sweetcoalminer

06:14 pm: Here
Working around to really posting and getting back to recording my life in the minute detail that will never be interesting to anyone, ever.

So far on our tight budget, we have spent nearly 25% of our weekly grocery/gas/etc. money on co-pays for Frank's breathing and Mimi's neck (weird, don't know what it was). And now Frank is saying his ear hurts and Cory's eardrum actually burst last night right after the fireworks.

But, enough of that same ole. We're home!! It's so good to be back together again, although it is marred by the news that Cory is taking an 8% paycut after we had just barely scraped together a bare bones budget that let us come home. Looks like goodbye cell phones and internet unless I get a job. Not really sure how I feel about that. I was just lamenting that it would be nice to have cable. But, having lived the way we did for 8 months has changed my perspective on a lot of things, and I know that we will squeak through one way or another.

Although I know it could be worse, it still would be nice for an end to the bad news. Sure is nice to be back together, though. :)

03:14 pm: Wrapping Up
Oh Fuck Me. I guess I should start off by saying that both kids are sick. I can’t even be sarcastic about it. I’m so tired of illness. They just have colds, but not the usual snot-trails-on-every-surface kind. Rather, the deep cough and irritating head congestion kind that really fucks Frank up because of his asthma. Cory suggested that we just take them to the doctor when we get home for a general exam, and I agree. I just hope we can make it sans ear infections until then.

In other news, when is Cory scheduling his vasectomy? After all these years of uterine drama, pregnancy, and breastfeeding, I find my female workings very tedious and irritating. I so wish I had had the tubes tied during the last C-section, but I felt very strongly then that we would want a third child. HAHAHAHAHAHA.

We have one week left to go, and I wish we could just go tomorrow. Enough is enough, already. My dad and his wife are using the time to become really good grandparents, giving the kids all the patience and cuddles they needed all along so that the separation, which would have been good news a month ago to Mimi, is rather confusing now. My dad got a ticket for expired registration today, and when he told me about it (he was speaking to me this morning, but now he isn’t - I will so not miss the theatrics of the internal workings of the Typical Greek Family), Mimi got all excited and said, “You’re coming with us!” I had explained to her that she can’t take everyone to our new house because they don’t have tickets.

I don’t think I will miss the crowdedness and the lack of privacy of this life, but I may. Everyone is always in the tiny little kitchen at the same time. All of us. Me and my stepmother are usually trying to prepare meals, the kids and the dog are under our feet. My dad is bustling around trying to fix himself a perfect ouzo or raiki or tsipouro (all totally repulsive to me) or get a beer or a glass of wine. Frank is usually trying to stab himself with a knife or teetering perilously on one foot on a kitchen chair. Mimi is making demands. “Mom, I want cold water. With an ice cube. Right now. I don’t want to wait until you’re finished with what you’re doing.“ My sister will come in and complain that she doesn’t like what my stepmother is making; “Is that all we have to eat?” and my brother will come in and my stepmother will ask him, “What would you like to eat, my flower?” And it is a total clusterfuck. My stepmother’s nephews will come in and eat whatever they find, including the kids’ food unless I administer a stern warning.

I will also not miss sharing a refrigerator with so many people. Whatever I buy for me and the kids disappears. I was so pissed off to come home an hour later tonight than usual planning to make quick chicken and cheese quesadillas with the chicken prepared and ready to go and the cheese shredded only to find someone had eaten all but one of the expensive quesadillas I had bought. And the sketchy refrigerator had leaked some unknown substance into the cheese.

Life here for us is much simpler. I take no responsibility for the house. I used to vacuum and stuff, but my stepmother just re-cleans whatever I clean, so fuck it. My kids have smeared gobs of yuck all over the windows, but I have not cleaned them - not even in our room - one time in the last 7.5 months. I do clean and vacuum/sweep our room, change sheets, etc., but I admit not as often as I would if it were my own house, or at least I like to think that I would. I also have left a crime scene of slaughtered mosquitoes all over the walls. Occasionally, after we’ve been gone for the day, I will find them wiped off, but they never completely come off. The kids are rather fascinated with the smeared mosquitoes (kounoupie in Greek) and pretend to kill all the dead mosquitoes.

I long ago vowed to Cory that I never wanted to live or camp anywhere where we would have to protect ourselves against mosquitoes or bears. I fucking hate mosquitoes, and every night until 2 am or so we have war in our room. Frank and I are covered with bites, but Mimi appears to be less tasty. My dad is a great believer in vinegar, and after his bath if I leave Frank to his own devices for a fraction of a minute, he will be completely covered in vinegar, which, by the way, despite my dad’s testimony to the contrary, does exactly dick to the mosquitoes. They still bite. Every time I lay down to go to sleep, I hear one of those motherfuckers buzzing around. I get up, turn on the light across the room, find my glasses, and hunt. Usually, I can’t find the sonofabitch, so I get a book and read with a maglite for a little while and then start over again. I usually can’t kill them on the first try and so lather, rinse, repeat for 2-3 hours. I’ve had already two sessions while I’ve been writing this, as well as having to give Frank an inhaler. In a few minutes I’ll have to take Mimi to pee because hand washing her sheets are such a drag. I would love to not have to wash her sheets again before we leave.

Which brings me to what I am going to miss. I love the farmer’s market here. Love it.

I love taking my kids to the beach. They adore it. The beach we go to is perfect for kids. It is a big bay and the water is bathwater by the time we get there (1.5-2h each way on public transportation). There’s lots of sand, lots of other little kids, virtually no waves, lounge chairs, and umbrellas. And because the kids are so little, I don’t pay for them so all of this including garbage and coffee service for E7 (used to be E6 but it just went up). The coffee is ass and v. expensive - I won’t make that mistake again - but it’s nice to know it’s there.

I love how happy and care free they are there. I love how comfortable they are in the shallow water. You can walk and walk and walk, and Mimi can still touch the ground. I just love their joy at the beach. And I love their joy on the way there; how we are sitting on the tram and they wait and wait and wait as they peer out the windows looking for the water, and then they see it and start yelling “sea!” in Greek. “Thalassa! Thalassa!” I love how happy they are to discover whatever snacks and icy cold water I have packed for them and how kind they are to the other people there. I will miss this easy beach, and I know they will too. The trip home, however, is usually a nightmare and by the time we get home and I hand wash our laundry from the day and the towels, etc., I am dead on my feet. Dead. And they usually caught some zzz’s on the tram and are raring to go and tell everyone about their day. It is a lot of work for me but so worth it. If I had it all to do over again, I would have bought them exactly the same beach toys because our only stress while we’re there besides making the tram home before they get too hungry for dinner is that they both want the same toy at the same time.

I have realized just today how much energy I have spent these last months on pretense - the laundry, the dishes, food prep, cleaning, etc. to try to reduce the tension with my family - rather than to just really talk to and enjoy my kids. I have lost something of my time with them running around trying to keep our clothes from piling up on the ironing board. I don’t know if I mentioned it before, but every time I run their crappy washing machine, my stepmother accuses me of ruining it, and so I have stubbornly over everyone’s protestations, done all ofour laundry by hand for at least a month now. It is time consuming and tiring considering how dirty my kids always seem to be but it gives me a secret “fuck you” satisfaction every time the washer breaks down.

Life is simpler, life is harder, life is different here. I’m having trouble imagining what it will be like when it is just us four again and without the fantastic public transportation, but I’m very eager for it, just the same. Living in one room that is a testament to my half-brother packed with his shit that no one every bothered to move for us - every surface covered in his knick knacks and cds and filled with his old clothes and stuff while trying to cram in all our stuff and the kid’s toys has sucked, but I think it has kind of prepared me for the kind of downsizing we need to do. I do the laundry every day, nearly, so we need a lot less. We don’t eat out. I don’t have a cell phone or a car. I feel pretty confident that I can carry some of this over to our “new house” and that the joy the kids and I will have from finally being with their dad will overshadow a lot of the difficulties.

01:34 pm: Note to self:
Camping with the kids SOUNDS really fun, but there is too much tantrumming, too many uncontrolled bodily excretions, and way too many mommily demands for it to actually BE fun. For me, anyway. Yuck. Maybe with 2 parents. Even then though. Suck. Ass. Glad to be home, even though it's going to be 32C tomorrow and I have no plans at all to leave the (unairconditioned and hot as a MF) house.

02:00 pm: Victory Lap
Or maybe I should say, home stretch?

Hoping it doesn't jinx us, I am disclosing that Cory has found us a small one-bedroom apartment near where we used to live that we have almost been approved for, and that it looks like we have less than three weeks left of refugee life.

We have given up on the three jobs that Cory hasn't heard from, and are hunkering down to try again next year. Until then, it is the Coalminer return to L.A.

I should say as an aside that we have been sick nonstop since Goodness Knows When, and that when we were nearly in the clear, well, let's just say I washed my Immodium down with an ice-cold glass of homemade lemonade and chased it with a strong Nescafe Frappe. Mimi, on the other hand, took her BRAT diet rather well this time, with the promise of another trip to the beach as soon as she has a hard poop. She was at school with my dad when my sister and I took Frank to the beach yesterday. She went to the beach, and even swimming with my dad, but she much prefers the E6 beach chairs, umbrella, dirty sand, and trash-free beach we frequent, even though it isa 2-hour-each-way trip on public transportation, and I can't say that I blame her.

Mimi has become somewhat of a gum whore, and she uses her time on the Tram being cute, disclosing embarrassing family secrets, and charming anyone who happens to be chewing something out of a piece of gum.

The strain here has lifted as everyone is pretending they will miss us. And I suppose they will miss the kids. I also suppose that after I leave, they will have some inkling of how much housework I actually do. In my fantasy, this occurs while they are jumping off a cliff on the way to go fuck themselves. But of course, who cares?

I have a lot to say about what I've learned here, and what my nearly bi-lingual daughter and my truly bi-lingual son have learned and done, but I fantasize about writing it all into a book, or at the very least, a TV series. In my spare time. I mean, what am I going to do when I don't have to hand-wash all of our clothes/towels/sheets? Use the internet?

They do actually have a washing machine, but I got tired of being accused of wrecking it, so now I do all of our laundry by hand. I do frequently forget to check kids' pockets, which do occasionally contain a handful or rocks or coins or . . .gum . . . but you would think a washing machine would handle that? What would I know? I'm a perpetual renter without a washer.

So, I am starting to pack. And it is good. Lest I ever forget, I shall note here that at the peak of the strain with my stepmother over the goddamn washing machine because she accused me of not shaking out the beach towels before putting them in the washer (I did, for the record, but sometimes things the kids do escape me, so while I shook them out, I cannot guarantee that Mimi didn't shovel sand into the towel bag), my dad offered to buy us plane tickets home. To which I replied, "which home?".

Cory and I had been looking online for places, and we almost found one, which had my hopes soaring, only to find out someone else actually had it. My dad suggested that we started looking for a place, which we had been doing for weeks. Anyway, Captain Obvious also suggested that it would be better for our marriage if Cory and I were together. At which point I lost all of my repressed shit very politely. I mean, we did make the duration of our stay quite clear before making the arrangements to come here.

And this return will come none too soon, as Frank keeps calling anyone who lokes remotely like Cory "Daddy?" and lamenting in Greek when that person doesn't answer his requests to "come here" in Greek. My kids need their dad. I need my husband. And I hope he needs us too. Hopefully that will be enough to make the transition back to a 2-parent family and life in A ONE BEDROOM APARTMENT a little smoother. And, if not, we will survive.

In closing, please try not to gag over a picture of me in a swimsuit, but here are me and Frank at the beach:

04:15 am: Trying Not to Wallow
You would think with the state of constant familial illness that I live in, I would get used to it.

Mimi's had a rough week plus. After my last post, the poor kid woke up with a fever of over 104 and was completely delirious. It would have been funny if I hadn't been so freaked out. She was talking about teeny tiny beds and sick strawberries. And that's only the words I could make out. On the way to the hospital, where we were going not because it's an emergency, but because she had been complaining for almost a day about the "mosquitoes" in her ears (she hears buzzing when she has an ear infection - due to the P.E. Tubes, I guess) and we have been trying to beat an ear infection that never seems to go away with a doctor there, Mimi vomited all over (and I mean ALL OVER) the inside of a taxi.

I wouldn't have minded so much, but it's not easy to get a ride to the hospital from here - it's only a E5 fare and getting in and out of the hospital is a pain in the ass - with a pajama-clad sick kid off the closest busy street. It takes forever to find a taxi driver kind enough to take us there. So I felt especially bad that after 20 minutes, someone picked us up and then less than a km from our destination, got a projectile chuck to the back of the head.

Turns out it was just a virus, not her recurrent ear infection. And then after a day or two, she had another fever and has had an awful bout with something like diarrhea but would be more aptly described as rocket poop coupled with unbearable stomach pain after she eats. Add a picky, sensitive preschooler diet to the mix and you have a disaster. Oh, and a toddler who is all too willing to share whatever he has to eat that is not compatible with intestinal distress with his best friend in the world.

Today is her third or fourth day of rocket poop. I am determined to keep her on a strict BRAT diet. Her poor tummy. And the stinky gas. Even she can't take it. She keeps dutch ovening herself with her little blanket and then complaining that somebody tooted. When I reassure her that it was only her, she says, "Mom, it must have been you. My toots don't smell like that."

We were planning on being here until August, and so that makes 3 more months. Three more months, I tell myself. I miss Cory so remarkably much that he must be my true love. And I miss my friends, and my car. And Thai food (actually any kind of Asian food). And lots of things.

This whole assventure certainly didn't go according to plan, but we've rounded to curve somewhat. I guess Los Angeles will be home to us again, and maybe this time I won't complain quite so much.

02:09 am: a lot and a little
I don’t really know where to start. To say that we had two months of staggering illnesses, one after the other, that took down everyone from Frank to his 83-year-old step-great-grandmother would be an understatement. We’ve had every personal crisis between us all. My two step-cousins who live here for all intents and purposes are in the midst of purchasing and restoring a house. My sister is depressed and is desperately seeking a job. My brother, who’s been here a couple times (he’s studying abroad for 4 years) is completely miserable and lacking the proficiency in English I would think you would need for a college degree. My step-grandmother very nearly died from the barrage of illnesses that incapacitated us all.

I waffle between feeling like I’m starting to be a good mother and wishing I was dead. I have pictured various avenues of suicide, but unfortunately, while the balcony off our room is probably high enough for me to permanently damage myself, it’s probably not enough to terminate me.

My dad is a scurrilous asshole, and if you asked me today, I would say that I will never, ever come back here once we find our way back home. Never. Nothing against Greece really. Maybe after my dad has been dead for many years. Cory and I told Mimi that Cory’s grandma, after whom Mimi is named and with whom Mimi had the most consistent relationship of all the greats and grands, passed away. She is a difficult child, without a doubt, and she has had an extremely difficult day. Adding to the pressure, we spent today at a gathering of my dad’s mom’s family, most of whom are old and smell like pee, and with whom Mimi is not familiar, and made her be on her best behavior. I was in the kitchen with my cousin and looked out at Mimi’s screaming in time to see my father slap her across the face and then storm out to the balcony to smoke. My dad is his own petulant inner child - all id - and as much as I know it can be difficult to restrain yourself in the midst of one of Mimi’s violent outbursts, I would expect that at age 60 after a lifelong career of teaching special needs kids, my dad could rein it in. Maybe especially in light of her Gram’s death and all. Jackass.

My dad and his wife vascillate between resenting us and welcoming us, and the effect can be dizzying. One minute, my dad is saying, “Don’t worry, Sweet, Daddy’s here.” The next moment he’s cursing at Mimi in a way that could never be justified and yelling at me, storming around seething.

My father resents me and I know that it is unjustified. Of all of his kids, I have done the most and I’ve done it all myself. I do an abundance of housework, and I have never seen the other two lift a finger. I help with my step-grandmother in ways I have certainly never seen her grandchildren help her. And although I am certainly up for the shittiest mother of the year award 9 days out of 10, I have never been the crap parent that he is. Unfortunately, his inflated self-image, lack of self-awareness, alcoholism, and immaturity keep both him and his wife from noticing, or, perhaps even thanking me once in a while.

This is the part where I would try to work up something redeeming about my father, and the best I can do is this: sometimes he is a good grandfather, for a while, when he feels like it. Mostly, though, he is a waste of air. I see everything I hate about myself in him, and I suspect he sees a lot of what he doesn’t like about himself in me. Our relationship is seriously strained and the arrival of my sister and brother has made it so very pronounced. It has tainted his relationship with my kids as they are aware of the distance we keep from each other. Mimi said to me today, “Mom, your dad’s not a very nice man. It must not be easy to love him.” They are very wary of him.

It just makes more pronounced the differences between my dad and hers, and, although we are far from Cory for so long now, I am grateful that he is ours. He has his flaws, as do we all, but he is kind, and thoughtful, and selfless. Thank God I’m not some cliché that married my father. What a shitmess that would be.

As difficult as our relationship is from time to time, I appreciate my dad’s wife. The kids love her in a way that they cannot love my dad. She is wonderful with children. She is patient and simple and fun with them, and I know it will break their little hearts to leave her. I know that it will break hers when they leave. She has grown especially fond of Frank, whose Greek is perfect and vast and shocking from such a small package. He’s thoughtful and smart and funny and kind and affectionate and loving (and stubborn + temper) at 18 months. You cannot talk with him and not be enamored of him. It is not possible. He’s so perceptive and chatty and smiley that it was over before it started. He brings us all great joy. It’s also startling that he seems to switch languages effortlessly - English when we Skype with Cory and occasionally my mom - and Greek to everyone else. He speeks GrEnglish with Mimi and me - a little of both - and it always makes me laugh.

Mimi is also joyful. She is a very sensitive, high-strung kid most of the time. I would like to think that my shrieking has nothing to do with it, but it may contribute just a tad. She’s also really funny and thoughtful, and is at an age when she’s making a lot of connections between things. She always has something interesting to say or ask, although usually it’s in the midst of 8,694 inane and repetitive questions that makes it a little harder to appreciate than it would otherwise be.

I have heard lots of extended/step family at the park use a word to describe Mimi, and it is “Eeperkinetiki”. Hyperkinetic. My brother and my dad both fell into this category, and no one else in my or Cory’s family would. She is in constant motion. I often feel guilty that I am willing to take Frank in my arms to see something or on my lap and not so much with Mimi. It really has nothing to do with love or preference, but rather it’s like trying to hold on to an over-charged, slippery giant vibrator.

She vents a lot of this energy during our semi-daily trips to the park. I still shadow Frank at the park because he still doesn’t realize the danger of falling down steps or slides, running in front of swings, or just generally doing stupid things, like eating dog shit. So he needs supervision. Mimi’s a little more self-sufficient, but I will be as far away from her as possible and hear her yell “maMA” and see her dangling from some impossibly high rail or rope, or have her pants off and be taking a crap in the middle of the playground. (True story).

She is not fearless anymore, but she is shockingly athletic. It is delightful to see. I wonder if I will ever stop being so glad to see her excelling at everything physical. She plays ball and tag with kids who are 1-4 years older than her and kicks ass. She can climb anything. She can dangle, hang from, swing from, or shimmy up anything. My most amazing park memory, though, is this last week.

When we first got here, Mimi was jealous of Frank’s use of the baby swings. She swung in the baby swings a lot, and then in the bizarre middle swings, that are basically regular swings with rubber bars around them. It’s hard to describe. She could climb in and out of them herself but had to be pushed. I encouraged her to swing her self and always tried to point out how the bigger kids did it.

She went through a long phase of wanting to be swung first in the middle swings and then experimenting with the big swings. Most annoyingly she would want to be pushed on the big swings, and I would be running back and forth across the park swinging Frank on one side and Mimi on the other as Mimi screamed, “FASTER, MOM. I WANT TO GO FASTER!”

Earlier this week, I was shadowing Frank and looked up to see where Mimi had gone. I was surprised to see her on the big swings, flying through the air with all the 6-7 year-olds she was playing with that day. It was a warm sunny day - the first after several miserable, rainy, indoor days - and she was laughing. She was swinging herself. She caught my eye and smiled her biggest, proudest smile and I realized that my baby is growing up. Not only in that she has proven that 3 is the new 13 by her often-hateful attitude, but that she is learning and happy and adapting, and that someday she will grow up and leave me. I’m sure we will have many moments like this in our lives, but something about it stuck with me and made me want to write it down.

10:14 am: Recovered
Frank perked up on Tuesday of this week, finally. I have missed that child.

We are still getting on here, and I had a long eloquent post outlined in my mind, but my dad and his wife took the kids for the day (for the first time), and I have quite enjoyed my day, which shall come to a close in a few minutes, and so rather than trying to type it faster than my laptop battery expires, I am going to go shave my legs for the first time in 4 months.

Cheers!

03:40 am: Nicotine poisoning
I would so like to sit here and really write about this past week, but I just can't - emotionally and because I just have so much to do while they're both sleeping.

Frank ate one of my dad's cigarettes - why I cannot begin to fathom, since he is such a food snob - and I had not one iota of an idea how dangerous that is.

After profuse vomiting, we wound up spending the night admitted in the hallway of a pediatric hospital that looked more like what you would see on CNN in the middle east than anything I have ever seen before in a hospital - sick children like you can't imagine, people not speaking the language and desperate to help their children, and vomit all over the floors.

Frank recovered after 12 hours of I.V. fluid, but the doctors were questionable, as there was no tox screen or anything that I would think to expect in the U.S. We were discharged, and then a few hours later, he succumbed to the horrible virus that lots of other hall kids had at the hospital. Profuse vomiting and diarrhea leaving Frank absolutely a shadow of my baby. It's been rocky - we had a trip to another hospital in a rich suburb and have positively assaulted him with rehydrating electolyte disgusting stuff to the point where he's wary of me now - but there's finally a little life in his eyes again.

Mimi is ill-equipped to deal with her jealousy and the lack of attention, as all of my energy has been focused on Frank.

Mimi started throwing up just before Frank had diarrhea in the bathtub last night, and for all we've been through and how rotten the last few days have been between my stepmother and me, I am so grateful for their help. I have lost at least 10 kilos - 4 in the last 2 weeks - and have been quite beside myself.

Mimi's also got a fever, but I am hoping she is strong enough to get through this since she hasn't been eating cigarettes and was not so weak at the outset. I am missing Cory like you can't imagine. Seriously, you cannot imagine. Difficult, difficult days for many, many reasons.

Maybe sometime I will be able to beat this story out on the laptop, but until then, would appreciate your prayers/good wishes for the kids. I can't escape the feeling that I am going to start throwing up shortly myself. I feel a little weak in spirit and body, and could really use a boost from my friends.

05:06 am: Thoughts on food.
I'm sure my little ones will be up from their nap any minute, and I have no idea what to give them as a snack. I still have this nagging feeling that I am shortchanging Mimi. It must be hard to be the big sister.

She is so acutely aware of the times when she can't have what Frank has. She can't sleep in my bed, but Frank does. She can't have the last of the lentil soup, but Frank can. She should be ashamed of wearing diapers to bed (last week brought on a flurry of accidents like none I have ever seen, and for the first time since October, I put diapers on her because I was too tired to wake her up twice a night to pee), but Frank is supposed to wear diapers. If there's one last hocolate cookie in the tin, Frank gets it because the whole purpose of chocolate cookies on our 2-hour-commute home from school is to keep him from sleeping before we get home.

I so wish Frank would just poop. It's so stressful for me to be waiting for it. I broke down and bought some mineral oil today at the pharmacy because I am not functioning. I've now given him 5 suppositories since Friday. He's uncomfortable and cranky and even more needy than normal, if that's possible.

He did poop a little on his own yesterday, which was encouraging. Like birdpoop in spring, except instead of blackberry seeds, it was tomato seeds. That kid can put back raw, unsalted tomatoes like nothing I have ever seen before. And yet no effect.

I am really a high-strung, crazy person when they are not well. My step-grandmother just told me that she took some mineral oil last year and shit approximately 2 coke cans. Sigh.

Well, Frank is crying. I feel like crying, too. All of this olive-oil and tomato sauce laden food is quite delicious, but I am exhausted of scrubbing it out of all of our clothes when Frank's coalmine drama and the Twilight series books are taking up all of my energy.

07:15 am: Mean
Frank is horribly constipated and Mimi has diarrhea. I think this sums up my week. Frank has no interest in eating anything that might help him, and Mimi can't restrain herself from all the kiwi and prunes and salad and fibrous bread. Add to it that my stepmom is out of town for 10 days, and so I'm doing all of the cooking and cleaning and you have a picture of my week of suck.

I've given Frank two of the weird glycerine suppositories I bought at the pharmacy. One was rewarded half an hour later with 4 little rabbit pellets, and the second 2 days later fell prey to a hard little shitball that was clearly marked for exit in the imminent future as it was excreted in its entirety embedded therein.

I don't really know what to do for him at this point. My dad keeps pushing me to give him ssome bean soup, but we all are doubled over for a day after we eat it and I know that while it may rocket out the coal, it will cause him a lot of pain first.

I don't know what it is about my kids being sick that makes me so belligerent. I picked a horrible fight with my tired, immature, alcoholic father that has left us both fuming. Every single confrontation I've had with him and/or his wife has been while I've been stressed about one or both of the kids' health.

My dad was chiding me for taking some ground beef out of the freezer to make meatballs for them because of how long it would take to thaw, etc. It was nothing. It's just the constant pick pick pick I get from them all day long that has driven me completely insane. I am a good mother. Not perfect. Not even in the market for perfect. But I take good care of my kids. For fucks sake, I'm in GREECE for them. ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DAY. But all anyone does is criticize me.

My dad's first indication of pleasure with me was 2 weeks ago when I made quesadillas for the kids. He said, "Bravo. This are very tasty. Very nice job." It's absolutely ridiculous. I'm 35, a very good divorce lawyer, a good mother, a good wife, and a generally nice person who takes care of a lot of things around here, but - WOW - those quesadillas really hit the spot.

I'm sure some day I'll understand why I am so unbalanced while my kids are unwell. I suspect it is because I focus a lot of attention on trying to make them better and do not have the energy to subvert my emotions.

I mean 3/4 of a pound of ground beef! Who gives a fuck what I do with it? I fucking bought it! If I chose to rub my face in it and then feed it to bears, what difference would it make? As if there aren't a million different things to do with it.

So I just started screaming at him. LET IT GO! I told him if it doesn't thaw in time, I'll just make spaghetti sauce with it, and he said, are you ready for this?, "Do you know how? It will take you five hours to figure out how to do it?"

And I completely lost my shit. I mean, I am 35. Who doesn't know how to make spaghetti sauce? And how fucking discriminating are toddlers re spaghetti sauce? Mimi eats spaghetti with ketchup that his wife feeds her.

Anyway, he got really mad at me and said never to yell at him again, much like his wife had said previously, and I completely lost it. All the yelling that goes on around here and I'm supposed to be a pressure cooker? I don't have feelings? I was about an inch away from packing it in, but at this point, where would we go for four months?

This is all so horribly horribly long and dull and neverending. I miss home and I'm tired.

And then an hour later, he asked me where the glue was so he could make a kite as if nothing ever happened. I feel like I'm on the other side of the magic door sometimes.

I suppose it will pass. I just hope Frank poops soon.

07:04 am: Aching to Blog
Oh, I have such a wonderful and eloquent blog in my head. And I can use my dad's dsl now under the guise of doing taxes. But my kids! They don't give me the time of day to wax poetically self absorbed!

I have pictures, too, I would load if Frank would just sleep and/or Mimi would stop needing me every. waking. moment. She's very determined not to be shortchanged by this one-parent-present situation, and, taking into consideration how ridiculously needy and clingy Frank is, she works very hard to keep me constantly occupied when I'm not busy meeting Frank's needs.

We are surviving and even occasionally enjoying ourselves although we all miss Cory, who still does not have a job offer but is much better at waiting patiently than I.

Last night in her sleep, Mimi said, "Mom, I can't BELIEVE you said that to me!" Is 3 the new 11?

01:23 pm: Cultural Excuses
Frank is doing better. Mimi is still awake, but I'm ignoring her, the little imp. She's so darling right now, and so loving. She is an affectionate girl.

Frank is extremely irritating 33% of the time, sleeping 33% of the time, and quite pleasant 34% of the time, so his existence is marginal right now. He is very clingy to me. Cory put it quite succinctly that he would be more appreciated if he laughed his delightful laugh more and screamed less. He's still a terrible sleeper.

I know they both sense my ambivilance toward my dad. (did I spell that right?) And because of that, they are very reserved around him. And it seems like he is always around. So it can get a little tense. I try to encourage them to be affectionate with him and kind to him, but I myself have very little interest in him and the kids certainly play that out for me.

I am strained by all the cultural differences right now. I'm tired of being told what to do. I'm tired of treating all the men like kings. I'm tired of always being wrong and being treated like I don't deserve anything. It has all been a very good lesson for me of how great our life was and how great my marriage is.

I do like that Mimi is a whiz at public transportation, and it tickles me to hear my kids communicating so easily in both languages. They are both unrestrained in their delight with my dad's wife, who is a different kind of mom than me, but is very good to them. When she feels like it, she is playful and funny, and I know they need to laugh more.

Mimi asks me, probably once a day, why I'm not smiling at her, and it cuts me deep inside. I try to be happy, and I spend much more time with them than I ever have, and than I will be able to once I am in our own household. I play with them. I do everything for them, realistically, as there is no one else. It is a heavy load. She really enjoys imaginative play, which is just kind of annoying to me when I have a million other things I have to do, but she needs to learn, so we play all kinds of crazy games.

She made one up this morning where she and Frank were going to and coming from the airport. She packed her bag - underwear, a shirt, and her blanket - and set off for parts unknown. Poor Frank had a fanny pack around his neck with her sunglasses, a clown wig, and "Melmo", Mimi's discarded Ernie doll that he and the dog are constantly fighting over. I had to greet Mimi every time she walked in as though we were picking her up at the airport. I told her how glad I was and will always be to see her, and asked her where she was coming from. She said, "Mommy, I had no home, but now I'm coming home to you!"

Mimi has a friend, a boy, who is four, who calls her on the phone. Their telephone conversations are absolutely priceless. I could write out a little of the one-sided dialog that I hear here, but I don't have that much time. But if you can imagine two little people who like nothing more than to hear themselves talk, you can imagine what they say. As with my co-ed phone calls pre-cohabitation, they always dwindle to, "Do you want to come over here and play? Or maybe I should come to your house."

Frank remains an exceptional communicator. We often have Greek grandmothers who cannot know that we are essentially refugees telling me how clean Frank's words are (in Greek). He even can sing a few Greek songs recognizably. Unfortunately, most of the time he's asking to nurse. I nurse him 3-4 times a day, usually during the night, because otherwise he would be hanging off me 24-7. He is very attached to the point where I wonder if it's healthy. Every one laughs at him because he constantly wants to touch my skin, and usually my soft belly skin. My dad came in and played with them for 10 minutes tonight, and Frank was smiling and enjoying it. So he had to stick his hand up under my dad's shirt.

He needs this the way Mimi needs her blanket - it is for security. It is kind of weird. I call him a molester. I hope he will get the security he needs.

My dad gave him a haircut 2 weeks ago, and it's quite awful. Really awful - all patchy and fucked up. I keep meaning to go get it fixed, but when I have money, we can never quite make it there. I do like Mimi's short hair now, but when I see pre-mullet pictures of her, I think how beautiful it was before.

I think I can wrap up this post by saying I hate it here right now, but I am having an opportunity with the kids I wouldn't have had otherwise. Next week we go back to school. It's been more than 2 weeks - first my kids and I were sick, and then one of the kids at school had viral meningitis so we decided to stay away. I am really looking forward to it, to say the least.

05:58 am: Relaxing
I had a well-thought-out post I intended to write, but my dad brought Mimi back an hour and a half early, and she woke up Frank. So we'll see how long the quiet lasts.

Frank is doing better, although breathing is still clearly work, as evidenced by his low threshold for energetic play and the dark circles around his eyes. Mimi is delightful and sweet. I love when she comes back from school. She's such a character, and she winks at me now, which is always fun and makes me smile.

My family stress seems to have ebbed a bit. My stepmother told me that Frank is working me - for hugs and lap and boob and chocolate - and that I should just leave him with her. So I did for a few minutes. And I came back and she was on their small, narrow balcony with the two kids and my dad, and she and my dad were smoking. I told her that I would prefer if, as the doctor said, she does not smoke when Frank is with her. She was clearly irritated, and said that the smog is worse than the smoke. Also, that we can't go into restaurants, etc., because the air in there is worse. And she's right. She also said we had to stop going to school because people smoke there, and I was like, "What?" No one smokes at school. Anyway. I told her I don't want to argue about it, and I'm not trying to make a problem, but I don't want her taking him on her smoke breaks. And that's that. I don't want to talk about it anymore. Asthma is serious, Frank is still not well, and I don't care what they think.

I'm a little more relaxed. PMS, sick kids, eye stye, and family discord were all making me a little crazy. I am back to normal.

12:06 pm: Pricey and Not What I Wanted
What's on the menu these days?

First choice:

A three-year-old with a fever of 104 and an acute awareness of the leverage illness creates.

Second choice:

A one-year old with low oxygen saturation (less than 95), bronchial asthma, and a side of double otitis media on two inhalers and antibiotics, with frequent vomiting and antibiotic-induced diarrhea.

For dessert:

A stye in my right eye up high under my upper lid, or my dad who takes the kids to give me a break sick with whatever is going around.

Bon appetite!

05:26 am: Non-Native Tongue
I have noted all these years that I have visited Greece some very interesting phrases in advertisements.

This trip is the first time I've seen clothes advertised for plus-sized women. I kid you not, the slogan on the billboard (in English) is "XX XXX. It's better than anorexia."

Which puts my next favorite thing, the name of our neighborhood IVF Clinic, "Embryoland", (whose logo is a sperm meeting an egg), a very very distant second.

01:06 am: On Parenting These Days
One of the things that amazed me the most about moving here was how long Frank and Mimi could play with one non-helium balloon. At the outset, they didn't have many toys here, although with gifts from relatives and Christmas with daddy, that has changed. I mean, they could play with ONE BALLOON for days. They figured it out. It was really gratifying, too, because it's something that's fun to play with them. With music or without, with other people or without, and with crowded space or open space.

I have been trying to teach Mimi to appreciate what she has - by my family's standards here, she has an awful lot of clothes. She has a lot of toys, but plays with pens and the lipgloss my sister brought her and the princess hairstyling tools from Santa the most. When she really likes an outfit or a book or a toy, I remind her who gave it to her. It started when Cory's mom died - I would remind her that Grandma gave her that dress or that book. She started picking it up. Sometimes we would receive a handmade gift, and I would tell her how special it was that someone took the time to make something for her. And then when she would get gifts and be tickled with them, she would tell me, "I really like this X!" and I would suggest that we sit down and write that person a note to thank them. She has a limited attention span right now for markers and crayons that doesn't involve drawing something and then rolling it up into a telescope and then tearing it into 1,098 little pieces, but occasionally, she actually does write a note and I mail it.

She has some Dorothy-worthy sparkly red shoes that she adores. "Who gived me these?" she asked me. I reminded her that she picked them out, and that daddy and I bought them for her with money we made from our jobs. "But who maked these?" I looked at the label and saw "Made in China" and told her wryly that it was probably a child in China - maybe a little girl like her. A few minutes later, she ran out to our extended family that was gathering for a birthday dinner for my stepmom's mom, and yelled, "Some little girl in China made these shoes for me! Aren't they beautiful? Daddy, come on, we should go write her a note to say 'Thank you.'"

She has such a lovely heart. Except for the part where she told me the other day that she would like to cut off my dad's dog's tail with a knife. "I'm just kidding you, Mommy," she said after she saw my expression and sharp intake of air, "I'm just teasing."

Frank has been biting us all. Playfully. Lovingly. But it fucking hurts. I scold him very seriously and remove him from wherever he was when he does it, and he cries. "Biting hurts." I tell him. "No biting!" But it's been going on for months. He always does it when he's cuddling but the little bastard has sharp little teeth. He's always startled, too, when I scold him. What's up with that? The kid is not stupid - he's a quick study - so why does he keep biting us all "in fun"? Sometimes he sneaks up on me - a toe or my calf - and I scream, it's so painful. Yesterday, strung out from all the biting a nd a very difficult day, I took Cory's Grandma's suggestion and tried biting him back. It worked for about 18 hours. He just bit me again (or tried to). I really don't know what to do. It's such happy biting. But it fucking hurts.

He's sleeping, and Mimi's at school with my dad. Lovely, lovely day.

06:12 am: Christmas morning

05:55 am: Returns from uncharacteristically long absence
Hi! Is anyone still here? We're still in Greece.

We had lovely but rather ill all around holidays. Cory's visit was wonderful for 2 magical weeks, albeit a bit difficult at first - for me, not the kids.

We found an English-speaking preschool/coop type place that is 2 hours each way on 2 subway trains, a bus, and then 30 minutes on foot, which Mimi and Frank started today (she poked around there a bit last week too). It's really more like a community center, and teaching cuts your tuition in half, so I will be starting every monday as one fo the "duty moms" guiding the kids through 3 hours of preschool.

After Cory left and we found the school, Mimi, who has been exceptionally difficult for months, has had some kind of switch flipped. She's kind and loving to everyone. Frank is Frank - he eats until he throws up (it is very hard trying to gauge when he is actually hungry versus when he is just enjoying the food), he throws his toys into the garbage, and if he can get his own diaper off, he believes his own shit is chocolate. Everyone keeps exclaiming "Orgio" when they see him toddling around, singing and laughing all by himself. It actually means "Orgy", but it's a cute little expression when one person is just so completely satisfied with himself.

Frank is amazingly vocal. I don't remember Mimi having so many words at this age or communicating so well. He understands and has words in both Greek and English. Mimi understands quite a lot of Greek and is just now starting to feel comfortable enough to use it with other kids (although not so much adults). Example: at this English-only speaking school, Mimi sought out a little Greek girl and they spoke only Greek for 3 hours.

Mimi has started calling Frank "Masturbator", which we are trying to break. Additionally, my dad has taught her some dirty lymrics, which I tried to patiently explain to her on the bus today re not appropriate for when we're around people besides our family.

This certainly has it's day-to-day ups and downs, complicated by the fact that my stepmother's mother who lives here too had a serious of strokes last week, but I think we are all adjusting rather well. Of course, my feelings on this, as everything else, change at the drop of a hat.

11:42 am: And now proudly serving
Pinkeye in 7 out of 8 eyes. And fever. It's just like being at home, except I don't have a job.

03:18 pm: So now it's totally Christmas
Seeing as everything is about to close for the holidays, my sister just got in, and Cory will get here later today, and Frank has an ear/eye infection. Typical. Merry F'ing Holidays to you too, Universe.