we've merged

http://andthechildrendranklemonade.blogspot.com/
(new guevara family blog)

kids-isms

luci at the park to total stranger: hi! i'm luci! what country are you from?
random 4 year old girl: (pause) haslett
luci: oh yay! (clapping) i'm from michigan!

luci coming home from school looking sad: my friend cried today mommy.
me: why?
luci: she missed her mommy.
me: what did you do?
luci: i hugged her and told her everything would be alright.
me: ... was it hard for you to see your best friend cry?
luci: no...actually i got a pretty good look.

luci rubs my belly and says softly, "don't you worry. i'm big sister luci and i'll take good care of you. i can't wait to meet you." lijah smacks my belly and gets huge eyes, "BABY INSIDE?!!" then he points to his tummy, "BABY INSIDE?!!"

lij takes off running after a squirrel with reckless abandon. i can barely keep up with him. suddenly the squirrel stops and looks directly at him. "WASSSZAT?!" he shrieks, afraid and perplexed, unsure of why he was chasing at all.

lij nomenclature... red=james. pink=rosie. blue=thomas. brown=toby. something big and tall=cranky nah crane. airplane=jeremy. ceiling fans/helicopters=harold. white=harold. yellow/orange/beige=murdoch. dark green=whiff.

then there's gary. on our way up north a porcupine wandered into the middle of the highway. then as it was almost across it changed direction and ran right into our wheel. i didn't swerve, as it was a misty dark foggy night, and i didn't want to lose control. g asks, "are we going to get a flat tire now?"

update to the 'i feel so alone' post

i saw the patient personally in the clinic. she turned over a new leaf. her baby was doing fine, her bleeding had stopped, and she was going to try to start working again. she told me she had made a commitment to becoming a better mother than she had been, and had newfound strength in this little life growing inside of her. i reached out and gave her a big hug.

then... 5 days later. she miscarried.

when kids are the teachers

referencing the former post regarding the bully... days passed and i asked luci one day, what happened to your bully? she said, "you mean my friend?"
"what?!"
"yeah... i asked her if she wanted to be friends instead of fighting."
"and she said yes?"
"yes... and she wanted to be BEST friends too."

then last night... i was so angry i was seeing red. i was helping luci make a peanut butter & jelly sandwich, but getting frustrated because she wanted one slice toasted, one slice not toasted, peanut butter first, and jelly not jam. i suddenly felt a cold splash on my foot. when i turned around elijah had emptied a tub of yogurt onto the kitchen rug and shaken it all over the counter, himself, and everything within a four foot radius. after cleaning it up with the clorox wipes (a.k.a. poison wipes, mommy, and don't touch it on my skin!) i sank onto the couch with a big sigh. to add insult to injury, luci didn't eat the sandwich because she was too emotionally bent out of shape by the yogurt incident.

i said rather plainly, "Lord... please comfort me."

and of course... He placed a fleeting image in my mind. it was of me, except that i was old, demented, forgetful, messy. and the kids were now tending to my needs.

okay. i get it.

j.goolia@timeout.com

i watched luci open the laptop, turn it on, double click internet explorer, select nickjr.com from the dropdown menu, double click on games, and start playing away with more dexterity than i ever had playing super mario brothers. mmmbop mmmbop mmbop (the sound when mario was in the basement/dungeon).

i think of all the wonderful things i want to show her. then i think of all the things out there seeking to corrupt her. she's already in the formative stages! for example, there's a bully at her school named julia. **UHGGHG!** it kills me to think that this bossy little girl is throwing stuff at her and knocking her down. but get this... lucia won't tell the teacher. we keep asking her why, and she evades us with comments like, 'oh, i was busy playing...' or she changes the subject entirely. wow. finally i said, luci, are you afraid to tell the teacher? she said yes.... because julia is friends with a girl named eva, and if she tells on julia, then eva might not be her friend... and "that's why i don't like my new school, mommy." she's only four, and she doesn't understand the whole eva-is-not-your-true-friend-if-she-won't-be-your-friend-if-you-tell-on-julia thing.

i remember when luci was 2 weeks old. i changed a particularly rancid diaper, and it suddenly reminded me of a nursing home. then i had this image of her growing really old, and that i would likely not be there (physically) to take care of her. it made me extremely sad. i can't cushion her from everything, though. especially when she won't stand up for herself.

gary, i guess, already had a talk with the teacher, who says julia is always in timeout. he seems to think she's a troubled girl with problems at home. FINE. but don't throw that stuff in my daughter's face! hence... the ripple effect of sin.

and so it begins.

i feel so alone

so i can’t give out too many details or else it would be a violation of privacy.
so there’s this woman on the ward, with a bunch of other kids at home. i guess her boyfriend, the father of her children, is in and out of jail. she is currently living with his mother. but now she’s pregnant with another man’s child, and facing eviction from her boyfriend’s mother’s house, along with all her children.

now she’s well into the second trimester and she starts bleeding. there’s an abnormality with the placenta which means she needs to be on bedrest so she won’t bleed. then we get an ultrasound to see where things are at and discover her fluid levels are low. by the way, the bleeding she’s experiencing can indeed happen with the kind of placenta she has, but it has way more to do with her history of cocaine and other illicits.

yes it’s a complicated pregnancy. but baby is doing fine and actually looks quite content in there. her bleeding is minimal.

then one of the residents gets a bright idea. since she didn’t want or intend this baby anyway… we should get a better ultrasound through the high risk doctor, given her decreased fluid levels. and maybe, hopefully, we’d find an abnormality… so she could just abort the baby… and be a ‘better mom to her kids’ because she needs to be there for them too. the patient was all for it.

my heart was broken.

this baby did not ask to be conceived.

abortion is not going to solve the fact that her boyfriend is in jail, that she uses coke, that she had an affair while living under her boyrfriend’s roof and likely while his mother was watching her children.

but abortion WILL stop this hopeful little heartbeat from ever reaching it’s destiny – who knows? fireman, priest, sister, rock star, best friend, writer, scrabble geek…

we’ll never know.

but everyone thinks it will solve EVERYTHING.

it's friday and i apologize that i've got potty humor

the kids have a play kitchen stocked with play food. there's a baked potato which is light brown and semi-shiny which looks like a turd. in fact whenever i see it, i jump, thinking, 'oh, there's a turd on my floor.' this past week i was really sick. on a day that i was alone with the kids nursing a 103 degree fever, i saw a brown lump on the floor. oh, it's that potato again, i thought. but then i noticed there was more texture to it, and elijah was walking like a cowboy, checking out the bottoms of his feet. yes, he had pooed, and it escaped the diaper, slid down his pants and onto the hallway. needless to say i made everyone FREEZE until the situation was handled.

but last night gary was in bed horsing around with the kids. the story was fresh in his mind. i found the plastic baked potato and put it under the blanket. then i moved the blanket exposing the potato and screamed, 'oh my gosh! when did that happen?!' gary freaked out, then started laughing because he knew i got him pretty good.

this morning we were talking about hemorrhoids in general. i stated that, overall, preparation H works really well, especially if refrigerated, it's more soothing. i pursed my lips and everted them in a tortuous manner, demonstrating the 'before-the-preparation-H-rectum'... then i relaxed my lips to demonstrate the 'after-the-medication' rectum.

gary looked at me for a really long time and finally said, "....thanks...for the imitation... of my ass."

and it was only 6am.