miscellanea with some griping
animals we saw on our trip:
turtle
black bear cub
about 50 black flies
a couple of deer flies
500 trillion mosquitoes
fishies!
loons
swans
dragonflies and damselflies
an unfortunate number of invasive asian longhorn beetles (Killarney is infested with them)
pretty pretty moths, like this yellow one with pink legs
raccoons
skunks
chipmunks!!!
lots of red-wing blackbirds
several downy woodpeckers
cardinals
blue jays
crows
an osprey nest
a few turkey vultures
some hawks
black and white jumping spiders (soooo cute!)
things we did at N's parents' place:
read
sunned ourselves
played in the pool a little bit
went to a farm and picked strawberries (conventionally grown, so not really all that great-tasting to me)
visited a local, organic, very small-scale winery that had ok pinot noir and quite lovely pinot gris; got a bottle of red and two of white
accompanied N's parents to their church's strawberry social (could we possibly stand out any more?)
ate our camp food and refined what we should plan to bring next time
slept on a fold-out sofa, instead of using our tent, which we brought
dug up irises and lilies to replant in our home garden (which I did yesterday morning)
looked at photo albums of when N was a baby/kid
played backgammon and crazy eights
knitted (well, I did)
explored an abandoned sandbox and discovered that ants had taken it over
skipped the canoe and kayaks (too windy on the lake)
skipped the hottub (they'd just blasted it with bromine and it was impossible to breathe around)
before I'd heard exactly what Michael Jackson died of, I'd heard that he was getting ready to go on tour again and do lots of shows to help pay off several hundred million dollars of debt. I'd mused that it was probably a heart attack, thinking that his heart just wasn't in it anymore. Found out today that, indeed, he died of cardiac arrest... huh.
N and I drank some chocolate raspberry port last night... on empty stomachs, right before bed, while watching a couple of episodes of Lost. Once we were in bed trying to sleep, we both experienced what felt like a come down from a very lengthy drug trip. N just felt a little altered, but I was having full-on hallucinatory visualizations when I closed my eyes and it was pretty disturbing, these visuals: it started off with exaggerated Froudian goblins, à la Labyrinth, and morphed into every piece of demonic imagery I'd ever encountered. It was unfun. I've never had a bad trip, but this was pretty close.
Add to this the fact that the Smallest is teething again (why do the molars take such a long time?!), so after he'd been asleep for two hours, we came to bed and he wanted to nurse. Normally, it's four hours between nursing sessions at night now, so I was not thrilled at having to nurse him as soon as I got in bed. I'd hoped I'd get at least a couple of hours in before he woke up needing milk. And THEN he decided that he just HAD to nurse for an hour and a half straight. Normal nursing time? 20 minutes. Can I tell you how sore I am? Ow.
Today was shockingly uneventful, even with his teething. My gratitude, let me show you it.
This evening, we ate dinner with N's parents at a nearby restaurant. The Smallest was feeling grumpy because of his teeth. We hadn't packed the teething tablets, so he took out his frustrations on the plateware, shoving it towards the middle of the table with far more force than is necessary and wouldn't stop. After doing this a couple of times, he shoved it into a cluster of glasses and knocked my wine glass down into the hummus dish. I grabbed his hands in one of my hands, and turned his face toward mine with my other hand, telling him quite firmly, "I know you don't feel good; I know you're finished with food, but that was completely unnecessary. It's not funny, and I don't want you to do it again." And then N took his plate away, at which point, the boy yelled (somewhere in between screaming and fussing). All the while, N's mother kept asking A if he was "a good boy" in saccharine sweet tones. If you know anything about my style of parenting, you know that I absolutely detest telling/asking children that/if they're 'good'. I don't really like 'good job' either, but 'good boy/girl' just drives me fucking batty. It's coercive and mind-gamey and doesn't take into account WHY he might be acting out. It's behaviourist bullshit that has no place in compassionate parenting, IMO. I realized that he probably had to pee, so I asked him and he said yes. I took him pee and then he felt better and acted better afterwards. But N's mom kept up with the 'good boy' crap. Gah. You don't talk to adults this way, right? Then why do you think it's ok to talk to a child this way?
I generally feel annoyed and upset that we don't see them more often than the handful of times a year that we Do see them, but then when we see them, they both pull out the 'good boy' BS. And since N's mom did in-home day care for 30+ years, I don't really have the energy to deal with the potential "I've done this for 30+ years and all my kids turned out just fine!" BS way of thinking. N doesn't have the energy for it either, so we don't say anything.
And while I'm bitching about them, I just Do Not Understand how they can be so uber religious and not be more environmentally responsible in their everyday lives. God made the earth, according to their beliefs, right? So WHY FUCK UP HIS GIFT TO YOU? Do you REALLY think it's respectful to buy cheap shoes so you can trash them when they fall apart, instead of making an effort to buy quality so they last longer? Do you REALLY think it's ok to use all those strong chemical cleaners/detergents in general, but especially when you rely on a well and septic system and your house is about 100 feet from the lake? I could go on and on and on -- their entire way of life is outdated and hard to deal with. Teflon cookware? come on! And most of the food they buy is so hideously processed that I wouldn't even qualify it as food, and they cook nearly everything in the microwave. It's just gross. I think they feel they're doing their part because they compost and recycle. But they also burn some of their trash, too. *head desk*
N feels the same frustration, btw, so it's not just me here.
I was laying out on their patio Saturday afternoon when a huge airforce bomber-type plane began circling around the property -- there's a base nearby and they need to practice their maneuvers, so I wasn't freaked out by this. If anything, I was just really annoyed. N's dad came out after about the third circle and told me it was probably my legs that kept them coming back.
Me: does that mean they'll go away if I went inside?
Him (confused): What? You don't like [type of plane]?
(He's former military and Very Patriotic.)
Me: Uh, NO. Not when I can see the pollution coming right out of the engines as it circles around!
Him: You know, that's only the equivalent of about ten cars on the road.
Me: So? It's dirty and nasty and it fouls up everything it touches, making it difficult to breathe.
Him (annoyed):...
Him: Have you ever been around horse crap? It certainly doesn't smell very good.
Me: at least horse crap is natural and decomposes. This other stuff (waving hands toward the sky) shouldn't even exist!
Him: horse crap still doesn't smell nice.
Me: ...
Whatever. N was unamused by his dad's stance on the issue ("Why not make it the equivalent of one car on the road? Why ten?"). I wish I'd used more intelligent words to argue with.
I went inside and five minutes later, realized that the plane had stopped circling. *kinda creeped out*
And tonight, N's mom was talking about how one of her friends wanted to take her to a buddhist temple for tea. It ended up that they couldn't get served because it was one of the buddhist holidays today, so the cafe part was closed.
N's mom: I have no idea what they'd be celebrating. (or something like that)
N's dad: I probably wouldn't understand it anyway.
Me: That's what explanations are for.
N's dad: ...
N's brother: It probably has to do with monkeys or elephants.
N's dad: (laughs) or a fat man sitting cross-legged.
And they had just finished talking about the retirement celebration of the pastor of the church they helped build.
Am I just overly offended, or is this kinda not a cool conversation?
turtle
black bear cub
about 50 black flies
a couple of deer flies
500 trillion mosquitoes
fishies!
loons
swans
dragonflies and damselflies
an unfortunate number of invasive asian longhorn beetles (Killarney is infested with them)
pretty pretty moths, like this yellow one with pink legs
raccoons
skunks
chipmunks!!!
lots of red-wing blackbirds
several downy woodpeckers
cardinals
blue jays
crows
an osprey nest
a few turkey vultures
some hawks
black and white jumping spiders (soooo cute!)
things we did at N's parents' place:
read
sunned ourselves
played in the pool a little bit
went to a farm and picked strawberries (conventionally grown, so not really all that great-tasting to me)
visited a local, organic, very small-scale winery that had ok pinot noir and quite lovely pinot gris; got a bottle of red and two of white
accompanied N's parents to their church's strawberry social (could we possibly stand out any more?)
ate our camp food and refined what we should plan to bring next time
slept on a fold-out sofa, instead of using our tent, which we brought
dug up irises and lilies to replant in our home garden (which I did yesterday morning)
looked at photo albums of when N was a baby/kid
played backgammon and crazy eights
knitted (well, I did)
explored an abandoned sandbox and discovered that ants had taken it over
skipped the canoe and kayaks (too windy on the lake)
skipped the hottub (they'd just blasted it with bromine and it was impossible to breathe around)
Add to this the fact that the Smallest is teething again (why do the molars take such a long time?!), so after he'd been asleep for two hours, we came to bed and he wanted to nurse. Normally, it's four hours between nursing sessions at night now, so I was not thrilled at having to nurse him as soon as I got in bed. I'd hoped I'd get at least a couple of hours in before he woke up needing milk. And THEN he decided that he just HAD to nurse for an hour and a half straight. Normal nursing time? 20 minutes. Can I tell you how sore I am? Ow.
Today was shockingly uneventful, even with his teething. My gratitude, let me show you it.
This evening, we ate dinner with N's parents at a nearby restaurant. The Smallest was feeling grumpy because of his teeth. We hadn't packed the teething tablets, so he took out his frustrations on the plateware, shoving it towards the middle of the table with far more force than is necessary and wouldn't stop. After doing this a couple of times, he shoved it into a cluster of glasses and knocked my wine glass down into the hummus dish. I grabbed his hands in one of my hands, and turned his face toward mine with my other hand, telling him quite firmly, "I know you don't feel good; I know you're finished with food, but that was completely unnecessary. It's not funny, and I don't want you to do it again." And then N took his plate away, at which point, the boy yelled (somewhere in between screaming and fussing). All the while, N's mother kept asking A if he was "a good boy" in saccharine sweet tones. If you know anything about my style of parenting, you know that I absolutely detest telling/asking children that/if they're 'good'. I don't really like 'good job' either, but 'good boy/girl' just drives me fucking batty. It's coercive and mind-gamey and doesn't take into account WHY he might be acting out. It's behaviourist bullshit that has no place in compassionate parenting, IMO. I realized that he probably had to pee, so I asked him and he said yes. I took him pee and then he felt better and acted better afterwards. But N's mom kept up with the 'good boy' crap. Gah. You don't talk to adults this way, right? Then why do you think it's ok to talk to a child this way?
I generally feel annoyed and upset that we don't see them more often than the handful of times a year that we Do see them, but then when we see them, they both pull out the 'good boy' BS. And since N's mom did in-home day care for 30+ years, I don't really have the energy to deal with the potential "I've done this for 30+ years and all my kids turned out just fine!" BS way of thinking. N doesn't have the energy for it either, so we don't say anything.
And while I'm bitching about them, I just Do Not Understand how they can be so uber religious and not be more environmentally responsible in their everyday lives. God made the earth, according to their beliefs, right? So WHY FUCK UP HIS GIFT TO YOU? Do you REALLY think it's respectful to buy cheap shoes so you can trash them when they fall apart, instead of making an effort to buy quality so they last longer? Do you REALLY think it's ok to use all those strong chemical cleaners/detergents in general, but especially when you rely on a well and septic system and your house is about 100 feet from the lake? I could go on and on and on -- their entire way of life is outdated and hard to deal with. Teflon cookware? come on! And most of the food they buy is so hideously processed that I wouldn't even qualify it as food, and they cook nearly everything in the microwave. It's just gross. I think they feel they're doing their part because they compost and recycle. But they also burn some of their trash, too. *head desk*
N feels the same frustration, btw, so it's not just me here.
I was laying out on their patio Saturday afternoon when a huge airforce bomber-type plane began circling around the property -- there's a base nearby and they need to practice their maneuvers, so I wasn't freaked out by this. If anything, I was just really annoyed. N's dad came out after about the third circle and told me it was probably my legs that kept them coming back.
Me: does that mean they'll go away if I went inside?
Him (confused): What? You don't like [type of plane]?
(He's former military and Very Patriotic.)
Me: Uh, NO. Not when I can see the pollution coming right out of the engines as it circles around!
Him: You know, that's only the equivalent of about ten cars on the road.
Me: So? It's dirty and nasty and it fouls up everything it touches, making it difficult to breathe.
Him (annoyed):...
Him: Have you ever been around horse crap? It certainly doesn't smell very good.
Me: at least horse crap is natural and decomposes. This other stuff (waving hands toward the sky) shouldn't even exist!
Him: horse crap still doesn't smell nice.
Me: ...
Whatever. N was unamused by his dad's stance on the issue ("Why not make it the equivalent of one car on the road? Why ten?"). I wish I'd used more intelligent words to argue with.
I went inside and five minutes later, realized that the plane had stopped circling. *kinda creeped out*
And tonight, N's mom was talking about how one of her friends wanted to take her to a buddhist temple for tea. It ended up that they couldn't get served because it was one of the buddhist holidays today, so the cafe part was closed.
N's mom: I have no idea what they'd be celebrating. (or something like that)
N's dad: I probably wouldn't understand it anyway.
Me: That's what explanations are for.
N's dad: ...
N's brother: It probably has to do with monkeys or elephants.
N's dad: (laughs) or a fat man sitting cross-legged.
And they had just finished talking about the retirement celebration of the pastor of the church they helped build.
Am I just overly offended, or is this kinda not a cool conversation?