New addition to the family

Hey guys!
So you may be thinking I'm expecting from the title of this blog, but no dice! (At least, not until I get my degree done-zo... I don't even mind going into labor as I'm getting my diploma!)  My father-in-law, Nate, his wife Jen, and their two silly kiddos, Rose and Wade, are, as we speak, en route to China to get their beautiful, long-awaited addition to the family: Sarah Grace! They've been waiting five years to adopt. and God has finally gifted them with a precious little miss.  She'll be two two weeks before Trace turns two, so he'll have a playmate who's his aunt, all rolled into one little package.  (Which only makes sense, since Rhea's playmate is her uncle Wade and he's only six months older than she is!)

Sarah's been in a Chinese orphanage since she was an infant and is special needs.  She is missing the lower 1/4 of her arms, so 3/4 of the way down her arms from her elbow joints is where her arms end.  She has no hands.  However, this doesn't seem to be a deterrent for her, at least not from what we've been told.  I'm so excited to meet her and see how she's adapted to having a "disability" that I cannot even imagine living with.  I put disability in quotes because I've found through my own "disability" that I am no less able-bodied... I just have a different normal from most people.

Anyway.

They'll land at 1 am local time in Beijing, which, if I'm not mistaken, is somewhere around 3 pm Beijing time.  From there, they'll tour around Beijing, catch a couple flights en route to Sarah and Hong Kong, which is their final destination in China, then they'll fly out from Hong Kong back to Chicago on 12/14.  Hopefully all goes as planned and there won't be any unexpected surprises in their journey.  We want them home safe and sound before Sarah's birthday on December 21st and Jen's on the 23rd, not to mention Christmas of course!

If anyone is interested in following along on this incredible journey, Jen's set up a blogspot.  Here's the address.

http://hisplanourhope.blogspot.com

I know I'll be frequenting the page in excited anticipation with the kids!  (Rhea, by the way, is so excited to "teach Auntie Baby Sarah how to eat with her feet!"  Silly silly goof!)

Off to do homework now, but please keep our branch of the Klingers in your thoughts and prayers!  I say our branch because there are many from Arizona to Germany.  Now, I think that since we're adding a new member from China, we're set on world domination!  Kidding, kidding.  :)  I'll update when she gets here!

Happy Wednesday!

Living on a Prayer

I just finished reading Anderson Cooper's book Dispatches From the Edge and I have to say that it is literally one of the best books I have ever read.  And I read a lot.  I'm that weird kid who really enjoys reading literary collections that a lot of others find boring as hell or dry as dust.  I love losing myself in storylines, plots, or, in this case, autobiographical experiences.  I love getting into people's  heads and hearing their stories, seeing the world through their eyes, no matter how sad/violent/tragic/exhilarating, etc. their stories may be.  This is one story that will stick with me forever, and here's why.  Anderson throws open wide the windows to his soul, his heart, and his perception of the world.  He allows the reader to live in his thoughts, share in his insecurities, and work through the internal battles that he struggles with.  I can't say why exactly I appreciated his raw approach to life, death, his work, and his family tragedies.  I can only assume it's because I am genuinely intrigued by the human condition.  Sometimes, I'm way too involved and it brings on panic attacks- or just panicky feelings.  I have a somewhat obnoxious habit of being hypersensitive to the plight of others.  I oftentimes find myself inserting myself into situations I hear of, whether they're happy or sad, most of the time without realizing I'm doing it.  It's second nature, and I don't know why.  Maybe it's because of things that I've been through and experienced in my own life, or maybe I'm just weird.  Who knows?  It just seems to be the way I'm hardwired.

Most recently, I've been kept awake by three things: the situation at Penn State, the bullying and terrorizing of children in my siblings' school district (the same district I also went through), and the threat of nuclear war against America.  Yes, I'm completely aware that they are all at completely opposite points of the triangle, but for whatever reason, they are all interconnected in my mind.  Okay, okay. I have to be completely honest here.  I have no idea why the threat of nuclear war is something I find myself worrying about at night, especially since it's been hanging over America since long before I was ever even thought of.  It's so stupid that I sit up and worry about things like this, things that are such huge issues I could never even make a ripple of impact... but I do.  Things like the potential for a devastating pandemic and war don't induce the same heart palpitations as nuclear war does.  Can I control that?  No.  Absolutely not.  I'm slowly starting to realize that there are things in life not worth worrying about because there is nothing I can do to change them.  If widespread global disease breaks out, if nuclear war is initiated anywhere in the world, if a train derails behind the houses across the street and takes out my whole neighborhood in the middle of the night, there is nothing I can do to fix/change/prevent that, just like there is nothing I can do if a rogue asteroid decides to wander its way into Earth's orbit and comes crashing down.  The fear is still there somehow, and I think it really stems from having children.  Once my life became about two little people that are half of my DNA, who are my whole entire world, who I would die to protect, my world's rotational axis changed.  Maybe that, compacted by the fact that I have post-traumatic stress and panic disorders stemming from childhood trauma (more on that later), is why I have random, completely irrational worries.

Anyway.

Time to chime in on Penn State.  When I heard the breaking news report, I thought it was about some random college football scandal.  You know, the football program was taking kickbacks from NFL recruiters to secure certain players on future pro rosters or someone was embezzling money.  Personally, I hate college football- I could never get into it and I don't understand the draw of sitting around watching college football games on TV.  I like going to college football games, but I just never got the whole Big 10 hoorah factor.  Throw on Sunday football, Monday night football, or holiday games or the Super Bowl and I'm all in.  (Go Pack Go!)  So when the details started leaking out, I sat up and took notice.  When the dam broke and the sordid details began pouring out in an unstoppable flood, I couldn't help but seek out the Grand Jury's findings online.  Now I wish I hadn't.  I, like many others out there, was a victim of child sex abuse at the hands of my father.  I don't know when it started- I was really young- but I do recall when it ended.  When I was eight and my father cussed me out on the phone and essentially took himself out of my life completely... that was when all categories of abuse ended.  I remember being terrified to go to bed in my own room at night, and even now, I can recall being woken up in the middle of the night and, sleepy-eyed, seeing a distorted face hovering over me in the dark.  My mom has told me that I didn't want to go in my crib because "Dee Dee" was in there.  Sounds an awful lot like "Daddy" doesn't it?  She couldn't figure out why I was having these horrible nightmares and would wake up to draw pictures of horribly disfigured monsters.  She took me to a family therapist who confirmed her suspicions and agreed that my behavioral patterns were attributed to sexual abuse.  Of course, when my father was confronted with the facts, he denied and pointed the finger at everyone under the sun.  Coming from a man who came to this country illegally, lied about his age to get my mom to marry him to obtain citizenship, denied having affairs with my babysitters, cheating on my mom at out-of-town weddings, ignoring fidelity in general, going on drinking binges, and being arrested for cocaine possession multiple times, his denials came from a petty selfish need to twist the actual truth to fit his "truth."  My parents divorced when I was a year and a half, but up to a certain point, my mom kept taking my father back.  She wanted me to grow up with a father and held out hope that he would stand up and realize that he had a job to do in helping raise me.  That never happened.  Unfortunately, I was still subject to court-ordered visitation (which I never wanted to go to) and overnight visitation (ditto to the former).  When I spent the night at his house with his then-girlfriend Viviana, I found myself locking the door and barricading it with a nightstand or dresser before turning out the lights.  If he was going to try anything, I wanted to be alerted and awake to defend myself.

I made contact with my father again when I was almost twenty-one, and that contact was tainted and short-lived.  I needed answers to the questions from my past, and he was unwilling to discuss anything.  I wanted to know that he'd missed me being a part of his life and that he was ready and willing to nurture a mature relationship with me.  He didn't and he wasn't.  I still struggle with this even now, and it's been almost six years since I last spoke with him.  I have five siblings I will never know, and it makes me sad for him that he will never ever meet or know my children.   I'm not saying I would have ever had my kids around him if things had turned out differently; I could never trust that they'd be safe.  But it hurts that he will never get pictures of them to hang on the wall, and he will never talk to them on the phone.  He knows they exist and he knows I live a half hour away; I talk to everyone else on his side of the family and I know some of them have confronted him.

All I ever wanted was for my father to say he was sorry, explain where his head was at, why he did it, and show that he cared enough about me as a person to attempt to remedy the past.  Instead, I've been left with a gaping hole and the lasting question of "Why?"  Why did an adult, who was charged with the care of a child, HIS child, abuse that power?  What thought passed through his head that said "Hey guy. This is a really great idea!" and why did he go with it?  Sure there are all kinds of temptations in this world, temptations that can have us walking down destructive paths if we let them.  But we all have voices that tell us what is right and wrong.  Even children who have had absentee parents and little to no moral guidance in their upbringing reach the age when they are aware of consequences and the difference between what's right and wrong.  It infuriates me when I hear someone say "Well, I was abused as a child and that's why I am the way I don't respect authority" or "I never had someone teaching me the difference between right and wrong."  I don't buy either one of those reasons as a crutch to lean on when you find yourself in hot water.  There comes a certain point when you have to take accountability for your own actions and the reactions brought on by them.  And I'm sorry, but the sexualization and/or abuse of children, especially through seemingly charitable means as in Jerry Sandusky's case, is NEVER okay.  It is absolutely abhorrent, deviant, Devil-in-human-form to lay hands on a child in an inappropriate manner.

When I read about the rape and brutal sexual assaults that Sandusky committed against these at-risk boys, a piece of my heart broke.  These boys were looking for approval and acceptance from someone they could trust.  They were looking for a positive male role model they could emulate and look up to, someone to fill the void left by a broken home or missing parent.  Instead, they got unwanted advances, brutal rapes, and criminal sexual assault.  For Jerry Sandusky to use his position and authority within Penn State's football program to gain access to innocent, vulnerable boys is absolutely despicable.  I have cried over this while watching news coverage, I got nauseated while reading the Grand Jury's report.  And every single time I hear about someone else who knew, who witnessed the destruction of a child's innocence by this man, I get infuriated.  What has happened to the morality of Americans if anyone can witness an adult man performing oral sex on a ten year old boy he pinned to the wall or the violent rape of different ten year old boy in the locker room showers AND NOT REPORT IT?  Mike McQuerery not only did just that, but he absolutely failed to protect the children by removing them from the situation AND by not going straight to the police!  Instead, he ignored what he saw, talked to his father, and didn't even attempt to find out the names of the boys.  Who does that?!  It is absolutely sickening.  I have no other descriptors aside from that.  These men, every single one of them, is sick.  They need to to never ever be allowed anywhere near another child for the rest of their lives.  The entire Penn State sports organization failed these children, the system failed in bringing down the corruption, the police failed by not moving when presented with actionable knowledge, and the DA failed by not bringing charges.  There is so much dysfunction in this case. Because of their lack of urgency and unwillingness to act, they have impacted and corrupted the course of children's lives forever.

As for the bullying that's been going on, I can't say anything I haven't already said except this.  The people who are in the position to act and make a difference NEED to do so.  They NEED to stand up for students' rights.  They NEED to stand up for my little brothers who have been sexually harassed for the past two years by other students and, until recently, had nothing done about it.  They NEED to stand up for the little girl who was stabbed by another student with a pencil for not allowing them to cheat off her test.  They NEED to provide her protection from students threatening to rape/kill her and her family.  They NEED to provide safety for another girl who was brutally assaulted after being jumped from behind while she was in a passing period.  Nobody realizes the damage that can result from a group of adults who fail to protect the innocents.  It's one thing to be betrayed or failed by a parent, but to have parents who care and aren't being heard by the powers that be who can bring about change is just unacceptable and outrageous.

I look at Rhea and Trace with equal parts awe and wonderment that Nate and I created these two beautiful creatures.  But I also look at them and worry about what the world is going to look like as they're growing up.  Nate and I made the decision that I will homeschool our children, but we can't protect them forever.  We can't shield them from the evils that this world holds and we can't save their innocence indefinitely.  As they grow up, they will encounter the world.  The blinders will fall away and they will struggle with the truths they're going to be confronted with.  They will learn that not every man is as amazing as their daddy is and not every woman cares about her babies the way their mommy does.  They will learn that not everybody is kind and that there are constantly scary things that we can't prevent or change- at least not right away.  I want nothing more for them than to stay as perfectly happy and content as they are right now.  I know that's completely unfeasible, but I can't help but wish for this.

Despite all the negativity that's around us and everything I have been through in my own life, I have committed myself to making sure that my kids know that people are (mostly) good.  There is a lot of beauty in this world for them to experience, and they need to run at opportunity with open eyes, open hearts, and open minds.  I want them to know that, despite everything ugly that happens on a regular basis, they can make a difference by standing up for the underdog; they can turn ugly into beauty.  I want them to know that change starts with one voice and that they need to make theirs heard.  But more than anything, I want them to be fearless.  I want them to explore without boundaries, dream without limits, and love endlessly.  I want them to live their passions and be passionate about their lives.  I want them to know that they can change the world and make a difference in someone's life by simply taking the time to listen to them, observe their surroundings, and not be afraid to say something they see going on that's wrong.  Change doesn't happen if we sit lazily by and expect someone else to take care of a mess we created or walked through.

Sometimes all it takes is one voice.

I really should get better about this

So it's been almost a month since my last blog, and I've recently decided that, as the title of this entry says, I really should get better about this! (How's that for originality?)  I'm back in school and things are picking up since we're already at midterms, so it's been hard for me to steal some time and write.  So if you're reading this, thanks! :)  Anyway.  A lot's been on my mind lately, so here I go!

I (finally) found time to reconnect with one of my most favorite people EVER in the world.  He used to be one of my baristas at one of the dozens of Starbucks stores I managed/co-managed/assistant managed, and, if I'm quite honest, he's one of my all-time favorite baristas ever.  We got along incredibly well, and something about us just clicked.  Come to find out, he's had a really rough year and a half, and I feel so bad that I wasn't around for him during this time.  He came out to his parents and faced a world of persecution from the people who are supposed to love and accept him unconditionally.  And, like all of us have been through, he put his heart and soul into loving someone with everything to his core, only to have all that love thrown back in his face.  That all got me thinking about how close-minded people can be.  There is nothing (well, except if my children took the life of someone else) that would ever make me turn my back on my children.  I may not agree with things they do or the way they choose to live but I would never ever take away my love, affection, or acceptance of them and who they are.  Nate feels the same way.  I'm not saying that if one of my children came to me and said "Mom, I'm gay" that it wouldn't take some adjustment and time for me to reconcile that information with myself, but I believe that we are born with our sexual orientation predetermined.  And can I fault my child for something they didn't choose?  No.  That would be like saying, "Well, you asked to be born with blue eyes and that's just unacceptable.  I wanted you to have green like mine."  Sounds ludicrous, right?  That's because it is.  At least, in my opinion.  So, to my boo- if you're reading this- I know I've already told you this a billion times over, but you are an amazing person.  The trials you've been through will seem like distant memories when you finish school and move on to where/what/who you're supposed to be and be with.  I'm so happy to have you as my beautiful friend, and I will always be here for you.  :)

Next order of business...
(By the way, I'm blogging instead of working on my 12-page midterm that's due on Thursday night.  Some would call that procrastination.  I call it dedication to my craft.  Kinda.)

Have you ever felt like you're just biding your time, waiting for your life to start?  I am in that rut, as far as my professional life is concerned.  I know that I went into finishing my bachelors, knowing that I'm finishing it to finish it.  I have no clue what I want to do after I graduate, except that I'd like to be in HR.  Can I see myself there?  Really see myself there, as my chosen career, for ever and ever?  No.  HELL no.  Do I see myself living in the suburbs of Chicago forever?  Nope.  Do I see myself anywhere in the realm of the business world, corporate or otherwise?  Definitely not.  So what, you may ask, am I doing in school for managerial communications?  Answer: I have no idea.  Short answer: Justifying the almost $60k in student loan debt that I'm carrying around without having a degree, that's what.  I am "investing in my future," whatever that means.  Truth is, I'm a musician.  I write, I sing, I play, I perform.  It's in my blood, it's my dream, and it's the only thing I have EVER seen myself doing, the only thing I have ever WANTED to do.  When I perform with the guys, it's like I walked into my house and the stage is my living room.  It's home.  Even more important, we're good.  We're really good.  Not trying to sound snotty or hoity-toity, and I would never say so with airs about me, but since this is my blog, I'm allowed to speak the truth.  We. Freaking. Rock.  So why am I living in the suburbs of Chicago, finishing my degree at a small liberal arts college in a program that I don't foresee ever being in?  Great question.  I guess it's what grown-ups do, and I've been told a time or two that I should have a backup plan.  Since I'm 26 and married with two small children, I guess that makes me an adult.  Thanks a lot, Responsibility and Sense of Necessity.  You two are the big crashers of my party for big aspirations and plans.  I started to run my brilliant idea by Nathan today and got interrupted by my two little ankle-biters, one of whom was climbing on the dining room table to get to the bag of Halloween autumn mix candy corn.  I've been thinking that, after I graduate (and Adam will beat me to that by almost a year!), I think we should move the family to Nashville, LA, New York, Seattle, or ATL, steal Adam and Michelle and pack them into our moving truck, and get a move on our purpose for being on this earth.  Well, one of our purposes is to spawn adorable children (check x2!) and be really really ridiculously good-looking (duh), but I just have this thing inside that's screaming to me that we're destined for incredible things.  In the meantime, we'll be honing our performance style, adding to our stockpile of original songs, and putting our stamp on the covers we choose to play.  We're pushing ourselves to learn new songs, write new material, nail down harmonies, and be better overall.  I guess that'll have to suffice for now.

In other news...

Tomorrow is mine and Nate's anniversary.  Three years has both flown by and seems like forever at the same time.  Not in a bad way either!  It's that same feeling I get when I realize that I've been out of high school for 8 1/2 years and it feels like forever ago and just yesterday at the same time.  It's not like these have been the easiest three years either.  Started off our marriage with a 10 month old baby girl, miscarried around her first birthday, got pregnant with Trace, delivered him when Rhea was twenty-five months old, then I blew out my foot when he was three and a half months old.  And let's be honest.  The past year and a half has been a period of massive adjustment to a new normal.  I had to realize that my aspirations and determination to hit the 2012/2016 Olympic games for taekwondo were a thing of the past and that I would no longer be able to be the high-performing, cardio-driven athlete that I once was.  The kids have had to adjust to my "wonky foot" (thanks, Rhea) and Nate's had to adjust to me having physical difficulties doing simple things like walking.  I hope that I've been able to provide them all a positive example of the things that can be done when we set our mind to something, though.  I've been incredibly bullheaded about maintaining a rigorous workout schedule, using pilates and P90 (modified when necessary to accommodate said "wonky foot") to maintain flexibility and usage of my foot, as well as losing weight.  I've tried to keep the kids as active as before I was injured so that they don't suffer- even when I'm in excruciating pain.  I've learned to live with a constant pain level of 7-8, as well as the importance of slowing down when my body tells me to.  And I'm doing everything I can to make sure they know that, despite difficulties that seem impossible to overcome, you can always strive to meet and exceed everyone else's expectations to achieve your own goals and dreams.  I've also learned that I'm a lot stronger than I ever gave myself credit for.  I used to pride myself on being physically strong and tough (bruises after tournaments were my physical trophies and just as flaunted as my actual trophies and medals), but I've realized that physical strength and endurance isn't all that matters.  Mental strength and a positive attitude go even further when coupled with indomitable spirit and an unwillingness to quit.  (Indomitable spirit = taekwondo tenant at its best!)  I refuse to give up.  At anything I know is in store for me.  I just have to be patient and steadfast in my knowledge that something way bigger than I can even imagine is waiting just around the corner.  I just have to take care of first things first, and Nate is the person I want by my side.  He is not only my best friend, my confidant, but he is my other half.  Even when we fight (we've gotten really good at that as the kids get older and test our boundaries), we fight knowing that we're still on the same team.  He makes me laugh harder than anyone else on Earth, he infuriates me more than anyone else on Earth, and he makes me smile bigger than anyone else can.  Another "it seems like yesterday" moment is every time I think back to when we first met and I knew he was my person.  I know, I know.  "Love at first sight" sounds cheesy and impossible, and I won't say it was love at first sight.  But it was a knowing at first sight.  He was important and he was going to be even more so in my life in the future.  I just didn't know what role he'd play.  Until we started dating two years later, that is- then I knew.  Everything fell into place within me, and I knew.  So thank you, Nathan, for the best eight and a half years of my life so far.  Thank you for being there for me through everything, for letting me be your person, and for loving me.  I love you!

And now for the wrap up...

The kids are hilarious.  They are my every joy and every headache!  Trace has become quite the chatterbox.  And monkey.  And entertainer.  He is endlessly goofy and always does his silly thing looking out of the corner of his eye for the laugh.  I think he learned that from Rhea.  Just when I thought her personality couldn't be any bigger, she surprises me.  Everything from telling my mom to "Slow down, kiddo!" to asking Nate (at the zoo, while eating lunch next to an African American family) "Hey Dad, what color are we?" to singing to the tune of "Feliz Navidad," "I wanna wish you a Lauren Pittman!" (one of my good friends), and answering my phone to talk to my friend Katie for ten minutes (unbeknownst to me- I was cleaning out a backed up tub drain- or trying to!), she is Miss Personality Plus!  Every day I wake up exhausted from the day before, but excited to see what's up their sleeves for the day.  On the days I do get frustrated with my physical restrictions, I just look at them and think of what I'd be missing if I was still working 40+ hours a week.  Some things that challenge us end up being the biggest gifts.  Thank you, God, for giving me this understanding and for giving me peace when I felt the most anxious.

Okay... it's about that time.  You know?  "That" time where you realize it's time to stop putting off the things you reeeally have to get done?  Yeah... "that" time has come.  Hopefully I'll get to blog it up before next month! But if not, I'll see you in November!  (Whoa- where did 2011 go?!)

Peace!

My 9/11

Well, it's that time of year again... it's an anniversary of "the day of infamy."  Only this year, it's the tenth anniversary and the weight of it is hitting me full force, even moreso than years past.  I think it's because so much has happened while the time has whipped by, and I'm in a completely different place than I was ten years ago.

Ten years ago, I was a junior in high school.  The day had just started, and I was super tired, but strangely awake.  You know that feeling?  I call it hyper-tired.  Anyway, I was heading up the stairs to my second class of the day when a girl I was friends with named Liz came running up to me with this kind of shocked look on her face.  Now, if you knew Liz, you knew that this wasn't standard behavior for her.  She was the kind of pseudo-pessimistic but totally cool girl... looking back, she kind of reminded me of Lisa Loeb in a way.  Similar vibes.  Anyway, I asked what her deal was and she asked me if I'd heard.  "Heard what?" Her response will be forever seared into my mind.  "Dude, we're under attack.  A plane flew into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York and while the news was showing the hole in the side of the north tower, a plane hit the south tower ON CAMERA."  I don't remember anything after that but running to my class and all of us anxiously awaiting the announcement from our superintendent addressing what was happening on the east coast.  It came about a minute after the final bell rang, and everyone sat shell shocked.  No one said a word, no one moved.  The rest of my classes passed in a blur, up until I got to one of my favorite classes: AP US History with Mr Korfist.  He was super cool and a total straight shooter.  We walked into the room and all the lights were off.  A usually chatty class, we were all trying to figure out what was happening, attempting in our sixteen and seventeen year old minds to make heads or tails of what was unfolding.  He got us all to quiet down, then informed us that we were going to go down to the basement drivers ed classrooms and watch live coverage.  "This, as horrific as it is, is history in the making.  This is your generation's JFK moment."  He was right.  I will forever remember the day that the towers, the Pentagon, and Flight 93 went down and where I was.  In that class, we watched the towers fall live on tv.  In that class, we realized the scope of the events and in that class, devastation began to set in.

On my way to lunch, I saw our police liason, Officer Keller (or Keller as he was known).  He and I had a good rapport, and so I asked him if I could go home.  I just didn't want to be in school, I wanted to be with my family, I was totally freaking out.  He told me that I needed to trust the school and him, and say a prayer for those who were unaccounted for and who were affected directly by what was going on.  The school was on lock down and no one was allowed in or out, no one was allowed to leave, even if their parents called them out, except in extenuating circumstances.  (I found out when I got home that my mom had sat on the phone for over an hour trying to get through to the office, only to be told that she could not come get me and I would not be allowed out of the building until we received confirmation that the city of Chicago was not a target.)  Little did I know at the time that there were about twenty of my fellow students who lost direct family members.  One of them was a boy in my grade who's dad was on staff at my church.  He was on the first plane.


I was supposed to head right from school to work, but I got to work and there was a note on the back doormat that said "Go home Becca.  The company (Starbucks) sent out a memo and had the entire corporation shut down until further notice."  When I got home, I hugged my mom and sobbed my eyes out.  Everything that I'd been seeing all day had been building and once I knew I was in a safe environment, I just fell apart.  I had twin brothers who were ten days old and a little sister who was 2 1/2 and I looked at them, knowing that the world they were going to grow up in was going to be very different from the one I knew up until that morning.

My family home is right in the path of Midway and O'Hare airports, so we constantly have air traffic flying overhead.  The two big-name newspapers are the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times, and they covered everything but always came out in the morning.  On the night of 9/11, two things will forever stick out to me. 1.)  There was no air traffic, the city of Chicago was on blackout and it was eerily dark and silent because of this.  2.)  The Chicago Tribune put out its first ever evening edition, and I remember standing in the driveway with my aunt as the newspaper delivery man drove by, tossing our paper onto the driveway.  As my aunt and I were outside putting American flags up and down our driveway, we happened to look up and see a low-flying military drone aircraft.  The one that kind of looks like a flying tank in the shape of a w?  It was so quiet we almost didn't see/hear it... it was just an out-of-the-blue reminder of what had happened and that our world had changed forever.  When I opened the paper up after getting it out of the bag, the centerfold was filled with various images of people falling out of the buildings.  One of the pictures was of the "falling man."  That image will forever be etched in my mind, as will the others.

I have panic disorder- I've had it for as long as I can remember- and so, after the day's events, there was no way in God's kingdom that I was going to be sleeping in my room all by myself.  I'm okay admitting that as a sixteen year old girl, I was terrified of the dark because of the unknown terrors that were hiding in my mind from watching the television coverage.  So, since my mom was sleeping in the living room with my brothers and recovering from a c-section, and since my dad had to be up for work around 4:30 in the morning, I decided to jump on baby duty.  It gave me a chance to help my mom AND not sleep alone.  Two birds, one stone, that whole thing.

Anyway.  Looking back at 9/11 ten years later, it's easier to reflect on but it's still heartrending.  Every time I learn about someone else who died who was a mother, a father, had children on board the plane or were pregnant, it wrenches my emotional floodgate wide open.  Being a parent myself, I simply cannot imagine knowing that because of the actions of someone else, not only was I going to die and leave my family behind, but thousands of others would too.  I look at my children, even when they're testing the limits of my sanity, and cannot imagine a life without them.  While I know that life without me is going to happen at some point for them (hopefully in the far distant future), I hope it's when I'm 95, a great-great grandma, white-haired, and losing my teeth in my pillowcase. 

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly time flies.  It seems like just yesterday but forever ago all at the same time.  As a country, we've grown stronger as we've grieved, we've rallied behind our troops, even as we've been politically divided.  So, even though 9/11 ripped a hole in our nation's heart, we have come back with a resilience in our hearts and our American spirit has found a way to shine.  We are unbreakable.  Our troops answered the call of duty, and those who had never considered having a military career enlisted to protect this great country we live in.  I will be forever grateful and my heart will always be wide open to those who have fought in any capacity for this country, and I will always be thankful to those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for me, a stranger but an American like them.  So, to those who are still active, thank you for all you do.  I pray for you and your safety every single day.  I pray for your families' strength and courage in your absence.  Finally, I pray for peace of mind, peace of spirit, and peace at heart for everyone affected by the events of September 11th.  Hopefully the next ten years holds more peaceful and healing times ahead.

To the readers out there, please be safe this weekend (as every weekend).  I leave you with a parting thought.  It's so easy to point the finger at those who look like the men who perpetuated the crime.  But the thing is, they're not.  So I urge everyone to remember that we are all American, regardless of where we come from or what we look like.  Let's stand united.

Body Issues

They're part of what being a woman is all about, right?  Today I woke up feeling really bloaty and icky and blase about the day.  I hated my complexion (despite being blemish free), felt like my face was super oily (even after I washed it), and felt like my boobs are ginormo (which they are, but usually I don't feel like they're anchors pulling me to the floor).  You know what I mean?  Those days where, as a woman, you just feel like some kind of urchin of society?  Granted, I hadn't showered yet (huh- still haven't, actually!) and I didn't get some incredible sleep last night (chalk one up to intense leg pain and nightmares from the girlchild), so I guess it would make sense.  But still.  It got me wondering as the day went on (and I felt better), why is it that it's so easy for most women to be completely down on their bodies on any given day?  Is it really human nature, or is it a societal thing?  For me, someone who's always struggled with body image- even when I was a rail thin 125 pounds and 5'8" at 14 years old- I don't think I've ever known what it means to be comfortable in my own skin.  I was recently looking through my high school yearbooks and I ran across a couple full-body shots of me that were taken during choir rehearsals, and I didn't realize how healthy and normal I looked.  I was 150 pounds, had flat, defined abs, and could wear anything I wanted, but for some reason, I remember feeling awkward even then.  And now I find myself wishing that I'd known then what I know now: that I was completely fabulous and had nothing to be self-conscious about in high school.  Or college, for that matter. 

Since my injury, I've been frustrated because I was so used to being able to do hardcore cardio and take weight off really easily.  Now though, I've started tracking caloric intake and doing pilates several times a week for at least 35 minutes a session, and on the days I don't, I find some other way to be as active as my body will let me.  I'm proud to report that I'm up to 90 minutes of walking around at a stretch.  Granted, I have to sit down for at least an hour after being up for 90 minutes, but I'm doing everything I can to push through the pain, both for my own physical well-being and to set a positive example for my highly active children.

Anyway...

I didn't want this to be a woe is me, but if you're a woman and you're reading this, do me a favor.  The next time you feel like crap and you don't like what you see in the mirror, tell yourself that you are beautiful and pick one feature in particular that you really really like.  For me, it's a toss-up between my smile and my eyes.  (My eyes are a pretty cool color if I do say so myself! Thanks Mom!)  Carry that happy feeling when you think of the features you really like about yourself with you throughout the day and let that lift you up.  That's what I did today, and it really turned out to be a great day!  Sure, there were some unpleasant aspects of it (like taking the kids to get lead-tested), but they were champs.  So I figure if they can be such troopers through getting their little fingers pricked and saturating two circles on a paper, then I can be a trooper and think positively about myself, even when I feel like hiding my head in a paper grocery bag and the rest of me in a muumuu.

Let's talk about...

Politics.  And God.  Politics, God, and society.  There's a loaded topic.  As I'm writing this, I'm sitting in my Modern and Contemporary Christian Thought class; a theology class, for all-intensive purposes.  We have gotten zero theological study out of this class, but instead my prof has decided to cater to the one guy in here who is literally obsessed with the "what came first"s, the "what did Jesus LOOK like"s, and the 'fact' that racism "doesn't exist" anymore.  It got me thinking.  When did America as a whole become like this?  I'm sure there are others who think this way (Koran burners, The WBC), and that could explain why we're so ass-backward as a nation.  Does it matter what came first between the chicken and the eggs?  We have chickens AND eggs, and we get nourishment from both, end of subject.  Does it matter who came up with the idea of 'pantheism', 'panantheism,' 'deism,' etc...?  Nope.  Not at all.  It matters that they're there.  People have different beliefs, people are different, period.
A couple weeks ago, there was a ridiculous ongoing commentary from said ridiculous guy about how "9/11 was an isolated incident, the world religions get along really well, and since 9/11, the world's been a much calmer, more peaceful, safer place."  Um, herro Kim Jong Il (yes, I'm referencing "Team America"), not so.  We've been at war, both within our own borders and without.  How can you miss that?!  How can someone be so oblivious to the suffering of people everywhere, all across the world, and make statements that are so ignorant they make my blood boil?  So I guess I'm wondering: am I insane for thinking HE'S insane?

Piggybacked to my weekly Thursday night shenanigans is the anger I feel at how racist America is.  It makes me angry that anyone can be blind to this, especially with the condemnation that President Obama has been undergoing in a very public manner for the past 2 1/2 years.  Where is the outcry against the injustice of the forced humiliation of THE MAN WE ELECTED INTO THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT AS A NATION by repeatedly asking for his birth certificate?!  This 'birther' movement, Donald Trump, conspiracy theorists are never going to be satisfied.  He releases the illegal-to-release long-form certificate of live birth and it's fake.  He releases the normal, government-issued birth certificate, has Republicans and Democrats verify it's authenticity and it's a conspiracy.  Nothing is ever good enough because of society's perceptions of what's right/wrong, acceptable/unacceptable, moral/unethical.  Listen.  We are ALL from somewhere else.  We ALL have ethnic names, whether we realize it or not.  'Johnson' dates way back to the UK's naming system, and literally means "John's son."  'Smith' alludes to some form of European tradesman: blacksmith, silversmith, locksmith, etc.  'White' is a surname that was given to black slaves to denote who they "belonged" to.  Connell is the short-form of O'Connell- obviously Irish, McKidd is Scottish, Diaz can be a plethora of Hispanic countries as is Castro (Cuban or Dominican, for example).  My point is, there is an ethnic history behind every single surname in this country, and it enrages me that we are such hypocrites as a nation. 

I got teased for my last name when it was "Salazar" because it sounded like "saladbar."  For a girl who developed faster than everyone else around me and was significantly taller than everyone, my "nickname" was Chewbecca- aka Chewy.  So then I became a wookie entree in my "full nickname" Chewbecca ate the Saladbar.  This is what we do to people with ethnic last names.  We ostracize them and make them outcasts.  It goes much less noticed when we're younger because it's school and children are mean.  But when we begin calling out our elected leader and picking on him because his last name is different, all the exceptions made for previous white men (*cough cough* John McCain and Mitt Romney) come bubbling to the surface as injustices.  It sickens me to the core.

I could catch a lot of flack for this next statement, but as for the religion of the President of the United States?  Or anyone else, for that matter?  I don't care.  I don't care what denomination of Christianity the President is, or even if he's Christian.  What I do care about is whether or not he believes that there is something bigger than us and that no one can carry a country on their shoulders alone.  I don't think God calls himself "God".  If we want to get into Scripture, he only says "I am" or "I am what I am."  What his earthly name is can change, and who's to say who's right or wrong?  God to Christians can be the same Allah of the Muslims who can be Buddha to Buddhists or Yahweh to the Jews or Brahma to Hindus.  In my mind, they are all the same.  I do, however, care about how I choose to raise my family, and I do care that I'm allowed the freedom to raise my family the way I see fit.  (Which happens to be a Christ-centered household, in case you're wondering! :) )  I may be Christian and have Christian beliefs, but I don't believe that's the only way to be.  To think that Christians are the absolute key-holders to all things divine, I think that's ignorant.  Like I said, I could catch flack for saying that, but that's okay.  We're all entitled to our own opinions, and those are mine.

To wrap it up:
Am I the one living under the rock with a warped worldview?  I don't get it.  At all.
Okay... my rant is over, and I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Until later....
B

Catch and Release

If you recognized the title from the Jennifer Garner flick (also starring the yummy Timothy Olyphant), I'm so busted.  If you didn't and I just outed myself, I'm also busted!  But I think it's applicable for today.  I took Rhea to get her hair cut- and for a little girls' time, and it hit me that it seems like just yesterday, she was at Trace's stage, running around the house, babbling, being silly.  (I say this as Mr. Man just emptied the DVD cabinet by pulling a concert booklet out from under the movie stack.  Awesome sauce.)  She told the stylist "I would like side bangs please.  Not straight across my forehead, but side bangs.  To. The. Side.  Thank you!"  And while I sat there cracking up with the stylists and another customer, it hit me just how quickly time has flown.  I can't believe that my first baby is almost 3 1/2 and that she can tell us exactly what she wants, in no uncertain terms, like she's a little adult.  I can't believe that we can put on Justin Bieber (and a handful of other artists, don't worry- she's not just a Belieber!) and she knows all the words and can sing all the notes (pretty much dead on), working her way through CD after CD.  Her sense of humor is hilarious, and her smile lights up a room.  Her giggle is contagious, and she most often lets those laughs loose when we're doing the "Do Together" part of her yoga for kids workout.  She dotes on, polices, and beats on Trace whenever she wants, but always wants to pray with him and she freaks out if she doesn't get to say goodnight.  She is totally her own person, and yes, that does create some struggle for Nathan and me, but I'm so amazed at the little girl she's growing into and excited for the young lady of the future. 
Then I look at Trace and am even more amazed.  I don't remember Rhea doing what he's doing when she was his age.  He is so verbal, and goofy, and he has his own little sense of himself, and his own sense of humor.  I feel like the baby of my babies grew into a toddler way faster than my first baby!  And I know that's normal, because the second baby has an example to follow.  Quite frankly, I'd be concerned, with the level of talking at/to him that Rhea does and with her level of involvement, if he wasn't the little guy he is.  Between the two of them, I'm either laughing or tearing my hair out all through the day.  Let's just say, our house isn't boring!
Even though I look at them with a sense of awe and wonder (I still cannot believe that Nate and I created these two perfections), I also have a heart tinged with sadness.  It's astounding how quickly time is flying by, and I often wonder if I'm absorbing as much from them and of them as I can.  Even though I'm with them all day every day, am I seeing as much of them as I should be?  I feel like time is racing by and I can't possibly catch it all.  Am I saying the right things to Rhea?  Am I doing a good job showing them as much love as they need and as much as I have to give them?  I constantly worry that something is going to happen to me or them and that our time is going to be cut short.  I know, I know... it sounds completely irrational.  But, God forbid that does happen, did I give them the start of a solid foundation for the rest of their lives? 
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that we should love and cherish every single second we have with the people we love the most.  I can't imagine my life without Nathan, in the same way life before Rhea feels like a million years ago, in the same way that our family without Trace didn't sparkle as much as it does with him.  Life happens and it happens so fast that I feel like there's never enough time.  There just isn't. 
Nathan did a really sweet thing though today, and I feel like our house is taking more and more steps toward feeling like a home.  He hung a bunch of pictures that we had up in our old apartment.  Pictures of him and me when we were dating, pictures of us in college, pictures of Rhea as a newborn until now.  (We have a ton of pictures of Trace that we have to print off so they can join the picture party!)  So, after almost two years living in this house, we're finally starting to live like grown ups!  We have our beautiful memories hanging from the walls (and more keep coming!), we're organizing the rooms (and you can see the floor! *happydance*), and the kids' playroom looks like a playroom, not an abyss.  All it took is a little concentrated time. 
So, coming back to the beginning of this entry, I feel like we have such a brief time, no matter how long life is, to catch the beautiful people we love.  We have such a brief long time to do the incredible things we want to do with those beautiful people... and then we have to release.  We release the youthful times to the past and relegate them to precious memories.  We release the feelings of the past in favor of a peaceful present and future.  We release our amazing children to the big, wide world without being under our roof.  And somewhere in there, we release our hearts and give them to someone else.  Whether that someone is our spousal soulmate, our friend(s) soulmate, our children (who are the carriers of our souls), or just the universe, we are all here to leave our mark.  So take the time and catch the people you love to make your mark.  Time is ticking.

Exhausted

It's been a while, and I've missed blogging.  From the title of this entry, you can probably see why it's been awhile.  I'm one sleepy chica!  I've recently put two and two together as to why I've been so completely exhausted to the bone every day.  So recent that it has, in fact, been approximately thirteen hours since I've made this discovery.  Every night, Nathan and I go to bed just the two of us, and every morning I wake up- hours after he's been gone- with someone else in my bed.  Her name starts with Rh and ends with eaLynn.  And she is a bed hog beyond belief.  I'm talking, she comes in sometime in the middle of the night and plasters me against the wall, which makes me wake up stiff and in pain, which in turn causes me to try and turn over, but I can't because of said toddler hogging my space.  This morning, I woke up, tried to shift, she woke up and asked me to cuddle her (which I'd already been doing in my sleep, explaining the dead left arm I had going on), and I told her I couldn't because my body hurt.  So I turned over, and what did she do?  Plastered her bum into my back, made sure it was good and dug in to the small of my back, and promptly returned to snoring.  Needless to say, I woke up feeling like I hadn't slept at all. 
I realized that this has been happening for about a week and a half, since she really got re-comfortable sleeping in the room Rhea and Trace share.  We bought this flower light at Ikea a couple weeks ago, and since it's been mounted on the wall and on all night long (all day, too!), she's realized that there are no "skulletons in her room" coming to get her.  The nightmares have stopped *knock on wood* and hopefully, we are moving away from this phase that she's been in for about a year.  Now, about the skulleton thing: Rhea is super-perceptive to the supernatural.  I know, I know... if you don't believe in "ghosts" or "spirits," things of that nature, it can sound really hokey.  And that's fine; stop reading.  Because that's what I'm going to be talking about.  Since she was a baby and we lived across from a nursing home, she's been freakishly in tune to things that Nate and I can't see.  (Or, every so often, we could see... in my case, sense.)  Nate used to be really visually perceptive to the spirit realm- seeing random spirits, friends who'd died, my grandpas and uncle, that kind of shenanigans.  I've never seen anything in detail- just the occasional "teaser" where I see something out of my periphery, look up, and it's gone.  Or a shadow person in a doorway... or the electric vibes/presence of a spirit.  Sometimes, when that happens, my world looks like the "doo doo doo doo" scene at the end of Wayne's World, except sub in crazy electric colored lights for the wavy water effect.  Anyway, Rhea.  When we lived across from the nursing home in this super cool condo (with a super douche-y landlord), it was a wide open floor plan.  But there was a short hallway that ran off the living room; if you were in the hallway and looked right, there was the master bedroom.  Right in front of you was a linen closet, to the immediate left of the door to the closet was Rhea's room, and at the left end of the hallway was the big bathroom.  (We had a half bath on the other side of the condo.)  When I would put Rhea down for nap or bed, I would rock her in a glider that faced the doorway.  If the door wasn't completely closed, she would pop up, and watch people (we assume) walk up and down the hallway.  Oftentimes, she would fight her way down out of my lap, crawl to her doorway, push open the door, and sit there, waving, babbling, and smiling at people walking up and down the hall.  Creeeeepy.  If the door was closed all the way, it happened a few times where I'd hear this shuffling sound, like someone scuffing their feet across the carpet, and it would stop in the middle of the room.  Simultaneously, it would get chilly and Rhea would be riveted to the same spot I'd be sensing something.  Double creepy.  Add in the times Nate and I would hear her talking and laughing at/with someone, and when we'd get up to check on her, she'd be completely asleep, but her room would be frigid and the glider would be moving.  Bizarre.
I don't know when she went from being so comfortable with the supernatural to absolutely freaked out by it.  Nate and I both grew up having supernatural experiences, so it's nothing new to us.  Yes, we've both had some seriously freaky situations, but nothing that we've ever gone running scared from.  We're really open and accepting to that, so when we moved and about 7 months after we moved in, right after I had Trace, she started saying "There was a man in her room" and "Skulletons were coming to get her,"  we'd ask her to elaborate and she'd immediately switch into full-on denial of anything being there.  But it wasn't the kind of denial that was like "Ahhhh got ya!  I'm just kidding around!"  It was the kind of terrified denial that really said "There is something scary in my room and I can't even talk about it."  We tried everything from getting her fish in a lighted tank (that didn't work) to a Bieber poster on the wall (she'd swoon all day and still flip her nuggets at night) to putting my confirmation cross with a beautiful dove in the middle on the wall.  No dice.  It would be "Night night Jesus!  I'm going to sleep on Mommy and Daddy's floor!"  Sigh.  Her little world was shattered (again) when she woke up in the middle of the night on our floor, shrieking about the skulletons that were in our room.  So she climbed into bed with us and it was another terrible night of sleep for me and Nathan, wonderful and secure sleep for Rhea.  Un-fair.
Back to the original point, I've figured it out.  She is a bed hog of epic proportions.  So tonight we're going to try leaving Nate's ipod in the room for her.  That way, if she wakes up, she can put on Go Diego Go! or Toy Story 3 or Dora the Explorer or Backyardigans (yeah- she has a plethora of options) and (hopefully) stay in her room.  I need to be able to wake up in the morning and do some yoga mania or pilates without her freaking out because I "got out of bed without her."  I also enjoy showering without a shrieking toddler banging down the door and waking up her brother at 6:45 in the morning.  A cup of coffee in my system, breakfast on occasion... those are also two more things I highly enjoy that I severely miss when Miss Miss gets up off her tuffet and thinks everything should go her way.
On that note... my eyelids are desperately seeking Susan (okay, not that terrible Madonna flick from the '80s, but Susan meaning sleep... terrible correlation, I know), so I'm gonna hit the ol' sack o' hay.  Can't wait for what tomorrow's going to bring!

Assumptions and Judgments

So the title sounds a little questionable, right?  What follows are things that I've been thinking about for the past week or so...

I mentioned in a previous blog that Nathan and I took the kids to Rainforest Cafe last weekend.  (At least, I think I did!)  While we were waiting in line to put our name in, I was listening to the two teenage girls that were standing right behind us, talking quite loudly.  All of a sudden, one of them said "Oh, they're such a weird couple!  Look!  A black girl with a hot white guy," to which her friend replied "Well, I guess if you're into that kind of thing..."  I was honestly stunned.  Do people really still think that way?  Is it really that big of a deal to Americans to see a biracial couple out and about, considering all Americans are such melting pots of ethnicity and race?  Is the pigment of our skin still what defines us? I guess I was so taken aback because I feel like our culture has made such strides in so many areas that it's shocking to me to hear this backwards thinking.  No one bats an eye when a brunette woman is with a blond man (a la Nathan and myself), so why is it so odd and so strange and so necessary to make comments about a black woman and a white man, or an Indian man and a white woman, or an Asian woman and a Hispanic man, or any other ethnic mixture of coupledom?  To judge someone simply because their eye shape is different than "normal" or their hair or skin or dress or cultures are opposite is simply unnecessary and offensive.  Isn't it?  Am I wrong for being irritated?  I guess it somehow goes back to the fact that I grew up in a very upper-middle class/upper class WASP area and I'm half Mexican.  While I don't look fresh out of the water (my father swam here- literally), I don't look "white" either.  I have olive skin, hazel green eyes, dark brown hair with natural red/copper highlights, I don't burn (I tan hardcore), and in the summer, if I'm a pool lizard and lounge around all day, my skin gets so dark that I've been told I look "Afro-Cuban," especially in pictures.  (My first license picture was a perfect example.)  So while I don't identify with being a minor in the "minority," I can relate to being a social minority.  In fact, I started working for Starbucks when I was sixteen, in this same WASPy town.  My third store was right down the street from a middle school, and let me put it this way: we had kids regularly purchasing frappuccinos with $50s.  It was ridiculous, and they were heinously rude.  We had to have on-duty police officers bouncing both entrances to the store every day after school and only allowing two kids in at a time because they'd wreak havoc on the place otherwise.  I actually had a kid, who's older siblings I knew from school, make the asshole comment to me: "Oh you're Becca Salazar?  You're Mexican right?  So that's your family mowing my lawn?  Stupid spick."  I was mortified.  Especially since I was on friendly terms with this kid's older siblings.  Plus, who the hell allows their 12-14 year old to speak that way to other people?!  The fact that that was acceptable to say just blew me away.  It got even worse on the day that I was working with Joel, my assistant manager (who was half Chinese), and Saam (who was Middle Eastern).  We had another of this lovely, ignorant bunch of kids come in and say "Check it out!  We have the spick, the chink, and the sand nigger on the floor today.  It must be my lucky day."  Little did this particular little hooligan know that Joel was a black belt in a martial art (who's name alludes me because it was cray cray!) and that I was working toward my second degree black belt in taekwondo.  It took everything we had to not jump the counter and unleash the fury.  The cops were awesome though- I knew 3/4 of all the local departments from being a D.A.R.E. role model, so they were really protective of me.  It was nice to know that the police had your back and would remove any unfavorable "situations" from the store.
So, with that as the basis for my argument, it's no wonder I was so inflamed over the comments exchanged between these two girls.
To go along with that quasi-rant (sorry!), I don't understand who thinks that they have the right to judge others based on their own personal assumptions.  And that applies to a plethora of situations that I've heard of/encountered recently.  Case in point:  Nathan just got out of the shower and came to sit down by me on the couch.  He reached for his Pepsi (gross), and thought it felt lighter.  So, he looks at me, gives me the wonky eye (looks something like this ---> oO) and says "You drank some of this, didn't you?  It's okay- I still love you."  Punk. 
Honestly though, I really don't get it. 
It's the same kind of conversation I get into with my friends who are atheists.  I have several, and they seem to fall into two categories:  the angry and the, um, not angry.  (Original, I know.)  One of said friends and I can have totally civil conversations, despite our agreeance to agree to disagree.  She brings up some very intriguing points from a scientific perspective and her main argument is that science will never prove faith or the existence of God.  And it won't.  I agree.  I don't judge her despite my disagreeing with her viewpoint.  It's not my place.  People believe different things, and as long as you aren't hurting anyone, I'm okay with that.  However, my angry atheist friend is, in a nutshell, my oldest friend.  We've known each other since he was in 6th grade and I was in 7th, and we dated on and off for five years.  Aside from Nate, he knows me better than anyone else on earth, and I can always talk to him about anything and everything... except matters of faith.  It's ironic because we met at church, we went through youth group together, on mission trips together, he went to a Christian high school, we used to pray together.  We thought that we'd be each other's "first" and, along with that, that we'd get married.  We've been there through deaths of family members, other friends falling away, relationship issues, life changes.  He is, after Nate, my best friend.  But our lives went in vastly different directions, spiritually speaking.  Recently, I texted him late at night while I was up writing a paper and frustrated.  Nathan was sawing logs in the bedroom, so I couldn't bounce my ideas off of him.  The class I was writing a paper for was Women in Biblical Literature, so I guess I should've known better than to text said friend, but I did anyway.  We ended up getting into a faith v. non-faith conversation that started turning somewhat volatile in tone.  He actually made the argument that "Religion is false, made up a long time ago by a bunch of people who were even dumber than we are today."  I was a little shocked, and instead of taking such an aggressive stance, replied "All I know is that I need faith to get me through my life, one day at a time."  And I got attacked and made to feel stupid because I said that.  The bottom line is, I agree that religion is contradictory and can be incredibly hypocritical.  WBC anyone?  Those people are complete idiots- and I'm judging by what they've put out there of themselves, not blindly.  And they are hurting other people by what they say/do.  I agree that religion can be maddening and frustrating beyond belief, and the things that people extract from it to explain or use as their battle shield against the perceived social wrongs is despicable.  But I'm not talking about religion.  I'm talking faith.  I'm talking about my belief that humanity did not form from random particles banging together after the big bang.  I'm talking about how, through my life, there have been entirely too many good things and too many bad/sad things that I've endured (which have greatly impacted my life and made me a better person) for me to discount the idea that God is real.  Through just living my life in the best way I know how, I've allowed myself to be open to all of the fears, all of the realities, and all of the joys that have been put in my path.  I've learned through trust in something bigger than me that everything in life has a reason and purpose.  While I may not understand the reason or purpose while I'm "in it," hindsight is 20/20, and I have no regrets.  Everything is a learning experience, and I live by the Bible passage Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. Acknowledge Him in all your ways, and He shall direct your path.  I don't understand why the need is there for atheists to use science to try and convince me out of my faith.  Is my faith hurting you?  No.  Is my faith affecting you in a negative manner?  No.  If you don't like my faith's existence or the fact that I have a belief system (and a very liberal one at that!), do me a favor and don't think about it.  I believe that God and science can co-exist peacefully, and that, at the end of the day, they do.  I won't preach at you all day and try to cram religion (or, more importantly, faith) down your throat if you promise not to shout at me that I'm stupid for believing that I'm never alone, that I have nothing to fear, and that I have peace in my soul because of it. 
In my Modern and Contemporary Christian Thought class, there's a guy who goes off on massive tangents.  He's the kind of guy who wants solid proof, no matter how big the digression or how far we are behind, of God's existence, of Jesus's historical presence, and of faith.  The plain and simple truth is that God is not some big guy in the sky; He's everywhere and in everything.  His miracles can be seen in the faces of every single child that comes into this life alive and healthy.  Think about it.  Maybe you won't be able to relate if you've never had children, but at each and every second of pregnancy, things can go wrong.  Horribly wrong.  I miscarried between Rhea and Trace, and I just had this inexplicable feeling from my positive test that something wasn't right.  It was devastating to find out that I was right.  I also lost a twin with Rhea at 7 weeks.  Nothing will bring your own fragile life to light than when you become a parent or experience a miscarriage.  And nothing will bring you more joy and awe than when you look into the precious rosy cheeked face of a newborn miracle.  To know that the primal act of reproduction can create something so beautiful that you're at a loss for words is the work of something bigger than our own humanity.  Jesus existed historically; there are records for that.  And faith... faith is faith.  Either you have it or you don't.  Either you find it or you don't.  Either you lose it or you don't.  Faith is another tiny, more personal miracle.  I say tiny because if you have it, it lives inside of you; it's embedded into your very core.  It's the most personal relationship you can have, this connection with the heavenly realm.  I pray every day, several times a day, and the only time I every consciously realize that I'm praying is at night when I reflect on my incredible blessings.  Almost every other time, I realize it after the fact.  After narrowly avoiding a collision, after watching Rhea and Trace share a really sweet brother/sister moment (he signed and said "love you" -"wuh ooo"- to her the other day), when my husband gets home and I get to see him for the first time at 6 pm, watching Nate play with our children- those are the times I send up a silent prayer of thanks and praise and realize immediately afterward that I said a little prayer.  Not to sound like a Bible baby (which I am, but I promise- I keep it to a minimum!), but in my life, even when I want to ship my kids to Canada and California and send Nathan to the jungle without a compass, flashlight, or bug spray, my cup runneth over.
Now, I apologize if anything I've said in this entry irritated or offended anyone.  I won't apologize for putting my beliefs out there and I definitely won't apologize for saying this:  If everyone would look past their assumptions to avoid judgments, we'd be in a much better place.  Who are we to judge each other?  Who are we to look at people on the surface, assume what we assume, and then make a judgment, all the while knowing absolutely nothing about the inner workings of those people?  No one can say what draws us to the people we love or are attracted to.  No one knows the chemistry behind faith or where belief systems come from.  Just because we may not agree does not mean that we need to fight or argue or become belligerent.  Ignorance is not a valid defense.  And neither is the phrase "Because the Bible said so."  The Bible isn't meant as a substitute for having a conscience.  Scripture isn't meant to be used as a weapon, isn't meant to slice and dice an opponent to ribbons because one person doesn't agree with another's actions/lifestyle.  So, if anyone is reading this, what I'm really saying is that I hope we all can take a look at ourselves.  We can all use a little tweaking in our thinking.

XoXo
Becca 

A Little Backstory

So, Tuesday night was my Tio (uncle) Rogelio's birthday party. So ridiculously fun, filled with awesome food and awesome people I love. I couldn't help but think though, how blessed I am, all throughout the shindig. See, I wasn't part of that side of the family for a very long time and not by choice. My father decided to abandon me when I was 8 years old (after a very traumatic childhood up to that point). When he took himself out of the picture, he took his whole family away too. They didn't know how to get ahold of me, and I didn't know how to get ahold of them either. So for 13 plus years, I missed out on so much.
When Nathan and I moved to Tennessee for school, I contacted my father. That was in August. He was back out of my life by February, and again, so was my family. Thanks to Mark Zuckerburg and Facebook, I found my cousin about a year ago, and here we are! And no, I haven't seen or heard from my father at all... And apparently, my family is being 'banished' to radio blackout too.
Anyway, so it was so cool to see the many many relatives that I haven't seen since I was really little... And they were all playing with my kids! And hanging out with my hubby! Who is very very white, I might add. A total whiteypants in a room full of brown Mexicans, and Nate was just as Messican as they were! So cool. I should also add that my kiddies really showed their inner Mexican when selecting cards for my uncle. Rhea saw a card with two chihuahuas in party hats, drinking water out of a martini glass and went cray cray! Little did I know but that the card also sang "La Bamba!" She was attached to that for Tio. And Trace was screaming like I was nun-whipping his knuckles all throughout the store until he found a hot pink singing card. I'm talking HOT PINK. So he's freaking out because he wants the card, so I give it to him, at which point I'm delighted to hear it sings "Macarena." Hilarity ensued when neither child would close their cards throughout the entire store! Needless to say, my uncle got a kick out of them!
Ah crap... I just hit the proverbial wall, which means that my brain has ceased to make coherent thoughts. I wonder if it has something to do with the glass of wine that's sitting next to me, coupled with having been sick for the past almost 3 weeks...
On that note-
Klinger out!

Hell Week and Wizards

Okay, the wizards part is just ridiculous.  I happen to be watching Wizards of Waverly Place because that's what Rhea fell asleep watching and I can't find the remote.  Why not add it into the title of the blog, right?  Speaking of Wizards though, how cute are Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez?  Yeah yeah, I know.  I'm an old fogie to be a fan of The Bieb, let alone following what's up in the most famous 17 year-old in the world's love life, but since I have Princess Justin Bieber living with me, it's kind of hard not to.  My thoughts on JB are that 1.) he's adorable 2.) if I was a 16 year old girl, I'd be daydreaming for days about Senor Bieb showing up in my casa and serenading me 3.) he's really a very talented musician.  I know, I know.  Boo hiss to me for revealing my inner teeny bopper, but dude, the kid knows how to rock it.
Moving on...
So last week was midterm mania.  I had a midterm paper due on Tuesday, and what I fully anticipated to be the worst test of my LIFE on Thursday morning.  The class: Women in Biblical Literature.  The subject matter: I have no idea.  I thought when I was signing up for the class that we were really studying the role of women in biblical literature.  (Imagine that.)  However, my prof is also apparently a Hebrew scholar, and frequently likes to reference "the original Hebrew text."  Since the majority of us have either an English Standard Version study Bible or a New International study Bible, or some other variation, NONE of which have ORIGINAL HEBREW FOOTNOTES, it's turned into something completely different than what I thought it was going to be.  Not only do we get original Hebrew translations, but we've also covered the Egyptian deities' family tree and mythology, as well as a plethora of other ridiculous unrelated things.  Said professor really got her sass on when a guy in my class asked a question about predestination.  While that completely related to the passage of Scripture that we were referring to and discussing, the 45 minute digression absolutely did not.  And the *snap snap snap* attitude dished by the professor made me feel so bad for the poor guy.  We somehow managed to end up at a certain species of birds' innate knowledge that migrating is necessary for survival of the species somehow being attempted to be correlated to predestination. *whew*  So, needless to say, when I got the almost-full page, single spaced study guide, I had no idea what to make of it.  But I did a little happy dance when I got done because it wasn't as difficult as I was anticipating.  Actually, I'm pretty confident that I got no less than an A.  *woop woop*
I had a nice chillax day planned for Friday when I got a frantic text from my mom at 7:45 am saying she thought she had to go to the ER.  So, the kids and I ended up going and taking care of my mama (who has something called labrynthitis- a viral infection that's affecting her inner ear and is causing acute vertigo).  She's fine, no ER required, but that woman is the WORST bedridden patient EVER in the history of mankind... including Nate when he gets a mancold!  All day long, my phone blew up with calls from her about "How Dad must have taken the van on purpose because even though she was so dizzy she was about to throw up, she wanted to go look at some recliners for him for his birthday."  There are so many things wrong with that statement, I wanted to *smack* her every time she said it.  So, Mom, you've been awarded the *smack* of the day!  *applause* *SMACK*
Anywho...
I've been battling bronchitis for the past 2 weeks, and it's making like Roberta Flack/Lauryn Hill and killing me softly.  Or not so softly, if you ask Nate.  I've been hacking up a lung like a veteran two-pack-a-dayer, and I h-a-t-e it.  Plus, it's a double pain in my arse since I'm asthmatic and it's turn of the season.  Balls.  My doctor, as much as I heart her, is making me shake.  Instead of hitting it hard with a Z-Pack right off the bat, we've been nancying around with steroids and now tylenol with codeine.  For realsies?!  I know what my body responds to, but instead of listening to me, I'm pretty confident in saying now that I also have a raging sinus infection on top of the other shenanigans.  Boo. Hiss.  Boo hiss.  Sigh.  Now I wait until Monday so I can call her and say "Woman! Have mercy!" (I'm not above begging.)
On another note, I was talking with my mil (for those of you who don't speak message boardlish, that's short for "mother-in-law") last week about how she takes a weekly yoga class.  Since I can't do anything like my previously high-intensity, cardio martial arts/running/lifting regimen, I started thinking that maybe I could start looking at yoga/pilates (again on the pilates side of things).  I used to use pilates as my filler on days that I couldn't get to the gym, and I always ached for days!  It's amazing that even when you think you're in really great shape, you throw a new something into the mix and bam, you realize that you have whole sets of muscles that you don't ever hit.  Long(er) story short(er), I am officially addicted to yoga and pilates.  My body feels so much happier since I'm working it out and focusing on not just getting my heart rate up, but also what my muscles are doing in the process.  It's pretty awesome.  *happydance*
We took the kids to Rainforest Cafe tonight for dinner... we never go out as a family for sit-down dinners, and as much fun as it was, I was definitely stoked to get home.  Trace was melting down left and right, Rhea was borderline massive tantrum, and we were getting the evil eye from the family at the tables next to us, all because Nate and I ordered cocktails.  We're not big drinkers at all- well, Nate's a couple beers a week guy- but I usually don't drink that often.  Every time I caught them kind of looking at us, I wanted to ask how their dinner was.  ;o) Buuut, it made for an awkward elevator ride to the 2nd floor of the mall (we were trying to get the kids to burn off the rest of their energy) when we walked up to the elevator- which was huge- and they were right in front of us.  (Wow- that was a really long sentence!)  Luckily, we didn't see them after that, but yeah... super awkward thirty second ride.
So as I'm blogging, I'm watching "Say Yes to the Dress" and the Oprah Winfrey Network (*gag*) keeps running commercials for Vagisil.  Why?  And what is up with the friggin women in those commercials?!  They either look ridiculously happy or like they're about to lose their minds.  Does every woman run that gamut when their hooha isn't in a happy place?  Ecstatically happy then in need of a straightjacket and rubber room?  I bet men make those storyboards...
And Oprah.  Cannot STAND this woman.  Many many reasons why, but first and foremost, her conceitedness.  Between her and Tyra, I want to reach through the tv anytime they're on it and fling Jello at them.  Rant over. :o)
Can I just say that "Say Yes to the Dress" is one of my favorite shows?  I remember how it felt to go looking for the first time for wedding dresses (5 weeks after I had Rhea!), and not only how much fun it was, but also that feeling when I put on "the" dress.  My mom made me try on a sleeved dress that looked straight out of Medieval Times (just for shiz and giggles) and I still remember the sheer hideousness of that dress!  We laughed sooo hard because it was white white (which completely washes me out), so I looked like the corpse bride, it weighed about 5,000 pounds, had wacky sleeves, and quite possibly the ugliest train I've ever seen.  Then I put on my dress, and I swear I heard the "Hallelujah" chorus.  I stepped up on the pedestal, under the lights, and heard "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!"  I loved that it made me look like a pinup girl, only 5 weeks post-baby, so I could only imagine what I'd look like when all the weight was off and I was back to being tightened up.  I still have it in the closet and every now and then I think about putting it on and lounging around the house.  I love that dress and if I could live in it, I would!  So it's so fun to watch other women go through the fun shenanigans that wedding shopping entails.  Hopefully we'll be able to take a honeymoon before we renew our vows!
Oh weddings... so much fun...
Anyway, on that note, I'm out for the night!  Thanks for reading this long, ambling entry.  I promise I'll keep up on it so I won't have to cram five days' worth of thoughts into one entry! *yawn* Be healthy, be well, be happy.
Nighty night!

Oh what a night... and day... and night...

The past 25ish hours have been one rollercoaster ride.  It started with Trace spiking a 101.3 fever right before bed.  I gave him Tylenol and sent him off to bed.  When I got up to check on him about 4 1/2 hours later (so the meds still should have been in his system), he was fire burnin' fire burnin' on the dance floor.  (That's right- I just referenced Sean Kingston.)  I got him up, took his temp, and discovered that he was running a 102.7 fever.  Greeeeat.  (Tony the Tiger... that just happened.) So I go to dose him on Tylenol again, and less than five minutes later, my poor little man is heaving like the sea.  Less than five minutes after he started heaving, he threw up all of the Tylenol I'd just given him.  Awesome.  So I brought him to bed, fearing that if I put him right back in his crib, he'd throw up and choke on it.  Not a good scenario.  However, bringing him to bed was also not such a great scenario.  He laid quietly snuggled next to me for a while, just twirling his Winnie blanket ears in the dark... until he decided to sit straight up, stare at the open door, point, and start having a conversation with someone- someone who wasn't there.  He babbled nonstop, throwing words in like "Mama" "Daddy" and "Way Way" (Rhea Rhea), not to mention "hi" "hola" and "wasat?", for about three minutes.  Then he paused, like he was listening, and began babbling again.  This went on for about ten minutes, when he flipped over so we were tummy to tummy, and settled down.  I was almost asleep, and so was he, when he decided to pop up and start smacking Nate on the back.  (Since Nate sleeps like a rock when he's out-out, he didn't feel a thing!)  At that point, I decided it was time to put wee Willy Winky back in his bed. 
Now, Rhea has this issue with thunder all of a sudden.  Whether there's thunder out or not (more often- not), she FREAKS out if she thinks she hears it.  So my alarm goes off at 6:35, as it does every morning, and I get out of bed with the full intention of showering, studying, and getting some coffee into my system.  But when I went in to check on Trace, he woke up.  I was rocking him, and he was almost back to sleep, when the back of the glider tapped the wall ever so lightly.  Next thing I know, Rhea is up SCREAMING "MOMMY! THERE'S THUNDER!" Needless to say, there went my plans for a tranquil, peaceful morning.  (I eventually got to shower at 5:30... sweet.)  I cringe to think of what the spring's going to hold for us, seeing as how she freaks out about trains (the tracks are across the street and behind the houses- we can see the trains running from our front windows), airplanes (we're right in the path of the landing fields at O'Hare), and just about any other loud possible noise.  Car doors, the Dumpster being rolled to/from the street on garbage day, subwoofers, the rolling shower doors, and apparently now, a tap from a glider in the next room.  It'll be a party for sure!
In the middle of all this, it's midterm week.  I had a big paper due in my lit class today and I was kind of doing the spazzy dance about how I was going to get it up to campus.  Adam sat with Trace while he napped this morning so I could run Rhea to my mom's (JT turned 1 last week and today was his birthday party- Rhea was jazzed!), and I came home and finished editing and proofing my paper.  Oh, and assembling the dreaded bibliography.  Why on earth are there so many friggin' different styles of formatting?!  And what on earth is Chicago format?!  I'm a Chicago area native, and I have never in my life ever heard of Chicago formatting.  So there's MLA, APA, and Chicago- I bet someone in Big Sky came up with Chicago style.  I mean, what is there really to do in Big Sky, Montana other than stare up at the, well, big sky?  This is all speculation of course, seeing as how I've never been to Big Sky, let alone anywhere near Montana.  But I digress.  Luckily for me, my professor (who rocks my socks, by the way) was kind enough to email me (just as I was hitting panic mode) and give me permission to submit my electronic copy to her and hand in my hard copy next class.  Crisis averted, I did just that!  And now, I really should be studying for my midterm for Thursday morning, but my brain is so fried that I don't even want to think about it.  But I will.  Who knew there were so many women in biblical literature to study for a midterm?!  Trust me- there's a lot. 
Moving right along, I was told by my mom that Rhea was "really really sweet with JT."  Aww, what a doll... considering she got a spanking for kicking sickboy right in the face today.  Sigh.  I swear, sibling rivalry is proving to be wiiicked.  Although, she about melted my heart tonight when we met my cousin for dinner at Maggiano's (*swoon*) and we passed a mom carrying her infant daughter, and Rhea looked at me and said "Mommy, look at that sweet baby girl! She looks like my baby sister Faith!  Will you give her to me soon?"  Well, let's clear some things up.  1.) I am not pregnant, nor do we plan to start trying for at least another year.  I'm free and clear to deliver anytime in late December of next year, which is when my classes will be officially over and my bachelors will be officially complete.  I won't walk until February 2013, which gives me a decent recovery window.  Yes, I've thought this all out.  2.)  We don't have a baby girl, let alone a baby girl named Faith.  3.)  While I love the name, we haven't even begun to think baby names, because as I mentioned in point 1, I'm not pregnant.  4.)  Rhea does surprisingly well in fooling me into thinking that she's finally realized that her sibling is a baby boy named Trace and not a baby sister named Tracy... until she has moments like the one I just described.  Then I really begin to wonder what I'm not saying to get her to make the connection...
On another note, the first signs of spring have officially entered the Klinger house.  I mean that literally.  I was sweeping the house, and from out underneath some toys comes flying at me (right at me- my life flashed before my eyes) was a hundred thousand legger.  That's slang in our house for a centipede.  Gross.  Every year, they're rampant and we have no idea where they come from, but last spring, I almost died because there was one that we just could not kill.  That damn thing showed up in every room of the house at all hours/times/days- shower, kids' room, our room, living room floor (while I was watching a scary movie- in the dark, of course), laundry room... until Nate finally used his stealthy Spidey sense and splattered that fat monster on the kids' wall.  Since then, Nate believes he's Miyagi and takes out flies in one fell swoop of his hand.  I now find no need for an exterminator.  Back to my gross disgusting centipede, who knew that I was so stealthy with broom bristles?  That thing was dead with about 10 good whacks of the bristly end of my broom.  Rhea wanted to know "why I was spanking the floor" and Jesse wanted to know if it was edible.  It twitched, she flipped, and quit trying to eat it.  Good call, Fattycake.  Good call.
Anyway, that, in a nutshell, was my crazy day.  Now I really do need to go study.  For realsies.  If only Nate would quit sawing logs on the couch next to me, that would be most ideal. 
Night all!

So...

I'm sitting in Elmhurst library and have been pounding out a lit paper for the past 2 1/2 hours, and I desperately need a break.  Have you ever pictured yourself busting out a musical number to a completely inappropriate song in an entirely inappropriate setting?  I'm having one of those moments.  Ryan Starr's song "Start a Fire" just came on my iPod's shuffle, and I'm fighting the urge to air drum and sing like a maniac to the sexually charged lyrics.  It's "that kind" of song, that just makes you want to turn it up super loud and sing along.  An example of the chorus?
Here we go
Just lose control and let your body give into the beat of your heart as my hand touches your skin
Is this love
Or just sexual desire?
We're gonna start a fire

Saucy, right?  But the driving drums and guitar, the piano ostenato... gah.  Love it!  (Ostenato: blast-from-the-past word from my music classes earlier on in college- it means a repetitive note pattern played throughout a musical piece)

I need to get up and do something but clearly the library is not the place to even go air-guitar it up in the bathroom!  So, I'm blogging.  What a great alternative!  I won't give the poor elderly population that has been steadily streaming through the floor all afternoon a heart attack and the librarians can keep their rulers in the appropriate places, instead of smacking me across the knuckles.

I just texted my mom to see how the kiddies are doing (they're at her house so I can write this blasted paper, which is actually about done, I believe!), and I've just been informed that Rhea and Trace are eating snack.  Rhea is planning her Justin Bieber birthday party and has already invited everyone.  That girl is so on top of things!  I guess that come December, I won't have much planning to do, since I'm anticipating her requesting to make and send out her invites any day now.

Funny Rhea story from today.  We haven't been to my mom's since last Wednesday.  They're usually there Tuesday and Thursday and sometimes another day in between so I can study.  Last week, it worked out that Tuesday was their only day there, then Wednesday we had a fun day together.  Thursday Adam watched them since I didn't have my 2nd class- we just conferenced with my prof if we needed direction on our papers (I did!)- and my mom's daycare kids were dealing with bouts of sickness.  So Rhea hasn't seen her little daycare friends for a while.  Rory was so excited to see Rhea that she went up to her at lunch and gave her a hug.  Rhea leaned over to Rory and said "I'm so happy to see my friends!" to which Rory replied "I love you RheaLynn!" and gave Rhea a hug.  Corey got up from his side of the table (he was across from the girls) and gave them both a BIG group hug with a huge smile on his face.  Well, Rhea took that Kodak moment and threw it out the window when she said "Oookay, okay! That's enough already!"  Yep.  That's my girl.

Welp, I think it's about that time.  No, not for the musical number.  For me to proof my paper, do some last minute tweaking, and print that sucka!  Although, I'm now listening to DJ Khaled's "All I Do is Win" and I'm feeling like throwin' down a crunky, bone-thrashing stompfest in the study area.  I wonder if the librarians can tell that I'm exercising massive amounts of restraint... the toe tapping, bobbing in my chair, and "air piano" on the table might be dead giveaways.  :oD

Ta ta for now! 

Ah crap.

I just happened to take a gander at my "study guide" for my Women in Biblical Literature class... are you kidding me?!  The study guide is apparently everything that we've ever studied in class thus far, every minute detail, every undocumented Hebrew translation of random words/names/phrases in the Bible (I say undocumented because I have the English Standard Version study Bible, and my teacher is a Hebrew professor... my Bible makes zero mention of 3/4 of the original Hebrew that my teacher revolves lectures around.  As far as I know, neither does anyone else's Bible. Sigh.), every utterance she's made to this point.  Grr double grr. 
Not only am I going to have to bust a move to pull a good grade on that midterm on Thursday, but I also have an ridiculously cool (and unbelievably challenging) paper to write for my Multicultural Colonial/Post-Colonial Literature class.  Leave it to me to unknowingly highlight a theme that my prof (Dr. Tuck Lively, how sweet a name is that?!) has never had a student write a paper on?!  So of course I have to take up that challenge for two reasons: 1.) To set the precedent and 2.) To prove that I can pull off writing a seriously kick ass paper... despite not having done so since 2007.  I really wish I wasn't falling asleep as I'm blogging about all the work I have to do (yay procrastination!)... otherwise I'd be all over it.  Correction: I just remembered that I wrote 1 1/2 pages of my 5-6 page limit before I blogged my first b-log tonight.  I supposed I can drag myself to bed without guilt!  Or, at least, not as much guilt as I should probably be feeling. 
Nighty night world... whoever you are and wherever you are.
P.S. Thoughts/prayers to Japan tonight, as every night since the earthquake and tsunami.  Even if you're not a "Jesus person," send them your thoughts and good energy.  They need every last bit of it that they can get.

About Me

Oookay. So.  I'm not "new," per se, to the blog-o-sphere, but I haven't done it in awhile, so I may be a bit out of practice.  Bear with me.  I thought I'd do a wee little snapshot into me to get started, so here goes!

Name: Rebecca Lynn (I go by a plethora of nicknames, namely Becca, Bex, Beck, and Chewy. Don't ask. :oP)

Birthday: 1/15/85 (I like shiny things- and cash.)

Occupation: Gimpy student, but there's a backstory here.  I haven't always been a gimp or a student, but a certain series of events last April (the 5th to be exact) changed life as I know it.  I rolled my ankle and, in turn, (bust out Dr. Google or your latest anatomy chart for this one!) fractured my 4th metatarsal base and tibia, as well as ruptured my tibiofibular ligament, both peroneal tendons, the Achilles tendon, the soleus muscle, and a lisfranc's dislocation.  That last one, the lisfranc's, I'll give you some info on.  Not like you care, but who knows?!  Maybe there are some nursing students, future doctors, or anatomy geeks (like me!) who might want to know.  So. The lisfranc's dislocation is pretty rare in that it's difficult to rupture.  The joint is located between the 1st metatarsal (that's the big toe) and the 2nd metatarsal (the one next to it), and usually is only torn/sprained a little bit when it's injured.  This particular injury accounts for 1/55,000 injuries annually, so guess who drew the lucky number in 2010? (This girl! Boo.)  Anyway, my dislocation was so severe that it literally ruptured the entire joint from the top of my foot to the bottom of my foot.  Super, right?  Moving on... After a pretty gnarly 4-hour surgery (with some damage left unrepaired due to the amount of time I was under general anesthesia- story within a story there, but don't worry, I'll get to that) and the amount of time I had the blood withheld from the bottom of my leg, (I was maxed out all the way around), I've been left with a permanent nerve disorder called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS).  Double super awesome.  Oh, story about anesthesia.  Apparently, my doctor was going to do the surgery with me under "twilight anesthesia," meaning I wouldn't be under general, but I also wouldn't feel the surgery.  He told Nathan after surgery, that I started moving and squirming around on the table (oops), then began calling (and here's where it gets really funny) for "some guy named Ray."  Well, hubs burst out laughing and said "Our daughter's name is Rhea!"  Dr. Lim, according to Nate, "had never looked more relieved."  Leave it to me to have my doctor thinking that I'm delivering OR table confessions! Digression over...
Prior to all this fun, I was an assistant store manager for Starbucks.  I've been with the company since 2001, and was actually on a paid break when I got injured.  Did workers comp pick up the tab?  Nope.  So now I'm chillin' on disability.  (Double boo.)  I got bored on disability and decided to go back to school to finish my bachelors (finally!), and I'm now an incredibly cool driver with a handicapped placard.  Hence, gimpy student.

Marital status: Married since 10/10/08 to the love of my life, Nathan.  We're high school sweeties (aww), who were bffs for two years before we started dating.  I was a cradle-robbing, newly graduated high school senior and he was... not.  He was heading into his junior year of high school when we (finally!) decided to start dating after the two previous years where we'd had mutual crushes on each other but neither of us was ever single at the same time as the other.  Funny how things work out.

Children: 2.  RheaLynn Patten (pronounced "ray" not "ree-uh" or "ray-uh") is 3, and a total goon.  Nathan Robert III (aka Trace) is 1 and hilarious.  They're almost 25 months apart exactly, which is so awesome.  Well, except for the newly developed sibling rivalry coming from "Princess Justin Bieber."  You'll get to know them- since I'm on disability and unable to work at this time, I'm a stay-at-home mom, so I spend 99% of my time having Justin Bieber dance parties (mainly me hobbling around the room for about a minute then busting out the video camera) and playing along with Trace as he rocks out to the Wiggles.  Speaking of Trace, you're probably wondering where his nickname came from.  I'm a half-breed Mexican (my father- eh, sperm donor really- is from Tepehuanes, Durango, Mexico, and my mom is a European mutt with a dash of Native American thrown in for taste) and when we found out "officially" that T was a boy (I already knew- just had "that feeling), I said to Nate "Awesome! Let's call him Tres!"  Nate, however, not being Mexican, found it a bit ridiculous that I wanted to call our son "a number in Spanish."  So I suggested a spelling change, and here we are!

Pets: Jesse (beagle/pit/possible Jack Russell mix): Super fat- picture a ginormo beer battered brat bursting at the seams, stick it with toothpicks, and you've got our girl; Phoenix (golden/greyhound mix): Jesse's exact opposite, he's tall and lean with the body shape of a greyhound and the hair of a golden; Angel (long-haired tortie): Cat and oftentimes the complete opposite of her name; Betty (guinea pig): Insane. What more can I say? She's a guinea pig.  Finally, we supposedly have a betta fish named Dory in the aquarium in the kids' room... however, he goes missing and then mysteriously reappears.  He's not jumping out, and he's not buried in the rocks- trust me, we've looked AND emptied the aquarium.  No fish inside, no bones outside... I wonder if we'd gotten an electric fence if he'd be more detectable...

Living situation: We live in a 2 bedroom ranch house that was renovated in 1941.  Didja hear me? RENOVATED in 1941.  So, it's old.  Really cute, really old. Our kitchen is probably my most favorite room, although 9/10 times, it's in complete disarray.  That also applies to the rest of my house, too, so if you know where I live, don't stop by without warning.  Otherwise, you've been forewarned.  My brother-in-law Adam (who I figured out yesterday, I've known for about 10 years *gasp*) lives with us parttime.  I don't know why it's necessary for me to add the "in-law" onto his relationship because really, he's my brother.  Although I guess it would be a bit weird if I was like "This is my husband Nathan, and this is my brother Adam, who also happens to be my husband's brother."  That just sounds a little too down-home for me.  Adam's dating one of my good friends, Michelle, and they've been together for almost 2 1/2 years.  Shell and I used to work together, and we met when I was pregnant with Rhea.  Random digression: Best pregnancy moment ever was about a week before I was due, I was still working, despite having my own gravitational pull, not being able to see anything below my boobs, and not being able to really hug anyone because my belly stuck out about 3 feet in front of me.  For those of you who haven't had kids yet, pregnant bellies make the best tables.  Anyway, I was working the register (since I couldn't get close enough to the bar to actually make drinks without resting the belly- literally- on the counter... but then I couldn't bend over or get back up to get milk, so there was a conundrum- and working the drive thru window was an even bigger situation- no pun intended!) and Michelle was walking behind me with a huge bucket of ice.  I turned around to grab a cup to pull coffee for a customer, not realizing that Shell was crossing my galactic plane, and with my bump alone, took her clear off her feet.  Ice went flying everywhere, she was on the floor on her bum laughing hysterically, and my customer was a-freakin' out!  Ah, good times.  Adam and Michelle hang out here a decent amount, so we've got a pretty full house most of the time.

Hobbies: music (I sing/write/play piano, and am beginning the excursion into learning guitar- again), writing (duh), reading (when I get a moment of silence), martial arts (I am, for all intensive purposes, a 2nd degree black belt in taekwondo).  Before this injury, I had plans to spend a week last summer down in Texas training with the Lopez family.  For those of you who aren't martial arts geekazoids like myself, they're the First Family of Taekwondo.  Steven had medaled at the Olympic level multiple times, as have his siblings Mark and Diana, and they're all coached by their older brother Jean.  So cool, and Jean's really nice.  At least he seemed to be when we were emailing back and forth about my anticipated excursion to Dixie.  Now, obviously, martial arts are out of the picture.  (Anyone need a coach a la "Dodgeball"?)

I'm addicted to my Blackberry, I love to travel (but never seem to have enough money to do it now... hmm, wonder why?) and have been to Honduras and Canada (eh?), and I'm a crunchy person.  I need at least 1 crunchy food per meal otherwise I feel like I'll freak out.  Weird, I know.  I'm a Christian, but don't worry- I promise not to thump by Bible at you.  I may make mention of things that come up in society that bug me with regards to matters of faith, but I will never try and shove my religion (note: I said religion, not faith- they're two different things) down your throat.  I won't do that with my faith either because I can't make anyone believe through words alone.  I just try and live the best life I can, recognizing that, for me personally, I wouldn't be who I am without faith.  *stepping off soapbox*  Hmm hmm hmm... I think that's about it for the introductory shenanigans.  The rest I'll reveal and you'll discover as we go, I guess! :o)