of float your reply out there as talking to no one but yourself.
On other, ironically just as gross topic: you know what's awesome? Spending 20 minutes out of every day picking crusty scabs off your cat's head and draining it of pus. Mmm, mmm, good.
Chloe got herself outside for maybe twenty minutes due to my mom not realizing she was hiding under her dresser, and promptly got fat head again. What the fuck is she doing to herself? At least she doesn't have an abscess this time, but one of the two holes that were opened up for drainage has gotten all weird and now needs to be drained again. It doesn't seem to be healing shut properly, but it also has no signs of infection (nor is it tender or warm to touch), it just has excess fluid. So we're after it three times a day with a hot cloth and antibiotic cream to ensure it doesn't turn into another $500 abscess surgery. Fucking fuck, it was JUST FINE for almost two solid weeks! What the hell is with this cat. . We're going to bring her into the vet for a check-up on Monday or Tuesday to have them look it over to see if there's anything else we should be doing.
You know, our 16+ year old arthritis-ridden, formerly feral cat has never given us even a quarter as much trouble as her mentally unsound offspring. We need to just give in and rename her "Murphy".
Xan enjoying hot cocoa at our favourite bakery on the first snow day.
We're getting alarmingly close to the holidays, and as usual I'm starting to feel that need to get closer to my spiritual beliefs. I spent hours upon hours of yesterday doing what I love most: random research into topics I don't really have to know anything about, but absolutely must because I have a compulsive need to fill my head with as much random shit as I possibly can.
This time the topic was the history and evolution of Paganism, Druids, the Wice, Germanic Paganism, the history and founation of Wicca, the Neo-Paganism revival, et all. It was fascinating! I learned so much that I didn't know I didn't know about my own belief system. I also learned that I generally classify as a Dianic Pagan, which while originally classified as a branch of Wicca has proved itself to be rather independent as a result of their conflicting views on what is generally agreed as the ideals that sort of define Wicca as a separate branch of beliefs, and Dianics are more accurately described as their own solitary belief system under the overall branch of Pagan revival. Depending on what side the fence you're on that either makes me Dianic or Eclectic.
("Pagan" is like "Christian" in the way it is an umbrella term that describes a number of belief systems and branches that share the same basic ideals and core beliefs). It's kind of cool to learn more about my own path and its history.
Though admittedly it's really hard to get a good source of information that isn't covered in animated gifs of dancing fairies or sparkly purple text on black backgrounds. What the fuck is it about Paganism that attracts so many fluffballs?
The point is that every year I go through this thing where I really want to spend more time and energy into my beliefs and do things like observe the holidays and involve the kids and stuff. We've celebrated Yule over Christmas, and observed Samhain for a long time now, but I'm not content with 'just the big ones'.
I haven't had an altar since before Tempest's birth, and even my therapist encouraged me to put it back up. All the pieces are scattered into various displays, cabinets and boxes. I want to re-make it; I'm a different person than I was before, so there would be a lot of things that I would need to add or take away to accurately represent what my faith means to me now.
I want to tell more stories to my kids. Tempest absolutely adores hearing the mythos; stories about the Sun God and the Holly and Oak Kings, Fae and the Green Man. She loves participating in rituals that include gifts to nature or the animals, burying apples for the dead on Samhain, and crafting Yule wreaths... Xan's a little young to really get into it, but she's begging for more. It's fun; that kind of stuff is attractive to little kids and I want them to have fun with it without feeling like my spirituality is some oppressive force they have to obey and preach to others lest I be disappointed in them, or angry or something.
So now I have a list of things I want to do for Yule, and realistically I probably won't get through even half but at least it's a goal. It's like the list of things we want to buy the kids as presents... we get way too carried away and if we actually did get everything we had on there we'd probably have to starve for five months to make up for the debt.
Speaking of which, we're considering getting Tempest a Nintendo DS Lite for Yule. We've stayed pretty far away from personal video game systems up to this point, but there are a lot of games we'd approve of, plus we have the option to put on our own downloadable content and virtual console games so we can introduce her to the more archaic stuff we grew up on. And that's awesome. She's at an age now where I think she's responsible enough to take care of something that special, and begin to use it more wisely. She's developed in leaps and bounds over the last two years, and compared to the girl she was at five she's completely different... it's like she really is starting to have a handle on the challenges that Aspergers and ADHD gives her, and is beginning to understand how to navigate that with the least amount of stress. She hasn't had anxiety problems in two years, and while it's obvious she's "different" from day to day, she seems really comfortable with herself; a lot more so than she was at the beginning of this journey. I'm happy for her. I want to give her more creative opportunities, challenges and new experiences. I also want to give her a little more freedom and responsibility, which is part of why I think she's old enough to have a present that I previously have found a little too 'much' in just about every way.
Tempest is easy to buy for. She loves math, she loves numbers, she loves reading, she loves horror movies and anything scary the same way I did as a kid. It doesn't ever scare her; nothing ever seems to genuinely scare her, it's more like she enjoys the play of adrenaline and toying with an emotional response. I used to do the same thing with scary movies. She fucking adores Harry Potter.
Xan, on the other hand, is impossible to figure out. He's still young enough that his preferences are fleeting, he doesn't have obsessions like Tempest did which unfortunately makes it harder to know what he's really "into". He likes playing with his cars but that's really just about the only thing that makes its way into his daily life. Everything else is just... fleeting. I have no idea what to get him that he'll enjoy on a day to day basis. I hope this gets easier as he gets older an this is just an age thing.
The 'big gift' for the two of them is going to be the retro Creepy Crawlers bug-making factory with extra molds and goop. I had one as a preteen and it was my most favourite thing in the fucking world. I had so much fun with it. I had no idea they were still being made/sold until I was inspired by a fellow LJer to look into some retro toys from my childhood... and it turns out that I can get a whole set with tons of extras for under a hundred dollars. I'm so excited about it; it's like traveling back in time to when I was 13 and getting to play with the best toys all over again.
We had way better toys when I was a kid.
We had way better everything when I was a kid.
I'm into the second trimester of pregnancy now. My dreams are crazy intense all the time. It's either sex or death, or some combination of the above. The other night I had a really disturbing nightmare about giving birth in my bed very early in the morning while Curtis was at work. I had a little boy. I named him something, the same name I keep hearing and yet not hearing in my baby boy dreams, then immediately took it back and named him "Luke" instead.
He was very tiny, and seemed very weak and listless. His mouth was too small to nurse (as bullshit as that normally is, it was real in the dream) but he didn't seem hungry. He just fell asleep in our bed, so I let him rest. I got up and milled about the house for a few hours, telling no one about his birth. I kept thinking I should formally announce it, but I didn't want to... I felt like his name "didn't fit", and the thought kept swirling through my head. I felt like he didn't fit. There was something wrong with him; he wasn't right. It's why I was hesitant to tell anyone.
Some hours later he still hadn't cried to be fed so I came in to check on him and found he had shrunk. Somehow he was now the size of a 30-something week old fetus, and was becoming stiff and strange looking. He'd curled into a fetal position and I couldn't uncurl him no matter how hard I tried. Over the next few hours he kept regressing further into fetal development until he was the size of a 13-week fetus. He was still breathing, but wasn't moving, nor was he awake. I held him in cupped hands and carried him around the house in secret, trying to make him bigger. I knew he was going to die. And just as Curtis came home from work in the evening, he did. I told him of the day's events and he looked very unsympathetic as he replied, "We'll just try for another."
I was furious with him for being so nonchalant about a very traumatizing loss, but at the same time I felt completely disconnected from it. It was bizarre and disturbing.
I have more dreams about having a boy than having a girl, and I'm starting to think it may be a boy after all... but I'm totally unprepared for it if that's the case. We're still going around in circles on the 'finding out the sex' issue, mostly because it seems we only have two real options for it: submit to a level II diagnostic ultrasound or go to 3D baby for one of those hour-long "4d" souvenir ultrasounds (which carries excessive risk, exposure and cost). Neither of which we're comfortable with. If those are our only choices we're fine without it, but I wish there was a middle ground. We both agreed that the only way we're okay with the 3D baby thing is if it was our LAST choice, we REALLY wanted to know and it was bare minimum exposure, we're talking ten minutes or less, but I'm pretty sure they don't do that... and besides, why is that we're forced into that dumb souvenir shit that is a blatant abuse of medical technology?
Unfortunately with the introduction of all the weird rules about finding out the sex in this province you can't do anything without going through one of those routes. I'm going to ask our midwife at our next appointment on Thursday and see if she knows any sneaky ways of going around it... I'm not entirely sure we're on board with finding out, but at least then we'd know we had the option.
Tempestism of the Day:
As we finish up some evening grocery shopping, we pass by the front of a jewelry store which has a few of those animatronic Santa Claus moving about in the front window. Tempest stops cold as we pass them and stares, looking ponderous. After a moment she finally comments.
Tempest: "If those were real evil robot Santas, I would have to get on a boat right now and leave the country."
Curtis: "... like Dr. Who?"
Tempest: "Just like Dr. Who."
Links of the Day:
Women with more than one child are not actually crazy - I loved this.
Reteaching Gender and Sexuality - Steering the conversation away from symptoms, and changing what we talk about.
Survey shows bathing more effective for pain relief than pethidine - Can I get a what what?
The best signs at the rally for sanity and/or fear - as lolworthy as the counter-protest signs at comic con.
Whooping cough vaccine not as effective as once thought - Out of 330+ recent cases, 197 of them were fully vaccinated and up to date.
Informal milk sharing vs. formula - Which is riskier? - A fantastic breakdown of information and myths.
Earlier, I was issued a warning for disagreeing with someone. And I quote, "Your opinion is fine to post but please do not address the other poster or take issue with her posts on the thread"
For real.
(For the curious: The 'straw man' comment was my saying, "That's a straw man argument". I was asked to remove all reference to those words because they were offensive. Upon clarification that this was a real term, and not something I made up, another mod responded that they "didn't see any straw men" therefore it's offensive to mention).
They send me a follow up email asking if I'd like to "discuss the issue". Right, because that will go somewhere.
MDC has become seriously insane. You can't even have a conversation there anymore. As shown above, it's actually against the rules to disagree with someone, unless you just sort of float your reply out there as talking to no one but yourself.
On other, ironically just as gross topic: you know what's awesome? Spending 20 minutes out of every day picking crusty scabs off your cat's head and draining it of pus. Mmm, mmm, good.
Chloe got herself outside for maybe twenty minutes due to my mom not realizing she was hiding under her dresser, and promptly got fat head again. What the fuck is she doing to herself? At least she doesn't have an abscess this time, but one of the two holes that were opened up for drainage has gotten all weird and now needs to be drained again. It doesn't seem to be healing shut properly, but it also has no signs of infection (nor is it tender or warm to touch), it just has excess fluid. So we're after it three times a day with a hot cloth and antibiotic cream to ensure it doesn't turn into another $500 abscess surgery. Fucking fuck, it was JUST FINE for almost two solid weeks! What the hell is with this cat. . We're going to bring her into the vet for a check-up on Monday or Tuesday to have them look it over to see if there's anything else we should be doing.
You know, our 16+ year old arthritis-ridden, formerly feral cat has never given us even a quarter as much trouble as her mentally unsound offspring. We need to just give in and rename her "Murphy".
Xan enjoying hot cocoa at our favourite bakery on the first snow day.
We're getting alarmingly close to the holidays, and as usual I'm starting to feel that need to get closer to my spiritual beliefs. I spent hours upon hours of yesterday doing what I love most: random research into topics I don't really have to know anything about, but absolutely must because I have a compulsive need to fill my head with as much random shit as I possibly can.
This time the topic was the history and evolution of Paganism, Druids, the Wice, Germanic Paganism, the history and founation of Wicca, the Neo-Paganism revival, et all. It was fascinating! I learned so much that I didn't know I didn't know about my own belief system. I also learned that I generally classify as a Dianic Pagan, which while originally classified as a branch of Wicca has proved itself to be rather independent as a result of their conflicting views on what is generally agreed as the ideals that sort of define Wicca as a separate branch of beliefs, and Dianics are more accurately described as their own solitary belief system under the overall branch of Pagan revival. Depending on what side the fence you're on that either makes me Dianic or Eclectic.
("Pagan" is like "Christian" in the way it is an umbrella term that describes a number of belief systems and branches that share the same basic ideals and core beliefs). It's kind of cool to learn more about my own path and its history.
Though admittedly it's really hard to get a good source of information that isn't covered in animated gifs of dancing fairies or sparkly purple text on black backgrounds. What the fuck is it about Paganism that attracts so many fluffballs?
The point is that every year I go through this thing where I really want to spend more time and energy into my beliefs and do things like observe the holidays and involve the kids and stuff. We've celebrated Yule over Christmas, and observed Samhain for a long time now, but I'm not content with 'just the big ones'.
I haven't had an altar since before Tempest's birth, and even my therapist encouraged me to put it back up. All the pieces are scattered into various displays, cabinets and boxes. I want to re-make it; I'm a different person than I was before, so there would be a lot of things that I would need to add or take away to accurately represent what my faith means to me now.
I want to tell more stories to my kids. Tempest absolutely adores hearing the mythos; stories about the Sun God and the Holly and Oak Kings, Fae and the Green Man. She loves participating in rituals that include gifts to nature or the animals, burying apples for the dead on Samhain, and crafting Yule wreaths... Xan's a little young to really get into it, but she's begging for more. It's fun; that kind of stuff is attractive to little kids and I want them to have fun with it without feeling like my spirituality is some oppressive force they have to obey and preach to others lest I be disappointed in them, or angry or something.
So now I have a list of things I want to do for Yule, and realistically I probably won't get through even half but at least it's a goal. It's like the list of things we want to buy the kids as presents... we get way too carried away and if we actually did get everything we had on there we'd probably have to starve for five months to make up for the debt.
Speaking of which, we're considering getting Tempest a Nintendo DS Lite for Yule. We've stayed pretty far away from personal video game systems up to this point, but there are a lot of games we'd approve of, plus we have the option to put on our own downloadable content and virtual console games so we can introduce her to the more archaic stuff we grew up on. And that's awesome. She's at an age now where I think she's responsible enough to take care of something that special, and begin to use it more wisely. She's developed in leaps and bounds over the last two years, and compared to the girl she was at five she's completely different... it's like she really is starting to have a handle on the challenges that Aspergers and ADHD gives her, and is beginning to understand how to navigate that with the least amount of stress. She hasn't had anxiety problems in two years, and while it's obvious she's "different" from day to day, she seems really comfortable with herself; a lot more so than she was at the beginning of this journey. I'm happy for her. I want to give her more creative opportunities, challenges and new experiences. I also want to give her a little more freedom and responsibility, which is part of why I think she's old enough to have a present that I previously have found a little too 'much' in just about every way.
Tempest is easy to buy for. She loves math, she loves numbers, she loves reading, she loves horror movies and anything scary the same way I did as a kid. It doesn't ever scare her; nothing ever seems to genuinely scare her, it's more like she enjoys the play of adrenaline and toying with an emotional response. I used to do the same thing with scary movies. She fucking adores Harry Potter.
Xan, on the other hand, is impossible to figure out. He's still young enough that his preferences are fleeting, he doesn't have obsessions like Tempest did which unfortunately makes it harder to know what he's really "into". He likes playing with his cars but that's really just about the only thing that makes its way into his daily life. Everything else is just... fleeting. I have no idea what to get him that he'll enjoy on a day to day basis. I hope this gets easier as he gets older an this is just an age thing.
The 'big gift' for the two of them is going to be the retro Creepy Crawlers bug-making factory with extra molds and goop. I had one as a preteen and it was my most favourite thing in the fucking world. I had so much fun with it. I had no idea they were still being made/sold until I was inspired by a fellow LJer to look into some retro toys from my childhood... and it turns out that I can get a whole set with tons of extras for under a hundred dollars. I'm so excited about it; it's like traveling back in time to when I was 13 and getting to play with the best toys all over again.
We had way better toys when I was a kid.
We had way better everything when I was a kid.
I'm into the second trimester of pregnancy now. My dreams are crazy intense all the time. It's either sex or death, or some combination of the above. The other night I had a really disturbing nightmare about giving birth in my bed very early in the morning while Curtis was at work. I had a little boy. I named him something, the same name I keep hearing and yet not hearing in my baby boy dreams, then immediately took it back and named him "Luke" instead.
He was very tiny, and seemed very weak and listless. His mouth was too small to nurse (as bullshit as that normally is, it was real in the dream) but he didn't seem hungry. He just fell asleep in our bed, so I let him rest. I got up and milled about the house for a few hours, telling no one about his birth. I kept thinking I should formally announce it, but I didn't want to... I felt like his name "didn't fit", and the thought kept swirling through my head. I felt like he didn't fit. There was something wrong with him; he wasn't right. It's why I was hesitant to tell anyone.
Some hours later he still hadn't cried to be fed so I came in to check on him and found he had shrunk. Somehow he was now the size of a 30-something week old fetus, and was becoming stiff and strange looking. He'd curled into a fetal position and I couldn't uncurl him no matter how hard I tried. Over the next few hours he kept regressing further into fetal development until he was the size of a 13-week fetus. He was still breathing, but wasn't moving, nor was he awake. I held him in cupped hands and carried him around the house in secret, trying to make him bigger. I knew he was going to die. And just as Curtis came home from work in the evening, he did. I told him of the day's events and he looked very unsympathetic as he replied, "We'll just try for another."
I was furious with him for being so nonchalant about a very traumatizing loss, but at the same time I felt completely disconnected from it. It was bizarre and disturbing.
I have more dreams about having a boy than having a girl, and I'm starting to think it may be a boy after all... but I'm totally unprepared for it if that's the case. We're still going around in circles on the 'finding out the sex' issue, mostly because it seems we only have two real options for it: submit to a level II diagnostic ultrasound or go to 3D baby for one of those hour-long "4d" souvenir ultrasounds (which carries excessive risk, exposure and cost). Neither of which we're comfortable with. If those are our only choices we're fine without it, but I wish there was a middle ground. We both agreed that the only way we're okay with the 3D baby thing is if it was our LAST choice, we REALLY wanted to know and it was bare minimum exposure, we're talking ten minutes or less, but I'm pretty sure they don't do that... and besides, why is that we're forced into that dumb souvenir shit that is a blatant abuse of medical technology?
Unfortunately with the introduction of all the weird rules about finding out the sex in this province you can't do anything without going through one of those routes. I'm going to ask our midwife at our next appointment on Thursday and see if she knows any sneaky ways of going around it... I'm not entirely sure we're on board with finding out, but at least then we'd know we had the option.
Tempestism of the Day:
As we finish up some evening grocery shopping, we pass by the front of a jewelry store which has a few of those animatronic Santa Claus moving about in the front window. Tempest stops cold as we pass them and stares, looking ponderous. After a moment she finally comments.
Tempest: "If those were real evil robot Santas, I would have to get on a boat right now and leave the country."
Curtis: "... like Dr. Who?"
Tempest: "Just like Dr. Who."
Links of the Day:
Women with more than one child are not actually crazy - I loved this.
Reteaching Gender and Sexuality - Steering the conversation away from symptoms, and changing what we talk about.
Survey shows bathing more effective for pain relief than pethidine - Can I get a what what?
The best signs at the rally for sanity and/or fear - as lolworthy as the counter-protest signs at comic con.
Whooping cough vaccine not as effective as once thought - Out of 330+ recent cases, 197 of them were fully vaccinated and up to date.
Informal milk sharing vs. formula - Which is riskier? - A fantastic breakdown of information and myths.