In Defense of My Daughter's Birthmother

It's been quite some time since I've posted here, but I've recently had some experiences that have really pissed me off and I need a place to vent.  So anyone who might still be checking in on this blog periodically is in for a treat? Or at least a surprise.

Earlier this year, my daughter's birthmother called me.  She was involved in a serious car accident, and had been transported to the hospital, where it was determined she was pregnant.  We talked a bit about how surprised she was to get the news and how her mom really wanted her to keep the baby but she was scared and not sure what to do.  I told her she had plenty of time to figure out what she wanted and that she didn't need to feel pressure for anyone--she should do exactly what was right for her and for her baby.  A month or two later, we talked again by Facebook and she told me she had decided to keep the baby.  I was totally thrilled for her.  Her baby, her first son, was born yesterday.  From his pictures, he is the cutest, sweetest little newborn--as they all are--and I am just thrilled for her, and for her whole family.

But there is a sadness too.  Not because I wanted to adopt her baby.  I assuredly did not--although I love babies, the years between 2 and 5 are not kind and I never want to go through them again.  I am a happy member of the "One and Done" Club.  I was sad because when I chose some people to share my excitement with at the fact that Leah was going to have a half brother, the reaction I got was either, "Oh, really?  How many does this make?" or "Hasn't she figured out where they come from yet?"

For the record, and I suppose not that this is anyone's business, this is Leah's birthmother's 3rd child in 7 years.  She kept custody of her daughter, who is now 7 and will be 8 in January, my late husband and I adopted Leah who is 5 and will be 6 in April, and now she has a new baby.  She suffered a miscarriage 4 years ago.  Comparatively, in 4 years, my sister had 3 children, two only 15 months apart.  I know at least 2 other women who have had 3 or more children in less than 5 years.  But somehow, my daughter's adoption seems to give people the feeling that they are entitled to suggest that her birthmother is a bad parent, lacks birth control, sleeps around, makes bad decisions, and gets pregnant a lot.  The fact that my daughter's birthmother is poor, African-American, and lives in a dangerous city apparently also gives people the right to judge.

This, to me, points to a fundamental misunderstanding of birthparents.  Birthparents are almost always trying to make a good decision come out of a mistake, accident, tragedy, or some other misfortune.  They are making the choice to give up their child because they genuinely believe that some other person out there, typically a stranger, will be better equipped to provide the life they want their child to have.  They do so knowing they might never see their child again, they will miss their child's milestones, and that there will always be a gaping hole in their heart that can never be filled, arms that will feel empty and useless, and often feelings of guilt over being unable to care for a child they might otherwise desperately want, as well as shame at being unable to do so and how they might be treated by friends and family members, and regret over a decision they cannot take back once it is legally processed.

The decision to place a child for adoption is one which requires maturity and is deeply and intensely responsible.  I once said to Leah's birthmother something about not wanting this child, and she quietly said, "I want her, but I know I can't take care of her."

I feel incredibly fortunate that we have an open adoption with Leah's birthmother.  When Leah has had questions in the past, all I have to do is pick up the phone and ask if we can come visit, and before you know it, we are in Baltimore, hugging, doing hair, enjoying a meal, playing with our half sister.  Leah's birth grandmother is there, sometimes her aunt, pictures and tears are flying, laughter fills the air, and we all rejoice in the special bond that we have created as an extended family.  Does this sound irresponsible, unloving, uncaring? 

I wanted to be a mother in the worst possible way, and this woman found the strength in her heart to put a child, her child, in my arms and walk away.  Her brave actions have given me nearly 6 years of the best years of my life.  And this woman has never asked for anything in return--has never asked us to come visit, never asked for pictures, has always gratefully and humbly accepted whatever I was able to provide.  I rejoice with her in the birth of her son, in the fact that she is back on her feet and able to care for her baby and her older daughter, that it was never a question of being able to care for this infant, and that it has never been an issue of wondering whether she loved or cared about Leah either.  I have never, ever, ever had a doubt in my mind that her decision to place Leah for adoption was one of intense love and responsibility.  And she loves me too.  She cares for me too.  When my husband died, she was one of the first people to call and cry with me and talk with me about our memories together.  She knows what it's like to be a single mom and gives me encouragement and advice not from an academic or philosophical viewpoint, but from the vantage of someone who has been there and done it for years.

So the next time you are quick to judge a birthparent for their decision to have more children after giving up one child for adoption, or to be sexually active, or make their own reproductive health choices, remember that they have already shown themselves to be entirely responsible and loving individuals who will do whatever it takes to give their children the best possible life.  Birthparents are allowed to move forward with their lives, to have other children, to be happy, to regain love and joy and family.

And if you have negative opinions about my daughter's birthmother, kindly keep them to yourself.  I think she's wonderful and will defend her to the end.  If you can't be kind, be quiet. 

Lots of Happenings!

I start every blog post with "It's been a while", but indeed, it has again been a while.  Life has been CRAZY.  So here's the latest:

1.  Leah starts kindergarten tomorrow.  I'd like to say more about that, but my heart is absolutely breaking into a million little pieces and I can't stop crying about it.  I'm trying to toughen up a bit, but this is going to take some getting used to, to say the least.

2.  I had my gastric sleeve done on August 12.  So far, I've lost 41 pounds.  I'm so proud of that fact, I can't even tell you.  I'm not going to blog about it.  There are plenty of blogs out there that do that.  I don't want to be an educator or an inspirer--if you want to do it, do it.  It is much, much harder than I ever thought it would be, and after it was done, I had a serious bout of buyer's remorse and depression.  But seeing my progress, I do have to say I'm proud of what I've done and I'm glad to keep seeing the numbers go down.  No regrets.  And I haven't had any complications to speak of, which is awesome.  The hardest part is sticking to a firm schedule.  I finally set up 15 separate alarms on my phone so I know when to do what.

3.  We are hosting an exchange student from Belgium!  Her name is Ine.  We are hosting her through AFS USA, my 8th hosting experience with them.  She arrives in the US on September 8th and I think we should be able to pick her up on September10th.  I am flying to London 24 hours later, so I will get to know her when I get back, but she's cool about it.  AFS gets its jollies when host families blog about their exchange experiences, so I'm setting up a blog at ourbelgianstudent.blogspot.com if you want to follow our experience.  Our blog about hosting Penny was a big hit, so I'm hoping that this one will be helpful too.  As a host mom, I love reading blogs from other people who have hosted students from the same country.  It's helpful in so many ways.

4.  I'm back to school as well.  I'm probably already messing up the semester--we started last week and I've had time to check in exactly once.  But hey!  Leah starts school tomorrow (sniffle) and then I can get cracking.  It's going to be a challenging and interesting semester, I can already tell.

5.  I'm going to London.  Next week.  I'm glad I was talked into it.  Even though it's not the greatest time ever for me to go, I'm excited.  Because.  England.  And even though it's 2 months late, I'll be done with my 2 year bucket list.

6.  Our garbage disposal died.  I was glad my father was here to help negotiate the price.  Plumbers are crooks.  I'm sure there are good ones, but the ones we were dealing with were crazy.  So we went to Lowe's and for 1/4 the price, I'm getting a new disposal installed either tomorrow or Wednesday.

7.  Lesley came to visit and we went to Delaware to see the Downton Abbey costume display.  It was incredible.  I hope to go back before it closes.

So I guess that's all the news that's fit to print.  Happy back to school time for everyone and we will see you on my next post!

An Evening with JT (And KW!)

Several months ago, I received an email from my friend Kyle which read, "Justin Timberlake is coming to Baltimore July 14th and we're going.  Have a nice day."  So I thought, "Well, I guess that's that then." I emailed back to say, "Ok, but I don't know anything about his music" and in short order, three CD's arrived in my mailbox. 

Here's what I know about Justin Timberlake:

1.  He used to date Britney Spears.  For some reason I remember her doing an interview and the interviewer asking her if she and Justin had split and her response was, "No, me and Justin did not split up." And I was thinking, "It's 'Justin and I', you idiot."

2.  He's married to Jessica Biel.  Their wedding looked so beautiful that I had to buy the People magazine of their wedding pictures just to look at them.  And I thought, "Oh, someday I must wear a pink wedding dress."  Yeah, she looked amazing.  And he just looked so crazy happy.  It made me happy to look at them.

3.  Nipplegate.

4.  NSYNC.

So, there you have it.  But one of my favorite things about being friends with Kyle is that he always gets me to try new things that I would never have done on my own (including, much to my Virginia friends' chagrin, shots of alcohol), so I figured this would be a fun experience if nothing else.

So the 14th arrived, bright, cheery, and hot.  Amtrak was cooperative, so Kyle and I found each other, got lost getting out of DC, and then spent the afternoon wrapped up in Marky Mark kicking some sort of robot butt (maybe) in Transformers 4, which we had gotten to see being filmed in Chicago last fall.  Then we headed north to Baltimore for the fun.

After procuring good parking, we headed to the arena and happily there was a souvenir stand and I got a concert program.  Kyle had gotten us floor seats, and as we made our way down, there was another stand and he got a JT bow tie.  In hindsight, I regret not getting one myself for my hair.  Next time...We found our seats, no problem, took a fun picture and waited for the fun to begin.

I have to be honest, I did not have high hopes for this concert.  I just thought I'd go along with it and then that would be the end of it.  I had listened to some JT tunes, and that was all well and good, but I really just thought, "Well, really, who cares?"  (Kyle knew this, so if he reads this, it'll be no surprise.)

We talked to the ladies behind us who had flown up from Orlando and Atlanta to be here, one of whom was married to Sister Hazel, which makes us now 1 degree removed from Sister Hazel if you're into that sort of thing.  The Cult of JT is different than the Cult of BNL of which I am now more firmly a part, but it was fun.  There was a DJ, Freestyle Steve, spinning records, driving everyone crazy with some contest and keeping things moving till JT started, nearly 30 minutes late I might add, but what can you do, he's a total rock star.

The first half of the show was great.  It sort of sucks to be at a concert and not be able to sing along.  But that was my own fault.  And frankly, there was enough to see and look at that it didn't really matter.  JT has kept up with the choreography from his boy band days.  And if there is something I love to see, it is a cool-dancing man.  I loved that part of the show. 

 I sang along with what I knew, danced a bit, enjoyed watching Kyle, who was completely in his element, and it's entirely possible I got carried away and screamed, "I love you, Justin!" without any conscious thought as to what I was doing.  But let's face it, there wasn't a woman in the place who didn't scream it at least once.

There was a short intermission so that everyone could catch their breath, and then back at it.  I was ready for the real excitement of the second half... First of all: Lasers.  Second of all: Giant Floating Stage.

Yes, part of the stage detaches and moves towards the back, so Justin floated over our heads like the musical angel he is, and moved to an area behind us where the VIPs were rocking it out.  Then it got real.  He did covers of both Michael Jackson AND Elvis Presley.  Amazing. 

Then he floated back over our heads to finish up, including an encore. I had to sit for only one song--my knee was in misery, leftovers from the recent car accident--but for the most part I was on my feet dancing and screaming.  It felt just as good as a New Kids on the Block concert.

The place was wild.  I couldn't hear normally again till sometime the next day.  I am looking forward to going again and having another 20/20 experience, hopefully in December sometime.  Details are being decided. 

Since coming home, I've been listening to a JT play list.  "Cry Me a River" and "Mirrors" are my top 2 songs, but JT is pretty listenable no matter what song you've got on.  It was an amazing night.  You should go!!

Being Other

"But, Mama!  Why did Jesus get to come back and Daddy doesn't?  That's not fair!"

This has been an ongoing discussion in our household for just about 2 months now.  One of the perils of sending my daughter to a religious pre-school is that I'm forced to sometimes navigate the tricky waters between her emerging faith and my established religious beliefs.  I knew that in sending her to pre-school, my options in this area were religious or nothing.

I have recently, officially made peace with the fact that I am religiously 'other'.  Here in Virginia, most everyone is something.  Most of my friends are Baptists or Methodists or lapsed this or that.  For years I have been a lapsed Catholic and then became part of the "SBNR" crowd--spiritual, but not religious.  I knew I believed in something, but I was hard-pressed to decide what that something was. 

Still, when my husband died, everyone rushed at me with invitations to church from all different directions, genuinely with the best intentions of their hearts aimed at helping me find solace and comfort.  And being that I was widowed at the age of 36, it began to feel extremely isolating.  I suddenly wasn't "couples friends" any more, yet I had a child which made me have to be more responsible than my freewheeling friends in their 20's and 30's who hadn't yet married and/or had children.  I felt 50 years ahead of my time.  And I knew I needed a sense of community.  A place to belong, a place where I could figure out who I was and what I did believe.

When we lived in Massachusetts, Mike and I found and attended the Unitarian Universalist church in Watertown, MA.  I liked it there very much, but when we moved out to the suburbs of Acton, it was impossible to continue attending.  We moved to Fredericksburg and tried attending Mass again at the local Catholic churches, but they were huge and felt impersonal. 

One night at dinner, I told Mike I had found the UU church here in Fredericksburg and asked if he'd like to go.  And then Mike dropped a bombshell on me.  "To tell you the truth, I think I'm an atheist.  When you die, I'm pretty sure that's it."

It was shocking.  I was OK with that belief, but I had never thought he wasn't a person of faith.  So I dropped the matter.  But nine months after his death, I felt a very strong urge to get out and find somewhere to go, so I looked up the UU service again, and I was pleased to find out that they had moved into our neighborhood.  So one Sunday, I took Leah, dropped her off in the nursery, and sat in the sanctuary for an hour.  One year later and 3 months later, just recently, I was introduced with 7 other people as an official member of the church.

Being a UU is now a central pillar of my life.  I volunteer with the choir, community action, and the religious education committee and once a month I go out to dinner with the women's group.  Even when I think, "Oh, that's not really my thing", I still go to church events and I always have a wonderful time.  I feel like here, in Virginia, amongst people who are religiously devout, I have found a little bastion of religious freedom.

One of the central tenets of the UU is a free and responsible search for the truth.  The UUFF (Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Fredericksburg)'s website states, "We offer an open-minded and supportive environment for those seeking philosophical, spiritual, intellectual and religious exploration."  I have taken the time to seriously devote myself to that sort of study in the past year.

I am excited to raise Leah in this environment.  It is one in which it is ok, expected even, to ask questions.  And it is ok to choose your own belief system.  I very much doubt you will find 2 people in a UU service who believe exactly the same thing.  

I lived for years with Catholic Guilt.  No sense that I was worth anything, that I was born a sinner, I would die a sinner, there was nothing for it but purgatory if I was lucky and hell if I wasn't.  I thought and re-thought and decided and revised my decisions over and over and over again, never trusting myself to make good choices that would be approved of by God.  I prayed for things and never took credit when my own work resulted in something working out, and accepted that it wasn't God's will if my prayers went unanswered.  

But until July 12, 2012, I truly believed that if I needed a miracle badly enough, God would provide it.  When Mike collapsed, I prayed as hard and as earnestly as I had prayed in my entire life.  I offered my own life in exchange for Mike's.  I prayed for the doctors.  I prayed for the paramedics,  I prayed for Mike, I prayed for the family.  And he died anyway.  And not only did he die, but he died in such a fashion that a loving, innocent 3 year old had to witness it.  And I had to live with the guilt and shame of not being able to save his life.  And his good, bright, big, bold light was extinguished for no good reason.  

And it was then I realized that the God I had always believed in did not exist.  Had never existed.  

So now I am embarking on my own search for truth.  The term "Unitarian Universalism" indicates two things I do strongly believe in:  Unitarianism being that there is only one deity/force in the universe, none of this Father, Son, Holy Ghost trinity business; and Universalism, the belief that every person will be saved.  How and why, I don't know.  It's not my business.  I'm leaving it to God.  "What about Hitler?  What about child molesters?"  I do not know.  It's not my business.  I'm leaving it to God.

As I have learned more about God (haven't completely radicalized and starting referring to that force that controls the universe as Goddess), I learned other labels and recently came to the conclusion that I am a deist.  A nice little definition I found online is "A deist believes there is a God who created all things, but does not believe in His superintendence and government. He thinks the Creator implanted in all things certain immutable laws, called the Laws of Nature, which act per se, as a watch acts without the supervision of its maker. Like the theist, he does not believe in the doctrine of the Trinity, nor in a divine revelation."

(Read more: Theist, Deist, Atheist, Agnostic | Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/dictionary/brewers/theist-deist-atheist-agnostic.html#ixzz36ShPbSpQ)

In short, I don't believe God answers our prayers.  I believe he is very hands off and impersonal, if he exists at all as a 'person'.  I'm still trying to figure out what exactly God is.  But the idea of an old white dude on a throne with flowing robes and a long beard no longer jives in accordance with my beliefs.

So Leah spent 2 years in an Episcopal pre-school, as I believed it was the best early education she could get.  And I have no regrets about sending her.  She also went to Vacation Bible School for two years, but that came to a quick end after last year when she came home telling me things like, "I have Jesus in my heart" without actually being able to tell me what that meant to her.  To me, that smacked of indoctrination--being able to repeat something without understanding WHY or what it even meant, so we don't do VBS any more.  

But I want her to feel she can ask hard questions and get answers that make sense.  So she got on a kick about Jesus coming back from the dead.  And she was sure if she just wished hard enough that Daddy would come back from the dead too.  And I was torn between not wanting to quash what could be seeds of her own belief in something with what I feel to be true for myself.  So I tried explaining it to her that when Jesus came back from the dead, he only came back as a ghost, not as an alive person, and he didn't get to stay, he still had to go back to Heaven with everyone else who died.  And no one has seen him in 2000 years.  

And she asked, "You mean like the ghosts in Scooby Doo?"  And I said, "Yes, only a real ghost, not a person hiding in a mask."  And for a while, that worked out OK.  But just today, she asked again, "When is Daddy coming back from the dead?  Jesus got to, and that's just not fair."

And so, in the parking lot of our local Wawa, I looked my 5 year old in the eye and said, "Leah, the story about Jesus is just a story people tell themselves to feel better about the fact he died.  It's just a story."  And in so doing, not only did I tell her what I believed, I told myself.

She asked me what I meant that it was a story, and I said, "Do you know how you feel so sad that Daddy died?  Wouldn't it be fun to think of a story in which Daddy came back to life for a day and got to do fun things with you, even if he had to go away again?" and she said it would.  I said, "It's the same with Jesus.  Everyone was so sad that Jesus died, they made up a story about how he came back to life and they got to spend some more time with him.  But it's just a story.  And if the story makes you feel angry or sad about Daddy being gone, then you don't have to believe in that story any more."

I know that in the future, she will run into people who have a very, very strong faith in Christianity.  Frankly, this blog post scares me a lot because so many of my friends are so faithful and devout and I worry that I have offended them or they will dismiss me because of this.  And somewhere down the road, Leah herself may decide that she believes in Jesus, in the Trinity, and in a more traditional set of religious beliefs and values that I do not share, and I will choose to be OK with that.  My own religious journey caused considerable concern and heartache in my family, and I don't want to feel that way about Leah's journey, whatever it may be, provided she doesn't join a cult of some sort.  :) 

I am going to raise her to seek out information about these kinds of questions, to make her own decisions, and to believe what her conscience dictates.  I struggle with my UU faith.  It makes me want to be a much better person than I am.  Not because of some lightning bolt hurling deity in the sky but because it shows me that the people around me deserve love and compassion and that every single day we have together is a gift.  I struggle with being non-judgmental, jealous, and with holding grudges in particular, but I know now those aren't cosmic failings that will condemn me to an eternity of torment but very real human emotions that I can work on so I don't feel separated from or superior to other people.  

I recently had to make a decision for myself and my daughter that ordinarily would cause me to do something I didn't have my heart in because I would feel bad because I would let God down by not keeping my promises.  And then I realized "Hey, no longer do you believe that God operates that way".  I was able to make a decision based on my own well-being and that of my daughter without fear of divine retribution.  That felt so amazing after years of a burden of guilt and fear.  I don't worry any more about what God wants out of me and my life, because I don't believe that he cares about anything in this world beyond the creation of the universe.  The day to day struggles of humanity are things we cause to happen to ourselves, and we can resolve and fix.  My recent car accident was just such an example.  My family was kept safe because of the development of engineering in cars over the years to where safety doesn't have to be as much of a concern because cars are so much safer than they used to be.  We were protected by my car.  God wasn't going to call the insurance agency and deal with the paperwork and the rest of it, I did all of that, and I didn't need divine help to get it done.  I was able to make phone calls, put things to rights, heal my wounds with the help of doctors, get myself together mentally with the help of a counselor, and get back on the road.  

 

I can own my success instead of chocking it up to a being in the sky.  I can accept responsibility for my failures, I can strive to do better.  Not because of divine mandate, not out of fear of not getting to play a harp and sit on a cloud forever, but because that is the human condition.  

I am so grateful to the UUA and the UUFF and all I have learned from the beautiful people with whom I've associated in the past year and a half.  It has been a time of tremendous growth and change in my life, in what I'm sure would otherwise have been a very dark and difficult time.  People have made the difference.  Liberal religion has made the difference.  And for that, i am truly grateful.

Soap

This normal looking package of soap has had me in tears all morning... It is one of the last things I bought my husband before he died, and the first of his bathroom items I'm actively going to get rid of.  He told me just before he died that he needed soap and obviously the package was so fresh, he hadn't had time to even open it yet. 

Unlike many widows, when he died I didn't keep his stuff around.  I packed up the things that I really wanted--shirts he had worn that hadn't been washed so I could retain his scent, his cane, his wallet and keys, his hearing aids and wedding ring.  I gave his family the things they wanted, and then I sat with everything for a while.  After 6 months, I cleared everything out.  His office furniture, the clean clothes from his dresser and closet, his shoes.  I kept his coats, a few articles of clothing I could wear, and everything else went.  Except his bathroom stuff. 

The other day, we were in the bathroom cleaning, and Leah opened Mike's drawer.  His razor, deodorant, a box of Q Tips, and a few other odds and ends remained.  I had already packed up and put away the shaver I used to cut his hair, his cologne, and toothbrush.  But these other things had just been sitting in the drawer, and the soap was under the sink.  Leah found it all, looked me square in the eye and said, "Mama, it's time." 

But I can't.  I tried, and I have tried to.  But I just sat on the floor and cried.  So we put everything in the bottom drawer, and left it.  It all feels too personal, too close to home to discard or to give away.  His razor touched his skin, there are bits of hair clinging to it.  I just can't.

But the soap, although it was his, it's just wasteful.  I gave a couple of bottles of electric pre-shave that had never been opened to friends, but no one wanted soap.  I guess no one really uses soap any more, preferring bubbly, soft body wash. 

Last week, I had lunch with friends of Mike's.  Their son, Justin, died less than a year before Mike died.  He was in his 20's and died of carbon monoxide poisoning.  It was devastating and at the time, Mike was so upset and we never thought such a thing happened to people we knew.  And then it happened to us.  To me.  These lovely people have turned some of their grief into a mission at their church to help in Haiti, and went to Haiti last year.  They are going again this year and I asked for a list of supplies of things they needed to take with them.  Soap was on the list.

So Mike's soap is going to Haiti.  I was fairly sure that there was a bar missing from the package, so I was happy to see that the whole thing is in tact.  I'm happy it's going to a place where people so desperately need it.  I'm glad it's being taken by Mike's friends.  I know it's ridiculous to cry over soap.  I don't want to read too much into it, about how this unopened package of soap shows how life just ends and we leave stuff behind, unopened and unused.  It's easy to ascribe meaning to everything, every little tiny thing.  At the end of the day, it's a package of soap, it's not Mike. 

So why can't I stop crying?

Big Update

It has been a LOOOOOOOOOOONG time since I updated my blog, and given that I intended to write a few times each week, the fact that I haven't blogged in well over a month is inexcusable.  I have travel logs to post about our Disney Cruise and Easter in Chicago, we've started Geocaching again, which I could write about, I have lots of opinions to share about current events, and even a few book reviews to post, not to mention the mundane issues of my daily life.  But I've been working on a major life change and I thought that was as good a place to start as any.

I haven't posted anything about this to Facebook, nor have I told anyone but my closest friends and family that my life will change dramatically in 2014.  I am about to have a gastric sleeve done, God willing by the end of the month. 

Having gastric bypass surgery was something I wanted to do 15 years ago when it began to emerge in the mainstream.  Then I met Mike.  And Mike was seriously opposed to it.  He absolutely loved me the way I was.  So even though a couple of doctors mentioned having surgeries in passing, I always didn't bother doing it because I was loved and accepted and that was good enough for me.

I was six years old when I first realized I was fat.  I vividly remember that day, sitting with my friends in the cafeteria.  All of us went around and said how much we weighed, and at the table, I weighed the most.  I remember being bribed, cajoled, guilted, shamed, and coerced into dieting and losing weight by family members, friends, and doctors most of my life.  It was not until I was an adult that I finally had a doctor treat me like a human being and see beyond the number on the scale to talk to me like a person.  It wasn't perfect, I did have the most wonderful GP in northern Virginia, but whenever I went in to see his assistant, she would tell me how I had to lose weight immediately, even if all I went in for was a cold.

"Have you lost weight?" was a common refrain, and at times I was thankful for it when I had, but mostly I hadn't lost weight.  And I kind of resented people noticing my body.  I have always been very modest and find my body deeply personal, hiding it under ill fitting clothes, squirreling myself away in dressing rooms, refusing to shop for clothes with other people for the most part. 

Six years ago, I lost 80 pounds.  I felt totally different, I felt physically great, I had energy, I could wear cute clothes, my body fit into seats and bathrooms and people held doors open for me and looked at me and treated me differently. 

When Leah was born, I was exhausted and began to eat whatever was quick and handy.  When Mike died, I turned to food for comfort.  I've gained all that 80 pounds back.

In August 2012, just 6 weeks after Mike died, I went to Leah's preschool orientation.  As I left, two men drove up in a van next to me.  I was stopped at the crosswalk and they were stopped at the light.  They began screaming at me from the window of their van--all kinds of lewd comments about the way I looked and what they would do to me.  When I started to walk, they followed me slowly, making comments the whole way.  This harassment lasted 2 solid minutes.  I sat in my car and sobbed and I thought, "No one is ever going to love me again."  I came home in tears, and let my mother think that I was just upset about Leah going to school and about Mike, but in fact, I was embarrassed, scared, and furious.  How dare those two treat me like that?  They didn't know my story . They didn't know the hows and whys and whos.  They didn't care that I was someone's mother, someone's widow, someone's daughter, someone's sister, someone's aunt, someone's friend.  They didn't care that people loved me or cared about me.  They saw not a human being, but an object.  Something to ridicule, mock, and feel disgusted by.  I wish I could say it was the only time I had ever encountered this kind of behavior, but it isn't.  Not by a long shot.

I briefly detoured into dating sites for a while not too long ago, and either I was propositioned for sex as an object of a fetish or I was the target of scammers looking for desperate, lonely women to scam.  I have always been 'friend zoned" by men, good, great, but not enough.  My daughter wants to know why I don't look like other moms at her school.  The subject of my weight is something brought up by family members a lot--not directly but in 'suggestions' of what I could eat, how I could eat, buying clothing that doesn't really fit because I'm "not really that big, right?  Oh my God, you are?  Oh my God!"

For the first year Mike was gone, I did a good job of stuffing my feelings inside.  But in the past 10 months, I really have had to make a conscious effort to let things out.  I knew it was killing me.  I knew the grief would be hard, but it has at times been unbearable.  And to face a cruel world without the one person I always felt totally accepted me 100% has been the worst of it. 

In December, I had an eye opener.  I was so sad and I called my father just to talk and hopefully feel better.  And he said, "You know what would make you feel better?  Go down to McDonalds and get an Egg Nog Shake."  And I realized, "This is what has gotten me to where I am today.  When I feel like crap, I go find something to eat until I feel better."  And then I realized, I don't actually feel better, I still feel badly, but then I feel a heaping helping of guilt and self hatred on top of whatever feeling it was.  I knew, I knew then that I had to change my life. 

I started doing some research on bariatric surgery and found several options that my insurance covered.  I went to a couple of seminars and ultimately, I chose to go with Dr. Halmi and Bluepoint Surgical Group.  I met with him in January and during the course of our consultation, we decided I would be a good gastric sleeve candidate.   (I don't intend to become a bariatric surgery educator, but there are 3 types of bariatric surgery: LapBand, sleeve, gastric bypass.  The band is when they put a band around your stomach that they can fill with or remove saline to restrict how much food you can eat.  Gastric bypass is when they cut your stomach into a tiny pouch and re-route your intestines.  The sleeve is right in the middle--they cut your stomach into a sleeve and remove the hunger triggering hormones to help you restrict what you eat and not feel hungry.)  My insurance company required 3 months of classes and consultations, but what with the snow and everything, it has taken quite a long time.  So here we are in June and I'm hopeful I'll have the surgery done in a matter of 3-4 weeks.

As part of the pre-surgery, I've been working with a behaviorist, my primary care doctor, a personal trainer, a nutritionist, and a psychologist.  The meeting with the behaviorist was enlightening.  She made concrete suggestions for what I could do about eating and I thought "Do people actually do that kind of thing?"  Nothing earth-shattering, things like regular meal times, eating at the table with no distractions.  It was easy to see how much our lives have changed in 2 years, how far we have fallen off the wagon of normal family life.  When I think of how we used to live pre-7/12 and how we live now, it IS kind of staggering.

By far, however, the most hopeful part of the process has been the psychologist.  I was only mandated to go once, but during that one visit, I sat in his office and just cried and cried and cried.  He is the kindest grandfatherly older man I have met, and as a result of the trust I felt, I have continued to see him.  We are working on a variety of issues, chief among them a serious lack of self esteem, extremely negative self image, perfectionism, family issues, guilt, grief, and crippling anxiety.  It is not fun.  But it is helpful.  When he says things like, "You do realize, you've been through a lot" it helps me to really know that I'm not just making up some of these feelings, that I'm not a drama queen.  That I really have been through some extremely challenging times in my life and it's OK to need time to deal with them and find ways of doing so that aren't self destructive.  I cry a lot.  He keeps tissues and water handy.  He recommends books and we talk about being adoptive parents and he's very astute in his observations.  I don't look forward to going, but I'm always glad I've gone afterwards.

So going through all this for the past 4 months, I've really had to grapple with the severity of what I'm going to do, am I serious about it, why I want to do it, what will it mean for me and for friends and others like me.  I would like to say that I could go on and become a great role model for people of size.  I truly admire my friends who are very active in the fat acceptance community.  And I love and admire them for it.  And I read blogs and books and websites and I think "HECK YEAH!" and then I go out in the world and I just realize it's not a fair place.  (For just a few areas wherein fat people face discrimination, click here)  And if the world isn't going to change, then I'm going to change, if not to fit in, then certainly to blend a little bit better. 

I have accomplished a great deal in nearly 39 years in this body.  It has served me well.  I would like to get another 40 out of it.  If I do everything they say, I should do very well and lose up to 120 pounds in the first 12-18 months.  I'll take it. 

I want to throw out my airplane seatbelt extender.  I want to fit and fit in.  I want to not feel ashamed or embarrassed when I eat in public.  I want to buy clothes in the regular section of the store.  I don't want to feel afraid or ashamed to walk down the street.  I don't want to feel like I embarrass friends or family members when we are seen in public together.   I want to have even more energy and do even more awesome things with my girl. 

I only ask for your support at this time.  And I've discovered that just like when people say they're expecting and people like to pile on the horror stories about terrible deliveries and failed adoptions and whatnot, they also like to tell you about every person they know who had bariatric surgery and put all the weight back on.  Please do not do this.  If there is any one thing you can NOT do to help me, it would be to not tell me those stories of sure failure.  I am going to do my best.  I have a team of doctors and trainers and whatnot behind me to help me succeed.  And I would be most happy to add to their numbers my friends and family.  But if you can't be positive, then please don't be anything.

I want my parents to be proud of me.  I want my daughter to be proud of me. I want to be proud of myself.  I'm starting a long journey.  I'm excited, terrified, nervous, and thrilled.  But I'm ready to start.  Over. 

Saying No. And Yes. And No.

There was a show on TeenNick playing today at Wegman's in which a tweenish boy has a hard time saying no to all the people who ask him for help.  He doesn't want to disappoint anyone, yet at the end of the day, he can't possibly finish everything he's agreed to help people do.  Yet, he lives in an internal world plagued in torment of his own making.

I could relate to this kid.  I have filled and overfilled and refilled and shuffled and rearranged my days and commitments till I haven't got time to turn around any more.  I knew it was trouble when last summer, my 2014 was getting booked up through May.  I added several Tuesday night engagements, even though on Tuesdays I already have a commitment once a month, started adding things for Leah to do, committed myself to the other children doing things.  It became insane.  Honestly.  Recently, Leah wanted to quit dance, and I totally agreed with that decision.  Tuesdays were so stressful--we had 4 hours between school and dance, and then 1 hour between dance and my choir practice or board meeting (depending on which night it fell).  So her deciding to drop dance was a good thing. 

But the crazy didn't stop.  And I didn't stop.  I started getting itchy to travel again in March.  After all, it'd been something like 6 weeks since I'd gone anywhere, and it was a whole entire month before we'd be going anywhere again, so I knew I had to get out of town.  It was a rough winter.  We were stuck inside A LOT.  Far more than a kid of Leah's energy levels should be.  I thought a lot about the things that we used to do "before", and I started remembering hikes in the woods, visits to historic sites, playgrounds and parks, nothing we could do indoors.  So I booked us a trip to Las Vegas.  You've read about it.  It was awesome.  We had the best time.  Two weeks later, we left on a cruise.  The day after we got home, my dad arrived and stayed until the day before we left, 5 days later, to go to Chicago for 4 days.  I was originally booked to come home from Chicago, get in the car the next day, and drive to Vermont.  I wanted to go to Vermont more than anything, until I realized, suddenly and unexpectedly, that all I wanted to do was go home. 

My house, my local friends, my community connections have all fallen victim to benign neglect.  I joined  the UU choir back in January and in the 3 months since, I've managed to sing with them once, even though they perform monthly.  I missed out on many events at the UU that I really, really wanted to participate in, but that I haven't been in town for--women's club meetings, potlucks, fundraisers, and more.  My friend Danielle had a baby back in November, I still haven't been able to snuggle with him, to bring her a meal, to give a little gift.  I cancelled my Anglophiles Club in April, have blatantly ignored 2 dinner invitations from friends in NoVa, missed other club meetings, fell behind on my schoolwork.  There was a museum exhibit in Richmond I desperately wanted to see, when I finally found the time, I discovered it had closed literally the day before.

Not to say when I've been home, I've been slacking.  I've had tons of schoolwork this semester that I didn't understand and had to kill myself over.  I had tons of homework that I did understand and had to kill myself over, especially considering my daughter's school schedule has been insane.  I've shuttled Leah to dance, gymnastics, and swimming.  I've been dealing with some medical issues that required a number of appointments from Fredericksburg to Woodbridge and back.  I've been to club meetings and board meetings, I stage managed a show, did choir rehearsals for performances I had no hope of completing, entertained my niece, had friends over to help me paint, had a birthday party for Leah, and a million other things.

And I look back on my old blog post about taking a rest, and I laugh.  I think, "Well that was well intentioned, but it never happened."  But finally, it just has to.  It has to give.  I got home from Chicago at Easter and I just sat down and cried so hard.  I was exhausted.  Leah was exhausted.  She's so stressed out that she's acting up, acting out, needing stability and comfort.  I've stopped sleeping, I wake up 3 or 4 times every night, and I'm usually awake for good by 5:15AM, even though I usually can't fall asleep before midnight.  My memory is shot--the other night I fell asleep at 7:30PM, woke up at 2AM and discovered I'd left the stove on.  Mercifully it was on the lowest setting so the worst that happened was that we lost our leftovers, but our house could have burned down courtesy of my exhaustion and forgetfulness.  My hair is thinning, my belly is widening, I feel like an old plant gone to seed.

So I set myself a firm deadline of "no more after June 1" and I will spend the summer plan-free, with the exception of our former exchange student Penny coming in July, and Kyle coming to go to see Justin Timberlake a time or two...  I've canceled my summer travel plans, even though there is a string of three BNL concerts in a row in MA and RI that I would just about kill myself to go to, but I'm not.  I'm hosting friends in May for a craft night and Leah has a couple of birthday parties in May to go to, plus my Anglophiles club, and that's the extent of my May.  I considered today signing up to work at the soup kitchen again in June, but given that I'm due to have surgery in June, I dialed it back, gave myself a reality check, and said "The soup kitchen isn't going anywhere.  You can do it again in a few months."  It seems bizarre to look at my calendar and see six months of blank pages staring back at me.

The director of religious education sent out her weekly email asking for volunteer teachers for the next 3 weeks.  I knew I should go and do some hours in a classroom, but I ultimately emailed her and asked her if there wasn't some other way I could support RE.  I explained that I really treasure my 1 hour in church per week, kid-free, and I would love to help in any other way possible.  So she asked if I would be interested in serving on the RE committee--childcare included--and I said that sounded perfect.  Even though it adds a meeting to my months, it subtracts teaching or being around children for my precious hour each week.

I had a friend ask if she could come visit, and I honestly said "no, I'm sorry."  I wanted her to come, but I just couldn't.  I don't want anyone here right now.  It feels selfish and wrong, like I'm isolating myself and shutting out the world, but I just don't want to worry about the stress I go through when someone is coming over--the house isn't clean enough, I need to prepare refreshments of some sort, will Leah behave, will the cats behave.  I just don't want to deal with any of that.  Leah's school is having a field trip to the National Zoo next week.  4 hours on the bus for 2.5 hours at the zoo.  I did the math and it didn't quite compute.  There is nearly nothing I would rather do less than sit on a bus full of 4 year olds while stuck in DC traffic trying to get to the zoo, only to turn around and come back.  I explained to Leah that I would take her to the zoo this summer if she wanted to go, but given how she reacted to the Lincoln Park Zoo at Easter, I'm not so sure she even cares.  So I pulled the plug,  We're not going to the zoo with her class.  And ya know what?  She's cool with that. 

Leah's birthmother called me a week ago to let me know she was expecting another baby.  She is keeping this baby, and she is so excited, and I am so happy for her and so excited for her.  She is an excellent mother and I know this baby will be well loved and cared for.  Even though I don't really pray any more, I prayed and prayed and prayed that she would choose to keep this baby and not ask me to adopt it, not that the subject ever even came up.  And she did.  Because I don't think I have it in me to go back to babies.  I had considered doing foster care this summer--I had even attended an information session and was working on the packet, thinking it would be wonderful to have another child in the house.  But I have even dropped that idea.  I don't want any more change, any more upheaval.  I don't want to have to adjust our routine so that Leah and I live more cookie cutter 'normal'.  We are getting by just fine.  And we like ourselves this way.  No need to rock the boat.


I am forcing myself to accept compliments.  Usually if someone compliments me, I say "Oh, thank you but..." and the "but" that follows is a criticism of myself or a downplay of whatever it is I did.  But now, I am accepting and gathering in that kindness, because it is nice to have people say nice things to and about you, and it is affirming and healthy to accept that and not downplay it.
I have removed myself from the family drama that seems to crop up all too frequently.  I don't miss it.  The limited amount of time I have with my family feels appropriate.  When they start complaining or fussing about or at or to me, I just say, "Nice to see ya" and leave.  Or I mentally tune out and don't get involved, invested, or drawn in.  It's been almost 6 months, and while I feel awful that they don't care enough to issue apologies I feel I deserve and they don't feel I do, I feel secure enough that I'm right in waiting for them and not bothering otherwise.  Life is too short to surround yourself with anyone other than people who treat you well.  I sat with a wonderful lady at church on Sunday, also named Susan, who I am so pleased has thought to adopt me into her circle.  She is on my Facebook and she follows our adventures.  She said to me Sunday, "I so enjoy your Facebook.  You seem to have such a magnificent collection of friends."  I said, "I do.  I am so lucky."  She replied, "I don't think it's luck.  You, my dear, lead an extraordinary life and you draw quality people in to you."  Needless to say, I started to cry.  And I believe that at the very least, I have indeed drawn some extraordinary people into my life, friends who treat me lovingly, respectfully, and kindly, even if I can't always count on relatives to do the same.  Whether or not my life is extraordinary remains to be seen.

I have finally returned to my Hospice writing group for support, and I see a counselor a couple of times a month besides.  I'm better understanding that what I've done for the past 20 months has been the result of deep, unbearable trauma and grief, that I was conditioned to accept certain ways of thinking in my upbringing (as we all are) that are not conducive to healthy behaviors as an adult, that I can't use avoidance to cope any more, I need to sit and breathe and feel and accept.  I still find it so hard to accept that Mike has died.  That he isn't merely gone, but that he is actually, really, truly dead.  The fact of that literally takes my breath away, it is something I feel physically.  As I talk about our marriage with my counselor, as I talk about Mike's death, as I talk about how I have behaved and reacted, as I talk about my past and my background, this lovely, grandfatherly old man reminds me, "You do know you've been through a lot, right?"

I try not to have a victim mentality.  To accept that I've been through a lot indicates to me that I am a victim of something, whether it's fate or people or the stars or whatever it is.  But that's not necessarily true.  The fact is, I have been through a lot.  I have been through a lot.  And I need a break.  Put another way, while I was in Chicago, Kyle and I were talking and he said something to the effect of that for 10 years I was the wife of that most amazing blind guy.  I was a footnote at the end of the story, buried in the back paragraphs.  Now I have a chance to move into the fore of my own life.  And I have to sit and process that decision making very, very carefully.  I see a vision of my life in my head that I don't know if I can make a reality, but I'm starting to have my own thoughts and dreams, and I think that is a huge step in the right direction.

So if you ask for anything in the coming months and I say no, I hope you won't take it personally.  At least not for a while.  I have to really and truly start taking care of myself so I can be a better mother, friend, a better human being.  I am looking forward to a summer of abject laziness.  I look forward to lots and lots of time spent outdoors, lots of time at the pool, lots of time reading and playing games and having water fights.  I hope to see friends from time to time.  I hope to better learn how to juggle the myriad responsibilities I have until the end of the year when I can step aside from the choir board and remove that from my plate, when I can finish my degree, when I have more than 3 hours a day to myself to try and cram things in, unless there's a field trip or a party or inclement weather, in which case my 3 hours has disappeared more times than I care to count in the past 8 months.

I look forward to 6 months of focus on myself and my daughter, and seeing what changes may come in that time, no matter how much discomfort they may bring, I know they're going to bring long term positives.  And I am so, so ready for things to look up.

Vegas, Kids, Tips, Tricks

Probably the number one comment I've heard about our trip has been, "I'd never have thought of taking my kids to Las Vegas!  But now that I've seen your trip, I can see how it would be so fun!"  So I thought some practical advice might be in order in case our trip inspires you to take your kids to Las Vegas.

1.  Make sure you have the right kid or the right parent for the trip.

Leah is super high energy.  The number one thing people said to me while we were wandering through casinos was, "Wow, I wish I had energy like that!"  (I seriously lost count of the number of times people said to that to me every single day.)  Some children are super high energy or have a decent amount of energy.  My niece and nephew, as much as I adore them, are Leah's polar opposite--they're far quieter, more sedate children, and I'm not sure Las Vegas would be their thing.  I can see them at the beach, hanging out and relaxing, enjoying a pool somewhere, but I don't really envision them running all over a city.

That said, your child doesn't need to be super high energy to enjoy all the things we did.  You can certainly have your child in a stroller and wheel them around.  Las Vegas has plenty of calm things--gardens, animal sanctuaries, animatronic shows, and the like that will keep a more passive kid entertained.

Also, I am not a party type, nor am I gambler.  You must be 21 or older to enter the gaming sections of the casinos, and there are special pathways in the carpets in the casinos that kids have to stay on to navigate through.  For us, no big deal.  I didn't so much as breathe on a slot machine while we were there, but if you want to gamble, go to a club, see a late show, etc., you should either bring back up childcare or consider a service while you are there.  There are no babysitting/nanny services formally connected to the casinos, but certainly you can hire them from reputable companies who do advertise while you are there.  If I had wanted to go out clubbing and gambling, I'd have been pretty unhappy stuck in my hotel room.  But I didn't and I was perfectly happy to stay in during the evenings and regain some quiet and inner peace.

2.  There are lots of bargains

When you arrive in Las Vegas, there is no shortage of coupon books available for free.  They give you great discounts on area attractions, restaurants, and shows.  In fact, I would not recommend bothering to buy tickets to anything until you get out there.  Unless it is a show you are absolutely dying to see and there is a danger it will be sold out while you are there, wait until you're there to purchase tickets to attractions or shows.  There are always discounts to be had.  There is even a place called Half Price Tix that has booths all over the city where you can go and get recommendations and cheap tickets for same day entertainment.

And that does not mean you have to talk to the people who are shilling 'free' shows and hotel rooms and the like at every corner.  Ignore those people and keep walking.  There are ALWAYS strings attached.We had some people offer us 3 nights free at the Luxor.  We just had to give them a $175 deposit first, which we were promised would be refunded when we booked our trip.  That's not free.

Secondly, children 4 and under are usually free to the attractions.  Leah got in free to the Eiffel Tower, Shark Reef, Titanic.  She ate free at the buffets we went to.  She got discounted tickets to Madame Tussauds, the gondola ride, and Siegfried and Roy.

There are in-state resident discounts, military discounts, student discounts, senior discounts and more.  Always ask.  I nearly paid full price for the Titanic exhibit, but the cashier offered me a discount with a student ID.  It made me wonder what else I had missed out on getting cheaper.

There are also packages and bundles.  For instance, I could have bundled the Shark Reef, Titanic, and Siegfried and Roy for significant savings; I just didn't honestly think we'd get to all of them.

3.  There is lots of cheap and free transportation.  

I really like the Las Vegas Monorail--it is a cheap and quick way to go north and south on the strip.  You can buy up to a 3 day unlimited ride pass for $28, but grab the Monorail magazine in the station, and there's a coupon for a discount.  Children under 5 ride free, so we didn't pay for Leah at all.  That made it extremely cost effective--particularly in comparison to cabs or renting a car.  There is also a bus that goes up and down the strip that has a similar deal.  The advantage of the bus is no running back and forth through huge casinos to catch it!

Additionally, the hotels sometimes have their own transportation services.  For instance, our hotel, Excalibur, had a free tram between it, the Luxor and Mandalay Bay.  You can get a free shuttle bus to Rio (which is off the strip) from Bally's.  There is also a tram from the Mirage to Treasure Island (FREE) and from the Bellagio to City Center to Monte Carlo (FREE).  Get the picture?  It's so easy to get places and not pay a dime to do it.

4.  There is porn and there are lots of barely dressed women around.

We went out one evening and there were men handing out business cards with naked women on them.  Leah and I quickly developed a code where I told her to "look at the sky" as we passed the areas where people threw those cards on the ground in heaps.  Prostitution is NOT legal in Las Vegas, contrary to popular belief, but there are plenty of strip shows and seedy bars and things that cater to individuals looking for that.  Additionally, when we walked into the Monte Carlo, right smack dab in the front as we walked in was an exotic dancer.  Granted, she was wearing some sort of Ugg-like boots to protect the modesty of her calves, but her ass was hanging out and her chest was barely hanging on to a small bikini.

Women who go to Las Vegas also don't seem to wear much.  We sat in a restaurant at one point and two women walked in.  Leah asked me quite loudly, "Mama, why doesn't that lady have any pants on?"  Damned if I know, kid!  Guys are wandering around in shorts and t-shirts, just looking normal, but women are dressed in as little as possible.  I used a lot of distraction on Leah when we encountered that type of thing.

5.  Those people on the street are always after money, and there are lots of ways people make money off tourists.

There are cartoon characters, showgirls, male strippers, superheros and more crowding the streets of Las Vegas.  They lure young children in, ask the children if they want a picture, and then tell Mom and Dad, "Sorry, no can do without a tip."  We did it once because Leah was utterly bedazzled by a couple of pink showgirls, but after that I was out of cash, and I resolved not to use an ATM while we were there.  Easy access to cash seemed dangerous!!!  After that, I allowed her to go say hi, high five, or hug whatever characters or people she met on the street, but we had a strict no pictures policy.

Additionally, as I mentioned before, there are always people telling you they have something free to give you if you'll just step inside for a minute.  They literally will not take "no thank you" for an answer.  I eventually found it was best to just keep walking as if I hadn't heard them or didn't realize they were talking to me.  They can get quite aggressive, and unless you want to be berated, harrassed, or yelled at, it's better to just keep going.  And no, your child is not a shield from them.  We were bugged for helicopter tours, Grand Canyon adventures, free stays, free money, free limo service, free shows, and more.  It's never free and it's not worth being polite.  Leah was actually scared by one guy who was yelling at us.  Not worth it!

Additionally, we were cautioned by a fellow passenger on the airplane that cabbies often take tourists onto the Freeway to get to their hotels on the Strip.  This allows them to jack up the meter and often tourists don't know any better.  It is patently illegal, and you can let them know that you know as much, and call in their badge number if they don't shut the meter off and get you where you're going.

6.  Be prepared to answer the tough questions.

Not only do you have to answer questions about why ladies don't have any clothes on, but Las Vegas is teeming with homeless people panhandling.  They usually sit on the pedestrian walkways with signs and hope for change or money.  Leah called them "homesick people", which is cute, but we did have a rather somber discussion about why some people don't have food or homes to go to.  Your kid might be willing to hear something sugar coated or might be able to ignore the situation, but due to our circumstances, my kid is pretty savvy to the world's tragedies and wants straight answers.

7.  There are plenty of cheap places to eat!

Every casino/hotel has its own food court in addition to the more upscale restaurants it has within.  Sometimes these are fast food joints like McDonald's and Krispy Kreme, but often you can find good food fast as well.  Excalibur has Tropical Smoothie and Baja Fresh, New York New York had a NYC pizza parlor, MGM Grand has an Underground with quick places to grab a cheap bite, Paris has a creperie, etc.  It's worth walking out of your way a bit to find and enjoy these places--the food can be really good and really cheap. 

8.  There are lots of shows that are kid friendly.

I went to Half Price Tix one day to see if we could get cheap tickets to something on Sunday night, as it was the only night I didn't have a special show planned.  A man came over and asked if he could help us, I told him I was looking for something kid friendly, he asked how old Leah was, and when I said 4, he said, "Well, that eliminates pretty much everything."

But I don't think that's true.  First of all, there are about 6 different Cirque du Soleil shows, any of which would have been appropriate.  We saw Blue Man Group, which Leah loved, and David Copperfield, which she also loved.  Excalibur has a Medieval Times type dinner theater, the Luxor has a show called Jabbawockeez that looked kid friendly, there are variety shows, concerts, and more.  Just because you can't go to a burlesque show doesn't mean all of Las Vegas entertainment is off limits.  It just means you can't go to the burlesque shows.

9.  Take time to rest.

This is my final tip.  Leah and I were really hard charging on this trip, the result of which was that by the end of day 2, we were both sore and by the end of day 3, neither one of us could move very well.  We came back to the hotel mid-day each day to rest, but we still really did a LOT and we were exhausted.  The climate is radically different there from the East Coast--we were very, very dry and had to make an effort to drink, despite which I still suffered from nosebleeds daily.  Make sure you get out of the sun.  You can't possibly see all there is to see, so don't try.  Take time to relax and enjoy and have a little downtime each day.  Bring a stroller--Leah passed out cold on the way home from Blue Man Group.  She was just exhausted.  Even though she has long outgrown a stroller, having it saved me from having to carry her three casinos' worth back to our room.

Many people have said, "Well, I'm sure you had fun, but what did Leah think?"  Well, I'd say this picture says it all:

Las Vegas can be wonderful with children.  Just a little bit of pre-planning, and you can have a great family vacation with your kids for pretty inexpensively.  Enjoy!  Feel free to leave a comment or email me if you want to know more or have any questions.  I'll update this post if needed.

Vegas Day 3

Day Three in Las Vegas dawned and I was pretty tired and sore.  It became clear that Leah was kind of over it too.  We probably could have gone home after 2 days, but we had one more day to go.  So I decided we would try to stick close to the hotel and keep things light and easy.  I looked through the list I had prepared before we left and it was done except for one thing: the Siegfried and Roy Secret Garden and Dolphin Sanctuary.  But that was way down at the Mirage and I was just not that worried about it, really. 

I couldn't get a straight answer out of Leah about what she wanted for breakfast, so we decided to take our initial trip to a buffet.  Excalibur and the Luxor have a mutual agreement--if you pay $35, you can eat all day at either one of their buffets.  I decided to do that.  When I got there, Leah was free!  So for the two of us to eat as much as we wanted all day was very, very inexpensive.  I was happy she was free because for breakfast all she wanted was watermelon.  Crazy kid!  But I had a nice breakfast of oatmeal and fruit and a croissant, and couldn't really complain.  They had a huge variety of things, including breakfast burritos and an omelet station, pancakes and french toast, waffles, you name it.

Afterwards, we went up to our room.  Leah was very attached to being in there, and so we sat and I asked her if she wanted to do anything special.  She said no.  So I looked through a magazine and she caught sight of an ad for the Bodies exhibit.  She said she wanted to go see that.  Well A) I had no interest in going to see it and B) I thought it might be too scary or intense for her.  So I suggested that we go see the Titanic exhibit instead.

Big. Big. Mistake.

Leah was completely and utterly devastated by the story of the Titanic.  She could not get over that people died, that the ship sank.  She was just so upset.  She demanded to see videos of how the boat sank, and then she just got so worked up over it, I felt awful.  Poor kid.  Plus, when you enter, they give you a 'boarding pass' with the story of a passenger onboard the ship and at the end, you find out if your passenger lived or died.  One of our passengers died and one lived.  This did NOT sit well.  Not at all.  I was half tempted to take her to the Bodies exhibit just to calm her down, but then I thought this would just add fuel to the flames.  But even last night when we went to dinner with her little pal Anna and her parents, Leah was telling them all about how the iceberg ripped the ship up and the ship sank and everyone died.  It certainly made an impression.

So we were at the Luxor for that exhibit, and I decided we would try their buffet for lunch.  It was fine food--I was particularly crazy about their Mediterranean bar with couscous salad and hummus, which were both awesome.  The rest of the food was standard buffet fare, but there was plenty and much of it was fresh and good.  They had a nice little dessert bar and we got some wee little desserts.  Leah was kind of mad I didn't let her keep the cups. But oh well!  We already had swizzle sticks to bring home from David Copperfield.  There was nothing remarkable about these cups other than they were "cute".

We strolled around the Luxor a bit to have a look-see, and I have to say, it's a pretty impressive area.  All the casinos are beautiful, I mean, you really can't believe they are built for just getting people to gamble and give up their money, but that's really the extent of it.  It's like Disney World for grown ups... 

So we finished up at the Luxor and headed back to Excalibur (going over we took a moving walkway system between the Luxor and Excalibur--MUCH faster than the tram system.  Coming back, we took the tram, which is probably faster than the moving walkway).  Leah wanted to do something else, so I asked her if she wanted to go see the tigers and lions and dolphins.  She thought that sounded fun, so even though we were tired and it was way the heck up The Strip, we hitched up our suspenders and headed north.  We did take the monorail, as I was too tired to walk that far, and it was a nice ride.  We got out and had no trouble finding the place, even though, predictably, it was way in the back of the casino like all the other attractions we'd been to.

In hindsight, although Leah was free to the Shark Reef, Titanic, and Siegfried and Roy, for myself it would have been cheaper to buy the 3 for $57 pass they sold to those attractions.  I did get to use my student ID at the Titanic Exhibit--the woman working the desk there absolutely could NOT have been nicer, so I got a slight discount, but I do think it would have been cheaper to package them, nonetheless. 

So anyway, the main attraction there is the dolphin sanctuary.  They have 3 pool areas with various dolphins and the dolphins work with trainers.  There seems to be a little 'show' every 15 minutes or so.  The dolphins do flips, play with a ball, standard marine animal show fare.  But Leah enjoyed it and I got to test out my quick shutter on the camera and got great pictures of the dolphins flipping around.

After seeing the show a couple of times, we went into the Secret Garden area.  It was a warm day and most of the cats were asleep.  We saw white lions and white tigers, as well as a couple of leopards.  Only one tiger was up and moving, everyone else was fast asleep. 

It's hard to get decent pictures through the fence--I really need to learn some focusing techniques with this thing because autofocus just wanted to focus on the chain link and I really had to mess with it.

So it was much smaller than I thought and not really all that exciting, but Leah enjoyed seeing the animals.  It is nowhere near even the size of the smallest zoo I've ever been to, so I can't say anything that it's necessarily worth the cost of admission for a family, but for the two of us it was a passable way to spend a couple of hours.  The staff was very friendly--Leah had a question about how deep the dolphin pools were and they were only too happy to chat with her.  (answer: 20 feet)  We enjoyed a bit of juice and water overlooking the pools to end our visit and then wandered out.

We wound up walking back to the Bellagio--I wanted to see the gardens in the conservatory there.  But nearly as soon as we got there, Leah wanted to leave, so we didn't go see them.  As we were going out, the fountain show started, and it was the first time I'd ever gotten to see it, so I stopped on the footbridge to get a look.  I put Leah up on my shoulders, and almost immediately she was screaming she had to go potty.  (SIGH)  So we went to the bathroom and I've now seen about 30 seconds of the fountain show.

So after that, we got on the Monorail and headed back to Excalibur.  I was so tired I just collapsed on the bed after dinner and decided to set the alarm early and pack in the morning.  Apparently my body was still refusing to give up East Coast time because I woke up at 4:45, not to sleep again.  But I was actually fine with that.  We packed up all our stuff, grabbed a quick breakfast, checked out, and headed to the airport on our little shuttle again, which picked us up promptly at 8AM.  Leah had a great time playing on this giant turtle in the airport, and an older lady was looking at the turtle, which Leah took as an invitation to chat and gab her ear off for about 10 minutes.  The woman, whoever she is, now knows that Leah has a cousin named Chunk and that her daddy died.

After that lady wandered off, we went down to the gate area.  There was a recharging station, and I wanted to plug in my phone and as we sat there, a few people from Virginia filtered in.  We were all nervous about the weather--several of us were flying in to Richmond and others Charlottesville.  Everyone was making phone calls and swapping weather reports.  I was worried about turbulence.  I don't exactly like flying--I just view it as a necessary evil.  So I was NOT looking forward to these flights home.  Plus, I wasn't sure if my driveway would be covered in snow, if I'd have to shovel at 11 o'clock at night, what was waiting.  On the plus side, Leah's school was closed for the day, so she didn't miss anything!

So another woman came over and sat down next to Leah and Leah just decided this woman was her best friend EVER.  They made princesses together on Leah's various apps, and Leah commanded the woman, "Make them stylish!" and the woman obliged.  She had been in Las Vegas for a friend's birthday party and said she missed her kids a lot, so she was happy to keep Leah entertained, for which I was very grateful.

Around about 11AM, I thought we should make a potty run, so we did and then I thought "Oh, it's close to boarding time, isn't it?" being that our flight left at 11:20.  So we went to the gate to find most of the plane had already boarded.  Ooops.  So they needed people to check their suitcases again, which I happily did, as well as checking the stroller, and we just kind wandered on and sat down.  There was no standing around or waiting in line, they were all kind of waiting on us, which I found quite funny.

The flight back to Charlotte was OK.  Leah was hungry and again I bought her a meal.  There was mild turbulence, but nothing terrifying.  The flight to Richmond, on the other hand, was another matter.  They canceled the beverage service, and I prayed so hard.  I mean, I have long given up praying, but I was so scared, I was sure the plane was going down.  It seemed to be moving way too quickly, there was a lot of noise like you would expect if it was moving quickly, and furthermore, there was just tons of turbulence.  When it landed, I was so grateful.  I can't even tell you.  We got our bag no problem, hopped in the car, and within about 20 seconds, Leah was sound asleep.  We made it home and happily everything had melted . I picked Leah up, put her to bed, and I fell asleep in about 20 seconds myself.

It was a great trip, probably one day too long, and got the Vegas bug out of my blood.  I would be OK if we never went back, although it was fun enough that I could go again and still enjoy it.  I will do a little write up of tips and tricks for you all in a day or two...  Thanks for reading if you've gone through all these days!

Las Vegas: Day 2

Las Vegas Day 2 dawned much later--6AM this time--and for that I was grateful!  I was tired after the previous day's excursion and a bit sore.  We've been playing a lot of Wii this winter and sitting on our butts, so this was like going 0-60 in a nanosecond.

Still, Leah woke up with a great deal of vim and vigor, so after a quick breakfast at McDonald's, we decided to walk over to the M&M Store, which was just across the street from our hotel at the base of the MGM Grand.  It opened at 9, which was the earliest thing on my list, so after puttering about the room for a while, we headed over there.  They had just opened and were pretty empty.  Green came outside and a woman offered to take our picture, for free, using my phone, so I actually got one picture of me and Leah together, which was great.  The M&M store is pretty much what you'd expect.  Lots of stuff with M&Ms all over it.  My favorite was a $3,000 lambskin bedazzled-with-Swarovski-crystals M&M jacket.  But they had office supplies, dishes and cups, candy dispensers, clothes, towels, etc. and they even had an on-site printing area so that if you wanted to, you could have M&ms custom printed while you wait.  With the wedding industry in Vegas, that probably does a bang-up business.

After there, we just started walking.  We were accosted by a really rude guy at the Chamber of Commerce who literally screamed at me as I walked away down the street.  "I HATE NOT GIVING AWAY FREE MONEY, LADY."  Yeah right.  I'm sure if I had gone in, they'd have wanted my name, address, credit card, email, phone number, blood type, and everything else, and at best I'd have walked away with a book of coupons totaling the $75 he was promising was free. He made himself look stupid, after I politely declined no fewer than 4 times.As I said to a friend afterwards, "I may have sucker written all over my forehead, but I've got East Coast Bitch written into my DNA."

My plan for the day was pretty simple--head to the Venetian to go to Madame Tussaud's and in the afternoon, our second show, David Copperfield.  We walked all the way to the Venetian.  It was a beautiful day and I just wanted to be outside in the sunshine.  Leah was kind of pissed about it, whining incessantly that she was tired or hungry, but when I got her a snack, she wouldn't eat.  She just wanted to be in the stroller, but I had refused to bring it given that she had so much energy.  She somehow miraculously regained her strength and energy when we arrived at Madame Tussaud's.  The best thing I did on this trip was to keep my iPhone well charged, turn on the camera, and let Leah snap pictures as much as she pleased.  She had an absolute blast running around taking photos, making me pose for a change and although I deleted most of them, as they were blurry, it did keep her engaged and happy for a long time.  Her favorite display was Tiger Woods and Arnold Palmer, mainly because she discovered that if she dropped a golf ball in the hole on the green, it would cause loud cheers to come forth.  She must have done that several million times and then bowed.  It was quite adorable and many passersby commented on it.

She also took a particular shine to Will Smith and Beyonce.  Of course, I only had eyes for Clooney.

After we left the exhibit, I thought it would be nice to show her the canal inside the Venetian.  She only needed to catch sight of one gondola before it was clear we were going to ride on the canal ourselves.  I told her to follow the canal to the end and we found the ticket booth and got tickets.  She was very excited, especially when we got to skip ahead to the front of the line because we had to share with two other people.  Our gondolier, Caj, was a nice man who sang a lot.  He was Sicilian.  He sang some children's songs in addition to the music he thought the adults would like to hear.  It was a short ride, only about 10 minutes, but again, Leah was free, so I didn't mind.  They took lots of pictures of us for cash, but I elected not to buy any or even look at them for that matter.  I'm sure they were quite nice.  I'm sure they were also quite expensive.  Leah announced when she saw the white wedding gondola that either I am getting married there or she is because we are riding in that white boat, damnit!

After the gondola ride, we walked back out and saw a crowd of people around a store at the Venetian.  It turned out Joe Montana was doing a signing that day, so I grabbed a quick picture of him.  Not that I much care about football or Joe Montana, but at least I'd heard of him and I knew several people who would be interested.

By now, it was lunchtime.  I asked Leah what she wanted for lunch and she said she wanted spaghetti.  I had seen a lot of advertising at Excalibur for Buca di Beppo and thought it would be great to go there and then rest for a bit before the show.  They were hot on selling their giant meatballs (1/2 a pound!) and so Leah and I split a plate of spaghetti and meatballs, which was delicious, I have to say!  Then we ordered a chocolate volcano for dessert and while we were waiting, they came around and took our picture "for free".  We were given a picture that was the size of a postage stamp, literally, and then offered larger 'suitable for framing' prints at a price, which I declined.  There was a wedding a couple of tables over, and Leah happily watched the bride and groom and enjoyed herself till our dessert arrived--and that dessert was AMAZING.  This was easily the most expensive meal we ate while we were in Las Vegas, and I don't mind saying, it was worth every single penny.

We returned to our room to relax a bit before heading over to MGM to see David Copperfield.  We went early to get our tickets and they let us in early.  There was a strict policy against taking pictures, so we just sat there and drank Shirley Temples and posed for more pictures.  I started to feel like the paparazzi was after us!

The show was great... Leah was so impressed by the fact that cars and motorcycles and stuff appeared out of thin air.  I remember growing up and watching DC's specials on TV as a family--they were a highlight of the year, really.  He came to Syracuse NY one time and I was on a campaign to get my parents to take us to see him, but they didn't, so this was really a dream come true to go see him do a show.  In general, I thought his demeanor was a little off putting, honestly.  He was on the edge of being hostile or bored, a bit of a show off without showmanship, and in general he didn't seem very fun, happy, or nice.  It was disappointing, but the magic was great.  He did a wonderful bit at the end which even involved emailing those present a "poster from the future" (see right), and was a lovely tribute to his dad, and I cried so hard, I'm not ashamed to say so.  He did a couple things which involved the entire audience.  And at the end, he made 12 members of the audience disappear from the stage and reappear at the back of the theater, and I still don't know how he managed to do that.

As we left, Leah said, "Mama, I think I'm pretty tired now", so we just went back to the room and put on the TV.  She happened upon Rocky II of all damned things, and she became completely enthralled with Sylvester Stallone.  After Rock whooped up on Apollo, I made her shut it off and she was asleep in seconds.  The kid likes the damnedest things, seriously... I followed her to dreamland shortly thereafter!