One More Thing

I was published again! I just got a copy of the JMT and there was my study!!!! Hurray!

Yarn Store Fun

Hester and I went to my favorite yarn store recently. We perused the sale yarns but and found some lovely yellow that will make nice lemon baby hats. Then I went and looked at the yarns in the store, looking for something that would make a pretty sweater to go over Hester's baptism gown. I settled on Debbie Bliss merino. So beautiful. Then I started looking at patterns to get an idea of how much to buy. As I looked through a Debby Bliss book, I saw the most beautiful knit white dress. Simple but lovely and perfect for Hester's baptism. I called Clementine and proposed it to her. She agreed and I got the yarn. Already, Clementine has knit the back half of the dress. I am starting the booties today and will then work on the sweater to go over the dress.

Here is Hester with a colossal pile of sale yarns!

Illness and Death

This week has been unusual. It started with a forwarded email from a cousin. Her brother's wife died suddenly. I did not know her at all. It bought back memories of those cousins when I was small and still lived in California. Since we moved to Colorado, nearly all my ties to cousins, aunts, and uncles faded. Since I am not close to the cousin, I sent a card and fruit basket to the family.

That night, I got a voice mail from my brother who told me a favorite aunt, my mother's sister, was gravely ill with renal disease and her pancreas had stopped working. I called and talked with him about it and learned that she is very weak. I cried that night, thinking of how she had always been special to me. When I was small, she worked for Avon and would send us the biggest box of Christmas presents every year. We would joke that you could smell it coming a week before it arrived. Even if I did not like the smells of the perfume or body lotion she choose for me, I treasured the gifts she gave me. I felt loved by her. Later in life, she embraced me as I was, when my family grappled with the inner and outer changes. She loved it when I dyed my hair black, which my mother HATED more than any other color I dyed my hair. She accepted my homosexuality without batting an eye (that I could see). She embraced Clementine and congratulated us on our legal marriage the last time we saw her. I remember one particularly bad night before my sisters wedding. My brothers and parents were on the front lawn yelling and fighting. My sister was acting like nothing was happening and wanted me to look at her bride book. I did not know what to do and my aunt walked up to me, holding a scotch on the rocks. She said, "Hashbrown, you are the only sane one here. I think you should take care of them outside. I am going to bed." With that and a bat of her false eyelashes, she waltzed to the guest room and shut the door. I did not go out to stop the fight but smiled at my aunt's belief that I was the only sane one. I love my aunt and am so sad to think she may be gone soon.

Since the voicemail from my brother, I have been emailing my parents a lot and even called them. I have not called them since they stormed out of our house seven years ago when they found they could not stop us from marrying. It turns out that my aunt had a huge falling out with her two children two years ago and she has not talked to them since. Neither know she is dying. Her daughter and I email periodically and my mother decided she needed to tell my cousins that their mother was dying. It is weird and scary for me to be in contact with my parents so much again. They are being very nice. But that is their pattern. First they are nice. Then they get mean when I open up and trust them. I hate to be so mistrusting of people but really cannot risk my heart or those of my wife and child to their spiteful behaviour.

The decision whether to go to California when she passes looms over me. I feel I should go say good bye to my aunt, who despite her flaws which were many, was always kind to me and accepting of me. Going would mean being around my parents who are such a threat to me now as they are being nice. And should I take Hester with me? It would be her first flight. I would love to introduce her to my brother and his wife, my cousin, and the extended family that I do not know. I will decide when the moment comes.

Singing to my child

From the first days with Hester, I sang to her the song "Always." It is an old song, in 3/4 time, with a beautiful melody. I chose to sing it to her for it's words.

I'll be loving you, always
With a love that's true, always
When the things you planned
Need a helping hand
I will understand, always, always
Days may not be fair, always
That's when I'll be there, always
Not for just an hour
Not for just a day
Not for just a year
But always.

When I first sang it to her, I cried at the promise in the lyrics and meant every word. I sing it to her nearly every day. Now when I sing it to her, she knows it. If she is crying because she is tired, she stops crying and looks at me. And lately, she reaches up and touches my lips as I sing. I don't cry anymore when I sing it to her, but I still feel the enormity of the promise, a promise to parent differently than I was taught. A promise to never turn my back on her.

hats galore

Hey Friends. Here are some hats I knit. I don't remember the name of the yarn. It was on sale (are you sensing a theme in my knitting). I had two skeins of the stuff, one pink and one green. I knit all the hats on size 5.

The green hat.

This is a simple 6 month old size hat with a rolled brim and a fat i-cord top. The i-cord is about an inch long. It is a basic hat.

The pink party hat.

This pink hat is also size 6 months and has the rolled brim. I experimented with the top of this one. I knit three thin i-cords, three stitches each. I then wove the ends back through each and pulled it a little bit to create the curl. I was not sure how it would look but I think it came out pretty good.

The stripy hat.

This one is sized for an infant 0-3 months. It is the ends of the two skeins. Instead of the rolled brim, I did a garter stitch brim of 6 rows. I switched colors every eight rows. I was not sure of how it would look when finished, the mixing of the colors and the variegated yarns, but it is not half bad.


What do you think?

Over heard on the train

"Yeah, the train just pulled out of the station. We will be in (the city where I live) in 25 minutes," said a enthusiastic and loud fellow into his cell phone in the seat behind me. "Not hardly," I rudely said under my breath so as not to dash his exuberant belief in the speed of the train. Somewhere, maybe 20 minutes into the ride, he was again loudly speaking on his cell phone. "Yeah, it will be ten more minutes." I laughed quietly to myself. You see, the local train takes about 1 hour and 38 minutes from the station to my city. That man either never looked at a train schedule, lived in a different universe where time and trains move at a very different pace, or is just crazy.

Guilty Pleasure

I got an email from the library today that a book I ordered came in. I was so excited all day, waiting for it to come it. Was it a great novel, a literary wonder, maybe a book about neurological functioning or music therapy, you ask?


Nope.



It was this. So fabulously bad and yet so fun to read. I cannot wait to jump in bed and start it!

Hat

I made this from yarn we got for $2 at a sale. I did not plan for it to be for anyone specific. I thought it would be a good baby present for one of the many pregnant women in my life or we could sell it at a craft fair next summer under our brand name, Haughty Hausfrau. But I modeled it on Hester to show Clementine and Clementine fell in love with it. So Hester has a new hat!

It is a soft fluffy acrylic-ish yarn similar to Plush. I knit it on 10's.

Hello Again

Hey there bloggy friends.


Sorry I have been absent. I have been quite busy through the day at work and then when I am home, I really only want to focus on Hester and Clementine. But I have missed blogging. I do read your blogs a few times a week. However, I have moved to lurker status by not commenting.

So I wanted to tell you a crazy thing that just happened. I was telling Clementine about this annoying OT at work. She was lying in bed and I was standing at the doorway with my hand on the bathroom doorway. All of a sudden, I felt this strong tap tap on my fingers. Frightened, I pulled my hand away and turned in horror, thinking someone was hiding in our bathroom, tapping my hand. I looked in, only to see little miss Josephine. Clementine laughed so hard, she nearly wet herself.

My daily life with Hester and Clementine has been wonderful as always. We have been taking small and large trips here and there with her. Every day with her is a gift. As is every day with Clementine. My life is so very blessed by both of them.

Here we are at a farm.

Here we are at a museum.

Here we are at a family reunion.

Here we are at the zoo.

Work has been good and hard. It is good to be more focused there. I feel like I am really there, present, and making a difference in some kids lives. There is the usual personality differences like the annoying OT from earlier but it is all manageable. I still struggle to find my professional identity post-baby. Before Hester, I had a razor sharp focus at work. Work was my life. Home was very important but I really worked hard to get to where I was for my career. I wrote articles, wrote research proposals, wrote grant proposals at home in my spare time. The moment I saw Hester's head, my life and focus changed to family. Work is still very important and the work I do is very compelling. I love it. But I love my family more. Who am I now as a music therapist that work, my clients, my career, music therapy is not my life? I am not sure. I just keep putting one foot in front of the other and expect one day I will wake up one morning and know.

Work has been hard too. There was a girl from Latin America who when I last sang to her, I knew that day it was the last time that I would ever see her. That evening, she was transferred to the PICU at another hospital where she passed away. It is amazing that a little girl who never woke up reached out and touched my heart. Her passing is a sadness that stays with me as I see her sister and grandmother daily. Her death was pointless and an outcome of violence from a family member. This is one of the hardest part of my job, knowing the evil that lurks within the heart of human beings.

At the same time, I have seen how simple kindnesses from me have touched deeply the hearts of two other patients. A sympathetic ear, a kind smile, singing a favorite song, holding some one's hand when they are scared, rubbing some one's back as they cry, these things do more than we ever know. It is an honor to be with these children as they recover and rebuild their lives.

A fun story of professional activities to follow all that is needed. So I belong to the MT listserv, which is so incredibly annoying and asinine at times. Some people say things that make me wonder what they studied in school, how they ever got a therapy job, and fear for the future of my profession. One of those times came recently. I was so flabbergasted by what someone was saying that I had to confront it directly. Just so you know, I did not swear, say wicked, or threaten violence. I used I statements and not even my favorite one "I feel you are a jerk." I was polite, saying perhaps we had different ways of practicing. But I effectively shut her up from saying any more untherapeutic things. I also appeared to stopped all threads on the listserv for a few days, except for various job postings. It was excellent!

I fit in shorts I did not fit into at the beginning of the summer. I also went down one scrub size.

My hair is finally cut and I do not look like a muffin.

Mitt Romney is a jerk, comparing serving in the military in Iraq or Afghanistan to working on his campaign. Please God, do not let him be elected president!

Also, Carl Rove is leaving! Oh happy day!! Bush is truly a lame duck now. Kick him while he is down, Nancy Pelosi!!

Oh, when passing out packets of sunscreen at a local outdoor concert as an awareness campaign for the hospital, the park rangers came to us and told us we could not pass out that at a family event. We were dumbfounded. Sunscreen is not family friendly??? But then we noted the size of the packets were the same as that of condoms. We laughed and told the rangers what it was and that we were from a children's hospital.

It is late and I gotta work tomorrow. thanks for coming by to check on me. I will try to post regularly. If you don't hear from me, I am probably busy but lurking around your blog.