wink     ; )

Motivated by Spiderman

I'm home again. Been so for a few days now but I've been working on a revision of my thesis. I haven't worked on it in months and was thinking that I wouldn't get to it this summer either because I was being too lazy (and there is this internet thing that sucks up gobs of my time).

But then I saw Spiderman. And while I normally hate the idea of responsibilty, Spiderman manages to package it in a way that is downright appealing to me. Great Power. Great Responsibility. Use it for the good of humanity.

I can't save people's lives. I don't have that kind of power. But I can write my thesis. I'm the only one I know who can. And my thesis needs to be written because I think that I've got ideas in there that the world needs to hear. Important ideas. Paradigm changing ideas.

So I've spent the week reading, writing and revising because Spiderman lit a fire under my butt. Go figure.

Vacation

We're off to CA for a few days. Posting may be light as internet access is iffy at my in-law's place.

Heartbreaking

Here is the most heartbreaking post I've read in a good long time, if not ever. A choice quote that makes me cry (if only because I'd felt the same way during our struggle to have a child)

"I'm sorry," I whispered back to him.

"What for?" he asked, confused.

"It's bad news," I answered. "It's bad news. I'm sorry. I lost the baby. I'm sorry. I know there was a heartbeat, but the baby is dead. I'm so sorry. It's bad news. If I wished anything for you, it's that you were married to someone other than me.

I really need to go and finish my infertility series. It's just that it is so hard to write and I hardly have the skills as a writer to do justice to what happened.

Busy Week

It's been a busy week for Spark since his birthday. Let's see...Spark has:

• Learned how to say "up", "apple", and "no". That last one scares me, but we didn't react to it and he hasn't said it again since, so maybe we are OK for a little while yet.
• Attempted to butter us up in order to get his way. He wanted some food off of Tree's plate. After being made aware that he was not going to get any of that food, he proceeded to kiss Tree's leg (an activity which he knows we find adorable), and then asked for more food again. When he still didn't get his way, he tried kissing her leg yet again. The kid is only one and he has already figured out the basic mechanics of how to manipulate people. Now all he has to do is learn how to not be quite so transparent about it.
• Graduated to full on walking. A month ago, Spark could only take about 6 or 8 steps before falling over. Two weeks ago, he could walk as far as he wanted, but he would only walk from Tree to me or vice-versa. But right after his birthday, he just started wandering all over the house. We now have a fully mobile unguided missile loose in our house.

In other Spark related news, we have been using the phrase "Uh-Oh" as our signal to Spark that he is in trouble as we don't use that phrase very often in any other context. Unfortunately, other people use that phrase all the time. And whenever they say it, Spark gets this terrified look on his face of "what did I do??" and then starts crying. I'm not entirely sure what to do about this.

On a lighter note, we've taught Spark to slap his hand to his forhead when we say "D'oh!"

Happy Birthday Spark

Thank you God for our son Spark who was born a year ago today.
Thank you for his birth parents who gave him life.
Thank you for his forster parents who took care of him while we were waiting.
Thank you for all the friends and family who came to celebrate his birth with us today.
Thank you for a beautiful day.

I Hate...

I hate how my clusters make me feel old--how I end up lying in bed with an oxygen mask on while my son holds my hand and looks at me with concern.

I hate how my clusters make me feel like a bad father--how I am forced to ignore my son's crying because I need to inhale ten more minutes of oxygen--how I sometimes wish that he would just leave me alone so that I can deal with my pain in peace.

I hate how my clusters make me feel like a junkie--how desperate I get for my drugs, how I am restless and nervous if I don't have any drugs on me. When a bad cluster hits, I have a ritual: I take my statdose pen and disassemble it and lay all of the pieces out in front of me. I prep an area on my arm. I bring the needle up to my skin. There is a moment of hesitation, anticipation. In that moment, there is nothing more important than that needle, nothing I care about more than getting its contents into my bloodstream. Then the needle slides under my skin. It doesn't hurt at all. I push the drug unto my system and wait. And wait. And wait until that blessed moment when it starts to kick in and all of my troubles melt away.

Resuming Aikido

I went to Aikido for the first time since Spark came home. Boy did that feel good. Though I couldn't remember how to do anything when I was at home, my muscle memory kicked in and everything was fine on the mat. Turns out that what I missed the most was the warm up at the beginning. It provides this wonderful feeling of having stretched every muscle in your body and makes you feel like you are prepared to do anything.

I had been hesitant about going back. I always don't feel like going to Aikido. I'm always glad that I did once I've gone.

I'm really glad that I went.

Good and Bad

I haven't been blogging because I've been having tons of clusters. As a result, the only thing I think about are clusters, and thus the only thing I have to write about are clusters. And I'm damn tired of writing about clusters.

But here I am writing about clusters anyways.

I'm getting my butt kicked by these clusters. I'm getting 3 or 4 a day. If I don't treat them, they last all day. But I just don't have all that many meds. This morning I was just despondent. By 10 AM, I had had 3 clusters and I could not summon the will to get out of bed. How could I face the rest of the day feeling like this??? How could I face another endless day of pain?

But eventually I did get out of bed--the lure? watching Spark take his first swimming lesson. Fun for the whole family!

Also, we took Spark in to Yuen Lui to get his picture taken. My goodness is he photogenic! (And my goodness are those photos expensive!)