Lemony Webbles

Blood-thirsty Warlords

I think my all-day nausea is clearing up a bit. I say that cautiously because I don't want the nausea monster to hear me and think I am challenging it to a battle of the wills, as we have been engaged in the last month or so. I've used every Jedi mind trick I know of to battle this formidable foe. My favorite is inspired by Suzanne- to just be so excited to be having a baby that even the nausea is diminished in comparison to that excitement to be just a reminder that I'm really pregnant. That turns nausea monster into a one inch high whiner. I've also used going out to movies to good advantage- the nausea monster can not even enter the movie theatre- I get instant and total relief until I step out into the parking lot, where it's lurking under the car. Sometimes I just give in, stop obsessing about eating the exact right thing at the exact right time, and say: alright nausea monster, I accept that you are here. Go ahead, do your thing. I know why you're here and I'm glad for that. Sometimes laughing helps, sometimes singing- maybe the vibrations calm my stomach. And always apples, apples, apples, apples- especially organic Granny Smiths get me through the roughest patches. They are nausea monster poison.

My first good day was last Thursday, the first day of Heartland Baha'i School, providentially (I should really capitalize that because it was a gift from God). I ran the nursery and Billy was not able to get off work, so I had both kids there and the nursery to run. Providentially, again, the only little person in the nursery was Maya until the weekend, when Billy joined me for back-up. The cafeteria food made me sick again by the end of the trip, but Billy was there to take over, so it all worked out fine.

Today I actually took my two and Nadine and Mariah (who are in town for two weeks while their parents are visiting Bolivia) to Curtis Orchard and had a great time! We did everything you can do there and spent a record three hours-mostly jumping from the hayloft (them, not me).

Intense seasonal allergies have moved into me from the neck up, by the way, since the nausea is down, but I don't care a bit. Bring it on pollen! Do your worst, I don't care. I've faced the nausea monster and won.

P.S. Blood-thirsty Warlords is a game that Mikey W. and David B. and I think Nate H. made up (I'm not sure if that's all accurate, so please forgive me gentlemen). It involves those little domino-like pieces that you usually use to build really big intricate patterns and then you knock one over and it knocks down the whole pattern one at a time, you know what I mean. So to play the game, each person builds a fortress of these bricks with a 'flag', which is a different colored brick, hidden inside. Then everyone takes turns flicking bricks at each other's fortresses, trying to knock them down, and when your flag hits the ground, you've lost to a blood-thirsty warlord. It takes some finger strength and a good fortress plan, but mostly it's just an excuse to flick little bricks around the room- and it gets pretty exciting when they go astray.