Lawyer Mama

Through the Leap Years

Today is Leap Day.  I don't know why I'm so excited about February 29th.  Something about the idea that this day only happens once every 4 years makes it special, different somehow.  I feel like I should be out making something happen instead of sitting here in front of my computer.  But since I am compelled to blog, I thought I'd remember life through the Leap Years.

February 29, 2004:

The 76th Academy Awards were on this day with The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King winning a record eleventy gazillion awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.  There was that whole occupation of Iraq thing going on too.  Sigh.  And Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigned as president of Haiti.

I was living and working just outside of D.C.  in 2004.  Working my butt off in fact.  I was about 6 weeks pregnant with Hollis after the Side Trip to Iceland and puking my guts out on a regular basis.  I even fell asleep in a puddle of drool on my desk.  Between the exhaustion, nausea, and absent mindedness it's a wonder I even showed up at the office.  Ah, good times.  If I could find my calendar, I could tell you exactly what I was doing on this day.  But I can't remember where it is....

February 29, 2000:

According to Wikipedia, not much happened on this day.  I like to think of it as the last year or so of our American innocence.  These were the days before 9/11, when I was still idealistic and hopeful about changing the world as an international human rights lawyer.  I was in my second year of law school at George Washington in D.C.  About 3 months after this I realized that $100,000 in student loans pretty much dictated working for a law firm for the foreseeable future.

(Whoa!  Did that sound cynical, or what?)

February 29, 1996:

On this day, a Peruvian 737 crashed into the Andes, killing 123 people.  The siege in Sarajevo was lifted.  Also, Joan Collins won $1.3 million in a breach of contract suit against Random House for a manuscript she wrote.  She obviously had a good agent as the contract required them to pay her even if the book was never published.  And it wasn't.  Interesting.  I wish I could see a copy of the contract.... (Sorry, I am a contract litigation geek.  I got a little sidetracked there.)

Let's see, in 1996 I was still working as a claims analyst in the hellish world of individual health insurance claims for an insurance company often associated with a certain famous wildlife show.  I loved that show as a kid, although I always wondered why Jim had to do all of the hard work.

Marlin Perkins: I'll stand here and watch, while Jim wrestles that alligator for us.
Jim: Damn you to hell, Marlin.

February 29, 1992:

The college years.  It's all pretty much a blur.

February 29, 1988:

The apartheid years.  On this day, South African archbishop Desmond Tutu was arrested along with 100 clergymen during a five-day anti-apartheid demonstration in Cape Town.

I, on the other hand, was involved in far more important things.  Like figuring out the social hierarchy of my new high school.  We had just moved from Germany to Bellevue, Nebraska.  It was certainly a cultural shock because I listened to way cooler music and had way cooler clothes.  I didn't understand why no one appreciated my red Coke bottle cap suspenders and blue Gatsby hat.  I spent a lot of time watching MTV, having been deprived of it for 2 years during my prime music obsession years.

February 29, 1984:

Here's one for my friends North of the border.  On this day, Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau announced he would retire as soon as the Liberals could elect another leader.

This was only tangentially relevant to me as I was living in Grand Forks, North Dakota, just a few hours South of Canada.  I was 11 and spent most of my free time at swim practice.  And ogling Jerry Hoffarth, a fellow swimmer and 13 year old boy who only knew I existed because of my kick ass breast stroke and my relentless stalking of him.  Of course, every time he tried to talk to me, I started giggling and ran away.  Boy, was I young.

Incidentally, I ran into Jerry at a wedding in Grand Forks when I was 21.  Amazingly I was able to have a normal conversation with him and we spent most of the night reminiscing, dancing and chatting.  For some reason he didn't actually remember me as all giggly and young but he was very aware of my crush on him.  So much for my 11 year old subtlety.

February 29, 1980:

On this day, apparently somebody in the NHL made his 800th goal.  But since I don't care about hockey, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.  I, on the other hand, was 7 years old and living in Louisiana.  I had a nice tan year round and a cute little Southern accent.  Which was soon to be relentlessly beaten out of me by the constant teasing from the kids in North Dakota.  Yes, I come from a white trash, redneck family.  But no one likes to be reminded of that when they're 9.

February 29, 1976:

Apparently nothing happened in 1976.  Just that whole bicentennial thing.  Oh, and I was about to get a baby brother in 5 days.  The days of the solo Stephanie show were about to end.  I also think this is about the time I landed on our coffee table chin first and had to get stitches. (I only remember because my mom still tells stories of having our neighbor take us to the emergency room and the doctors inquiring whether we were there for her - hugely pregnant - or me - bleeding everywhere.)

How did I mysteriously land on the coffee table?  The next door neighbor and I were playing Superman and jumping off of the couch in an attempt to fly.  It was his idea.  I swear.  Of course, I'm the one who still has the scar on my chin.

February 29, 1972:

I was a 5 week-ish old fetus.  My parents have never made a secret of the fact that I was an accident, so I like to imagine that they were just figuring out I was on the way.  I wonder if the words, "Oh, shit" were uttered!

Just Call Me Stephanie "the Stripper" Hussein

***Update*** Go check out all the links of the people playing "Just Call Me Hussein, The Meme." There are two cool buttons to choose from as well. You know you want one!

Have y'all heard about the latest Republican smear / xenophobic/ racist tactic?

Pundits such as Bill Cunningham and Ann Coulter have begun referring to Barack Obama as B. Hussein Obama or Barack Hussein Obama. Their purpose? To play on xenophobic fears about Muslims and terrorism. Personally, I think Obama should be proud of his name and his cultural background. So, the MOMocrats have decided to embrace this wholeheartedly and we'd like you to join us!

"Just Call Me Hussein Day was started by MOMocrats in response to fools like Bill Cunningham who is obviously still seven years old..."


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My name seems pretty innocuous, right? I can't say that anyone really made fun of my name when I was growing up. The worst fear I had was that someone would realize Fanny was a nickname for Stephanie and start calling me that. My dad and my grandmother occasionally call me Stephie, but only they can get away with that. I'll rip the head off of anyone else who tries it. Just call me Steph, please.

The problem is, it's sort of hard to take anyone named Stephanie seriously in a professional context. I have this theory that if you'd like your daughter to grow up to be a Dallas Cowboy's cheerleader or a stripper, give her a name that ends in Y, IE, or the Eeee sound. Try it out: Stephanie, Tiffany, Bambi, Debbie, Candie, Cindy, Mimi, etc.... They all work nicely, don't they?

So I can sympathize with the latest attempts to smear Barack Obama by making fun of his middle name, Hussein. But folks, this one is going to back fire. If Obama is anything like most Americans, he's damn proud of his name and his cultural heritage, no matter how much others may poke fun at him for it.

I may not have chosen Stephanie as my name, but it wasn't mine to choose. It was my parents. They choose it out of love and wonder at the new little girl they'd brought into the world. So, stripper name and all, Steph is who I am and who I'll always be.

In solidarity with Barack Obama, just call me Stephanie Hussein for today.

Ann Coulter can kiss my ass.

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Want to join the fun? Here's what you do:

Everyone should title their post with their name (or blog name) and Hussein. Then share a childhood story about your name...I'm sure most of us have one. Or, if you don't, be creative. Make fun of your name.

So for example: Title: Just Call Me Stephanie Hussein (Your Last Name) or Lawyer Hussein Mama

Include the following text at the top of your post: "Just Call Me Hussein Day was started by the MOMocrats in response to fools like Bill Cunningham who is obviously still seven years old..."

Please link to MOMocrats at http://MOMocrats.typepad.com.

Include instructions for Just Call Me Hussein Day at the bottom of your post if you'd like to pass it on. Share the love!

Please join the MOMocrats in blogging "Just Call Me Hussein" Day by sharing your story.

Whirlwind California Trip

We're back. I'm sure it will be a few days before I get back into the swing of things. We got in at 2am last night and I just got my bags a few hours ago. (I'll save that for a post after my blood pressure returns to normal.)

The trip to visit Defiant Muse and her Monkey was incredibly fun, exhausting, and amazing. Northern California feels like a good novel does to me. There's an eye catching cover, lots of drama and beautiful imagery, characters you love, and a story you never want to end. I could spend hours on the coast line just day dreaming or writing.

Yes, DM and I did do some rabble rousing. You can read about that over on DM's site because, frankly, I don't remember much. I have some faded impressions of dancing, lights, asking lots of inappropriate questions, and posing on a mattress. Oy. Let's just say it's a damn good thing the tattoo parlors in DM's town are closed at 1am. Otherwise, I'd have the cliche of all tattooed cliches on my ass.

But the best part of the trip was having a chance to connect with my cousin. DM and I haven't spent much time together as adults without a crowd of a thousand around. Our family is loud, obnoxious, drunk, and overwhelming. It's hard to have a serious conversation about anything around them.

On the surface, DM and I have always been very different. I followed the good girl path to adulthood. She followed the road less traveled and found herself through a more literal journey. Underneath, however, I think we've both known how similar we are. It's not just genetics that binds us, but politics, personality, a quest for beauty and truth, and a desperate need to make a difference in the world.

The eight years between us no longer mean much. Particularly since we've both come to realize that all people are more similar than different. In becoming a mother, and in sharing that experience, it becomes obvious. The human experience repeats itself over and over, generation after generation, passing down to us the best and worst of human nature. It makes it difficult to understand how human beings can treat each other so badly. (Now I'd better get myself back on track before I start ranting about war, murder, and all the other atrocities of the world.)

This was also the first chance I've had to meet Monkey. She's a gorgeous, obsidian eyed beauty, with a romantically flowing name, her father's hair, her mother's mouth, and her grandfather's ears. She made me work for her smiles, like any serious girl should, but those upturned lips, tiny dimple, and sparkling eyes were certainly worth the effort. Monkey is a perfect combination of darkness and light. Watching her over the last week, as her eyes followed my every move and she wobbled cautiously across the room, I saw my cousin as a baby once more.

DM and her Monkey will be coming to visit us this Summer and we can't wait. We can't offer a dramatic coastline, just a boring old flat beach, but we do have some kick ass crabs and there's always beer in the fridge. After looking at all the photos, Big H is incredibly excited to meet his new cousin and Little H keeps asking me where Monkey is.

It won't be long boys.

DM also has some pictures up on her site. I took waaaay too many pictures and DM took some with my camera too, so who in the heck knows when I'll even look at all of mine. I'm sure I'll be annoying you with California pictures for weeks. Be prepared.

I Can't Make This Stuff Up

Seen in Metairie, Louisiana on my trip to Mardi Gras earlier this month. I took the photo through my rental car window at a stop light.


"You Can't Beat Wagner's Meat"

Do Pictures Make the Heart Grow Fonder?

While I'm gone, here are a few shots of Hollis meeting the geese at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens. Luckily they didn't attack and scar him for life. Geese are mean....

Miss Me?

I'm off to Cali with Little H.

Miss me?

I'll miss you all.






Yeah, like that.

Eureka!

Oh friends of the internet, I'll be leaving you for 5 days again soon. I'm taking Holden to visit my cousins, Defiant Muse and her daughter Monkey, in Eureka, California from Thursday to Tuesday.

I've never flown more than half way across the country with Little H before and that didn't go so well. I'm bringing the trusty Benadryl, the portable DVD player, puzzles, two small aquadoodles, and a boat load of books that are two damn heavy for me to be carting through an airport. Hopefully we will survive without too many meltdowns.

Pray for me.

(You know I'm joking, right?)

While I procrastinate working on Julie's Hump Day Hmmm for the week and a post I should be writing for MOMocrats about health care, I thought I'd share some photos I just took.

Yesterday, I took Hollis to a park on the water near us in late afternoon, just before sunset. The lighting was perfect. The kid? Not so much. I only got a few photos of his face out of him by letting him cart my tripod around and take about 50 fuzzy shots of me all by himself. Using the tripod, of course.

We were out there for about 2 hours and I probably took 250 shots. In 75% of those, Hollis is intentionally running away, facing away, trying to "shoot" me with my tripod, or just fuzzy. (Operator error. I was shooting in manual with no autofocus. No auto anything, actually.) But I still have more to show you after this. Perhaps when I get back from California and have some more editing time....



Gazing into the distance.

He looks so serene, but he's actually just finished screaming pouting because I wouldn't let him climb on the rocks of death by the water.



Love the face here.



Yes, it's a big fish.

I took this one as an assignment for my photography class. We were supposed to take photos of a statue and make them "interesting." Trust me to mock the exercise. Hey, at least I didn't bring a fishing rod for Hollis. I thought about it.

Photo by Hollis.

Please excuse the hair. It was windy. Oh and I was feeling a bit off focus. (I crack myself up.)

Another photo by Hollis.

He also got a lovely shot of my hand on my butt while I was trying to get up and rescue my camera. I think it was actually in focus too. I deleted it. Can't have anyone running across that!


I took the camera away, but he kept pretending.




Future photographer? Or future Hollywood stunt man?

Hollis may have been uncooperative, but I got this when we were leaving....

The Electric Kool-Aid Effexor Trip

I've made no secret of the fact that I'm on anti-depressants. In fact, I probably tell too many people. Is it awkward when you meet someone at a cocktail party and you say, "Hi, I'm Stephanie. I'm on short term disability for depression and I'm taking Effexor. So nice to meet you. Oh, I think the bathroom is over there...."?

Oops. My bad.

So far the Effexor is working nicely. It's been gradual. It's not like I woke up overnight and started praying at the altar of the optimists and cheerful people, but I'm getting there. And the Effexor has been great. I've heard nightmares about side effects, so I was a bit worried going in. Especially since Lexapro, which is supposedly loved because almost no one experiences any side effects while taking it, did a number on me.

For the 5 or 6 months I was on Lexapro, I walked around like a zombie during the day. I felt drugged. Then I started having hair problems. My hair, oh people of the internets, is one of my best features. It's nice and wavy and a lovely dark blond color with honey highlights. Oh and it's really thick, but not coarse at all. My hair rocks.

When it started falling out I started freaking the F out. It may seem vain but there was no way in H E double hockey sticks that I was going to end up depressed and bald.

Not to mention, the Lexapro wasn't doing a whole lot for me anymore.

In came the Effexor.

Effexor is one of those anti-depressants that you can't just stop taking. You have to gradually build up to your therapeutic dose and then when you stop taking it, you have to step down gradually as well. A good friend of mine who recently weaned off of Effexor had to start and stop about 6 times. Her doctor finally had her doing something really complicated like cutting open the smallest pill dosage they make, mixing the powder in apple juice and drinking 3/4 of it, 1/2 of it, 1/4 of it, etc.... That finally worked. She tried to describe what it was like when she tried to stop taking it, but I, who had just fallen in love with Effexor, wasn't really listening.

Um, Tiff, what was it you were trying to tell me again?

Yesterday was a busy day. We got up, had breakfast, corralled two small people into clothing and jackets, loaded up the car and headed to the Norfolk Botanical Gardens to meet my friend Lauren and her son. The kids played for hours, and wore themselves out nicely. We headed home, did the lunch/nap thing and I blogged and edited photos. Somewhere in there I remembered to take my antibiotic and Flonase for the plague that I've had for a month now, otherwise known as the ear infection, sinus infection, bronchitis trifecta.

Last night I could not sleep at all. Finally at 1:30 am, T came downstairs, shut my laptop and asked me to come to bed. I flipped out on him. I had a little tantrum where I ranted about how he wasn't the boss of me and I just wasn't tired and I wasn't going to just sit in bed and stare at the ceiling. I threw myself down on the couch and pouted like a teenager for about 10 minutes. Then, when enough time had passed that I could pretend going to bed was my idea, I went upstairs.

That should have been my first clue.

Once in bed, I couldn't sleep for more than 30-40 minutes at a time and I had the most bizarre dreams ever. At about 4:30 in the morning, I realized that whenever I closed my eyes, I was seeing brightly colored lights. Not my dark eyelids, but a pattern of colored dots that swirled and turned into candy and spiders and giant polka dots and brightly colored lights and then multiplied on top of each other in undulating waves and then transformed again. Then it started happening while my eyes were open.

It was like watching a Fruitopia commercial on an endless loop in a 360 degree theater with my eyes propped open with toothpicks.*

Just when I was about to wake T and have him taking me to the emergency room for my psychiatric committal, or call the police to see who spiked my Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper, I remembered that I forgot to take my drugs.

Oops.

I woke T up, took my pill, and then tried to explain what was happening to T. He talked me down from my little trip and I was finally able to get a few hours of sleep. When I woke this morning it was better, but when things moved they had little motion trails behind them, like those pictures of you see of subway trains with trails of light behind them. (Don't worry, I didn't drive.) My synapses finally started firing normally at about 12 today.

That was quite a trip and you can be sure that I will not be forgetting my pills again.

I already have a pill box, and T mercilessly makes funny of me for it. But my mommy brain can no longer remember if I've taken my Metformin and my vitamins. Well, the box doesn't work if I never even get it out of the cabinet. In my ditzy defense, this is the first time I've ever completely forgotten my medications. In any event, I've come up with a new system that should be foolproof as long as I go to the bathroom every morning. I don't foresee this being a problem, since I have the world's smallest bladder.

Nonetheless, I think I'll be traveling with an extra bottle of Effexor in my purse from now on. I mean you never know when you're going to be caught in a massive snow storm while you're driving a half mile to the 7-11. I don't want to have to figure out if those mounds of brightly colored candy are real, or just plastic orbs from Holden's ball pit.

* Am I the only one whose cat was transfixed by those commercials?

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I have pictures up on Lawyer Mama Dabbles if you'd like to see something that isn't reminiscent of an acid trip.

Mortality

One of us is in trouble. The blogger behind Just Making It Up is a mother of two, Asher and Maya, and she's in the ICU in a medically induced coma. Apparently she has a perforated bowel, although I don't know any more details, and has a just better than 50/50 chance of surviving. I hope that's changed by now.

Mary from Them's My Sentiments cued me in on her blog and asked that we stop by Just Making It Up and leave supportive comments.

I know I don't even need to ask....

Barney Is The Devil

I hate Barney.

All that "I love you. You love me. We're a happy family..." crap makes me want to hurl something at the TV. I know kids love him but I was determined that we would not be Barney lovers in this house.

You'll be happy to know that if you prime and brainwash educate your children from birth, providing intellectually challenging activities and carefully selecting developmental programs, you can mold your children in any way you like.

For instance, if you tell your children from birth that "Barney is the devil," immediately change the channel if anything Barney or Barney-related comes on TV, and steadfastly forbid your children to wear the color purple, this will be the result:

"I heart Barney, Mommy."

Frack. Back to the drawing board.