OmegaMom has what is, to her, a very interesting dream life. (This would be in a sleep-dreaming type way, not in a "Oh, darling, I live such a dreeeeeaaaaam life!" type way.) One facet of OmegaMom's dreams is that the subject has to be well-entrenched in OmegaMom's life before it shows up in her dreams. For instance, about six months after accepting her latest job, the job environment, boss, and various office characters suddenly began appearing in her dreams; another example is Mr. OmegaMom thrusting himself into her dreams within a week of her meeting him, an indicator of just how serious the whole thing was. OmegaMom has suddenly begun dreaming of Going To China to Meet a Dotter again. The latest dream featured the lovely idea of travel companions having to spend six weeks in commune-type living in Some City in China prior to receiving their children. The city bore an odd resemblance to the Chicago of OmegaMom's dreams (which is nothing like real-life Chicago). Some high points of the communal living: a visit to an orphanage, which was an industrial version of the Forbidden City, with children of all ages standing like statues scattered around the grounds in some form of performance art (truly--the orphanage director was quite proud of the performance); also, the drama of the female half of two of the couples discovering (after being in quite close quarters for a few weeks) that they were Sworn Enemies on one of the email lists, and duking it out. Really. It was quite the scene; it included screaming accusations and tearing of hair. Way back when, when the Omegas were waiting for OmegaDotter, the dream du jour was always about referral time. Once, the Omegas, with their traveling companions, were led to two pillars in the midst of a high plain; when it was the Omegas' turn to receive their baby, the powers that be graciously handed them a kitten. Now. OmegaMom, in real life, is nonplussed at this. Her response is likely to be, "Excuse me? We took nine months to fill out reams of paperwork...waited 14 months for referral...flew halfway across the world...and you're giving us a cat?!?! We already have three of the creatures; we don't need another!" In the dream, of course, the Omegas oohed and ahhed and cooed over the kitten, carefully examined each of its precious little paws, stroked the soft pads, petted her, and happily went on their way. Another referral dream had us back on that same plain, between the same two pillars, waiting until the last minute, only to be abandoned there, sans child. OmegaMom remembers dust, and wind, and everyone else climbing back on the bus, leaving us behind. Waking up from that one was pretty awful. A third referral dream had us meeting a nine-year-old, who promptly darted away and led us through a very odd, very dark underground amusement park. OmegaMom suspects that one was prompted by many discussions of attachment issues in adopted children. But it seems OmegaMom is now in for a long run of various dreams about China (nothing like real China, of course), dreams of referrals, and, probably, dreams about OmegaDotter's response to DotterSecunda. In real life, we are about to cross a Rubicon: our pre-intake interview with the local adoption agency is on Monday Tuesday. This is to determine whether our social worker (a lovely lady) thinks that we've left the sturm und drang of 2004 safely behind us. I'll keep you posted.

OmegaMom would like to say hi back to all & sundry who posted a comment on the ol' bloggeroo. (Hi!) About 10% of the hitters on this blog shouted out, so it was a better response rate than most direct mailings! Blogging is an interesting biz; one doesn't necessarily get feedback, so sometimes it feels like you're just bellowing out your rants to the wind. An exercise in self-centered venting, as it were. OmegaMom must say, though, that not posting for a day causes her hits to plummet. Who'd'a thunk it?! The posting lack is due to Big Things at work, aka Disaster Recovery. A hard drive crash on the server; spamspamspamspam on the main email server in the ITS department; nasty virus attack; and a bit of weirdness on the big database in my department kept me hopping. On the homefront, Mr. OmegaMom has been out in the field (not out in left field, mind you, though he's there quite often, one of the things that makes me love him so much). As a result, OmegaMom has been a single mom for a few days, which always (a) makes her grumpy, and (b) cuts into her luxurious clicking time. I have some topics noodling around in my head, so there will be more substance soon.

OmegaMom hopes that little doodad over to the right there catches your attention. In the interests of National Security and Our Precious Freedoms, OmegaMom urges you to follow the teeming hordes (as she has done) and post a comment to celebrate National Delurking Week. People who do not post will be pursued and persecuted. They will compile a file on you, including all the books you have purchased, read in libraries, read online, or even indicated a passing interest in to a casual acquaintance. Non-commenters will be added to the National Do Not Fly List, as they are obviously Up To No Good. Not only are They watching you, but OmegaMom is, too. In the interests of total peace and harmony, OmegaMom assures you that you do not have to post anything. If you are a congenital lurker, too shy to push that "Post" button, OmegaMom will contact the FBI and request a stay of execution for you. In other words, no pressure, dudes, comment or not as you please, I just thought it was cute. Oh, yes, OmegaGranny gets special dispensation, 'cause I know she lurks here, and she comments to me via email.

Wanting to encourage OmegaDotter to enjoy music, the Omegas early on started playing music in the car as we traveled to and fro. Mr. OmegaMom, being an ardent fan of early '60s rock'n'roll, selected some cassettes (yes, cassettes. Our cars live in the dark ages). So there was Dion, wailing, "Why Must I be a Teenager in Love?", extolling the carefree bachelor life of "The Wanderer", and warning people away from "Runaround Sue". It was when OmegaDotter started singing the words of some of these songs that we realized that...um...maybe it wasn't a good idea for her to get her ideas of what love is all about from these songs? Every single one of the songs that was being sung was all about how girls weren't any good, that it was good for guys to have a girl in every city, dumping girls for no real reason was good, etc. So Mr. OmegaMom went out and bought a tape of the Mamas and the Papas. Nice soft counter-culture music without the misanthropic message of a lot of the rockin' greaser guys. All the leaves are brown And the sky is grey I've been for a walk On a winter's day I'd be safe and warm If I was in L.A. California dreamin' On a winter's day This tape has become our soundtrack while motoring. OmegaMom is sick to death of the Mamas and the Papas now. "Mamas and the Papas?" asks OmegaDotter as soon as we get into the car. Omegamom looks back at her, tilts a questioning eyebrow, and gives her an old-fashioned look. OmegaDotter relents: "Please?" Omegamom pushes the well-worn tape into the player. Monday, Monday Can't trust that day Monday, Monday Sometimes it just turns out that way OmegaMom's dream of the MP3 player is to get an auto accessory that jacks into the music system so that we can play some other music. Like OmegaDotter's beloved Turtles! Or the Beach Boys! Or, goodness knows, anything else. But right now, here comes "The 'funny song', Mama! It makes me laugh!" John and Mitchy were gettin' kind of itchy Just to leave the folk music behind; Zal and Denny workin' for a penny Tryin' to get a fish on the line. In a coffee house Sebastian sat, And after every number they'd pass the hat. McGuinn and McGuire just a-gettin' higher in L.A., You know where that's at. And no one's gettin' fat except Mama Cass. The saving grace is that the song that OmegaDotter knows all the lyrics to is "Make Your Own Kind of Music". Now, this song is an anthem to being true to yourself--something that OmegaMom wants to imbue into OmegaDotter so deeply that she will never forget that it is truly important: But you've gotta make your own kind of music sing your own special song, make your own kind of music even if nobody else sing along. This Sunday, returning home from a visit to OmegaGranny, OmegaMom popped the good ol' cassette in, and the tunes started playing. We drove on in the dark, passing cars and seeing stars in the night. As we turned left onto Rural Highway to take it the 15 miles to Interstate Highway, and left the lights of small southwestern town behind, OmegaDotter piped up from the back: "Turn it off, Mama. I don't want it on." OmegaMom practically had a heart attack. What, the dotter doesn't want to listen to the Mamas and the Papas??? The world must be tilting on its axis. "Turn it ooooffff." OmegaDotter's drowsy voice said again. OmegaMom popped the cassette out. We drove on through the dark, peaceful and quiet.

A rant. So the inevitable "China Doll" discussion has reared its ugly head on APC again. As usual, those who have been around a long time mention the fact that "China Doll" is seen by many Asian-Americans, particularly Asian-American females, as being derogatory and stereotypical, and usually used in conjunction with ooky sexual connotations. As usual, there are those who see absolutely nothing wrong with the term "China Doll", have no truck with others finding it demeaning, and say, "As long as it's said with loooooove, I don't see how anyone can object!" OmegaMom goes cross-eyed when she reads these posts. In fact, there are a few particular posts that make OmegaMom want to reach through the computer screen, pull the posters out through it, give them a good solid one-two shake, then get them in a headlock and give them a GREAT BIG NOOGIE! (When informed of this irrational feeling on OmegaMom's part, Mr. OmegaMom snickered and commented, "Oh, yeah, that's a great way to solve the world's problems!" Harrumph. He just doesn't recognize truly World Saving Ideas when they snuggle up beside him in bed at night, that's all.) In separate off-line email exchanges with a number of Asian-American females who have adopted from China, sparked by the recurrent "China Doll" discussion, these separate women have told me that (a) they are tired of hitting their head against the wall of people ignoring, downplaying or pooh-poohing their personal experiences and that of their friends, and (b) a lot of the Asian-Americans who have adopted from China who started out on the bigger lists feel marginalized and isolated from and by the larger Caucasian adoptive community. OmegaMom doesn't get it. There you are, people with FIRST-HAND EXPERIENCE are telling you they have PERSONALLY been subjected to boorish street commentary a la "Ooooh, sexy little China Doll, come give me a f*ck!", and you're saying to them, "Well, it's different when you say it playfully and with love!" Hey, reality check here! You're getting commentary from Asian-American females. Guess what your daughter is?!?! She's a...drum-roll, please!...Asian-American female! There are loads of perfectly fine pet names for little girls. How about: Punkin', dumpling, sweetpea, bao-bao, half-pint, baby-doll, pookie, sugar, honey-chile, xiao wa-wa...pick a term, any term. Just maybe think a little harder about using a term that Asian-American females have clearly said makes them feel objectified and turned into a submissive sex-object. Noogies. That's what's needed. Lots and lots of noogies. Picture OmegaMom storming off, wildly waving her fists around her head.

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P.S. OmegaMom is NOT saying that no-one can use the phrase. Go right ahead. Just be prepared for your child to possibly be one of the folks who says something like this when she's grown-up: "She said it would be cute to have all these China-doll grandchildren," Chau said. "So, thank goodness for my grandmother's racism, because otherwise I wouldn't be here."...just substitute "my mother" for "my grandmother" and "children" for "grandchildren".

On this day last year (admittedly an exceptional year for hereabouts), our area had recorded 82 inches of snow since September 1. This year, we've had "a trace" since September 1. The norm is for 35 inches of snow by now. We've had 2.25 inches of precipitation since September 1; the norm is for 8.25 inches by now, and by this time last year we had had 16.5 inches of total precipitation. Each week, OmegaMom pulls up the 7-day forecast from NOAA. Once every two weeks, there's a day that has lovely "party cloudy" weather icons, and a POP (probability of precipitation) approaching 50%. Then, as the days go by, and that day gets closer, the POP drops...and drops...and drops. A week ago, there was rain in the state. A bit. On the radar pictures, there was a swath of moisture that started at the southwest corner of the state and marched directly across to the northeast corner. There was a divot out of this stretch of clouds that marked the town where the Omegas lived. Typically, the fire season starts hereabouts in early May. This year, we can feel it in the air: fire season is going to be early. In the eight years we've lived here, OmegaMom has become quite good at triangulating between plumes of smoke and the location of the hippy-dippy one-time vacation enclave in the woods where the Omegas live as she drives down the highway. If the plume of smoke is north of the highway, all is well for the Omegas (not necessarily for others). If the plume is south of the highway, OmegaMom's keen, razorlike mind focuses in and determines just how close it is to home. Last year was a luxurious mental break from the constant niggling worry during May, June, late September and October. So much water had made its way to the area that Natural Lake had water in it for the first time in years; the Forest Service had had to open up the spillway from Upper Dam Lake to Lower Dam Lake, and area inhabitants had gone to the spillway to gawk, incredulously, at the roar of water spilling out. The woods stayed soggy until late in the year; the roads and trails up the mountains were still closed in July due to snow and mud. But now...now it's looking pretty crispy critters out there. Of course, this isn't going to do any good for the problem with the pine bark beetle, which two and a half years ago had accounted for the death of up to 4 million ponderosa and pinyon pines in the state. OmegaMom understands that there are stay-at-home parental units in the Oregon area who would kill for an end to rain this year. OmegaMom assures them that she would equally kill for a return to more normal precipitation here. Maybe we can all trade?

OmegaGranny asked, in an email, where'd I come up with "OmegaMom"? Did it have anything to do with the IBM software of the same name? (No.) Mr. OmegaMom asked the same thing this week. OmegaMom has been around the world of internet bulletin boards for a long time. Seeking information on pregnancy and childbirth, she hit the Usenet newsgroups (this was 12 years ago, sigh). Then she moved on to mailing lists. Then she discovered parenting websites such as iVillage, and the forums on those websites. It seemed there was a subgroup of moms who were going for the "Golden Vagina" award on all these arenas. (OmegaMom can't take credit for the phrase; it's been around for a while, with variations being "tightest vagina of them all", "brass ovaries", "uberMom" and more.) AlphaMoms ferry kids from one activity to the next on a constant basis. They read to their burgeoning uteri as their AlphaBabies are gestating. They play Baby Mozart to their fetuses, and then in the crib, to stimulate their AlphaBabies' neural pathways. They breastfeed to ensure that extra IQ point or two, to smooth the way to Harvard. They feed their babies only homemade baby food, using only organically grown vegetables from the local health-food store. The best schools, the best after-school programs, the best art classes, music classes, dance classes, French au pairs, and on and on. Don't get me wrong: I have lots of online friends who have done one or more of these different things; it's the attitude that makes OmegaMom's eyes bug out when encountering true Alpha Moms. The implicit understanding that if you don't do these things, well...you're just a Bad Mom and Not Sacrificing Enough. OmegaMom, let's face it, is lazy. Being an AlphaMom seems like so darned much work. Case in point: This article, about a lady name of Isabel Kallman, who embodies this type of uber-competitive woman. It spawned much eyerolling and "tight vagina" remarks on various internet sites that OmegaMom frequents. In counterpoint, there was the coterie that claimed that no-one rolls their eyes and gnashes their teeth about men doing this kind of thing (100-hour work weeks, go-go-go CEO approach to life, etc.). OmegaMom's response to that is, I wouldn't want to be an AlphaMom, and I sure as heck wouldn't want to marry someone like that, either. And, from one or two women whom OmegaMom recognizes as Alpha types, came some impassioned defenses that came right out and said that the Omegas were just jealous, or defensive because they felt that they weren't doing enough. Um. I read that article, and I think, "But where's the relaxation? Where's the 'let's sit on the futon and eat junk food and watch movies together' mode? Where's the 'let a kid be a kid' downtime? Anyway, OmegaMom's philosophy of parenthood is to read the snot out of the subject, then to just muddle through, doing the parenting thang by guess and by golly. So I picked the title OmegaMom out of a rueful acceptance of the fact that I will never be an AlphaMom, will never understand the go-go-go, go-for-the-finest mentality, and my children will be just children to me, not an Olympic sports event.

OmegaMom just had to pass this one on...as a recent convert to blogging and tracking site hits, this hit too close to home! Brother, Can You Spare a Hyperlink?

Write, wrote, written... Smite, smote, smitten... In her last post, OmegaMom spoke (speak, spoke, spoken) of Pat Robertson being in glee because of the way "we heathens are being smitten", then questioned the usage, offering up "smited" as the proper word. OmegaGranny very thoughtfully added a comment in which she claimed the word OmegaMom was looking for was "smote". This actually sent OmegaMom off on a grammar quest on the web. Oy! You know you're a geek of one kind or another when someone else's casual commentary spurs a dive into the dictionary, encylopedia, obscure corners of the web, or (o, geekiness of geekiness) the technical manual. Okay, let's see: It's passive voice (Who is smiting? the Lord. Who is the Lord smiting? Us.). It's present progressive or continuous (the action started in the past, and is continuing now--didn't this verb form used to have a different name?). So what's needed is the present progressive indicative (we are being) plus the past participle of smite (smitten. Dammit, it's SMITTEN. Smote is offered as an alternative, but the most common usage is listed first in this handy-dandy chart of irregular English verbs, and this chart [and others found on the web] claims SMITTEN is the more common usage). OmegaMom could have avoided this whole irregular verb brouhaha by simply writing, "Pat Robertson must be alternating between total glee at the way the Lord is smiting us heathens and simply being terrified all the time." But then you get into the question of whether it is "us heathens" or "we heathens". Sigh. You also run into the ambiguity of whether it is Pat Robertson or The Lord who is being terrified all the time. Though if you grew up in a proper Christian household, you know darned well that The Lord is never terrified, so the sentence stops being ambiguous. Forgive me. I grew up with my nose in dictionaries and encyclopedias. As a sop to non-geekiness, I offer up the fact that I hated grammar class with a passion. I'd much rather just play with words.

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(Yes, I did it again. Within the space of TWO DAYS, I TWICE published something on the web where I confused the first- and third-person writing within ONE PHRASE. Sheesh. Excuse me while I go off and get my scrambled brains checked out.)

Yes, OmegaMom does speak and write the King's English. No, OmegaMom does not always spell-check or grammar-check her posts. OmegaMom is well aware that switching between third-person and first-person within a post is a writerly device, whereas switching between third-person and first-person with the space of a single clause is just plain stupid. OmegaMom pleads her belly. Or, rather, her daughter's pneumoniac cough, which has distracted her a few times this week.

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The best way to get a boatload of hits on your blog (aside from pimping it to all your best buds and shamelessly courting votes for Cute Picture Post [voting is closed, so I'll know if OmegaGranny's fraudulent double-vote counted or not tomorrow]) is to have someone with a boatload of regulars link to you in the first paragraph of her post. Muchas gracias, Cubbiegirl! I'm just glad you liked my post enough to link to it, and hope that a few of your worldwide audience (Australia, England, Alaska, wow!) liked my rantings enough to wander back now & then. I also sincerely hope that anyone who feels like they might be at risk for PAD or currently in the depths of PAD found my post a wee tad helpful.

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A news headline: A four-year-old turns up on Homeland Security's "No-Fly" list. What a surprise. As the mother of an almost four-year-old, OmegaMom is merely surprised that more four-year-olds aren't already on that list.

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Another headline: Robertson is at it again, saying that Ariel Sharon had a stroke as a result of God's Wrath. Is OmegaMom alone in thinking that Robertson's God doesn't sound like a very nice creature at all? Smiting Sharon, suggesting we assassinate Venezuela's president, drowning New Orleans, chastising the entire U.S. via the 9/11 attacks because we're so gosh-darned secular. Pat Robertson must be alternating between total glee at the way we heathens are being smitten (smited?) by The Lord and simply being terrified all the time. Ain't my kind of Kozmik All, is all I can say.

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Gratuitous pics of OmegaDotter in various headgear:

This one was kind of cool. OmegaMom seems to be more solid in her love life than she would have expected--they asked her for advice about love! Woohoo!

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	6.7
Mind:	6.9
Body:	6.4
Spirit:	7.8
Friends/Family:	5.3
Love:	9.1
Finance:	6.4
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

I did have two other tests to display, but the formatting was all wonky, and I give up. Suffice it to say that OmegaMom and Guatama Buddha walk hand-in-hand, but OmegaMom has a slight problem with paranoia.

While cocooning with the OmegaDotter during her illness, OmegaMom has had numerous opportunities to reflect upon the more obvious lessons contained within children's movies. Take Mary Poppins. We thought it was high time that OmegaDotter got a gander at this grand old children's musical. It has been watched and re-watched numerous times this past weekend. The main lessons from Mary Poppins:

• Women who want to vote are ditzes. Mrs. Banks, though charming in her passion for women's suffrage, can only be characterized as a true ditz.
• The only way to happiness is to be a member of the Working Proletariat. The best way is to be a chimney sweep. Do not be a banker. Chimney sweeps get gorgeous views, dance the night through on the rooftops, make friends with beautiful, magic women, and have the wisdom of life at their fingertips. Bankers, on the other hand, are crabby, ignore their children, and just plain don't have any fun. Until they lose their jobs.

Then there's Spirit. Have I mentioned that OmegaDotter likes horses? "Likes", of course, is a pale word for the passion she possesses. The main lessons from Spirit:

• You can gallop from Monument Valley to the Grand Tetons in only a few hours. Furthermore, you can gallop from Monument Valley to the Grand Canyon in mere minutes.
• Wild horses are a Thing of Beauty. Do not tell Mr. OmegaMom this. He can wax passionate about the environmental damage wild horses and wild burros have done to various areas of the Southwest.
• Horses are incredibly smart. Once again, do not tell Mr. OmegaMom this. His belief is that horses are mean, dumb creatures. (I must say that Mr. OmegaMom, being a kindly soul who is wrapped around OmegaDotter's little finger, hasn't uttered a peep about these beliefs in her hearing.)
• Female horses are flirtatious, sexy blond bombshells, with eyelashes to die for, and hairstylists who turn their manes into locks that any grown human woman would envy.
• Native Americans are noble, care for the environment, and instinctively attuned to horses. Amurrican men exploring the West are evil, destructive to the environment, and just plain can't stand uppity horses.

Lessons from The Parent Trap:

• When you get divorced, if you have twins, you should separate them and not let them know about each other. This particular piece of egregious BS makes me steam.
• Parents are dumb. Kids are smart. Long-term home employees are smart.
• It is Good to be such a mischeivous hellion that most parents would run screaming from you. It shows you Have Spunk.
• All it takes to save a bad relationship are two conniving little pre-teen twits manuevering you into various situations that make you reminisce about your original meeting.

Well, that about wraps it up. OmegaDotter is feeling much better (really, truly this time!). OmegaMom is feeling better. OmegaDad, on the other hand, is hacking and coughing and looks likely to be bedridden this weekend.

So there you are, you've just got a referral or have just been matched with a baby due any minute, and you're over the moon. You pad through the Shrine To Baby (aka the nursery) late at night, when the spouse is asleep, and you daydream about the future. You sit on the glider and snuggle with one of the stuffed animals that various friends and family have presented you, and pretend it's your baby, and you sit and croon lullabies. Your daydreams about motherhood (or fatherhood) are portrayed in your mind's eye with a roseate glow, a soft-focus medallion of Madonna-esque Precious Moments type joy. Friends are excited, relatives are excited, your spouse is excited, you are excited. If you're traveling to meet your baby, the excitement builds. You're in a different place--Russia or China or Cincinnati or some other place you have never been before. You're sightseeing, you're dealing with officials, you're meeting and bonding with your baby, it's all new and different and vivid. And then you get home. Your baby, who slept like...well, a baby...while you were elsewhere, suddenly is adjusting to a new time zone. New smells. New sights. New sounds. He or she wakes up every three hours, and nothing you can do, short of carrying baby around for hours, will put baby back to sleep. You are in a haze of sleep deprivation, and find yourself questioning your ability to do the most mundane of things (parallel parking? How do I do parallel parking again? I know I've done it before!). The house becomes messy. Your spouse returns to work, leaving you alone. And this baby...this precious, darling child who you have longed for for years...is a stranger. You are suddenly a stranger to yourself. And this baby...precious, darling child...is a leech. Yes. A leech. Hanging on you. Demanding all your time and attention. Screaming if you leave the room. Desperate for love. Hungry all the time. An endless source of wet and poopy diapers. And you are the object of this small, self-centered person's obsession. You realize you can't do anything without this child hanging off you. You realize you can't sleep, because your ear is suddenly attuned to the tiniest of grunts from the crib (or another room). Vacuuming the house is ditched entirely (even us lousy housekeepers do vacuum once in a while), because (a) you can't do it with baby hanging off you, and (b) the noise terrifies baby. You realize that you are Everything In the World to this small, self-centered creature. And your soft-focus daydreams of gently crooning baby to sleep in the glider have gone into the trashcan, because baby hates your singing, or baby is (like mine) a wiggler who couldn't settle down to a nice crooning session to save her life. You feel like your life is spiraling out of control. You don't like yourself anymore. You resent your spouse (the light of your life) because s/he just Doesn't Get It, and, besides, the bastard gets to leave the house and interact with other adults. Your house is a shambles. You feel like your life is a shambles. You wonder if you've made the worst mistake in your life. You know there is No End In Sight, because you've signed an oath to take care of this small creature forever. Does this describe your response in the first six months to a year after you adopted? Don't beat yourself up. You're not sick. You're not insane. You're not an Evil Person. They're not going to come take your baby away (even at your most down moment, you are terrified that They are going to take her away). Most of all, you are not alone. There's a thing called "Post-Adoption Depression". It's similar to Post-Partum Depression. PPD has the advantage of being explained away by waving hands at hormones, but y'know, OmegaMom has very big suspicions that the majority of it is what Jean MacLeod calls Baby Shock. If you're a new parent who has spent a long time with spouse, getting settled into spousal and life routines, tossing a baby into the mix just throws the whole gyroscope off balance. What was once a two-body problem (a very familiar term to physicists) has become infinitely more complex by adding a third body to the mix. And this holds true for adding another child after the first. (Please remind me of this when DotterSecunda shows up.) It's a severe shock to the system. I would say that it took OmegaDotter about six months to really, truly believe she "belonged" with us. I look back at pics of her first six months with us, and see, over and over, that what we considered "thoughtful" expressions were just plain "scared" expressions. Further, I would say that it took me and Mr. OmegaMom a year to fully re-arrange our lives and become comfortable again. As a person who is prone to depression, the disconnect between my daydreams and our reality after adopting did a number on me. (It didn't help that I got laid off six months after we came home, what a blow to the ol' ego.) The one thing that helped me immensely was realizing it was normal to feel this way, that many other adopting parents felt the same. I had read up on the various lists about returning home and having the child not sleep for the first three weeks. I had read up about Post-Adoption Depression, and was pretty much expecting it to hit me, due to the depression proneness. While I didn't have a great real-life support system, I did have lots of friends on the internets who had BTDT, which helped. For those who are about to adopt, and want info to be prepared, and for those who have just adopted and might be facing the same thing, I submit the following links:

• Post-Adoption Depression Syndrome - from Adopting.Org
• Post-Adoption Depression - It's Real - from Rainbow Kids
• Adoption and Depression - from Bella Online

There's more. Just do a search on "PADS" or on "Post-Adoption Depression".

An addendum: OmegaDotter is a joy and a delight. We love her with all our hearts. Those first few months are more than counteracted by the years that have followed, filled with new discoveries and delighting in learning her personality.

P.S. This was prompted by some posts on email lists and some blog entries I've encountered lately, and is in no way to be considered "aimed" at any one person in particular. Just a BTDT, and a helping hand.

One last glance at MSNBC, to see what's goin' on in the Big Wide World Out There. One headline that caught my attention: Is Angelina Jolie Expecting? Digression: I'm not much of a celebrity-watcher, but La Jolie is followed in adoption circles due to her stated desire to have a child from every country... One photo caption that sent me ballistic: "Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, accompanied by Jolie's children, arrive at Narita Airport in suburban Tokyo on Nov. 27. Could the couple have another child of their own on the way?" (Emphasis mine.) Goddamn. I am just so tired of the "child of their own" bullshit. What, did we just borrow OmegaDotter? Is she a library book that we're expected to return as soon as the loan period is over? When I kick the bucket at age 90+, will my obituary list my 50-year-old daughter as my "adopted daughter"? Grrr. I know those who haven't adopted will think this is picayune, petty PC-ish-ness. But these attitudes, coupled with the attitudes that adoptees are inevitably Bad Seeds, castoffs from bad families, just make me growl.

On the Big Chinese Adoption Email List (APC), three current hot topics are:

• What 2 and 3 year olds call farting. (Subtext: 2 and 3 year olds are obsessed with bodily functions. Girl or boy. Be prepared for booger, snot, and fart jokes. Be equally prepared for a husband who not only indulges such jokes, but joyously and wholeheartedly joins in and comes up with new lyrics to old songs featuring such bodily functions.*)
• The ol' perennial "should you or should you not incorporate Chinese culture into your family life once you adopt from China?". (Subtext: "My daughter is going to be American! I don't want to force any differences upon her!" Counter-subtext: "Your daughter may be American, but everyone who sees her will see 'Asian' first and foremost." For an Asian-American's take on this, check out Johnny's "Checking the 'Asian' Box" post.)
• White Pride T-shirts and what they signify. (Subtext: Folks who wear White Pride T-shirts are asking others to think of them as racist jerks. This has devolved into a discussion between two of the most garrulous posters on APC. Check out The Grouchy Ladybug for a snarkily hilarious take on how the discussion has played out.)

* Mr. OmegaMom's contribution to such hilarity has been "Mom's FAVORITE Song!":

There's a booger in my nose And it's green, And it's green. It's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen, ever seen. There's a booger in my nose And there's poop between my toes. There's a booger in my nose And it's green.

Needless to say, this prompts roars of laughter from OmegaDotter. OmegaMom is NOT amused. Much.

So the Omegas went on a field trip yesterday evening: to the ER. OmegaDotter, who tends to run high fevers, exceeded her own stellar febrile performance and pegged 105.9F. After her dose of Ibuprofen. OmegaMom, who doesn't give a fever of 104+ much thought anymore, just stuffs the cheeild full of Tylenol or Ibuprofen, immediately hollered to OmegaDad, requesting help with dumping OmegaDotter into the bathtub to see if it would kick-start the meds. OmegaDotter, who normally bounces and plays and has a grand ol' time in the bathtub with various ducks, Willies (killer whales) and zebras, just sat in the middle of the tub, shivered, and whimpered. Off to the ER we went. Five hours and many medical pats on the head later, we got home. While in the ER, our dotter treated the various medical staff to her best imitation of a banshee crossed with a very strong octopus. The ER doctor (Mr. OmegaMom asked me in an aside, "Since when do they allow pretty 14-year-old girls to be doctors???"), kept patting OmegaMom on the knee and saying, "My husband calls it 'Baby Rodeo'. She's not strange--lots of little kids do this. You're doing fine. If she's this active with a high fever, This Is Good." Mr. OmegaMom decided that we need to videotape any ER visits in the future, so we can discourage horny 17-year-old males when the time comes..."Why, yes, son, this is what she is really like...is there a problem?" He thinks it might be better than a shotgun. I just kept expecting OmegaDotter's head to start whirling on her neck and her to grate out, "REDRUM! REDRUM!" ER observations: The ER was full of various flu victims and their families. Then there was the gal who Mr. OmegaMom and I suspect had been beaten by her boyfriend, and the nice (young!) police officer who was taking her particulars...this made us very sad. There was the hispanic family who put telenovelas on on the TV (Mr. OmegaMom's comment on the soaps: "Big-haired men kissing big-lipped women."). There was the guy in the cubicle next to ours, who had apparently been punched in the head; the doctor and nursing staff were trying to persuade him to have a CAT scan ("Sir, it's just like a long x-ray--a machine rotates around you for five minutes and you're done." "How much is this gonna cost? I can't afford any of these things!"). And OmegaDotter constantly asking, "Can we go home? I want to go HOME!", with the last words rising up into a screech. All is better, for the nonce. I am home with dotter. We slept until 10. Mr. OmegaMom somehow found the titanium spine to wake up after a mere 2.5 hours of sleep and drag his ass into work. This parenting stuff is tough.

So, while Mr. OmegaMom was taking OmegaDotter off to the doctor, I had to re-arrange things on the ol' bloggeroo. Did a little painting (out with those oh-so-'70s oranges, in with the sleek new '06 greys), re-arranged the furniture (columns), got rid of the category listing, which wasn't working the way it was supposed to anyway, ditched the calendar and added a quote of the day and a list of latest posts. The look-n-feel is courtesy of Isnaini Dot Com, who does a lot of templates for various blogsites. Still no categories (sigh)...still no calendar (sigh).

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In other news: Mr. OmegaMom returned from the doctor with dotter in tow, saying that we were this close to having dotter thrown in the hospital. She has pneumonia. We have Zithromax, again. OmegaDotter is miserable. We are worried. OmegaDad is doing yeoman duty--both dotter and wife sick (wife is not anywheres near as sick as dotter, but is not her normal perky self).

No doubt you, like others, have encountered this holiday season a link that leads to an amazing Christmas light show choreographed to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's Wizards of Winter. OmegaMom is a sucker for bombastic symphonic and choral music. She blames this directly on her mother, OmegaGranny, who gave her, when she was 17, a copy of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. You may not recognize it by name, but OmegaMom assures you you know it by hearing--the chorus O Fortuna has been used for everything from grandiose introductions to and battle scenes in movies to advertisements lampooning those same grandiose scenes. Actually, though, when OmegaMom thinks further back, she has to pardon OmegaGranny for the slur--it was not the Carmina Burana that did it, but Walt Disney's Fantasia, which had not only the Augurs of Spring selection from Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, but also Night on Bald Mountain. OmegaMom thought the dinosaurs dying off to the Rite of Spring was intensely romantic, and the Night on Bald Mountain (Mussorgsky) segment gave her delicious shivers, a la horror movies. OmegaGranny is not off the hook, though--the same Christmas she presented OmegaMom with Carmina Burana, she also gave her Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #2. But maybe one could blame OmegaMom's dad, who used to play Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-Sharp Minor ALL THE TIME...because OmegaMom loved it. Another grand piece of bombast is Guiseppe Verdi's Deus Irae. Then there's the presto adigiato of Beethoven's Moonlight Symphony. Everyone loves the first movement; I don't. This one has always been OmegaMom's "I've got to get out I've got to get out I've got to get out" theme song for when I'm feeling fed up with work, life, boyfriends, spouses, children, what-have-you. (OmegaMom's dad played this one beautifully, as well.) There you have it. I am a bombast addict. And now I have this loverly Creative Zen MP3 player. I think it's time to dig out my old bombastic albums and load that puppy up... (Blast. I have to edit this entire post, because Amazon--bah--does not allow direct links to either their pics or their clips. Bah. You will have to locate the specific music clips yourself, sorry!)

I promise there will be a more uplifting post later. OmegaDotter's been sick (again) this weekend. The mama-bear in me worries, and has plans to call the doc--four whopper fevers in two months just doesn't seem right to me. So she is feeling better this morning. I, on the other hand, feel like a Mack Truck has rolled over me. My neck hurts, glands are swollen, head is stuffed, and brain is fried. Bleah. What a way to start the New Year. Like I said, wah, wah, wah.

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OmegaMom has been nominated for "Best Photo Post of December" at the Order of Brilliant Bloggers for the How to Make Sugar Cookies" post at the beginning of December. Voting is open until January 5 at midnight; you have to have a Blogger account to vote (boo!), but my bud Miss Cellania says, "Hit the "get your own blog" button at the top of this page, then follow the steps. You don't have to create a blog, just dump out before hitting the "create blog" button." Thanks for the tip, Miss Cellania--I've got friends who would vote, but don't want a blog. (By the way, Miss Cellania's blog has been nominated as December's Best Comedic Blog as well.) Gotta dump a dancing banana in here for this:

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Today is the Omega's wedding anniversary. Eight years already! Shortly after midnight, Mr. OmegaMom kissed me on the nose and said, "This is how I always dreamed of spending our wedding anniversary: forcing a child to take medicine and taking a tepid bath." I sing the praises of tepid baths; it did the trick and got the fever down. I'm gonna take my aching body off, snuggle on the futon with OmegaDotter, and watch Shark Tales once again until Mr. OmegaMom comes back from his Sunday meeting, then I'm gonna go back to bed. Wah wah wah.

Happy New Year to one and all. New Year's resolutions are one of those things that OmegaMom has always scoffed at. After all, the change from one year to another is a totally human artifact, just a symbol at heart. There is no great clock in the sky, tied to the One True Calendar, that ticks over at midnight (which midnight, by the way? Moscow's? London's? New York's?) and announces over the great Jungian collective unconscious that, Lo!, a new year has begun. So why do humans feel this need for a marker, a specific break between this one quantum of time (2005) and the next one (2006), to hang their life's changes upon? It's similar to the need of smokers or dieters or alcoholics to mark a time in the future and say, "Then. I will stop smoking/change my eating habits/stop drinking then." Strongly implied in that is the phrase, "But NOT NOW." A few months ago, OmegaMom had a health screening at work. Blood pressure--check, no prob. Weight--check, no prob. Fasting blood sugar level--check, no prob. (Woohoo! OmegaMom, whose dad, paternal grandmother, eldest brother, and paternal cousin all suffered from adult-onset diabetes, is paranoid about that one subject.) Then came the cholesterol check. Eeeek! Total: 242. Ratio of "good" cholesterol to "bad" cholesterol: dismal. OmegaMom watched, stunned, as the nurse pushed the little chart with the different levels of heart attack risk attached to different ranges of LDL-to-HDL in front of her, and pointed squarely at level 5: Very high risk. Oops. So OmegaMom, the Fear Of God upon her, promptly started a regimen of high-fiber, high-veggies, high-fruits eating, totally cut her beloved Starbuck's Frappucinos (we will not discuss how many of these things she drank in one day), and planned to exercise. The amazing thing is that this regimen made OmegaMom feel much better very quickly. No more spikes of sleepiness in the afternoons (or mornings, or evenings). Brain was more alert and "zippier". She felt livelier and healthier than she had felt in a long time... The problem is that all of this happened 3 weeks before Thanksgiving and the holiday season. Confronted with gobs of yummy goodies at home, at work, at other people's houses, did OmegaMom stay the course? Did she stand firm? Did she follow her new regimen? Of course not. So, now that the holidays are over with, and the lovely, symbolic swing from old year to new is upon us, OmegaMom has succumbed, and made a resolution. Resolved: to get that cholesterol level down to normal levels via healthy eating and exercise. To firm up the flapping old-lady wattles beneath the upper arms. To once more go boldly where no man has gone before! (Ooops. Sorry. Got carried away there.) A bunch of online buds and I have joined the Discovery Health Channel National Body Challenge 2006. Wish me luck. In the meantime, I hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year's Eve, and that some of your dreams come true in the year to come. (Not all. No-one should ever have all of their dreams come true, because then what is there to strive for?)

When OmegaMom was a small lass, one of OmegaGranny's favorite catchphrases was "contrary magic". This was used to describe what would happen if, say, you planned a picnic, invited people, and did not have a rain date: inevitably, it would rain, the picnic would be spoiled, the gods would laugh, and everyone would have a lousy time. There are certain people who are "contrary magic" personified. OmegaMom knew someone who could cause computers to glitch and expensive power tools to freeze up or break, merely by walking into the room, and whose premier production as a director at a small theater company in Rogers Park was interrupted by a fire in the lighting system. The comic strip L'il Abner has such a character, Joe Btfsplk, who wanders around with a black cloud hanging over his head, and is shunned by all his neighbors, because he brings wrack and ruin in his wake. There are times when OmegaMom herself has felt like a Joe Btfsplk. The one year she attended Northwestern University, the Wildcats had a season in which they won no games. Zero. Zip. If she was foolish enough to watch a Bears game with her grandfather, the Bears would inevitably lose. During the Winter Olympics, whatever ice dancing team OmegaMom has set her heart on...loses. When the Omegas started the adoption process for OmegaDotter, the wait between DTC (dossier to China) and referral was a mere 9 months. As soon as they sent their application in, the wait began to stretch. By the time they actually received their referral for OmegaDotter, the wait was an agonizing 14 months. Two months ago, when the shadow of a slowdown at the Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs was just beginning to raise its ugly head, OmegaMom had a luncheon with four long-time work friends. They sat around chit-chatting about this and that, scarfing down the hors d'oeuvres, having a grand old time. OmegaMom clinked her glass, and announced to them all that she and OmegaDad were about to start the process for DotterSecunda. Happy, eager questions pelted her. Everyone was excited. And then the question came: "Will it take as long this time? It took soooo long last time!" OmegaMom uttered this fateful phrase: "Oh, it should be much quicker this time! We're expecting it to take about a year, total." Um. Foolish, foolish OmegaMom. That is known as "taunting the gods". Mr. OmegaMom has a saying: "Man plans, God laughs." Referrals times have slowed dramatically in the past two months. Many of OmegaMom's buddies on the Chinese adoption lists, who are in the process for number one or number two, or even, in some cases, number three, are watching their longed-for referrals continuing to loom beyond their grasp in a Sisyphean manner. Like the Red Queen, they feel like they are running and running and running, only to stay in the same place. My heart goes out to them. No matter how you feel afterwards, when you have your child in your arms, the wait just plain SUCKS DEAD TOADS. Period. End of story. And OmegaMom is feeling like the Joe Btfsplk of the Chinese adoption world. All she can do is offer hugs and condolences. (OmegaMom would like to assure all and sundry that, yes, she is aware that she has absolutely no linkage to the slowdown, and that, yes, she is aware that this superstition is incredibly self-centered. But, boy, it sure seems like fate, karma, destiny, kismet, or the gods laughing.)

So, the URL to this absolutely hilarious send-up of adoption issues was posted on a list I belong to, and I had to share. Warning: If you're new to adoption, the adoption game, adoption issues in general, this may not hit you the right way. If, like OmegaMom, you've been around the block and argued adoption issues endlessly with adoptees, birthmothers, and other adoptive parents, this will make you howl. Onto the hilarity: The Big Bastardly Toy Book.

OmegaDotter to Mr. OmegaMom, on the way back from the Little Store Down the Hill: "It is my opinion that that is a very small house," pointing to one of the houses they were passing in the car. OmegaDotter to OmegaMom, while handing back a section of mandarin orange: "I can't eat that. I have bugs on my teeth." (This is a case of toothbrushing motivational speeches going astray.)

OmegaMom dreams. She is trying to unwrap a twisty-tie. She twists it this way and that way, and as she does, the twisty-tie multiplies, hydra-like. Soon, she is trying to make her way through a forest of twisty-ties in the misty darkness, stalks wrapped together in a variety of manners, some bent over and wrapped around themselves, some twisted one way then the other, some linked with multiple other twisty-ties in the distance. As soon as she breaks her way through one thicket, another looms before her. And all the time, OmegaDotter is calling, from far far away, "I waaaant it!" Then, she is smushed inside a stiff hermetically sealed plastic package, being shaken up and down. A giant above her is stabbing at the package with scissors, and OmegaMom can't escape, as the scissors come stabbing...stabbing...stabbing. The giant shakes the package in frustration, then finally the scissors find a surface to start cutting, and icy, glasslike shards of plastic begin falling like snow, swirling around OmegaMom and the giant. One of the shards impales the giant, and a drop of dark red giant blood starts falling in slow motion, then splashes onto OmegaMom, then forms a film between her and the plastic packaging.

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Back to reality here. Yoohoo! Reality calling! No, OmegaMom did NOT have nightmares like that, but it's not for lack of trying on the part of toy manufacturers. Those of my vast array of readers <::snerk::> who are not parents will not comprehend the terror that toy packaging inflicts upon parents at Christmastime and birthdays. Those of you who are parents know exactly what that nightmare above is describing. Those of you who are soon-to-be parents, take heed: Toy packaging is the instrument of the Devil. Take OmegaDotter's new baby doll. It had twisty-ties around the arms, legs, and neck. The baby-bottle had a twisty-tie around the neck. The plastic bib had two twisty-ties. The baby jacket and baby hat were SEWN TO THE PACKAGE (yes, sewn). The Chinese New Year Barbie? Twisty-ties around each leg, each arm, the neck, the hair, tape over the bent-over twisty-tie ends, and a fiendish hash of tape that attached the mysterious round black thing to the back of the package. (Mr. OmegaMom, in a blaze of genius a day later, realized the mysterious round black thing was actually a stand for Chinese New Year Barbie to be displayed upon. Alas, there was a necessary part that somehow got lost in the Christmas shuffle, so Barbie is doomed to not be displayed, merely played with.) The Spirit horse set? Each horse had four twisty-ties (one for each leg), plus a long flat plastic doodad with holes (akin to a flat yoke) to ensure that the four twisty-ties would lie flat and stay together. The Creative Zen Touch? Hard plastic hermetically sealed package. Wait! Not just one, but two, snuggled inside each other like nesting dolls. Each of these presents (with the exception of the Zen) was accompanied by an almost 4-year-old wanting to Play With The Toy NOW. (The Zen, which was OmegaMom's, was not opened right away; OmegaMom simply wanted to clutch it to her bosom and croon happily.) May I ask the toy manufacturers just what deadly combination of shoplifting prevention and marketing display requires this much packaging? Is it secretly a ploy by anti-American forces, striving to drive one-third of the nation insane on Christmas Day? Or is it a psychological test? Are we secretly being monitored through heating vents so psychologists can research how long it takes before parents and children become so frustrated that they fall upon each other like rabid weasels? Maybe it's an IQ test. In any event, parents-to-be, take note. And take notes. This, too, shall be in your future.

The Omegas do not partake of popular culture (aka "TV") very much. Mr. OmegaMom gets high doses of pop culture when he is out in the field--he spends the nights at hotels, and gets a TV fix then. He informs me that I'm not missing much. But even in this pop-free household, we get leakage from the greater world. So it's my understanding that "40 is the new 30"...or is it "50 is the new 30"? AARP, apparently, is touting that "60 is the new 30". The U.S. Census says that there were 50,454 centenarians in the U.S. in 2000 (one of which is my grandma), up from 37,306 in 1990. The U.S. Census is estimating that the number will double in 10 years. So we're living longer. Concurrent with this is the ever-increasing age of women to give birth. In 1970, the national average age at first birth was 22.1 years old, according to the CDC; that average age has increased to 24.9. And then there's Aleta St. James, sister to Curtis Sliwa of Guardian Angels fame. St. James gave birth to twins via donor egg/donor sperm a year ago, at age 56. Gotta admit, for a 56-year-old who just gave birth, she sure looks 30s-ish. Of course, the news (and any follow-up articles) generated the usual commentary: "selfish women who put off childbearing to further their careers"; "a mid-50s woman just doesn't have the energy"; "why didn't she just get a dog?"; "it isn't fair to the kids--she'll be in her 70s when they finish highschool". Bioethicist Arthur Caplan chimed in, and, when a 66-year-old woman gave birth via ART, he further went on to demand age limits on reproductive medicine. As a middle-aged mom myself, beginning the work on number two, I have to admit that the commentary gets to me, because it's often applied to women of my age as well. I look at OmegaDotter and realize that when she graduates from highschool, I will be 61. When DotterSecunda comes along, well, only the Kozmik All knows how old I will be when she graduates. There are definitely times when I worry about the age thing. Is it fair? Is it right? What if I take after Dad's side of the family, rather than OmegaGranny's, and kick off in my 60s rather than my 90s? On the other hand, as I have mentioned before, when I was in my 20s and early 30s, I was...well...a flibbertigibbit, a butterfly, not wildly responsible, and very commitment-phobic. To boot, as I have gotten older, I have an increased patience level for things that are the result of childish behavior (rather than the decreased patience level I have for things that are the result of boorish behavior, which is totally different). And having a baby or toddler around the house has increased my patience even more (because otherwise I'd go loony tunes on Mr. OmegaMom, and he'd be left holding the bag). So there are pluses and minuses to the "older motherhood" thang. While part of me tends to agree with Caplan and the commentators, that there's a line beyond which we should not go, another part of me looks around and sees people in their 40s and 50s being more active, more vibrant than I recall them as a child. After all, nowadays retirement villages a la Sun City emphasize the "active lifestyle" in their ads, because they're marketing to aging Baby Boomers to whom the idea of aging is anethema. There are certain inherent biological limits, 'tis true. At least St. James makes it very clear she used donor egg--many older 40s/early 50s celebrities who have had children recently are somewhat coy on the subject. But what if the hopes and promises of current aging research pan out? What if--with the help of medicine--folks can live extended lives that feature extended health and vitality? If that's the case, then the "older motherhood" problem would simply vanish into the mists.

When it comes to passing down family heirlooms, there seem to be three groups of people: those who truly appreciate the heirlooms, to whom they are precious pieces of family history; those to whom family heirlooms are just useless junk; and those who are just plain...well, too immature to appreciate it. Once upon a time, OmegaMom was an immature twit. OmegaGranny gave OmegaMom some precious craftworks in her early 20s, and OmegaMom, being an immature early-20s flibbertigibbit, proceeded to treat such craftworks in a thoroughly unappreciative manner. Some backstory: During the '50s and '60s, the OmegaParents were artsy Bohemians. Living in the Near North Side of Chicago, they hung around coffee houses, held music jams at home, and put on art shows. OmegaMom's dad was a keen photographer and musician, and the house was filled with beautiful photos he had taken--nature pics, portraits, abstracts. There was an Andy Warholesque poster of a Buddha (a copy of which OmegaMom would dearly love to have now, but OmegaGranny can't find any prints, sigh). OmegaMom's mom did crafts: hooked rugs, papier mache sculptures, appliqued wall hangings. The hooked rugs were wonders. OmegaGranny, fascinated with the famous Seven Bridges of Konigsberg math puzzle, created a hooked rug of it, which OmegaMom spent many long evenings tracing over and trying to find the solution. Another hooked rug came about because OmegaGranny, flying over the Midwest farmlands on a business trip, thought the patterns of the crops and the rivers were beautiful, so she created an aerial view of a strip of farmland with a river running through it. OmegaGranny gave these to OmegaMom. Sometime in her twenties, OmegaMom LOST them. The papier mache sculptures were amazing. OmegaGranny would come up with a concept of a fantasy critter, build a framework out of "found items" such as empty paper towel tubes, paper cups, paper plates, and cardboard cut up into shapes, all taped together with masking tape. Then she would pad it with scrunched up balls of newspaper. Then she'd drape it with layer upon layer of papier mache'd newspaper strips, sand it down, and paint it with fanciful paisleys, loops, dots, swirls, etc., all in bright colors. OmegaGranny gave OmegaMom the very first one of these creatures she ever made. Amazingly enough, OmegaMom still has this one. The wall-hangings were glorious. Some were of more of OmegaGranny's fanciful critters, but OmegaMom's favorite was a city night scene, which just shouted out "Near North Side"--highrises in the background, two-flats in the foreground, Volkswagen Beetles driving to-and-fro, neon lights advertising eateries and hotels...OmegaGranny gave this one, and a large sunflower hanging, to OmegaMom. Once again, OmegaMom didn't take care of them. Somewhere in her 30s, OmegaMom realized--stricken--just what a twit she had been about the various craftworks that OmegaGranny had given her, and mourned the thought that she would never see them again. Unbeknownst to her, OmegaGranny had rescued the night scene wall hanging. This Christmas, OmegaGranny gave me the night scene wall hanging again. Trust me, this is a Christmas gift that means the world to me. Thank you so very much, OmegaGranny.

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On other Christmas fronts--Santa (aka Mr. OmegaMom) earned mega brownie points from OmegaMom by bringing her a Creative Zen Touch 20GB mp3 player. Ooooh. OmegaMom has been perusing song lists from the '80s. Anyone have any suggestions as to a good subscription or by-song music purchasing site? I gotta be able to get oldie and moldies, not all new stuff. OmegaGranny earned mega brownie points from Mr. OmegaMom by giving him "To a Cabin", by Dorothea Lange and Margaret K. Mitchell. Mr. OmegaMom has wanted this book for 20 years. OmegaDotter got oodles of horsies..."Mini Whinnies" (which OmegaMom is sure to find in the middle of the night by stepping on them), a Breyer "Spirit" set, a framed drawing of horsies, stuffed horsies, a horsie coloring book...anyone want to venture a guess as to what OmegaDotter's favorite thing is right now?? She also got a glory of old costume jewelry from Great Grandma, a variety of dress-up items to play with from OmegaGranny, and various Other Stuff. I feel a rant about toy packaging and conspicuous consumption coming on.

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I leave you with this picture of three generations of OmegaWomen. Here's hoping your holiday was as relaxing, fun, and peaceful as the Omegas'.

An excited snow princess wishes you all A Very Merry Christmas!

and

A Happy New Year!!!

Well, the Christmas tree is up, there are gifts around it, OmegaGranny has made it up the mountain and will be spending tonight and tomorrow night with us. We're gonna go down the mountain with her on Sunday, cook a dinner at her house, and have GreatGrandma join us. I'll try to get some stuff up over the holiday, but in the meantime, enjoy this. (We haven't had ANY snow, so this may be as close as we come to a "white Christmas" here at the Omega household. Bah, humbug.)

...is just a cigar. Sigmund Freud When the University of Bath's School of Management recently did a study on the role of brands in the lives of 7-11 year olds, they were shocked--shocked!--to find out that "seven to eleven year old girls subject their Barbie dolls to torture and mutilation." "The types of mutilation are varied and creative, and range from removing the hair to decapitation, burning, breaking and even microwaving." Okay, cool so far. But then they go into a miasma of motivation, claiming the girls are doing this to "reject excess", and that the girls feel "violence and hatred towards the Barbies" because (amongst other things) she is a feminine icon and a symbol of excess. (At least this is how it's portrayed in the press release on the study.) Hunh. This is new? OmegaMom is 46 years old (ack! In 3 years and some change, AARP will be knocking on my mailbox, asking me to become a member!). I distinctly remember dismembering Barbies and similar fashion figurines in my girlhood. I am not alone--there was, lo these many years ago, a quite heated discussion on APC about mutilating toys. This discussion seemed to produce a distinct division amongst the list: there were those who did so as children and regarded it as perfectly normal, and those who did not and regarded those who did as some kind of perverse sickos. (OmegaMom, though she may be somewhat twisted, does not consider herself a sicko.) In addition to beheading Francie (I don't think I ever had a real Barbie) and twisting off her leg (done in an attempt to make her pose like the picture on the Francie case, where Francie's leg was oh-so-elegantly extended and turned out to the side, which the physical Francie had no ability to do), I also shaved baby doll's heads, colored dolls with paint and fingernail polish, pulled toys apart. Now. There were toys I would never, ever have done that to. Rupert, for instance. My beloved stuffed dog with the long bassett-hound ears, who had been so well-loved by me as an infant and toddler that he was a dismal beigish color with spots where his fur had worn off because I hugged him so much...now, Rupert I would never have done a thing to. But at the same time, none of these "mutilations" were done in a violent haze of hatred. It was more of a "what happens when I do this?" attitude. The reason I didn't do anything with Rupert was because I loved him not because I hated the other toys. In the press release, the principal researcher is quoted as saying about the Barbies, "The most readily expressed reason for rejecting Barbie was that she was babyish, and girls saw her as representing their younger childhood out of which they felt they had now grown." Now that is an eminently understandable reason: "When I was a child I spoke as a child. I understood as a child. I thought as a child. But when I became a man I put away childish things." I Cor. xiii. 11 Why'd they have to frantically search for other, more perturbing motives? Sometimes a cigar is just...a cigar.

What's a "meme"? In practice, it's a sort of survey that gets passed around on blogs or boards or email lists. In theory...? Omegamom, being a snobby, erudite kinda person, immediately thinks of "meme" as in: Pronounced mehm: "A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another." (The definition is from Dictionary.com; the idea is from Richard Dawkins, coining a word that does to ideas what gene does to biology.) Or is it: Pronounced mee-mee: "A trivial survey of individual information that is all about ME and is transmitted electronically via blogs or emails lists from one person to another." (The definition is from OmegaMom.) Either way, here 'tis, "gakked" from Cubbiegirl: Colored lights or white lights? Both. We do colored lights on the tree, white lights on the house. The real question, of course, should be "big lights or little lights?", or "blinking lights or non-blinking lights". Little and non-blinking would be my answers. Apparently, the latest Christmas light fashion is huge lights. They seem awfully tacky to me. Real tree or fake tree? Real. I know there's a huge advantage in terms of convenience, ease, and cleanliness (no needles in the carpet!) with fake, but the smell of real Christmas trees just transports me right back in time. And the "choosing the tree" trip is grand fun. And if the Omegas could just get themselves together early enough, we could actually go out & cut our own. Maybe next year! I just hope this tree lasts until Christmas; it's turning into a crispy critter. What is your least favorite thing about the holidays? Stress. Shopping. Crowds. Ewwww. What is the one thing that you would like to see under the tree this year? Sigh. An iPod. With 30 GB storage. It ain't gonna happen. What is your favorite thing to do/build in the snow? Cross-country skiing! Not that the Omegas are very good at it, mind you, but we have fun, get exercise and enjoy ourselves. Alas, this year is gonna be a bust, snow-wise. Last year was great. What is your favorite holiday drink? Eggnog with brandy or bourbon. Mmmm. What is your favorite holiday smell? Christmas tree smell! Who is your favorite reindeer? Comet, 'cause he's kozmik! What is your Christmas Eve ritual? We don't have one yet, however, I've purchased PJs for OmegaDotter and I, with plans to open them first, then open the other presents. Are you a Friday after Thanksgiving shopper? You are shitting me. Are you nuts? Voluntarily subject myself to a frenzied madness of competitive shoppers, all searching for the best deal? This sounds to Omegamom like a manifestation of one of Dante's hells. What is your favorite holiday food? A good homemade pumpkin or pecan pie. Store-boughten just won't do--the pumpkin pies are bland, and the pecan pies are a rip-off, mostly sugar goop with very few pecans. How did you find out that Santa wasn't real? I don't remember. I don't even remember believing in Santa, so maybe I never had to cope with the trauma. Who do you want to be under the mistletoe with? Mr. OmegaMom, of course! Have you bought all your presents yet? Ha! Do you spend Christmas with a lot of family? Alas, no. Not much family here in town; we'll have OmegaGranny up for a few nights, and then drive her back home and have a small do with GreatGrandma. Next year, the Omegas hope to do the visit to Mr. OmegaMom's family do, which is Big! And Extravagent! And full of lots of Family! And Fun! (To OmegaMom. Mr. OmegaMom, however, hates going back home. OmegaMom has to spend months slowly preparing him for the anguish.) Do you still make snowmen and snow angels? Of course! What's your favorite Christmas movie? It's a Wonderful Life. What do you plan to do for New Year's Eve? Ab-so-lutely nothing. What's the weirdest thing you've ever gotten for Christmas? Gutters. But I wanted them. What's the most expensive thing you've gotten for Christmas? An engagement ring. How early do you wake up on Christmas morning? As late as possible. But this is no different from any other day of the year! Sleep is treasured in the Omega household. What do you usually get in your stocking? We don't do stockings for us; OmegaDotter gets a stocking this year, and we've had fun coming up with little gifties to put there.

...as we strive to make your visit to OmegaMom's spot more relaxing and enjoyable... (Envision a perky flight attendent, a la the Barbies in Toy Story, smiling widely.) OmegaMom is trying to add categories to the blog. It seems that Blogspot has to re-index the website. It seems like this is going to take a while. Why the heck won't Blogspot add a "categories" ability?!?!

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Argh! It's still not working! I will give Blogspot Search ONE DAY to crawl my blog, and then see if there's another way to try to do the categories. Harrumph. Categories: [Bloggy Stuff]

OmegaDad is a genius. He bribed someone to get what we wanted. And we got it. Sleazy, immoral devil. He went to Michael's early Sunday morning. He bought: Stickers. Lots of stickers. A cheap plastic horsie. Way-cool draw-on break-apart jigsaw puzzles. Markers (washable--I told you he was a genius!). Two bags. He dumped all the gleanings from Michael's into the bags. He told OmegaDotter that if she took her medicine, she could close her eyes and grab something out of one of the bags. She did take her medicine. She reached into the bags and pulled out a toy (one of the jigsaw puzzle kits). She is a much happier camper. She ate soup at dinner, plus rice. Fever is gone, rash is gone, bumps are gone. Yay! She went to bed at her normal hour, and not a peep since then. Yay! (What am I doing up?!) But I am left with the sad knowledge that my husband is a ruthless conniver and my daughter can be bought by promises of goodies. What a surprise. Categories: [Family] [Mr. Omegamom]

Have I mentioned that OmegaDotter is sick? Again? A search on "how often children get sick" results in this, from About Pediatrics": "It is normal for young children to have six to eight upper respiratory tract infections and two or three gastrointestinal infections each year." Excuse me while OmegaMom runs screaming from the room. A search on "how get children take medicine" results in 23,300,000 hits. It is empowering to realize I Am Not Alone. On the other hand, it is depressing to realize that there isn't a definitive answer, repeated by all 50 of the top hits. My daydream is to find a child's cold/flu or fever medicine that does not require any cooperation from the child. A patch would do nicely. Then you could slap that puppy right between the shoulder blades whenever your child is feverish, in pain, somewhat incoherent, and definitely uncooperative. OmegaMom even, in the depths of the night, considered for a brief period the idea of BenGay for dotter--only to remember that it is definitely a topical ointment. In other words, maybe OmegaDotter's fever would go down wherever the BenGay was rubbed, but nowhere else. Besides, given the writhing and screaming that accompanies any attempt to get OmegaDotter to ingest nice bubble-gum flavored fever medications or nice bubble-gum flavored cold/flu medicines, the BenGay experiment would have been a catastrophe, with BenGay flying all over the bedroom. But, damn, that patch idea sings through my head at 1:30 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. A search on child fever red spots bumps is not reassuring, as the second hit is all about Chicken Pox, and the third is about Scarlet Fever. Google is a Bad, Bad Thing. Categories: [Family]

This has been posted on at least two Chinese adoption email groups within the past half-hour, so I figure it's okay to post it here. For background, check out my December 1 and December 2 posts, plus this article. Hunan Closes to Adoptions Copy of a post by Brian Stuy on Global Adoption Triad site "I'm in China, so don't know if this has hit Stateside yet, but the CCAA has closed Hunan Province to adoptions until further notice. Apparently the issues with the baby smuggling are raising additional concerns, so to avoid international censure they are closing down this one Province for adoptions. "Additionally, I think you have heard the the Chinese government has prohibited Chinese newspapers from reporting on this event anymore. These two events show that the Hunan story is not yet close to resolution, and thus was broader than most people initially thought.--Brian" I don't know what this means to folks who currently have referrals from Hunan and are waiting to travel...my heart goes out to them in such an uncertain time. Categories: [Hunan Situation] [Adoption Issues]

*C*O*N*G*R*A*T*U*L*A*T*I*O*N*S* to my longtime bud the Desert Rat, who is marrying Mr. Wolf today. Mazel tov, kiddo. May you and Mr. Wolf find joyous shelter in each other's arms for many lovely years. Categories: [This 'n That]

This is a touchy subject. Let me state at the outset that the Omegas are not religious. Spiritual...agnostic (as in "I do not know")...but not religious. Omegamom's background on one side is that of at least three previous generations being non-religious; on the other side, it is Anglican, high-Church Episcopalian, with a large dash of New England reticence. On the one hand, she got quite a dose of religious pomp and circumstance, going to church with grandma and grandpa on Sundays at Saint Luke's, which had, amongst other amenities, the most wonderful organ with a trumpet fanfare that would make the air quiver when playing "Hail Thee, Festival Day" for Easter. (This left OmegaMom with a great love for old religious music.) On the other hand, she spent summers with the other grandparents, and got a similarly hearty dose of...well...total disinterest in churchy things. OmegaDad's background is Southern Baptist and Church of Christ. (The lack of music is something he makes note of.) He is virulently anti-fundamentalist as a result. He tells tales of noticing at an early age that the people who were the most churchy in the congregations tended to be the ones who were the most hypocritical. He had a short stint in his early 20s when he spent a great deal of time with Father John, a Catholic priest who shared his passion for fishing, discussing various religious subjects. Anyway. My attitude towards religion and spirituality tends to be that it's something that...well...it's private. (Remember that "New England reticence" mentioned above?) It's definitely not something that you should be pushing on other people. The Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons who come to our doors are chatted with briefly, we accept their tracts, sometimes read them, and then toss them into the recycle bin. Luckily, we haven't had any who were more assertive (and having a large growling barking slavering dawg on the other side of the glass doors provides a grand deterrant). In various email lists I have been on over the years, there's a certain etiquette to follow. On infertility lists, you make sure you mention in the subject line when you're talking about pregnancy, birth, kids, etc. Flame wars would erupt regularly, when new people who had children would innocently post about them, be requested to put the proper code in the subject, and promptly feel hurt and defensive. Folks with long-term primary infertility (no kids) would try to explain the pain reading about little Johnny's cute behavior at the family gathering could cause them. Folks new to the IF game would counter with how bitter and miserable the others were--after all, didn't they all want baybeeees? They didn't feel that way! Surely a mention or two of someone's child or pregnancy couldn't possibly be painful! Religion is such a touchy subject that many email lists devoted to particular subjects have similar etiquette rules. If your post is pretty much religion-oriented, you are requested to put "(God ment.)" or "(rel.)" or something of the sort in the subject line. In the Chinese adoption community, there are myriad lists...especially those related to the "DTC" date. (DTC="dossier to China".) When you submit your dossier, given the standardization of the Chinese adoption process, all the folks who sent in their dossiers in the same month are likely to end up receiving referrals at the same time, and also likely to travel at the same time. DTC groups are a way to provide community for folks who are waiting (and waiting...and waiting) for their referrals. You chit-chat, you talk about nurseries and pediatricians, you do scrapbook exchanges, you maybe join a "100 Good Wishes" quilting square exchange, you share your ups and downs about the wait and life in general. (When we traveled to China, there were two other families in our travel group who I had gotten to know on our DTC group.) The problem sometimes comes that folks to whom religion is very important clash with those to whom it's not. Some DTC groups are overrun with religiosity. Some aren't. And the flames start up..."Please remember that there are folks on the list who don't want to be told that the support of Christ will help us with the wait." "Are you telling me to not share my love of Christ?! It's an integral part of my life and I won't be told to shut it out!" "Some of us are very satisfied with our spiritual life and don't appreciate being told that there is Only One Way." Etc. Y'see, there's a great divide. Some Christian churches actively promote proselytizing (sp?)...it is an integral part of their religion that they must shout it to the rooftops, they must Share The Word of God, they must Witness. If someone doesn't want to listen, they seem to feel that this person must be "shared" with, because otherwise, they are Lost. (Funny story: a friend of mine, back in Chicago, walking down State Street at lunchtime, is followed by an itinerant preacher, haranguing her about the Word of God. At one point, he proclaims to her, "WOMAN! You are LOST!" Having had it, she spins around and shouts at him, "Then why are you FOLLOWING ME?!?!") And then there are folks like us Omegas. To people like us, people who insist on Sharing The Word of God, after being requested not to, are being...well...pushy. And, in some cases, downright insulting. After all, telling someone that their deeply held beliefs are going to lead them straight to hell isn't the best way to win friends and influence people. Telling other people that they are misguided, foolish, lost, should be praying to Jesus for forgiveness, or whathaveyou, is a surefire recipe for hostility and defensiveness. To top it all off, most of the people who tend to Witness (either live or on lists) also tend to complain that Christianity is being persecuted in the U.S. (when 80% of U.S. people surveyed identify themselves as Christian), blather on about activist judges secularizing society (but don't mind activist judges who try to codify religious belief into law), want prayer in school to be required (or simply don't understand why a whole slew of people don't want prayer in school), push for teaching Intelligent Design as science, want to restrict or abolish women's ability to have abortions--no matter what reason--based on their religious beliefs, and seem to have a really hard time separating the idea of legal marriage versus religious marriage. Anyway, there's been some hoorah on one of the DTC groups, and it has split into (at least) two. Folks who want respite from endless prayer circles and admonishments that Jesus will support them in their times of trouble (the referral wait is lengthening) have formed their own group, and, from what I hear, it's growing by leaps and bounds. Sadly, I think this split reflects society at large. How do you reconcile two such drastically opposed world views? I hope the U.S. can find a way. Because it sure is getting ugly out there. Categories: [This 'n That] [Adoption Issues]

OmegaDotter is, indeed, sick. Sigh. We're like one great big germ-sharing machine here at the Omega Home. She wanted to go to bed early. In my arms, she was weepy, whiny and snuggly. With OmegaDad, who does the bed thing first, she is bouncy and bubbly; I can hear her giggling and screeching from the bedroom. But when I get there, she will want to snuggle up against me and whimper again. I think some gender roles are innate. Categories: [Family]

So I go to check on several of my favorite blogstops this morning, and, one after another, poof!, they are missing their latest posts. It's like taking a step back in time. Of course, in an automatic reversal to high school angst (aka, "memememe!"), my immediate suspicion is that "I've done something to make them mad! They've all gone away and will NEVER SPEAK TO ME AGAIN!!!! Waaaah! They don't liiiiiike me!" My second thought is that I'm sicker than I thought, and have been hallucinating recent posts. Well, no. Turns out that Typepad is having problems again, so people's last two days' worth of posts have vanished into the ether. Immediately paranoid about something similar happening here to Omegamom's little spot on the web, I googled "blog backup". The results: Typepad does, indeed, have an export and import feature (I don't know whether it backs up the commenttrails, though). Blogspot, alas, does not. You can finesse around it by fiddling with your template, as referenced here. Be sure to make a backup copy of your template FIRST!!! Another suggestion, which only backs up the posts, is to have your posts emailed to an address of your choice when they are posted. Categories: [Bloggy Stuff]

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We bought a new 'puter, a laptop. Gasp!! Yes--the old 'puter has been gasping and wheezing and rattling for months now, and finally these past three weeks has just been dying at totally unexpected moments. This is all due to a cooling fan dying the death. No data has been permanently damaged, it's just an ongoing frustration. First, there you are, on one of your boards, composing a real zinger of a reply to someone, only to have this odd *poit!* sound emerge from the computer and the screen suddenly go black. So you lose that wonder of composition, and in the irritation of losing it, it disappears completely from your human memory, too. Secondly, if you want to continue on, you have to reset the surge-protector, restart the computer, wait for Windows to scan for broken files, yadda, yadda, yadda. All of which takes far too long. And if you do it too soon, the heat disperser hasn't cooled enough, and the next unexpected downtime comes that much sooner. Anyway. We'd like to transfer our data over from old 'puter to new. (I already used our USB digi-cam to transfer over our cable modem's driver...seems that the hardware wizard really really wants to use the Internet to install new drivers...but if you're trying to install the driver that allows you to access the internet...well, it ends up being like that old Celtic image of the snake surrounding the world, eating its own tail.) I sent OmegaDad off to Staples with a list, which included "null-modem serial cable". The poor folk at Staples didn't know what the hell that was. I feel old. Is there such a thing as a serial-to-USB null-modem cable? (Honest question, and you may feel free to mock me in the comments as a twit who knows nothing about modern day computers...) Would this work? (The laptop was a real deal, and is way cool.) Categories: [Computers]

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OmegaMom is sick. OmegaDad is sick. We think OmegaDotter is getting sick; she is being ultra-whiny and running an itty-bitty fever. The folks at daycare tell me a stomach bug is going around. Well, this was conveyed to me thus: "One of the kids threw up in the hall from Miss Betty's class." I boggled. Some kid threw up from Miss Betty's class out into the hall?!?! Ewww! Projectile vomiting! No, no--it turns out it's supposed to be: "One of the kids from Miss Betty's class threw up in the hall." Folks. Can we please use a leetle precision when speaking? It reminds me of my pettest peeve: people who say "All x's do not do y" when what they mean to say is "Not all x's do y". Trust me. There's a difference between "All bees do not sting" and "Not all bees sting". Use that as an example, and everyone can see the difference. Use a different statement, and they seem to lose the ability to understand the difference any more. Grrr. Categories: [Mr. OmegaMom] [This 'n That]

OmegaDad and I met in Northern New Mexico while on internships at Los Alamos National Laboratory. While we were falling in love with each other, we also fell in love with Northern New Mexico. We spent our weekends touring the area, piling into Blue, the pickup truck, grabbing a map, and wandering. We visited Taos, Santa Fe, Chama, fell in love with Bandolier National Monument, the Valle Grande (the caldera of an ancient volcano), the Rio Grande River--everything about Northern New Mexico enchanted us. The mix of old Hispanic culture and good ol' Western U.S. traditions with modern, new age thinking was intoxicating. I daydreamed of working at the Santa Fe Institute, doing intriguing work on artificial intelligence. OmegaDad daydreamed of jobs with the Nature Conservancy, or working with local ranchers to help them manage their lands in a more environmentally conscious manner. And then we discovered Earthships(c). What a daydream! Living off the grid...having a completely self-sustaining system where we could live more in tune with the Earth, leaving a smaller environmental footprint. Water gathered from nature...recycling the water we used...solar power...gardens indoors...huge windows for drawing the outside in. OmegaGranny, being a skeptical sort, always asks, "But what about maintaining all those systems?" If you do a search on "maintenance earthship", most of the information you pull up is how maintenance-free these wombs are (no gutters, no painting, etc. etc.). Very frustrating--you can't find info on long-term housing issues. How often do you need to fix the pipes? What if the central water system gets, say, caliche'd up? How dependable are the toilets? This guy has some very good information about how to modify standard earth ship designs to avoid roof and window leaks, which are apparently a problem in the original approach. Some of the designs are more out there, woo-woo, and "hippeyesque" than the Omegas would be comfortable with. But so many of the more recent ones include the comforts of modern homes in designs that have less of the woo-woo. We wouldn't want our home to Make A Statement--we want it to be comfy. This last weekend, we toured Arcosanti, a grand (though extremely slow!) experiment in arcology design. (I will devote a separate post to that--pics are on our old computer, and we haven't transferred them over yet.) And it re-sparked our yearnings for an earth ship. Some day...some day. This is our daydream. Categories: [This 'n That] [Mr. OmegaMom]

Marguerite was born in Arizona in December, 1903. Teddy Roosevelt was president of the United States. The day she was born would later be immortalized as "the day which will live in infamy"--Pearl Harbor Day, an event which served as a cultural marker for her generation, in the way that 9/11 and the Challenger explosion were cultural markers for another generation, and the assassination of JFK was for yet a different generation. Her mother met her father as a middle-aged spinster, and they married when she was 40. They promptly had four children (Josephine, Marguerite, Ione, and Edward--who should properly have been named Etienne or Edouard to fit the mold) and one stillborn child. They lived on a farm with orange trees and a variety of vegetables and fruits. Milk was delivered to their home by horse and cart. The milkman was courting one of her teachers, and would drive on his rounds with the teacher up beside him; Marguerite remembers drawing a chalk portrait of the milkman and his horse on the wall of their house. When the Flu Epidemic came around, their father pulled the children from school, hired a teacher, and had them schooled at home to protect them. Marguerite recalls Thanksgiving dinners that were picnics in the Riverside mountains. She and her siblings entertained themselves with plays and performances, written by Marguerite; our family has pictures from when they were in their mid-teens, clowning around, brother Edward "playing" a violin with a saw. She moved to Phoenix in her early 20s, and started teaching at a business school. And then she met Norvin--who preferred to be called "Bill". We have a picture of Bill from when he was about 19, and he looks astonishingly like Lyle Lovett. They fell in love. They married; Marguerite made her own wedding dress, which was blue. They quickly had a daughter, and, a year later, a son. The 30s were tough...so when Bill passed the Civil Service examination, and got an assignment to Jacksonville, FL, making $3000 per year, they were ecstatic. (Many years later, Bill performed IRS audits on Ernest Hemingway on a yearly basis.) Life went swirling on...the children grew up, and, as children tend to do, became independent thinkers, wanting to be out on their own, doing their own thing. They married...they had children of their own. Marguerite volunteered at the local hospital...joined the garden club...won a variety of accolades for ingenious and charming decorations and poetry. Her three granddaughters spent every summer with her, learning stick dancing, having fake "initiations" in the middle of the night, listening to her stories of the mischief she and her sisters got into as youngsters. They moved to Sun City, Arizona, in the early 1970s. They both had relatives who had moved there, and Bill wanted Marguerite to be close to them. A year later, he died. Marguerite lived in Sun City for 30 years. She continued on, as she made new friends, then watched them get ill and die, over and over again. She kept bowling, and told her daughter that she would move into her daughter's town when she could no longer bowl or drive. A few years ago, she gave up her car. Then she decided she couldn't bowl any more. (She was 98 at this time.) She moved up into the mountains to be near her daughter, and there she lives today. She is an amazing woman. She has seen the U.S. go from horse-drawn carriage to supersonic jets and airline shuttles. She has lived through four named wars (World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War) and a wide variety of military incidents. Her life encompasses communicating by telegraph, telephone, and computer. The world has changed a lot in the past 102 years.

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We had Grandma's 102nd birthday party this weekend. It was a small but pleasant affair. Various friends from her assisted living home joined in; relatives drove down the mountain to be there; the foodservice folks made her a delicious carrot cake and provided cookies, punch, and munchies; people brought presents and balloons. Sadly, OmegaMom and family don't think Marguerite will last another full year. For a while, we would joke that she would outlive us all, or at least live to 110. Now...well, this lady with the sharp-as-a-tack mind is losing her short-term memory at an amazing pace. And she's tired and bored, and her eyesight is failing quickly. So I just wanted to introduce you to her and tell you her story. Marguerite: Some party attendees: OmegaDotter and her GreatGrandmother: Omegamom enjoying balloons: Categories: [Family] [Photo Posts]