Multiple Mayhem

When I was 8 years old, I was allowed to ride around my neighborhood. We lived in a close suburb of Dallas, and as long as I didn't cross the main road behind our house, I was okay. Here's a map of my neighborhood:

On my own, I pretty much covered the area circled in red. When the west side of it was built, I played on the dirt piles and collected souvenirs with a friend. During school time, I walked to the elementary school at the bottom left, using pretty much any route I felt like in the blue area. Didn't matter, as long as I crossed Rosemeade at Standridge where the crossing guard was, and I made it to school and home on time.

When I was 9 years old, we moved to a much more rural area, a
smaller town outside a smaller big city. Within the next year, I had a much larger range (note that the scale had to change dramatically to fit it all in):

I used to disappear for hours, riding around the neighborhood, hiking off into the woods (the businesses and the neighborhood to the west had not been built yet), just generally being a kid. By the time I was 10 or 11, I was crossing Williams Drive (a highway with 2 lanes each way) and heading off to the lake and the dam.

In both of these places, this was normal. There were always other kids my age out doing the same, and we visited each other and played together.

Now, my family and I live in an even smaller town outside a smallish big city, closer to the downtown square than ever before. My six kids are allowed the run of the town in graduated stages, with clearly defined limits set before they are let go. Here is the area my 8-year-old is currently allowed to be in:

No crossing of major through streets like Cedar or any lighted intersections, but otherwise he's allowed to go to the cemetery (which contains the riverwalk and the river and is a major local play spot), and he can get to the library as well as to a couple of convenience stores to buy treats when he gets some spending money.

Now, what prompted this post? I just got chewed out by a young teenage boy who thought maybe I didn't understand what a serious issue it was for my 8-year-old to be running around ALONE in the CEMETERY, because that's not how he was raised! Excuse me? You're what, one-third my age, and you think you know more about this than I do? What the heck? Why do people teach this kind of stuff to their kids, that this BOY would feel he had the right to go up to a grown woman and berate her for the limits she places on her children?

It is sad, though, that there aren't as many kids out for my kids to run and play with. You don't see lots of young kids out on the sidewalk and running up and down the streets and the walks. My kids don't get to meet other kids unless they just happen to see them coming or going. This despite living in a pretty small town with a very low crime rate, probably lower than any other place I've ever lived in my life.

The triple goddess is a classic, fixed feature of Wicca. I don't think the concept goes far enough, though. I can see where it came from. Threes are common enough, and women do have these defined stages of life, much more so than men. Three stages are easy to tie into the stages of the moon, and the presence or absence of fertility. I've been pondering this a lot, though, and I really think there should be five stages.

1. The Girl -- This stage would last from birth to menarche. Our society does not pay enough attention to the end of this stage. It is surrounded by mystery and secrecy, and often even women do not share this mystery with each other, or between mother and daughter. Gone are the respectful rites of passage to celebrate the ending of childhood. I want to bring this back for my girls.

2. The Maiden -- This stage would last from menarche to childbirth. The Maiden is a full-flowered woman, grown but not quite matured. There is an important difference between the Maiden and the Girl. The Maiden is privy to more of the secrets of adulthood. She has earned autonomy in her actions and control over her life, but has not yet acquired responsibility for another's life. Again, while childbirth is an important rite of passage for every woman, it is no longer treated as such. Gone is the respect for the power of the birthing woman, replaced by a series of laboratory procedures. This is beginning to change.

3. The Mother -- This stage lasts through the childbearing and nursing years. The Mother is full of the power of creation, growing new life and nurturing it with her body and soul. Her life is focused on this task. Her sleep is disrupted. Her body is ravaged. Her children, born and unborn, demand her attention every hour of every day. This stage is given short shrift in our modern, feminist society. Women are told they can "have it all," that they can go right back to work while their children are young without missing a beat. The women who choose to dedicate themselves to this job of early motherhood are looked at as less committed, unproductive, "housewives".

4. The Matron -- This stage lasts from the weaning of the last child until that child is grown. The Matron has moved from the physical creation and nurturing of life to the mental support of that life. The Matron is focused on teaching her children to grow and learn, preparing them for their launch into the world, independent of her. Her body is now her own again, but the demands on her mind and time are no less. The Matron's arms are more frequently empty, but her heart is even more full, as she faces the coming day when her children will be gone and her nest will be empty.

5. The Crone -- This is the final stage of life, the one we are familiar with as "The Crone." Lasting from menopause or the empty nest until death, this is a time when the woman moves into an elder advisor position. She is the grandmother, the matriarch of the family. No longer active in the day-to-day raising of children, she is consulted by the younger generations for wisdom and advice, and she gets to bestow her love on new babies without having to lose sleep over them. I think the Crone also does not get enough respect anymore. Women try so hard to pretend they are nowhere near this stage for as long as they can, dying their hair, surgically altering their body, masking the signs of age. When they do give in and show their age, they are relegated to the retirement communities and nursing homes, shunted away rather than listened to and respected. I think it is so sad that women do not feel proud of the gray hairs they have earned. Those gray hairs and wrinkles are a badge of honor, marks of a life lived and lessons learned.

I think these divisions are more understandable and definable. The hardest part of incorporating them into religious practice would be relating them to the stages of the moon. We are used to the symbol of the Triple Goddess, with the waxing crescent, the full moon, and the waning crescent; these represent the Maiden, Mother, and Crone aspects. However, the moon is also divided into quarters, with the full moon and new moon in between. Perhaps the first four stages could be related to the four quarters of the moon, with the full moon representing childbirth. The Crone would be the night sky, always in the background supporting the other aspects. A symbol for this new 5-faced goddess could be the original triple-moon, with the crescents raised a little above the full and connected by a new moon, the whole on a background circle.

Maybe I can get Caitlin to draw that up for me.

It occurs to me that some women never have children. How do they fit into these different aspects of Goddess? Even women who do not physically bear babies have their children. Perhaps they adopt children, and still go through spiritual childbirth and physical nuturing. Perhaps they choose or are chosen to be childless, and devote their life to something else, a career or a calling. Their life's work then becomes their child, something they nurture and grow, and then eventually they retire and become an elder to their community. If you look closely, you can see these stages, these aspects, in virtually every life path a woman can choose. Their markers may sometimes be less obvious, but they are no less there.

Better late than never. It's always so crazy around here. Here's my summary of the FEVR conference we had here in Michigan last month:

If you've been reading this blog regularly, you know that our ophthalmologist, Dr. Michael Trese, is the world's leading pediatric retina specialist. People come from all over the world to see him and his colleagues, Drs. Capone and Drenser. Last month, their office, Associated Retinal Consultants, together with ROPARD, held a conference for families affected by Familial Exudative Vitreo-Retinopathy (FEVR), the disease causing the blindness in our family. It ended up being a two-day event, with social opportunities the night before and lectures given by the doctors on Saturday.

For many (most?) of us there, it was our first opportunity to actually meet other people and families with this disease. FEVR is so rare, most doctors will see at most one case of it in their entire careers. Our local low-vision specialist flat out told us that he didn't even study this disease in school because he never expected to see it. Many of us have been through misdiagnoses and mistreatment from our local "specialists" who just didn't realize what they were dealing with. The opportunity to share our stories was priceless.

Friday night, ROPARD helped organize a dinner at the hotel we were staying in. We all ate in one of the hotel's conference rooms, and then there was time to hang out and chat. Paula from ROPARD brought some items to display, special toys and things. One blind gentleman she brought with her brought a Mountbatten brailler for us to check out, and I brought a box of Braille and tactile books. Thanks to how the child-care situation ended up not working out, there weren't many children with us, but there were a few.

I was a little embarrassed, because people kept coming up to me and saying, "Oh, it's so nice to finally meet you, you always seem to have so much information!" Of course I've met people online before, but usually just one or two at a time. This was a little weird!

One thing happened after dinner Friday evening that was just so amazing, I keep telling everybody I know about it. I'm always a big advocate for mobility in young children, and I kept telling everybody I spoke to that they needed to get canes into their children's hands, no matter how young, no matter what the schools or anybody else said. While we were standing around chatting, a little boy came up to Brian. The boy looked to be about Kender's age, with a little better vision than Kender. He grabbed Brian's cane, curious, and I whispered to Brian to let the boy have it. This little boy, who had never held a cane before, took off with Brian's cane around the room, using it in a completely appropriate manner, finding all sorts of obstacles with it. You couldn't ask for a better demonstration of how natural cane use is for these children when they start young, and how easy it can be.

Later, a bunch of us parents got together in the hotel lounge and hung out until the bar closed down, chatting and sharing stories. Brian got to talk with some other fathers who also have FEVR, although none of them were blind and all found out about it as adults. There were other families there with 3 and 4 children with FEVR (although none with six childrens altogether!), and even a couple of families from Michigan! Max Bodnar and Brian really hit it off, and started making plans to set up another "conference" next year, mostly as a get-together for the parents and children this time.

Saturday was the official conference. The morning was taken up by presentations by Drs. Trese, Capone, and Drenser. There were two major revelations presented. The first is that they no longer believe they can identify FEVR patients with a routine dilated exam of the retina. Some Stage I patients have been slipping through this screening, only to show leakage or exudates when given flourescein angiogram. Because of this, they now are planning the fluorescein angiogram to be the standard diagnostic tool, and will be using this to screen family members once a patient has been diagnosed. This will be easier than it has been for older people (say, over 10 years old) because the doctors are acquiring a new machine that will make it easier for them to do these angiograms in the office and still get a good look at the periphery of the retina. For us, this news means that Brian's parents need to get rechecked, especially in light of his dad's newly-diagnosed macular degeneration and cataracts, which could be exacerbated by FEVR. The doctor down there in Texas does not do angiograms, so they will have to wait until they can come up to see Dr. Trese to get that done, but they will be able to get their blood drawn so they can be included in Dr. Drenser's genetic study, and that should show if they are carrying the same FZLD-4 mutation Brian and the kids have. It's important for us to find this out, because if either of his parents turn out to be carriers, Kevin's family will need to be checked.

The second big news was that the doctors are having much better "success" rates over the last two years with preventing rapid deterioration in their FEVR patients. They have taken a very aggressive approach to laser cauterization of the retina, lasering areas with exudates, blood leakage, avascular retina, and capillary dropout. We've seen this in our own family, where it seems like somebody gets fresh laser every few months. This aggressive treatment has resulted in many fewer cases of what they called "surprise" leakage and exudates, where previously-quiet eyes suddenly showed massive changes on the next exam. This could be very good news for children like Tamara, Caitlin, and Jarod, who may now be at less risk than we previously thought of losing their remaining vision.

Finally, Dr. Drenser gave a very interesting and detailed description of the current understanding of the genetics and chemistry behind FEVR. There are several different known mutations that cause FEVR, as well as more that are unidentified. All the different mutations disrupt the same basic chemical process linked to the growth of new blood vessels in the retina. This process is very complex, with many known receptors at the beginning and end of the reaction chain and what Dr. Drenser called a "black box" of reactions in the middle that have not yet been fully identified. Messing up any link in the chain leads to the emergence of FEVR. Having so many different places where things can go wrong means that FEVR shows all of the known inheritance patterns (dominant, recessive, and sex-linked), and because the expression of these known genes can be up- or down-regulated by other unknown genes, the expression of the disease in two people (say, siblings) with the same mutation can be very different (like Tamara and Kender). It was really fascinating to see how much they know (and how much they don't yet know) about how this disease works. We also got to get a sneak peek at the new genetics lab that the doctors have set up this year for further research into FEVR and other pediatric retinal diseases.

Saturday afternoon was given over to a presentation by Dr. Ference, a low-vision specialist who works out of the same building as Dr. Trese et al., and who is very highly recommended. She may be highly recommended, and I'm sure there are some advantages in her style, but Brian and I personally were very disappointed in her presentation. It came off as a 2-hour advertisement for herself, and several times she gave the impression that she could effectively "cure" somebody's blindness through eye exercises! Many of the things she said nobody else does were things all of our ophthalmologists and low-vision specialists have done, and many of the "treatments" she prescribes are things that any child with an active parent and an engaging environment will do naturally. I've got notes from the presentation, and I'll break down my criticisms in another post, but Brian and I (and really our TVI, who came along Saturday for the fun of the presentations and learning) came away very disappointed.

All in all, though, it was a wonderful 24 hours, and we can't wait to do it again. We spoke with Dr. Trese, and we will be working with the surgery schedulers to set up a week or two next summer that can be set asides for the practice's FEVR patients. We'll get everybody out-of-town to schedule their annual/biannual/whatever checkups for that time, and over the closest weekend we'll book a group of rooms at the hotel and plan some family events. We want it to be a kid-friendly get together this time, so all the kids can meet and talk and socialize. As parents, we got a lot out of just that aspect of it, and we think the kids will, too.

I ran my first 5K today! First 5K ever, not even just the first race, the most I've done in training so far is 4.16K. The first mile, I was wondering what the hell I was thinking, with adrenaline taking my breath away. The second mile, I watched all the men disappear ahead of us, nothing but women left in my sight. The last mile was around the Capitol building. We ran up Michigan Avenue, and then we could see the finish line when we turned to make the Capitol loop. So that loop was thinking, "But, we were just there!!" The last song that came up on my MP3 as I ran to the finish line was Hooked on Classics "Dance of the Furies", which made me think of my dad. I finished in 38:51, 14th in my class (women 35-39) and 171 overall.

I asked my dad after if he ever thought I'd run a 5K. His response: "You can do anything you set your mind to." Totally didn't answer the question, Dad! Just once I'd like to know I exceeded his expectations and blew him away. Just once. I don't know what that's going to take.

Next up: Michigan Brewing Company's 5K Beer Run on June 19th. Between now and then, I'll be ramping up my weekly mileage, aiming to pass 25K/week by the end of June.

On other foot type things, last year for six months I had this horrible pain at the base of my second toe on my left foot. It started in June and just kept getting worse and worse. I ignored it for months, and finally got it x-rayed in October. When I looked at the x-ray, it looked like there was a stress fracture there at the base of that second toe (radiologist saw it, too), but that's an extremely rare injury, and the radiology report didn't note it. The pain went away over the winter, so I figured it was nothing. This week, though, the pain came back. I finally figured out what was causing it: something about the fit on this last pair of Birkenstocks (that I bought last June!) is causing the ball of my left foot to hit the toe bar. Knowing that, it completely makes sense that there could be a stress fracture at the base of that second toe. I made it through the race today, even though I'm limping this evening. Those shoes go in the trash, though, and I'll have to get a different pair of summer sandals. Hopefully the pain will go away again.

I made butter tonight. It's not like I set out to do so. It all started with the stew. Or maybe with the grocery budget.

I tried to start a new eating plan earlier this month that required expensive materials. I did one shopping trip trying to obtain the special food, and then gave up, but I had already spent a chunk of money on it. So now at the end of the month, I'm over budget. Even though the freezer is empty and the pantry is draining, I don't want to go to the store unless I absolutely have to. So tonight's dinner menu was to be stew, starting with two cans of meatball stew I had in the pantry. (I think I ended up adding 2 cups of pearl barley, 2 cans of kidney beans, 1 can of baked beans, 1 can of peas, 2 cans of tomato paste, water, bay leaves, white pepper, black pepper, oregano, and garlic.)

What good is stew without bread? I wanted to make Irish soda bread, but good Irish soda bread needs buttermilk, which I didn't have. I went to pull up the recipe for fake buttermilk (1 Tbsp vinegar then fill the cup with milk, if you're curious). The page I found had a snip at the end to the effect of you could make your own buttermilk if you had heavy cream laying about.

Wouldn't you know it, I had a whole quart of heavy cream that was in danger of going out of date next week that I still didn't have a use for! So I tossed it in the mixer and turned it on. Normally when you do this, you stop when it gets all fluffy, and then you add sugar and vanilla and have whipped cream (and if you've only ever had Cool Whip or Redi-Whip, you have GOT to try homemade whipped cream). This time, though, I didn't stop there. I kept going. Just leave the mixer on for 10-15 minutes. It will go past whipped cream and turn into butter. You have to scrape the sides a bit to make sure all the cream gets in. Gradually, it will start to look yellow and crumbly, and when it starts splashing, it's done.

Now I had butter bits in buttermilk. I strained the butter in a strainer, then used a wooden spoon to knead the butter against the strainer and squeeze out the rest of the milk. The milk went into the soda bread, and then I added salt and kneaded it into the butter. The butter went on the soda bread when it was done cooking. Yay, dinner! And I still had enough butter left over to fill my butter dish for toast and things.

I'll have to check the prices, but this could be a good way to get buttermilk when I want it, since I tend to buy a quart and then not use half of it. I got about 2.5 cups of buttermilk out of a quart of heavy whipping cream, and what looks like a pound of butter. Considering how fast we go through butter, and the price of the whipping cream, it could be cheaper this way...and definitely more fun!

Things are going much better on the eyeball front. Caitlin had her office visit with Dr. Trese, and he said she looked better and could wait until that Friday for the exam under anesthesia (EUA).

Thursday afternoon they called to say we needed to be at the hospital at 6:30 a.m. This hospital is an hour and a half away, so we had to get up at 4 a.m. to get there on time. Ugh.

Kender was first. His pressure in his right eye was 17, so he will continue on all three eyedrops (Cosopt, Xalatan, and Alphagan). Everything else looked good, so he gets to wait until September before going back.

Tamara looked okay, but there were areas where Dr. Trese had previously lasered that he said didn't take, so he did more laser in both eyes on her. Otherwise, she's good, and can come back to the office in October.

Dr. Trese found the bleed in Caitlin's left eye, and had to do quite a bit of lasering to cauterize it. He thinks he got it, though, and he didn't see any sign of retinal issues, so she just stays on light activity for now and goes back in the office in a few weeks. She also says that she doesn't see any difference in her vision now that the bleeding has cleared up, so that is great news!

It took longer than usual last night to get a call back, even considering it was after office hours, but Dr. Faya called us back and said to bring her in to the Royal Oak office in the morning, NPO in case anything needed to be done. (I am so thankful to be living so close to them that we really can bring the kids in at the drop of a hat!)

So we got up and left at the butt-crack of dawn to make sure and get to the office when they opened. Dr. Luo (? I think? haven't seen/met him before) looked at her, and said yes, she has quite a bit of bleeding in the left eye, so he left to call Dr. Trese (who wasn't actually in that office today) to see what to do. Dr. Trese said that he wouldn't be able to do anything today as far as laser cauterization, because there is so much blood floating around in her eye now that they can't get a clear shot of where it's coming from. She's not actually seeing curtains or blank spots, so they don't think there's any active detachment. They put a shield patch on the eye and ordered her to low activity and sleeping upright, in the hopes that the exudates will start to precipitate out and clear the vitreous. We go back to the office on Tuesday to follow up; if she is having no signs of detachment and the vitreous seems to be clearing, we will go ahead with her previously-scheduled EUA with fluoroscein angiogram next Friday the 22nd (along with Tamara and Kender), and just expect that she will, at a minimum, get fresh laser cauterization at that time. Of course, if she shows any signs of incipient detachment, we'll go back immediately and I guess he'll do a vitrectomy to clear things out so he can reattach the retina and cauterize the bleed.

Three trips in 8 days. I'm glad we live close, but in my 12-passenger van, crossing half the state still ain't cheap! Not to mention we are NEVER going to catch up on our school work if this stuff keeps happening.

On the positive side: ATLAS SHRUGGED opens today! Happy Tax Day (or what should have been Tax Day) and TANSTAAFL everybody!

The last few weeks, it seems like little things keep creeping up on me. Today, I feel like I'm hitting that point of no return, where the shit is about to hit the fan.

Background: Last week, I had to deal with 3 messed-up computers. The neighbor had some viruses on hers, and I had to reset hers to factory to restore it completely. My mother's started acting wonky, and ended up functioning but without the "click" feature of the touchpad working. And mine...hosed itself. (Beware the AntiMalware Doctor!) I got everybody else's computer fixed but mine, and re-upped the defenses on all the other computers in our home network.

Sunday, Jarod was supposed to go to a birthday party, but the mom called to reschedule at the last minute, due to resident pukers. (NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!)

Tuesday morning, the internet connection started going down. It took me almost an hour to get it back online, but since it's happened before (usually when the power goes out), I figured it would be okay.

Last night, I tried to install Ubuntu on my old computer, since the Windows OS was obviously trashed. It wouldn't work; the installer would either halt, mess up the screen, or auto-reboot. At the same time, the Internet started going out again. I was trying to work on that and my computer at the same time (so I could access Ubuntu tech files), but I could only keep the Internet up for a few minutes at a time. I gave up after a bit. Later on, Brian's computer started blue-screening and the mouse would stop working.

So I started this morning with a downed Internet, a downed computer that Brian needed for an on-call shift this weekend, a house with barely any food because I was putting off shopping, and TWO birthday parties on the schedule, one at the park in 46-degree weather. Oh yeah, and Brian needed a ride home from work picnic party. I was planning to bring some homemade bread and cheese to the , so I started in on the bread as soon as I got up, trying out a new recipe, bouncing between upstairs computers (tethered to my phone for internet access to look things up) and downstairs computers (intermittently failing and needing Windows updates installed) and occasionally chores. (I haven't gotten much schoolwork graded/taught the last couple of weeks.)

The bread must be a good recipe. The kids demolished both loaves within 15 minutes of my cutting them. So much for party food.

Brenden decided after lunch that he didn't want to go to the park party. I didn't blame him; I didn't really want him outside in the chill for several hours. Once he decided he was staying home, Liam decided he was staying with him. So I ended up dropping off the girls at the party, turning one trip into town into at least two (did you know it costs me over a hundred dollars to fill up my gas tank now?). On the way to the party, Caitlin informed me that she'd been seeing a bunch of strange, new floaters in her left eye since that morning.

I did get by Sams with the younger boys, and then picked Brian up on the way home. While I was in transit, my brother checked out my computer and declared my hard drive a total loss. Great. No sooner did I get home than I to turn around to go back and pick up the girls. On the way home, Caitlin tells me her eye is getting worse, and now it looks like when her glasses are fogged up. I left her with Brian to figure it out, grabbed Jarod, and turned around to take him to his friend's birthday party (no longer puking, thank gods).

Reagan's party was cute. Jarod was the only kid there (I wonder if all the others were scared off by the puking?), so he and Reagan were glued to each other's side the whole time. Listening to them talk was so much fun, me and Reagan's aunts and cousins were just cracking up most of the time. Jarod was good, although he did try to open Reagan's presents for her. By the time they were ready for the pinata, it was just me and Jarod, and Reagan and her brother and parents. I saw the pinata...and flashed back to Birthday Blowout 2005, the Year of the Unbreakable Pinata. That year, even Brian and my dad whaling on our pinata with a metal baseball bat couldn't open the darn thing. We practically had to rip it apart by hand. I had no idea there was such a thing as a pull-string pinata until then...and I could see that Reagan's dad had never heard of them, either.

I'm nice. I let him in on the "anti-violence pinata" secret. I'm not sure he believed me at first, but he did have Joline go get a metal baseball bat. They let Reagan have a couple whacks at it, and you could hear it go "clink" when she hit it squarely. Not good. So Reagan walked up and yanked on the strings herself to get it over with. Smart girl!

Not like me. I am not a smart girl. I tried to be nice, pulling Ethel off to park beside the driveway so all the other people there could still get out. Turns out, though, I apparently parked Ethel in the local swamp, and she couldn't get out. Poor Mark had to chain his truck to Ethel's tow-hitch and pull her out! (Joline told me to tell Brian I went mudding instead of going to the party.)

When I got home, I found out that Caitlin's eye had gotten even worse just in the couple of hours I'd been gone. She couldn't read with that eye or see anything very clearly, although she swore she couldn't see anything like curtains. So now, at 9:15pm, I sit waiting for Dr. Trese's office to call us back and tell us when she needs to be seen by who, my "work" computer is even deader than I thought, Brian's work computer is questionable, and we still can't get to the internet (my laptop is still tethered). Oh yeah, and we'll probably start puking in a few days (although I will hold out hope that we missed it).

I blame Mercury.

On the positive side, I did run for 20 minutes straight yesterday. And Kender is started to talk more. Got to find the balance somewhere.

I have 5 minutes to write down what I most want to remember about 2010. I want to remember Kender's first times walking with his cane, the way he usually uses it like a pony stick but sometimes he gets it out in front of him and uses it appropriately. I want to remember Jarod's smile, and the way he insists on kissing my cheek. I want to remember Liam's love of his chemistry sets, how much he enjoys learning new things and how fast he picks everything up. I want to remember Caitlin's artwork, the beautiful pictures that just come flowing out of her pencil. I want to remember Tamara's insight, her social understanding, her sudden ability with the jewelry kits that were bought on a whim. I want to remember Brenden's love of the game, and the way he made his own archery bow from scraps in the yard this year and made his own arrow and made it WORK! I want to remember Brian allowing me to sleep in on the weekends, especially after the sleep study said I was just not getting enough sleep. I want to remember taking the family to Texas and climbing up Enchanted Rock, seeing all the prickly pears and yucca and hundred-year plants in bloom. I want to remember picking apples in the cool fall breeze, everybody sneaking bites and trying to grab some of every variety in the orchard. Time's up.

What have I come to appreciate this year? Many things. Believe it or not, I have come to appreciate what Michigan has to offer. I tried to spend each day this summer enjoying the warmth and greenery, storing it up for winter's chill. I appreciate being able to plant things and see them grow without much effort. I appreciate not having to water the grass three times a week all year. I appreciate the bounty of the harvest up here, with almost anything that grows available to pick or buy within an hour's drive.

I've been working on appreciating my children more this year. That sounds horrible, but I've found a nasty tendency on my part to get annoyed too quickly. So I'm working to bury that impulse, and to smile and enjoy the moment instead of insisting on quiet and order all the time.