Archive for January, 2009

This is a class I could never teach. I barely remember my own as babies and all the 101 little things one might want to pass onto the next generation. When Kira was born ThatGirl kept asking me stuff and I’m like, fuggedaboutdit. Every once in a while a memory will pop up, maybe triggered by a specific situation, maybe some synapsis fires at just the right moment, whatever.

I’ve an LJ friend who just had a baby and I’ll admit here that I’d been barely scanning her later pregnancy posts. And I probably haven’t been reading her newer ones all that carefully either.

My bad completely. But nothing personal, I’ve barely been reading anyone’s.

Somehow I got into the habit of scanning everyone’s paragraphs unless something really catches my attention. For the last month I’ve been busy transferring stuff from my PC to this laptop, figuring out wordpress (where I’m completely over my head) for my new site, going out a LOT, etc. I just wasn’t taking the proper time for keeping up online. I apologize.

But geeze people, the one post I did read she was talking about using lotion with honey in it for her breastfeeding chapping (I imagine chapping is what she meant, I never breastfed) and I mentioned that infants shouldn’t have honey and she should double check if that includes lotion and people got snappish. I wasn’t in her face, or assuming she was an idiot or anything. How the fuck am I supposed to know what, as a first-time single parent with an apparently crappy family, she already knows. There’s SO MUCH a new parent needs to know! So for-fucking-give me for bring it up.

I should shut up. I should never politely mention something is potentially harmful. Maybe I should just crawl back under my rock.

Or.

I’ll keep saying whatever pops into my head on the off-chance it could help someone. Cuz, you know, I have managed to get to 47 and raise three fairly healthy kids. There’s a lot of experience in my brain even if I can’t access it like I usetacould. And if I speak out of turn you can either ignore me or understand I said it with love.

Cuz if I didn’t care, I’d be making fun of your mistakes instead of trying to help. I like making fun of people. Would you rather be on that list? I’m very careful not to make fun of my friends, but just about everyone else is fair game. Cuz I’m pretty sure people are out there making fun of me.

I looked on my dashwire (great free service, BTW – syncs everything on your phone/online) last night and Max hasn’t called me since December 10th. I’ve left a couple of messages on his MySpace because I can see he’s logged in there recently. Or his girlfriend Kela has, I dunno if he gave her permissions. She’s over there too, but not in the same location. He’s back in Kirkuk and she’s admin for their battalion and is in Tikrit.

I know there are times they are restricted from calling. I know he can’t always afford a calling card for his cell. I also know – even though it’s a PITA to wait in line – there are company phones available. But every time I stop and think about him (like now) I get really worried and tear up. Yes, even I have a heart.

Last time he was there and didn’t call me for a while it was apparently when he got hurt. I didn’t know he was hurt until he came home and off-handedly showed me his purple heart like it was no big deal. Actually, it really wasn’t that time, but the point is he never told me and when I asked him why he said he didn’t want me to freak out.

I don’t freak out when shit happens. I’m calm as hell when shit happens. It’s when I’m imagining shit that I freak out. And after. When the boys were in that car accident a few years ago, I was calm as hell the whole evening until I got them both safely in my car for the ride home. Then I fell apart.

Anyway. My friend Jamie offered her son’s help getting to Max. He’s some Army muckety-muck and can track him down and make sure he’s okay. Problem is, the information Max gave me before he left isn’t any good because his orders changed once he got there. AND he’d be really pissed if his Mommy went over his head and tracked him down and he was fine, just being a thoughtless asshole – which is entirely possible.

Okay, I’m practically sobbing now so I need to put him out of my mind. Just thought some of you would like an update and now you can stop asking and making me worry more.

PS. Aranel? Do you still have that casualty link you gave me last time? I don’t have it on my new laptop.