All posts by Savvy Spoonie

I am an artist, writer, jeweler, and a Spoonie. Before becoming a Spoonie I was a very busy high achieving attorney and advocate bent on saving the world. Now I'm struggle to redefine my life to fit within my reduced energy level. Some days are better than others. I have fibromyalgia, trigeminal neuralgia, and chronic daily migraine.

A morning of cuteness…

This morning Otter settled on the couch next to Monkey and watched an episode of Dirty Jobs, Monkey’s favorite show. (Lee has trained her to say that she needs to finish school and go to college so she can choose whether or not she wants to have a Dirty Job. It’s pretty funny.)

The siblings enjoyed an early morning snuggle together for about half an hour, until Otter was ready for second breakfast.

Our house is so comfy. The house is large enough that the dogs seem smaller, we seem smaller. As Devon put it, the house is actually to scale for us.

It is nice to wake up in a pleasant room with plenty of space for one’s things. For the past year we lived in a dark tiny cramped space infested with ants and owned by two people who were determined to squeeze every dime they could out of us and not give much in return. Now we live in a huge open space, well lit, with gleaming hardwood floors and spanish tile. Sunlight streams in through the many windows, skylights, and glass paned doors.

Our current landlords are kind people. They are interested in making sure we are getting everything we need, and are willing to make necessary changes and repairs quickly and efficiently. They are also really nice, I like them a lot and look forward to working with them in the future.

We are almost finished setting up our bedroom/Otter’s room. It is a large space, but hard to capture on film. Nonetheless, as pictures were requested by a certain preggosaurus, I tried. (Everyone knows, you never turn down the request of a preggosaurus.)
Here is our bed and my dresser. To give you an idea of the size of the room, our bed is a King size, and has always been the item of furniture that turns rooms into tiny spaces with no walking room. It fits neatly along one wall, next to my huge antique dresser, and leaves room for two end tables and a dog bed.

Our bathroom is through that white door there, it is green marble and burgandy paint. Mmmm…. Green and red, Lee’s and my favorite colors. Otter’s changing station and storage are located on this wall. There is still plenty of space in the center of the room, and no sense of being cramped walking between the bed and the rest of the room.

Lee’s dresser is on the wall with the crib, between the bathroom door and the door to our other room, which we have deemed the sitting/hangout room. It is larger than our bedroom. We haven’t set it up yet, but soon it will have a couch, our T.V., our Apple T.V. system, a rocking chair, and our closet in it. Off to one side is a kitchenette and laundry room, where we have set up the cats. We plan to keep water and beverages up there, along with any non communal snacks.

Downstairs we have set up the kitchen, the office, and the living room. I have a photo of the living room, but the light was too odd to get the other rooms at the moment, so you will have to wait for those.

The house is really long, so all our rooms are set up such to allow flow through the whole thing. It is pretty calming and definitely a comfortable set up.

Ah… I hear the strident tones of a certain young man. Thanks to all who responded to my Bar Exam rant, I appreciate the thoughts and insight.

The great poo of 2007… and a sorrowful exploration of life…

Okay, this post is bi-polar, as are my days most often of late.

The humorous part first, so those not wishing to feel sad can stop reading and retreat back to happyland. (Which is located no where near New Jersey.)

The great poo of 2007 struck full force tonight while I was enjoying an evening coffee with a friend, Tiff. Otter, who had been poo free all day and was sitting calmly on my knee, suddenly exploded, sending a river of poo out of his diaper, down his leg, onto his shoe, onto my leg, down my leg, and onto the floor. Ick.

At first, unaware of the extent of the damages, I began to perform a quick diaper change in the nearly empty cafe on the chair next to me. (The bathroom has nowhere to change him.) Sadly, there were two factors conspiring against me. The first, Otter had waited to perform his amazing feat until the cooing, baby friendly family had left the establishment and were replaced by the mean and glaring anti-poo family. Second, the extent of the poo rendered my “quick-change” plans useless.

I retreated to the bathroom and wiped my baby and I off as best I could. Happily, he felt much better, and my “quick-change” attempt had driven off the mad family, so Tiff and I were able to better enjoy the remainder of our coffee.

WARNING: The following contains not happy emotions.

I am struggling with something. I am supposed to sit for the NJ bar in nine days. I have not been able to study for it at all because I have a newborn, a child out of school for the summer, no nearby family, and recently moved.

Normally, these obstacles would be challenges to me, something to soar over and conquer with strength and grace. After all, I took and passed the Colorado Bar while preparing for a move to NJ, recovering from surgery, pregnant, and with my husband in another state. Because of this, many of the people in my life express their belief in my ability to take this bar and do well. I have my doubts.

There are differences between now and then. Fairly important ones. To begin with, the last bar I took after over 2000 hours of study with Nick. We had been at it for 6 months by the time the test came around. We had been at it for over twelve hours a day for the two months immediately preceding the bar. I was living with my parents, who were helping me with Marlena while Lee was in NJ. I had a pile of similarly situated friends around me, with treats and emotional support. I did not have a brand new baby.

Now, I am in NJ, with no family but Lee, and have been here for a year. I have friends, but none of them co-students. I have not been able to study more than about 30 hours. I have not slept longer than 4 or 5 uninterrupted hours in over 3 months. I have lost my previous study partner to drowning, and every time I start to work on the bar, I start to cry. My migraines are returning, I have anxiety attacks, and I have about a tenth of the support network I had before.

I am in the process of adjusting to a new house, a new baby, and a new town, again. I am still living out of boxes. I spend a great deal of time mourning the loss of my friend, my previous life, my days as a law student, and many other things. The rest of the time I care for my children and try not to let my feelings negatively effect them. I try and shop for groceries, get together with my friends, and shower before noon. I try and cook dinner for my family. I try to remember to feed myself.

I have been told I have the baby blues, I have been told all this is to be expected after the death of a dear friend. I have been told I can take the bar and just fail it if I can’t study.

Except I can’t just fail it. This is an area of my life where I have a bad case of OCD. I have literally bitten and torn my thumbs to pieces stressing out over not doing well on this exam. I have cried in frustration each time I have set a movie on for Monkey, gotten Otter to sleep, tried to study, and been interrupted by him waking up, or Monkey needing a snack.

I have to hand write the exam, which is next to impossible on a good day because of my lovely RSS and the injuries I suffered when the dogs pulled me over the stroller and dragged me across the yard the other day.

I am at a completely indecisive standstill. I can’t win. I feel like a failure if I give up and don’t take it, but I will feel like a failure if I take it and don’t pass. It is past the time that I can actually study in a real way and assure my passage. Taking it at this point is one big Hail Mary, thrown desperately from deep within my own territory.

So what do I do?

Now we are six…

Oh the time flies. On a Friday the 13th in July, six years ago, I gazed down at a 9 pound 1 and a half ounce infant with awe and shock that something so small and perfect could belong to me. I fed her, snuggled her, watched her play with her first balloon, saw her read her first newspaper with Da, and made up lullabyes. I rocked her to sleep in a rocking chair, and cuddled her to sleep on the couch, often napping with her. I took piles of photographs of her with her fuzzy duckling hair, her rock star baby sunglasses, her deep blues eyes, and her rosy cheeks. I co-slept with her for years, I nursed her for a year and a half. I took her to the mall’s play area (affectionately deemed the petri dish) and watched as she scrambled around on waffles and bacon. I danced with her to Laurie Berkner and ran with her at the park. I watched my mother play endless fairytale games with her.

I helped her crawl and then walk. I gave her her first and only baby food (peas) and her fist adult food (Split pea soup). I gave her boy toys and girl toys, and felt I had done well when she declared that she wanted to be a bulldozer driver when she grew up, while all the girls around her wanted to be princesses.

I sang with her to song after song, hung masterpiece after masterpiece on the fridge, and watched improvised dance moves performed in my living room. I took her swimming for the first time, read her stories, took her to law school classes (where she raised her hand and participated more than once), and watched her grow.

And here we are, six. She can read and write, and keeps several diaries full of her secret thoughts. She wants to be a lawyer when she grows up and plays with her case files while watching Legally Blonde (her favorite movie). She is a big sister, who can help care for a baby, no longer being one herself. She will be entering the first grade in a few months. She held hands with a boy at her birthday party, and she is currently sitting across from my office at her own desk answering her own email.

How fast it all goes.

Thank you to everyone who sent her emails. She was thrilled to get her own phone and email account, and loved that she already had so many messages. She is trying to respond to all of them, but has to hunt and peck, so it may be a while.