Stop for Maya, part 2

I decided to dedicate another post to Maya. I feel like my yesterday's post was more about blogging safely and not about the fragility of our children and our need to be cautious with their health and welfare.

Maya's story came to me when I was particularly vulnerable.

My Dad told me her story when we were visiting family in Chicago this summer. First of all, every time we go back to Chicago, I long to move back. You can read about this annual/biannual phenomenon here.

If we were to ever move back, and my husband and I have talked about this ad nauseum, we'd move downtown---to Lincoln Park, Lakeview, or somewhere close-by. It was in Lincoln Park where Maya died.

Also, my Dad told me this story about Maya the night before he planned to take my children to the Lincoln Park Zoo without me. I was attending a baby shower for a cousin the next day and while I was gone, he thought he'd take the kids to the zoo. It was after a day at Lincoln Park Zoo that Maya died. In Lincoln Park. On her way back to her mommy's car from the zoo.

The story is horrible. Maya, her mother and brother, were crossing the street right by the zoo. A man in a Lexus sped through a stop sign and hit Maya and her family. Maya's mother and brother were big enough that they were thrown over the roof of the car. Maya was not so lucky. She was dragged underneath the car. The driver dragged her for about a block before he sped away.

Even though the hospital (the hospital where I was born incidentally) was only a few blocks away and she was brought there within minutes, Maya died anyway. Her injuries were severe.

Maya was four years old.

My Dad, of course, ever the dramatist, told the story well. Too well. He also made a minor mistake. He said that Maya was seven. My daughter O, the one he planned to take to the same zoo the next day, was seven.

Oh, the impact of this story!

Please visit her family's website. And think about her whenever you make a FULL and COMPLETE stop at a stop sign.

Stop For Maya

My two readers may have noticed that I have recently deleted my name, my children and husband's names, and our location from my blog. I did this because I am constantly in need of reminding myself to be more careful, more cautious. I have a tendency, as I hope most people do, to be trusting. To assume the world is a good and safe place and that the people in it want that too.

As we all know, this is not always the case.

This post will not be about blogging safely. Instead, it is about my need to continually remind myself to be more cautious. Especially when it comes to the safety of my children.

When we were in Chicago this summer, my Dad told me a horrible story about a colleague of his. This man's daughter got hit and killed by a hit and run driver who didn't stop for a stop sign. She died right in front of her mother and brother's eyes.


Her name was Maya. She was four years old. You can read about it here and here.

I pledge to myself, again, to be cautious with my children. To remember their fragility and to remember that my husband and I are their protectors.


Please remember to stop at all stop signs. Completely. Do it for your own children. Do it for all children.


Do it for Maya.

Select A Candidate

I went online and took this interesting quiz. You've probably seen ones like it before. You answer some questions about your positions on national issues and then they tell you which presidential candidate mostly closely shares your views.

Check it out----Select a Candidate

I was not surprised by my answer although there's no way in hell I'll vote for him.

Hmm. Wonder who I will vote for.....

Actually, I still haven't decided between her and him.....(I'm from Chicago after all)

Truthfully, my ideal ticket would include them both with Obama as the VP. Or maybe Hillary and this guy....

Hmm. I guess it's a good thing the primaries are still a few months away!

And just in case you happen to be in this category, please follow this link----

Okay, that's enough political activism for one day! (and enough links!)

Four Things

Jen M has tagged me for a Four Things meme. I'm new to this game so I'm not sure quite what this means. It seems I can blab endlessly about ANY four things I feel like.


How is this different than anything else I've blogged about?


Blogging means I get to subject you to whatever I feel like writing about---provided you're willing to read about it. Since I have only about 2 readers, I guess I can safely say that no one cares!!


Let's see. Four things.


Four Things I Think I Should Like But Don't (sorry, I've tried)--
(1) poetry (so sorry, I just can't do it)
(2) olives (ick! but I'm Italian! how can I hate olives?)
(3) gardening (I want it to look nice, but I don't want to do any of the work for it)
(4) knitting, sewing, quilting, any of those wonderful womanly arts (they require sitting still, yes?)


Four Things I Like But Probably Shouldn't---
(1) cursing
(2) drinking*
(3) driving fast*
(4) coffee

Four Jobs I'd Love But Will Probably Never Have---

(1) Philanthropist (I'd have to have money for this, right?)
(2) OB/Gyn (I'd have to go to medical school. What? I'm FORTY.)
(3) Mother to Four Children (read above, yep, FORTY.)
(4) Top level administrator or maybe senior researcher at the World Health Organization (would I have to move to Switzerland for that?)


Four Jobs I've Actually Had---
(1) Medical Anthropologist at a bioethics firm (sounds cool, doesn't it?)
(2) Researcher at Planned Parenthood (studied the impact of protester activity on patient care, again, sounds cool, doesn't it?)
(3) Waitress at Eden Alley, an unbelievably hip, mostly vegetarian restaurant in Kansas City. I hope that place is still in business. I could really go for the vodka marinara pasta right about now. Or those awesome black bean quesadillas. Mmm, dipped in sour cream. My absolute favorite restaurant without a wine list.
(4) Cleaning lady. Yes, really! I quit my lamo job at the Gap (where I made like $4.35/hr) to take this job. I think I made $10/hr and had weekends and evenings off. It was ideal. I loved it. Usually, the people were not home and I could crank the music, clean my head off, and then brag to my friends about the curious habits of "rich women." Ah, those were the days.

*I promise I have never done both of these at the same time!


Okay, so now I get to tag four people right? I tag Mary Alice, Sheri, Crystal, and Jenny.

Do It Yourself

I promised my husband that I would "re-do" his office as a birthday present. I ordered a new desk, bought lamps, a new desk chair, a couple of bookshelves, a comfy leather chair, and had planned to paint, hang his diplomas (finally), and actually decorate the room. Big plans.


A friend ageed to come over to help me paint while my hubby was at work. She later had to change her plans but said she could watch my kids for me while I painted.


My response? "Oh no, I wouldn't tackle something like that myself."


What?!?! I couldn't believe my own ears as the words were escaping my mouth. Had I gone soft? Didn't I just tell Mary Alice that military wives and medical wives were similar in our ability to "do it all?" Didn't I even say that I'd be pissed off if I came home and found my husband doing laundry? Didn't I say that if my husband said something like "we need to de-clutter" that I wouldn't even remotely find that sexy? rather, I'd be extremely irritated and feel like I wasn't effectively holding down the fort while he was gone?


I shocked myself that I had uttered those words. It's true that an extrovert, such as myself, finds strength in numbers, and that we literally find our energy in relationship to others, and that normally, all things being equal, I wouldn't tackle a project like that myself. I need another adult present so that I can muster the motivation to do it. But "single parenthood" has taught me a lot, and my self-reliance has been my strength, so I sucked it up and started painting the room myself.


It was boring for sure, but I did it anyway.


All by myself.


And dang it, it looks good!


And this morning, my girls greeted Daddy by saying we had a surprise for him. They even blindfolded him so that we could lead him to his "new" office. So that he could say, "Dang, this looks awesome! Thank you!"

Philanthropy Thursday

I gave blood today. I haven't donated blood in ages. I had a relatively recent bad experience that led me to avoid it for years. But today, I decided to suck it up and do it again. And even though I'm still a bit lightheaded from the experience, it felt good. According to the woman at the donation site, I am considered a universal donor since I have O negative blood type. Only 6% of the population can claim this.

I went home and googled it and of course, what she told me is not entirely true. O negatives used to be considered universal donors (we can donate to Os, As, Bs, and ABs, both positive and negative) but now there are more sophisticated methods of matching blood types so that a donor's and recipient's blood can be more closely matched for compatibility. But my husband says that if a trauma patient comes into the ER, they automatically give him O negative blood since there's really not time to "type" him.

So, it's still mostly true and it doesn't matter much to me anyway. It just felt good to finally donate again.

I've donated blood many times in my life. Most of the time, it has gone just fine. But I have had a few bad experiences with blood donation. One time, I fainted. I literally stood up, attempted to approach the cookies and juice table, swooned, and fell on my doofa. Not pretty. Another time, after waiting in line forever, I was turned away because I was under 110 pounds (I wish I had that problem now!). And the last time I tried before today, I was turned away because within whatever time frame I had lived in Europe and could have possibly been exposed to mad cow disease.

It was that last time that did me in for the next five years. This was in 2002 and they turned me away because I had lived in Europe in the 80's---yes, the 1980's.

Here's the story. J was a small baby, maybe 5 or 6 months old and still nursing furiously. O would have been just about 2. We lived in Tucson at the time where it was always extremely hot and we were new to the area and still adjusting to the heat. Also, and this makes for a much better story, I had a navy blue car with no air conditioning (it's true, I swear) and anyone who's ever been to Phoenix or Tucson knows a dark colored car, especially one with no a/c, is not a good idea.


Anyway, I was listening to the radio and heard that all of southern Arizona was suffering a horrible blood shortage. They also said that the most important donors were those with O negative blood type, and since I knew I had O negative blood, I decided I ought to do my civic duty and go out and donate.


So I loaded up the kids and headed out. Back then, loading up the kids was no easy task for me. Yeah, yeah, I was more overwhelmed with motherhood than some, I'm sure, but still. I don't remember every detail of the story---it wasn't that traumatizing. But I'm sure it went something like this---

I looked up the location of the nearest blood donation center in the phone book. Then I dressed both girls, changed both of their diapers (yes, two in diapers at the same time), and nursed J. And then probably changed J's diaper again, because that's just the way it works, right?


Then I went out into the scorching heat and loaded the double jogger into the back of my car. I squirted down both car seats with a water bottle, carried the kids into the car, and buckled them in. We drove about 20 minutes, without air conditioning, to the nearest blood donation site, located at the mall. I parked, covered my windshield with a sun reflector, unloaded the double stroller, loaded each child into the stroller, and then covered their car seats with white towels that I always kept in the car. Then I pushed them to the site only to find that they were located on the 2nd floor and there were only stairs available where we stood. I hiked through the mall to find an elevator, took it up, and walked back to the donation site. Then I waited in line. And my kids? Well, J probably nursed again, I'm sure, and I probably spent a lot of energy trying to keep O from contaminating all of the colorful, plastic, sterile, blood-collecting supplies.

When it was finally my turn, a woman asked me a million questions while my children waited patiently (ha ha) in their stroller. When we got to the question about my time in Europe, she said I had been "deferred"---meaning, you may not give blood today. Deflated and upset, I pushed the stroller back to the elevator and then out to my car. I took each of the two kids out of the stroller, removed the white towels, spritzed their car seats with water, and buckled them in. I folded the stroller and loaded it into my car. Then drove the 20 minutes back to my house, in the heat with no a/c, and unloaded the kids (one of whom was now screaming to nurse again) and stroller from the car. We went back into the house having not accomplished a damn thing.


Not a damn thing. Sigh. The story of my life as a stay-at-home mom to two small children.


So that's why it took me about 5 years to get up the nerve to try again. And today, I accomplished something. A small thing, yes, but something.

84 Days

It was just a typical day today. I got the girls up for school, we scooted out of the door with just a few minutes to spare, and I had everything in the car that we needed---kids' lunches and backpacks, rain jackets, my gym bag and yoga mat. Just a normal day.

After I drop off the kids, I head to the gym. Just like I always do. I walk up to the door just like any other day and scan my pass in front of the little scanner. The young, buff woman behind the counter looks up at me, looks back at the computer screen, and then back at me and says, "84 days."

"What's that?" I ask.

"It's been 84 days since you were last at the gym."

EIGHTY-FOUR DAYS?

Sigh.

I guess that's right. It's been about 84 days. I mean, approximately, if you want to be precise and all. I knew it had been awhile. Actually, I admit I didn't really go over the summer and it's been hard to get back into the groove since school has started again. But eighty-four days?

84 days. It sounds so much worse when you say it like that. Why'd she have to go and say it like that?

Oh well. Guess I'll be getting my butt to the gym again tomorrow. That way, maybe that ridiculously buff woman will say to me, "You were just here yesterday."