Paraphernalic Update

Cat Update
All blood tests came back clean...according to the lab, Bella is a healthy cat. Oh, praise the whiskered gods. Although the vet did suggest doing a $300-400 ultrasound to "potentially" rule out Irritable Bowel Disease and/or Lymphoma since she's lost so much weight over the past year and a half. I said no, we'll just feed her more, thanks. If she has cancer, she'll get more sick and die. If she has IBD, she'll throw up and won't gain weight. Call it a low-rent, do-it-yourself diagnostic test (she's a cat for Christ sake).
Status
Weight: She's now filling out and doing just fine.
Fleas: Dead.
What I learned: Trust your gut. Don't freak out. This too shall pass. Don't always follow a "medical professional's" advice. An animal is an animal and people are people. Try to remember the difference. Sometimes vets forget that difference.

Remodel Update

Well, we'll be eating out for at least two more days although I have considered trying to create oatmeal in a coffee pot so maybe there are some merits down certain avenues I haven't yet contemplated. Ari loves our contractor. His name is Bob. Bob the Builder. Ari is nicer to Bob than he is to me. When Bob leaves for the day, Ari rushes in with his wooden hammer and says, "tools, work, fix" and bangs away on the sides of the cupboards. Ari likes to fix things. And while he doesn't like noise itself, he does like to create his own.
Status
Kitchen: Dusty, gaping hole with promise of resurrection.
Appliances: Slight hope for a sink this weekend. Little hope for a stove before Monday.
Spirits: Really not bad. Would be better with wine.

Here are some pictures from our dust-covered adventure this week.







Before (Sunday). Hmm, this looks nice, actually. Hint: you can't see the cracked, moldy tile grout, the plastic coating peeling off the cabinets, the chipped sink or the appliances-on-their-last-leg.













It's Hammertime.














Hey, who put that there?








Tuesday.










Wednesday. We're refacing the cabinets, not replacing.









Baby Update

Had our 4 month check-up today. I had to ask my midwife how far along I am...you tend to leave those kinds of details up to the professionals when it's your second. Answer: 17 weeks. Ari enjoyed weighing himself over and over again while waiting for the adults to stop talking.

Midwife: "Ari, how much do you weigh?"
Ari: "Two."

Status
Baby: Fine. Heart's a-beatin'.
Momma: Fine, albeit with varicose veins and killer heartburn.

The Prodigal Cat Returns

Yep. She came home.

If you've been keeping up with the Freiwald Family Sagas, you'll know that our slightly dingy cat Bella disappeared three weeks ago last night. We had pretty much given her up for dead (and had gotten quite used to an enjoyable one cat household)...until she showed up Friday night. Un-friggin-believable. I was sitting on the couch thinking about dinner when I heard feline yelling through the patio door. My first thought, "No way. No. Freaking. Way." I walked onto the patio and found that the yelling was coming from our neighbor's patio. I looked through the crack between our walls and found a cross-eyed pair of blue eyes staring back at me. Yep, that's Bell. After three weeks. (No, our neighbor did not steal her...there's a large crack in her patio that a very skinny cat can wiggle through from the outside.)

After much ado, I managed to get a relieved/freaked-out Bella back into our garage and she scarfed down food and water like she hadn't eaten in, well, three weeks. Which she probably hadn't, given the way she looked. After a night spent in the garage, during which she threw up everything I tried to get into her, I took her to the vet. They were flabbergasted that she came home after that long. I guess that just doesn't happen here with all the predators. Everyone kept telling me how lucky she/I is/am. I'm not so sure "lucky" is the word...

The prognosis:

• Bella's lost over 50% of her bodyweight in 18 months (since her last vet checkup), half of which was probably lost over the past 3 weeks...my best guess.
  
• Due to the severe weight loss over 18 months, her psychosis and vomiting, the vet's testing her for hyperthyroidism, diabetes, kidney disease and cancer. (Sometimes I think the vet can go a bit overboard...I mean, jeesh, maybe she's just a mentally disabled cat who hasn't eaten in three weeks.) We'll get the lab results today. I know Sascha's praying for cancer so I'll be okay with simply putting her down...but I don't want to drag our dirty laundry out on this sunny day.
  
• And. She has fleas. Oh joy.

Ergo, Bella's been sequestered in the garage since Friday night, waiting for the flea medication to do it's lovely stuff. Mo's really not too clued in that she's back...or he just doesn't give a crap. Ari kept repeating "bawa, bawa, bawa" all Friday night and now every time I go into the garage to pull my feline Florence Nightingale he mantras "bawa cat, bawa cat". Add to that the fact that our kitchen remodel began today with much banging, sawdust, plaster, tools and boxes of kitchen paraphernalia taking refuge throughout our house...and you'll see that chaos continues to reign nicely in the Freiwald household. It's nice that some things remain constant, isn't it?

Serenity now.
Serenity now.
Serenity now.

Ari-Week in Review, an Update for Grandparents

I realized earlier this week that I never posted Halloween pictures...that's probably because Halloween was less than climactic in our household. Hm, scratch that. It was climactic, but not in a good way. During the day, Ari and I met up with some friends of ours at a pumpkin patch to do some ride-riding and popcorn eating. We had a blast.

Below: our friends (Syndney & Brandi) and Ari in the Bouncy House.



However, Ari awoke from his nap that day in such a snit that I feared dragging out the fuzzy puppy costume so we could go trick or treating at our local mall. As I feared, the world erupted when I even suggested he don such a garmet. He threw a fit for an hour, which is when Sascha stepped in and went all hard-core Halloween Nazi on him. "You will put on this puppy costume and we will have fun tonight, goddamit." I thought it was a little over the top for something that's a bit of an optional event...but it did work. Ari put that over-padded puppy costume on in almost 80 degree weather and sweated and scratched his way through trick-or-treating (I failed to check the inside for itchy parts...). All in all, it wasn't that much fun, but at least we experienced the holiday.

a) With friend Lexy...both of them looking dubious; b) Still doubtful.






The next day, Ari peed in the potty for the first time. I know, we'll post anything.










He also used his first name (aside from "mom, dad, pop pop" and his own name)..."Mo". Our cat. And I quote, "Here Mo, hey Mo, eat, eat!" And trying to feed Mo pieces of his train set.

Prentending has really become the new game over the past couple weeks. He pretends to be our dog by barking, sniffing, licking and bringing us blocks in his mouth. He pretends to cook a meal or a cake and then serves a round tupperware lid to me, placed neatly upon a rectangular lid. We pretend to sneak through a jungle looking for spiderweds while prowling through the bushes at the park. He pretends to see a bug and then "gets it" by slapping his hands together..."Got it!"



Modeling his sunglasses...loooves the groovy look.









Contemplating life while eating a snack.






Today we went to Balboa Park and played "tourist for a day"...or maybe it's "local for a day" since you could seriously pick out all the freezing tourists who only packed shorts for our 65-plus-a-very-cold-wind weather. (Everyone fails to realize that the posted temperature is sans consideration of the cold ocean breeze.) We love going to Balboa, it's a fantastic and unique place, full of history and things to do. Despite Ari having a moderate head cold, he didn't stop dashing from climbing tree roots to examing fountains to jumping off everything. We all had a great time. Not bad for a day free of charge.

Below: Ari jumping at the Hospitality House.

a) a massive tree in the Zoro Garden, Ari is the small speck in the lower left corner; b) climbing the roots to the top, he did it himself; c) on one of the walls in the Zoro Garden, where we watched a dozen teenage ninjas jump and flip over the railings; d) Ari wishing in the Botanical House.

At the Botanical House...

With Child...

My children cause me the most exquisite suffering of which I have any experience. It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness. Sometimes I seem to myself, in my feelings toward these tiny guiltless beings, a monster of selfishness and intolerance. Their voices wear away at my nerves, their constant needs, above all their need for simplicity and patience, fill me with despair at my own failures, despair too at my fate, which is to serve a function for which I was not fitted. And I am weak sometimes with held-in rage...

...And yet at other times I am melted with the sense of their helpless, charming and quite irresistible beauty - their ability to go on loving and trusting - their staunchness and decency and unselfconsciousness. I love them. But it's in the enormity and inevitability of this love that the sufferings lie.

Adrienne Rich, from her journal, 1960

Sometimes another's words so better capture the wholeness of what's inside you that you are better off using them instead. This is motherhood. This is the Oh-My-God-if-you-whine-at-me-one-more-time-I-will-rip-my-hair-out BUT when-I-place-my-hand-on-your-peanut-butter-toast-scented-head-I-would-rip-the-heart-out-of-anyone-trying-to-harm-you...the bipolar dualities of parenthood. The lump in your throat while you look at your sleeping toddler and think of him, one day, leaving for college...while five hours earlier you were praying feverishly for that very day. Highs and lows. Ins and outs. Dirty and clean. Yes and no (an awful lot of no's). Given this, it's amazing anyone produces more than one child.

And yet...we are. Yes, I am with child. Back in August, I took a test. And it came back positive. Ari enjoyed playing with the results.

After a few weeks of denial, we visited our midwife and received visual confirmation. Yeh, that's a baby in there.

Several more weeks of denial...and morning sickness, junk food, mood swings, emotional outbursts and fatigue...later, I can feel the Little One moving inside me. That's right. Tactile confirmation. I guess we're having a baby.

The truth of this situation hasn't really hit us, I believe. We are distracted by many things...an energetic and opinionated toddler, the health of our parents, a kitchen remodel, the economy, politics...all of this occasionally punctuated by strange questions, "Hey, how about Rosie?" or "Whaddya think of Judah?" or "Do you think I'll hemorrhage this time?" There are certainties that we know:

• We know April will bring changes we are not prepared for.
• I know there is a life inside of me for which I am, at this point, solely responsible.
• We know Ari needs to get into a big boy bed by March if we're to recycle this crib.
• We know it will be a logistical miracle to rearrange this little house to accommodate everyone happily.
• We know life is uncertain and the economy unstable and the where's and how's of our place this time next year are not set in stone.
• I know my stomach, and thighs, are growing a lot faster than they did the last time (hmph).

So I guess time will tell. This isn't to say we're not happy. Thrilled, even. Re-reading the above, it seems melancholy and...reluctant. But I think a better word would be introspective. Because that is what I have been these past few weeks. More and more, thinking of this life...of the possible daughter I may bring into this world, of the legacy of strong Clausen-Schwarz-Boers-Freiwald women that waits for her...of the possible son who may grace us, how to continue raising my boys in a way that benefits them and the world. And how to do that without losing your head...or your own identity. There's the question. And there's the challenge. Time will tell...

...welcome Baby.

CAT-astrophe

Where do I begin?

I guess...at the beginning.

Sunday night, we came home from a weekend trip to Nevada to visit Paula and Jay. Mo came pounding out to greet me, per usual, complaining mightily at being left in the lurch. Each of us caught a glimpse of Bella, we think. This is not usual...she usually comes out for dinner, at least. Before bed, Sascha opened the garage door to take the trash out. We haven't seen Bella since. That was almost three full days ago.

So, we're missing a cat. While I'm not remarkably bothered by this fact (she's been getting more and more reclusive and senile lately so I'm wondering if she's been preparing to die), I am bothered by the idea that she a) ran into a coyote; b) picked up the ubiquitous rat poison around here; or c) is lost, scared, starving and freezing. Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure Sascha's planning his own little celebration for tomorrow night, providing Bella still hasn't returned. Four days was his opined deadline for being "concerned" as to her whereabouts. "Concerned", my ass. I still love you, Sweetie, but I can read you like a book.

And then.

I've been noticing this weird dirt falling off the cats over the past couple weeks. They'd been itching and shedding more as well. Being that I was distracted by some other personal issues and was simply happy if they weren't sitting on me, I wasn't paying too much attention. So it took about four weeks to catch on to the fact that my cats have fleas. Fleas. Yes, fleas. Oh. My. God. Being from the Midwest and having, up to a few months ago, strictly indoor cats, I have absolutely zero experience, and tolerance, with said pestilence. I didn't even know what the friggin' things looked like. Well, I know now. One flea bath* and one "picking" session later (ugh), I showed up at the vet's office this morning with fleas still hopping on an unhappy Mo (Bella likely being coyote fodder by now). An hour later, I left the vet's office armed with a flea-treated and fully vaccinated cat, 5 more doses of Revolution, an appointment for a feline dental cleaning and the assurance that this is the worst flea season on record in Southern California** and, oh yeah, flea season doesn't really end here and, oh yeah, the fleas are becoming resistant to the treatments but maybe this one will work...and I was $130 lighter.

Thus begins the Eradication of the Household. Borax on the carpet, vacuuming every day (my favorite chore), washing galore. Well shoot, the house will probably never be cleaner, I should be grateful.

So, if you have any extra white light hanging around, wanna toss it this way? I'm tired.

*Sascha redeemed himself by helping me contain and wash a yowling Mo.

**We have encountered more pests since moving here than I thought possible in one year. Spiders, ants, termites and strange bugs of the what-the-hell-is-that!? variety throughout the house. Gigantor spiders dangling over the sidewalks. And now fleas. Oh, and then there are the coyotes lurking in the canyons, which are everywhere.

Pre-Birthday Thoughts

I just received three birthday cards in the mail...from my mom, mother-in-law and grandmother. The matriarchs in my family all came through on the same day. It's a "woman" kind of day. Here's what the card from my mom said:

If I were your age again,

I'd spend a lot less time examining what's wrong about me,

and a lot more time enjoying what's right about me.

Because, you know what?

You're already perfect enough

So, live life on your own terms.

Be who you are and love what you love.

Reserve the right to be wrong.

If things take an occasional turn you hadn't planned on,

don't be tempted to call it a mistake.

Just call it life, and tuck the experience

in your back pocket for safe-keeping.

Pretty soon you can take it out,

share it with someone else,

and call it wisdom.

I'm not kidding. That's how it works.

So, hey-enjoy the life you're in.

Be as happy as you can.

And feel how deeply and completely you are loved.

Always loved.

Now isn't that just about right? About says it all, whether you're male, female, 33 or going on 16. I just wish I could hard-wire this prose into my brain. Because I've been a pro lately at focusing on what I'm doing wrong, what I'm not accomplishing, how I'm not mothering and what I'm not contributing to this world. Since when has the negative become so attractive? I'm a Libra for God's sake and have been, to a fault, optimistic for most of my life.

And so, today, while I was playing with Ari and mentally cataloging my to-do list, I unconsciously reprimanded myself for not accomplishing very much of it. And then Ari took a nap and I checked my email. And there was a letter from a friend who had a baby almost six weeks ago...as her little girl came into this world, her 7 year old nephew passed from it. An hour apart.

Who. The. Hell. Cares...

...About making sure the house is clean before you leave on a weekend trip or before the babysitter comes?

...If you didn't get up at 6am to get a jump on that writing project?

...Whether or not you look a little greasy at Target because you didn't get a chance to shower this morning?

...If you're the kind of mom who can get her kid to eat anything in the world or just Cheerios three times a day (this one really has nothing to do with the mom, but we feel like it does)?

...If you've been upset because you're pretty sure you're not doing the thing you're supposed to be doing?

As a wise man once told me, "there is no supposed to. There is only what is and what you make it to be." (Thank you, Bernie.) If you don't like it, change it if it can be changed. If it can't, then accept it and change what you can to make yourself happy. In the case of my friend's nephew, change is impossible and acceptance is a long time in coming. I know this. But for so many of the rest of us who get caught up in the day to day displeasures that can rob you of joy...this is something we can change. We can choose to "live life on our own terms". We can choose to be accepting or proactive.

On my birthday, I'm usually a little introspective about the year that is closing and I set goals (spiritual resolutions, if you will) for myself over the next year. It's a tradition that I can't quite kick. My own personal New Year. Though I'm not sure I'll share those goals here tomorrow, suffice it to say that one will encompass change v. acceptance. The challenge will be in following through. But maybe, if we all keep ourselves accountable and remind each other that we're perfect just the way we are, then perhaps it won't be such a challenge. I'm game. Are you?

87 degrees and counting...

...October heat wave. With no air conditioning.

Well, today is quite possibly the messiest day we've had on record for a very long time. It began around 11:30 this morning with tears while we were whooping it up at Gymboree. Some of the girls had decided to get a little vocal (i.e. toddler argument) and Ari absolutely detests confrontation. So after 15 minutes of listening to two little girls screeching it out, Ari sidles up to me with his big hazel eyes rich with tears and says, "home, home". I tried to tempt him with bubbles and "parachute time" but it was a no go. He was upset and I needed to take him home.

Enter lunchtime. And broccoli cheddar soup, his favorite. Picture a red dinasour bowl 3/4 full of beautiful broccoli cheddar "boot" (soup). Picture an eager Ari climbing into his chair and catching the edge of the bowl with his hand. Picture deep yellow soup covering his entire left side and a decent 3'x3' area around the kitchen table...and 1'x5' sludge toward the kitchen sink. Oh! no.....

I de-clothed and mopped off the sobbing Ari and proceeded to wipe up by the sink only to see him run back over to his "boot" on the floor and go skidding through it on his now-bare bottom. More sobbing Ari. The whole process, including "boot" replacement, took about 20 minutes...and a load through the washing machine.

As I was cleaning up the kitchen for the third time today, Ari peacefully "read" his books in the living room. I cheerfully walked in to ask what he was reading and found him looking at a flap book (one of those books with flaps you can lift up and see pictures/words underneath)...and saw that he had removed (i.e. ripped out) said flaps and piled them neatly next to his leg. That was a library book.

The flaps collected and the book placed high out of reach until I could get at it with some Scotch tape, I decided it was time Ari helped me for a change. So he helped me sort coupons...and did a fine job. Until I realized he had pooped (he had a diaper on by now). So I schlepped him upstairs for a change and, upon plopping him down on the changing table, saw a nice brown swath across my soup-stained shirt. I haven't had poop on my own clothes since he was an infant.

Did I mention he has a runny nose?

Like I said, messy day.