Rachel Callahan

On Being Absolutely Delicious.

August 15, 2017August 14, 2017 Rachel Callahan Just My Luck, Kids: The Experience.

Our family has two distinct branches.

There’s the Chris Branch.

Chris does not recall a time when he had a run-in with any poisonous-plant-caused rash, and does not have the pleasure of experiencing bug bites of any kind. Sometimes he feels a bug on him and is annoyed by the biting sensation, but does not swell or itch or react in any way to the bite thereafter. More often, though, bugs don’t even bother to perch upon him.

Then there’s the Rachel Branch.

I spent most of my childhood and parts of my adulthood afflicted by the rashes of multiple poisonous plants, and am the best insect repellent money can buy, because if I’m with you, every living thing within 25 miles will be feasting on me as if I’m the main entrée at a party thrown by pre-prison-days Martha Stewart.

It appears, after much analysis and hiking, that Ali is a descendent of the Chris Branch, and Noah is a true prodigy in the Rachel Branch.

The poor child can get bitten by anything anywhere regardless of whether he is lacquered in bug spray and/or the surface area in question is completely hemmed in by tight-fitting garments.

He’s the Taco Tuesday of the mosquito world. The Avocado Toast of the ant world. And the Double Fudge Brownie Milkshake with Sprinkles and a Waffle Cone Straw of the spider world.

And furthermore, his reactions to said bites can be rather…intense.

Which explains how his penis swelling like an overextended water balloon last week was totally standard for him.

It wasn’t his first rodeo.

(And when I say rodeo I mean the kid was walking like he’d just dismounted from a large bull.)

But he was calm, he was knowledgeable, and he fell right back into Protuberated Penile Procedure.

“Put one ice pack in the pants, get an extra ice pack to swap out, and oh by the way this whole operation is easier if I wear gloves.”

He took it all with the casualness of a sore throat, as if carrying around an oversized package is something that is common to everyone’s daily experience, not just the UPS and FedEx men.

…Or at least, he was nonchalant until he was half asleep that night, when he meandered to me about his feelings about the situation.

“I’m sad. That my firehose is swelling. But I’m glad that my bottom isn’t swelling because then it would be huge. <slaps his own butt> Because it’s already big.”

(Nobody wants to be a spider-inflicted Kim Kardashian.)

If that had been his only bite, he wouldn’t have even gotten a doctor’s visit out of it. I had already looked up my last blog post to ensure we were waddling through all the recommended treatment steps.

But it was the one on his neck that was troublesome. Because the next morning, it had turned into The Dreaded Target.

THAT’S the sign we all have nightmares about. THAT’S the one that should send you to the doctor the minute you see it. Or at least those of us who live in a territory of Lyme Disease.

Noah, however, was becoming more preoccupied with his other still-growing issue.

“I’m tired of walking like this. But I can’t walk normal because my firehose feels gross. I HATE IT!!”
“I’m sorry. Hopefully the doctor can help that, too.”
“As long as it’s not a shot right HERE. Because that would really hurt.”

He’s not wrong.

As expected, our Pediatrician inspected the lower issue and said “Yup, looks like last time. It’ll be fine with ice and Benadryl.”

But the neck issue…whether or not it was what it looked like it was, it’s ALWAYS best to treat for Lyme if it could be a possibility. It was most likely a spider bite gone dramatic, but just in case…

As she looked up his dosage of antibiotics and steroids, Noah told her in no uncertain terms that he’s never even tasted a lime. Clearly she was mistaken.

Mansplaining starts early these days.

Noah was concerned as to his level of boredom during his recovery. He could not walk. He could NOT run. And he even made sure to tell Chris specifically* that he ABSOLUTELY COULD NOT swim. I mean the kid had a freaking millstone hanging around his…well you know.

*Chris tends to be an authoritarian ruler when it comes to regularly decreeing family fun at the pool.

What could a boy do who could not use his body from the waist down??

While we wandered Walgreens waiting on his prescriptions, God shined down upon us and led us to a couple sets of Minecraft papercraft boxes that were on clearance ($4.49 a set, currently on Amazon for $15-20.)

This blessed craft party ended up being the ideal weekend time passer while waiting for one to be able to walk without a waddle. With the added benefit of my house now being covered in a thin layer of a Minecraft empire.

So at least the road to genital recovery has treasures along the way.

Epilogue: Noah is back to normal now, except for the extreme maniacal laughter and hippity hoppity effects of his steroid. I actually really like this kid on steroids. Can I get a long-term steroid prescription to treat chronic whininess? Because it’s totally working.

Diary of a Tired Mom: Beliefs and Dreams.

August 11, 2017August 11, 2017 Rachel Callahan "Deep" Thoughts by Rachel, Diary of a Tired Mom

Every time I need Triple Antibiotic cream, I can only find Hydrocortisone – and not just one tube, multiple tubes. Every time I need Hydrocortisone, I can only find Triple Antibiotic cream – and not just one tube, multiple tubes.

I no longer believe that these two creams are separate entities. They cannot exist at the same time because THEY ARE THE SAME TUBES. They cackle with evil glee at their ability to change their name when they see me coming. They are the David Blaine of First Aid.

I vehemently believe that my phone is listening to me and selling my conversations to Facebook.

Multiple times over the last few months I’ve had a conversation about something random, and then a few hours later have an ad served to me in my Facebook feed regarding that topic.

For instance, Chris and I discussed Ole Miss (as in the university and the football team.) Their coach left in scandal and I asked Chris to tell me the long and colorful story while we were on a hike.

We never talk about Ole Miss.

The very next time I opened Facebook, I had an ad for Ole Miss gameday apparel.

I mean, that’s just stupid. My phone should know what kind of gameday looks I’m into.

After a few more of these uncanny and quite suspicious instances, I decided to turn off my “Hey Siri” feature. I considered that maybe that’s how it was justifying its listening habits – it was always keeping an ear out for me to say “Hey Siri,” and anything it heard in the meantime it just happened to mention in passing to Mark Zuckerberg.

But then, weeks after divorcing Hey Siri, I had lunch with a friend and discussed all the misguided ways that people attempt to comfort the grieving. Four hours later, I received this ad:

So not only is it still listening, it’s contextually analyzing my conversations and making frighteningly intelligent decisions based on what it hears.

Y’all – I’m pretty sure the computers have already taken over. In fact, I’m not even sure if I’m real anymore. I may just be a figment of my computer’s imagination.

You know you’re at a homeschool event when a kid pops off a boob to say they need to go potty. With perfect sentence structure.

Am I saying that homeschoolers breastfeed longer than most people?

Or that they potty-train early?

Or that they reinforce fantastic sentence structure at very young ages?

That’s for you to decide.

Summer in Alabama has been painful. We had such a mild fall, winter, and spring that I nearly forgot what an extreme season felt like for a second.

But it’s hot.

It’s humid.

It will sap you of all ability to breathe the moment you step foot out the door.

Which means that I am once again daydreaming about my Pipe Dream.

I had a dream one blessed night a couple of summers ago that was so blissful that I’ve not forgotten it. In my dream, there was a raised, enclosed, air-conditioned runway (not walkway, although I will allow walkers into my dream as well but definitely not bikes – sorry bikers) that went from my neighborhood all the way to downtown.

It was glass on three sides, in the shape of an arch, and significantly raised above the roads so that you could see everything around you and were looking down at the treetops.

It was basically the Jetson’s Utopia for a runner. And I loved it. And craved it. And fantasized about it.

I mean, I know this project would only cost ten billion or so dollars, especially depending on how many neighborhoods we’d connect in this super fabulous modern monstrosity. Oh – and also you’d definitely need a few open-air observation decks here and there for sunset watching and the like.

But it would be EXTRAORDINARY.

Think of the tourists it’d bring. Runners would come to run this above-city course during the hottest days of summer and the coldest days of winter. You could even run during a tornado. Okay maybe not a tornado but close.

Yes, even Disco dancers would come to dance in my dreamy tunnel.

There would be regular water stops and vending machines where you could buy Gu and Body Glide and deliciously cold Protein Icees.

Every so often this magical tunnel would dip down to ground level, weaving through the nature preserves around town – Red Mountain Park, Ruffner Mountain, Oak Mountain State Park, giving you the opportunity to run through the woods during those months that normally leave you heaving, dehydrated, and mosquito food.

Then it would shoot back up into the air, offering just the right amount of hill workouts, and continue its majestic treetop view of the city.

I would pay a decent monthly membership to this tunnel. At least in the summer.

(And I’ll even let the bikers use it in the spring and fall.)

And hey – if we have to sell it as a Light Rails option too, you know, since Birmingham is kinda in last place in the whole public transportation arena, that’s totally fine. There can be a train running alongside my Most Amazing Air-Conditioned Runway.

I keep trying to sell Chris on this fantastic magnanimous idea and he reminds me that it is a LITERAL Pipe Dream and I must accept the reality that it’s completely impractical.

Sure it is.

But it would be incredible.

The Five Second Journey.

August 8, 2017August 7, 2017 Rachel Callahan Chris, Guest Post

Guest Post by Chris The Husband.

There are times in life when things happen in real time very quickly, but in your mind, time slows to a crawl, as your brain seizes onto reality and attempts to grapple with it. Such was Saturday, at the pool.

It was a standard late poolside July afternoon. Hot, sunny, flocks of sunscreened kids splashing in the pool and baking parents lounging on the deck with piles of damp towels, flip flops, and pool toys in nearly every chair.

I was on a break from Marco Polo and Monkey-In-The-Middle with my own kids, chilling in a lounge chair, when I saw it.

:01

Across the pool, far from me, a short kid stood, parallel to the side of the pool, with his hands low, his head down, and a stream of liquid shooting a few feet in front of him, falling harmlessly on the already wet pool deck. He’s probably 3 years old, totally at ease, not a care in the world.

:02

That can’t be what I think it is. There must be a water gun involved. Maybe a sprinkler behind him creating an optical illusion. This kid is not standing a foot outside the pool peeing onto the deck.

There are a hundred people in here. If that were happening surely I wouldn’t be the only one noticing. It has to just be my angle.

:03

No, no one else is noticing this. All the kids are playing. All the parents are staring at their phones or books or magazines. All the lifeguards are looking INTO the pool. They only notice kids running on the deck, not whizzing.

Wait! Someone noticed. The dad. Oh, man, he’s panicking. I wonder what he’s gonna do?

:04

Its hard to make logical sense of the actions humans take when they’re in a panic. We’ve all been there. Sometimes you just react.

Standing in the pool, in a very quick and purposeful manner, the dad reaches his hand up and blocks the stream of pee, about 4 inches from the output source. I’m not sure what the intent was, but in practical terms, not much changed. While minimizing the distance traveled by the stream, it was still falling onto the wet pool deck a foot from the side of the pool. It was just now first taking a detour and squirting the dad’s palm.

I could see his animated facial attempt to convince the little boy to stop urinating while unsuccessfully trying to catch it, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying over the general cacophony of the moment.

:05

It dawned on me how this happened.

I can’t be sure, but I’d bet money on it. I’ve been a parent long enough to flub the directions.

I can almost guarantee you that this dad had told his son repeatedly, in no uncertain terms, “DO NOT PEE IN THE POOL.” Not “let me take you to the bathroom”, not “tell me when you need to go”, just the basic instruction. Keep it simple, make it count.

The kid followed these instructions to the LETTER.

Epilogue.

Once the flow was paused, the dad leapt from the pool, escorted his son to the fence, and let him finish in the bushes. Again, nobody noticed. Everyone at the pool is focused. Except apparently, me.

The two morals of the story are: (1) Give clear directions, and (2) Don’t look up from your phone.

On The Killing Of The Rodent.

August 4, 2017August 4, 2017 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Kids: The Experience.

When your friend that spent 90% of her life living in Central America invites you over for Taco Night, you go.

No matter what.

Last night our small group had the privilege of just such an occasion. And besides the best tacos we’ve ever eaten (including the magical pork-and-pineapple mixture that I’m now kinda craving for breakfast), there was a guest of honor that made the night extraordinarily authentic.

I introduce you to the creepiest most fantastic Is-It-A-Matador or Is-It-A-Little-Girl-Playing-Dress-up (and by the way is it a girl or a boy) Piñata Mouse.

Bought at a Mexican Grocery Store and as tall as some of our children, he/she was spectacular.

…As opposed to the American-Safe Piñatas that are not hit to their death and/or explosion, but instead have multiple strings hanging down. Each kid pulls a string until someone pulls the correct string, at which point the wimpy little creature safely opens to drop what I’m sure is gluten-free, soy-free, sugar-free pseudo candy at the children’s feet. Or, more likely, kale.

This, my friends, is sad.

When our litigious and paranoid society wanders into the territory of Pull-The-Tampon-Strings Piñatas, it might be time to take a step back and swing a stick at our obsession with safety.

Which is exactly what we did.

As they lifted her up into the tree, the sun glinting off her bulbous nose, she smiled, delighted that they were thoughtfully giving her a better view of the upcoming sunset.

The children lined up in ascending age order, anxiously awaiting their turn to Meet The Mouse.

Some swings were joyful.

Some looked like Neville Longbottom trying to learn a new spell.

Some kids swung for the home run,

Some closed their eyes to shield them from the trauma they were inflicting on their victim.

And some….were a little frightening in their intensity.

But most alarming were the tiny adorable ones who swung with the facial expression of complete bliss that they normally reserved for seeing the cutest puppy in the world. Because they were also the ones screaming with derangement and wild eyes while everyone else took their turns. “Whack it right in the neck!! Knock a leg off!! HARDER!!!!”

There were some hits squarely below the belt, at which times we prayed the mouse was indeed a she.

And there’s always that one kid whose hitting face looks just like The Shining movie poster.

After two rounds of Child Rage Release, it was a Dad who finally let loose the mouse’s guts, after a few strategic pokes to the middle.

And it was another dad who kept the injuries coming so as to bleed her dry (and drop a few Skittle packs onto unsuspecting heads.)

But the children weren’t done. It didn’t matter that her nose was plastered to her cheek, that her arms were nonexistent, and that one leg was barely attached.

They had more punishment to offer.

They didn’t rest until she was literally torn from limb to limb…

And that cutest screaming drill sergeant was able to claim her body parts.

A Tampon String Piñata could never have been so therapeutic.

R.I.P. Creepy MouseLadyMan.

Mom’s Worst Adventure Ever.

July 31, 2017July 31, 2017 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, I'm a Glutton for Adventure, Just My Luck, Kids: The Experience., Parent of the Year

Sometimes Moms make mistakes.

Sometimes Moms have inadvertently terrible timing.

These things could both be said of me on Wednesday, but I’m going to choose to blame Noah instead.

You see, we had to do an errand. And he decided to wear his extraordinarily dapper hat that Chris and I bought him last year when we went to Isla Mujeres.

The kid looked amazing.

And I hadn’t taken any pictures of him lately.

On top of that, we had no plans for the rest of the day, and we were very near Aldridge Gardens – the perfect place to photograph a child when they’re looking ridonkulously fabulous.

So it would be dual purposed: we’d get outside and take a small hike, and I’d get some pictures of the kid.

Of course he didn’t make this easy on me. He in fact drove a very hard bargain.

“I’ll let you take pictures of me in my hat if you give me 100 pieces of candy.”

“I don’t have 100 pieces of candy.”

Ali: “Just get him a box of Nerds, Mom.”

(She’s so smart.)

Before I answered, he counter-offered, seemingly not wanting Nerds.

“I’ll let you take my picture if you let me pick out one piece of candy on our way home. Whatever I want.”

“Fair enough. I can do that.”

So he grabbed his hat out of the car and we headed toward the entrance of the gardens.

He wanted to get the picture taking out of the way as soon as possible (because he wanted to put his hat back in the car because difficult), so he posed for me two inches past the entrance.

Yes, I’d made a good deal.

I told him I needed a close-up, so he became wiggly and found all his silly faces.

He found great pleasure in the fact that he was being difficult to photograph, and laughed a mirthful, evil cackle.

The irony was not lost on me.

I finally got the shot I was looking for,

And he went back to the car to drop off the hat.

After all the bargaining, silly faces, and hat putting-up, some rumbling thunder could be heard off in the distance. As we walked back in, I mentioned it to the gentleman that works at the garden gates.

“It doesn’t look like we’ll be able to stay very long…”

“Oh, I think you’ll be fine. It looked like that earlier, too, then just sprinkled for a minute and was gone.”

I checked my radar. Off to the west was the usual summer pop-up storm that lasted 5 minutes and was entirely unpredictable in the direction it would choose to travel.

So we strolled back into the garden, reveling in the lovely day.

It started sprinkling as we were headed toward the lake, so I said “let’s go in the boathouse for a minute until it dries up again.”

The kids happily ran toward the little open-air house that sat out over the lake. It’s the best place to observe and feed turtles and fish and in general enjoy the view out of the sun or rain.

Ali dug some crackers out of her Mary-Poppins-like bag and they happily threw crumbs on the turtles, cooing at the tiny babies. I took pictures of the calm sprinkles on the lake. It was a perfect summer shower.

Until very suddenly it wasn’t.

The rain cranked up to a level that was so heavy that you couldn’t see the fountain, and the lightning definitively reached our location. Soon, the wind was blowing in the open sides, the thunder reverberating all around us, and my children were no longer enjoying their stay in the boathouse.

But we were trapped.

The rain was way too heavy to make a run for the car, a quarter of a mile away, and even too heavy to make a run for the house on the hill (home of the public bathrooms and gift shop) and OHMYGOODNESS DID THAT LIGHTNING JUST STRIKE THE HOUSE UP THERE??

It didn’t, I don’t think, but it was seriously close to it.

The lightning and thunder were now nearly on top of each other, and it seemed like we were surely next on its hit list. I listened nervously to the rain pounding on the metal roof above our head. I texted Chris electrical engineering questions.

Unfortunately, he never liked his Electrical Engineering classes.

Chris and I both kept assuming that this thing would pass over any minute. ANY MINUTE. Summer storms do not stick around to attack unsuspecting families in boathouses.

The minutes ticked by, except instead of ticking, they thundered by. See my little blue dot below? Just barely under all that lightning? Yeah. I didn’t even know my radar had that purplish color in the middle of the storm.

The thunder got closer and louder to the point that each peal of thunder was followed by my son’s impressive high-pitched scream. Have I ever told you how very much noise rips my soul to pieces?

Chris kept watching the radar for us and willed that storm to move on.

I couldn’t look at the apparently lying radar myself because…Noah’s arms had gotten tired.

After fifty minutes filled with a “pop-up storm” and my son’s screams and stomps and declaring it “your WORST ADVENTURE EVER, Mom!”, the rain finally let up a tiny bit. I measured it as “light enough to make it to the house but not to the car without my camera getting ruined” (it was safely put away in its carrying case but still. This was some seriously submersion-determined rain.)

We ran up the hill and splashed into the nice, dry house. The kids immediately began emptying the paper towel rolls to dry themselves, then plopped onto the floor and began playing cards.

One of the garden’s administrative staff walked through and was a bit surprised to see us on the floor of her bathrooms. We explained. She gasped.

“Oh! I thought I heard screams from my office and I was wondering where they were coming from…”

She disappeared around the corner and came back bearing a bouquet of lollipops.

“Each of you take one. I hear it can help with the trauma.”

She was the garden’s Professor Lupin, giving out chocolate after a dementor attack.

About a half hour later, we were able to make a run for the car, splashing through giant puddles on the way.

We found out later that our storm had seriously flooded the lower lying areas surrounding us – to the point of cars getting pulled into the (usually tiny) creek and carried downstream, turning flips as they went. The bowling alley, a couple car dealerships, some offices, and Chuck E Cheese were all completely flooded.

(Although Chris and I agreed that The Chuck was probably now cleaner than it had been in years. Maybe decades.)

So yes.

I made a bad decision that day.

But I got this picture.

So there’s that.

Epilogue: Noah chose Bubble Tape for his candy bribe. Ali also got candy for surviving the incident with a bit more grace than her brother. For my prize, I chose spending the rest of the day reading in bed.

What’s That Sound: Volume Eleven(ish)

July 26, 2017July 25, 2017 Rachel Callahan Kids: The Experience., What's That Sound

Having a boy child is often a confounding situation.

Like, how does this happen?

And more importantly, after it happens, how does one hang up their coat, look at a sucker stuck solidly to the hoodie, and say “eh, I’m good.”?!

This kid.

So let’s document the inner workings of such a powerful mind.

On a typical day, Noah wakes up before me, plays in his room until eight zero zero am (the exact moment he’s allowed to wake me), then comes and climbs in bed with me and starts asking questions. Because it’s best to get a jump on the day’s inquiries as soon as possible.

Most of his questions I answer while still asleep. Sometimes they wake me up enough to make a mental note to write them down when I wake up enough to open my eyes.

Such was the case for Monday’s line of questioning.

“Hey Mom, when do people get telepathy?”

“They don’t.”

“Yes they do – you said everyone gets telepathy.”

“Noo….telepathy means you can hear people’s thoughts. What are you thinking of?”

“When you stop liking your parents.”

“Oh. That’s puberty. Somewhere between 10 and 13.”

“Okay thanks.”

In the car, the kids sometimes team up on me…

Ali: “What’s a stepsister?”

I tried to explain it, but everyone became even more confused, so I resorted to an example.

“If I died and Mr. David died, and then Daddy and Miss Ashley got married, AJ and Tessa would be your stepsisters.”

Silence.

Noah: “So would we live at their house or ours?”

Me: “I’m DEAD in this scenario. Ask your father.”

Lesson Learned: One must be careful that fake stepsister scenarios don’t sound too appealing.

Noah gasped at breakfast with the excitement of a eureka moment.

“I just figured out why Gramamma’s cat was so mean!!! It was striped!”

Ali: “So….? It wasn’t mean because it was striped….”

Noah: “No! But it was actually a tiger!!!”

Every now and then, a “HEY MOMMMY!!!!” post-bedtime callback is award-winningly original.

Such as this one….

“HEY MOMMMMMY!!!!”

“Yes, Noah?”

“When did you and daddy first date? How old was Pop? How old were you? I wasn’t even in your tummy yet – I was just an egg. I have eggs in my tummy. No I don’t. Ali has eggs in her tummy. But they won’t hatch for a long time.”

I was having a lovely quiet moment on the porch. I was wondering why Noah hadn’t disturbed me yet but was not curious enough to find out why.

After several long, quiet, questionless moments, I went inside to refill my water.

At which point I heard the repetitive screaming emanating from the bathroom.

“Moooooom! I need toilet paper!!!!”

Ignorance is always bliss.

Noah: “Would you like a mint?”

Me: “No thank you.”

Noah: “Do you need anything at all?”

Me: “Yes actually. I need my eye drops.”

Noah: “I don’t know where those are.”

Me: “I can tell you…”

Noah: “Nah, I’m good.”

Having a beginner reader is such joy.

“Hey mom! I just saw a store called The Butt Barn!”

“…or the Boot Barn.”

….incidentally we were also next door to Hooters. But that’s more of a Boob Barn.

And one story about Ali…

“You remember that time you asked me what I am going to do differently as a parent? Well I thought of one.”

“Yeah? What is it?”

“Well if my kids want something, they’ll have to come up with the money. I’m not just going to buy it for them.”

“Do I do just buy you things?”

“Sometimes. I think.”

….And my daughter has articulated the literal definition of Peeing in One’s Wheaties.

Origin Stories.

July 21, 2017July 20, 2017 Rachel Callahan A Bit More Vulnerable Than I Usually Am, Blogging: the therapy., Dysautonomia, Picture Birmingham, The WellHouse

Every year about this time, I write a post similar to this one. Then I don’t publish it, out of concern that my words would be misread or misunderstood. This year I decided to go ahead and hit that publish button.

For the past ten years, the constants of my life have been that I am a writer, a mom, a wife, an accountant, a homeschooler. But four years ago, that shifted dramatically. Very suddenly I found myself sure I was going to die, dealing with daily chest pains and blacking out and heart racing. Four months of every medical test imaginable and I was diagnosed with Dysautonomia. Since that point my life has consisted of working every day at being able to minimize my symptoms. Drinking obscene amounts of water, running nearly every day, abstaining partially or wholly from the delicious parts of life like caffeine and chocolate and sugar, IV treatments, and tracking everything imaginable to see what helps or hurts my situation.

For clarification, I actually do live a fairly normal life, but I work seriously hard at being able to do so.

There are some things I can’t fix, however. I have tried countless things to make my brain work as quickly and as wittily as it used to, and nothing seems to help. Writing takes infinitely longer, and I have shrunk my writing schedule down from 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, times a week to the current 2 and sometimes only 1 time a week. If I happen to go back and read something that I wrote more than four years ago, I end up in a funk for a couple of days because it makes me so mad at how well my mind formerly functioned. And then it frightens me that my brain is in a continuing state of decline, and it’s going to get even worse.

Every year about this time, when my Dysautonomia gets especially rough (thanks, summer) and my brain gets unendingly fuzzy, I struggle with whether I should continue writing, or if I should take that pressure off of myself and quit while I’m ahead. Other times I glance at my blog’s dwindling visitor numbers and ponder whether I’m like a sitcom that’s gone three seasons too long.

But then I remember that the real reason I’m writing is for my children to read. They have 2,100+ posts over nearly ten years, many documenting their lives, and they already enjoy reading and hearing the stories I’ve captured here. Although Ali has reached the age where I don’t write about her as much because she deserves her privacy, Noah still has a lot of childhood left to document. And so I convince myself to keep writing – to not care if I’m boring people or losing readers with my diminished ability to craft words in a captivating manner. I write for the reason I started writing – to record our own personal history book.

(It really is hard to remember that because I love you all so much, and the hundreds of relationships I’ve birthed out of writing are precious to me. But at the end of the day, I try (but often fail) not to stress about my writing.)

So if I don’t write as often as I used to, or if you also notice that my writing style has drastically shifted, or if I take a long quiet break, please know that I’m probably somewhere, racking my brain for words and original thought, frustrated that I can’t remember how to think creatively.

But as hard as the writing loss has been, from the journey of dysautonomia came my love for photography. Because when my brain was too foggy to form words, I could still tell stories in picture. And since I was now forced to exercise to stay lucid, I was seeing (and appreciating) more of my surrounding world on the daily.

From that birthed Picture Birmingham, my photography business where I sell my prints, note cards, and other photo art products so that I can donate all the profits to The WellHouse, a ministry that helps rescue and care for victims of human trafficking. In the three years of Picture Birmingham’s existence, it has raised over $15,000 for The WellHouse – and zero dollars of that would have existed if I hadn’t gotten dysautonomia.

So although my daily life is affected in annoying and constant ways, and although my ability to craft words and love for writing has been decimated, and although I have to work every day to live normally, dysautonomia has forced me to LIVE to be able to live – and therefore, to help my children also live a life full of seeing our beautiful world. It has forced me to appreciate my state, to explore, to engage in nature, and to do crazy things like go in a wet cave and climb on a slippery pedestal above a 50 foot drop.

It has changed who I am and what I value. It has given me an appreciation for this spectacular world and an ability to go explore it. It has given me the opportunity to use those explorations to help women that are suffering in ways that I cannot imagine.

So yes, I have an incurable illness. And yes, that’s really stupid and annoying. But as illnesses go, this one does have its blessings. And I am, (at least some of the time,) okay with that.

Theories on a Grand Target Adventure.

July 17, 2017July 16, 2017 Rachel Callahan "Deep" Thoughts by Rachel, Utter Silliness, Weird Strange and True

As I was driving down Highway 280 on Saturday afternoon, lost in thought about all I had to accomplish in the next day and week and year and lifetime, I approached a set of flashing police lights in the median. I slowed down, as one does, out of caution and to ensure that it wasn’t a tricky speed trap.

The cars in front of me slowed as well and then we all slowed much slower than we should have slowed because what was going on was super curious in a fantastic sort of way.

The median was only a few feet wide, but it held a lot of items at that moment:

1. A single cop car.
2. A cop, standing in the median, currently occupied with handcuffing and emptying the pockets of an
3. Extraordinarily tall and skinny gentleman.
4. The gentleman’s apparent mode of transportation, which was a Target shopping cart, containing
5. Two industrial-sized mops and a
6. Mop water bucket (uncertain if it still contained dirty mop water.)

Two more cop cars came barreling up the hill toward the party, lights flashing and sirens blaring, because obviously this situation required at least six policemen, especially since those mops were INDUSTRIAL-SIZED.

My mind busied itself for the rest of the day, mapping out this scene and analyzing it in a studious forensic fashion.

Highway 280, for those of you who aren’t from around here, is our everybody-hates-it highway. It’s huge, always crowded, a continual source of irritation to the entire population, and also the victim of constant reworking to attempt to fix the eternal traffic problems. Currently, there are all these you-can’t-turn-left-but-you-can-U-turn lanes, complete with traffic lights that show the U-Turn symbol instead of a left-turn signal. They’ve barricaded other former left-hand turns and even straight-across pathways, one of which added 15 minutes onto my personal travel situation.

So you get the picture – this isn’t some backwoods country lane. It’s a SERIOUS road.

The location of the Target Cart Incident was directly in front of the Water Works reservoir. Mapping quickly in my head and then confirming the mileage with the help of Google Maps, the closest two Targets were…

1. 1.8 miles away, but up a seriously steep incline on Highway 280,
2. 4.4 miles away, on Highway 280, but crossing over the interstate, passing a huge shopping mall (and therefore much traffic), and containing a slight uphill climb, then a fairly good downhill coast.

Map not to scale. Curves on 280 attempting to show elevation change. Because I’m super good at maps like that.

I decided option two was where he’d come from, as option one’s steep uphill would have been impossible while riding a Target Cart in traffic traveling at 55 miles per hour. Which means that, coming from the other direction, if he’d only made it to that steep downhill section, he’d have had the ride of his life. Who needs roller coasters when you have a Target Cart and Highway 280?

I envisioned the journey as this: Extraordinarily Tall Gentleman (ETG) riding on the back of the cart, kid-style, while holding onto the handlebars. He would push himself like a skateboard to get going, then put his feet up on the crossbar, lean over (quite a bit due to his height), and coast when he could, hopefully with minimal dirty mop water backsplash.

That covered the where and the how, but more importantly was the why.

Maybe he was the janitor at one of these Targets.

Maybe some snot-nosed kid had spilled the LAST Slushie he was going to clean up.

Maybe some suburbia Mom had sloshed the LAST Starbucks double Frappe from which he was going to destickify the floor.

Maybe in a revolt against Target’s gross misuse of the word clearance, some angry Tennis Housewife had smashed a case of 10% off “clearance” La Croix.

Maybe there’d been a puker in the home goods section. And maybe it’d splashed all over the sheets and towels.

Whatever happened, I envisioned ETG looking at that Last Mess, saying “Oh no. Uh uh. I’m done here”, and walking his Cart de Mop right out the front sliding doors, pushing it to the end of the parking lot, holding on for dear life, giving a loud Braveheart-Style war whoop, and riding his way to FREEDOM from the tyranny of the Kingdom Tarzhey.

I feel like ETG could have had a slightly better escape route planned beforehand, though. 280 drivers are known for spotting – and tweeting – oddities very quickly. Such as Naked Guy with the tripod (not an innuendo) taking selfies of himself – there were two dozen tweets about him before he could snap his first duckface. No, ETG riding a Target Cart with Two Industrial Mops and a Mop Bucket didn’t have a chance. But he did hold on longer than Naked Guy (not an innuendo), so there’s that.

(As an aside, I did in 2014 have a brief(less) Twitter conversation with Naked Guy. I did not get to the bottom of his motive.)

Later that evening, we passed back by the scene of the crime. I was hoping that the cart would still be there – as a memorial to the ET(and Brave)G. But it was gone. Which led to a whole different slew of questions. Did the cops somehow tow the cart back to the correct Target? Did Target come and retrieve their property themselves? Or was that cart and its contents booked as evidence of a Crime of Passion and Adventure?

The world will probably never know. But I feel like ETG deserves accolades for his attempt to escape the oppression of The Target Empire, not to mention for distracting my mind completely from all I had to do that day and week and month and year and life.

And so I’m here to offer it.

I salute you, ETG.

And I promise to attempt to keep my coffee in my cup and the puke in my kid while I’m in the confines of all Targets from here on out – as a memorial to you and your valiant Stand Against Messes.

On Discovering Michigan.

July 12, 2017July 11, 2017 Rachel Callahan I'm a Glutton for Adventure

On the First of July, I and my six fellow small group ladies found ourselves in the great state of Michigan. We take a girl’s trip once a year, and whether it is hosted by an Irishman in Bugtussle, includes a contest to find the highest heels in Unclaimed Baggage, or involves the breaking of my elbow and finger, it always embodies adventure. This year’s girl’s trip was located in Michigan so that we could also help decorate for and attend the vow renewal of one of our small group couples, Kelly and Jon.

But we weren’t exactly sure what Michigan had in store for us, to be honest. There were dozens of lakes in south Michigan, but none of them seemed to have heard of the idea of renting out their lake dwelling to hoards of Alabama Moms. Finally, in an act of pure desperation, I rented the one and only place I could find within a 50 mile radius of our destination – and it was a farm.

I was more than a little nervous about this choice – none of us had ever stayed at a farm in the middle of nowhere and what would we do? Where would we get groceries? Would it feel strange?

Our first steps into Michigan were not great. We flew into Detroit and waited for over an hour for the rental car we had reserved months in advance. When they finally found a Tahoe (from another lot) and drove it around for us, her smell wafted before her, and a vapor surrounded her as if the entire board of the National Cigarette Lover’s Convention had ridden cross-country immediately prior. We quickly surmised they’d gotten her from the “Do NOT Rent These Vehicles Out” lot, and we named her Estelle.

So our hour drive from Detroit to farmland included all the windows down, six girl’s hair tangled up with each other, and double buckling – because no one could stand to sit on the back row of cigarette fog.

Our farm, however, was surprisingly gorgeous. The house was bigger than it’d looked online, and we found out that the adjoining Tennis Court and Indoor Pool were reserved solely for our stay.

The farm was owned by an enterprising couple who lived next door. He’d wanted to make some extra money, so he built a tennis court on which to give lessons. She wanted an indoor pool, so he built that for her, and since they were building a new building, they made it twice as long and also created an event space. I’m not sure when they added our rental house to their collection of buildings (and 200 acres of farm land), but their oasis in the middle of miles of crops was a fascinating and peaceful place for a bunch of moms to relax.

The indescribable quiet that comes from being a mile from your neighbors brings with it a sense of peace that we’d never experienced in Birmingham. And the back deck, shaded from the afternoon sun and perfect to enjoy the dry and cool July-in-Michigan air allowed us to watch the rabbits hop by. By the time we’d eaten dinner at 9pm (before sunset) on that gorgeous back deck, we’d made our decision: our small group definitely need to buy a commune farm and move to Michigan.

After dinner, I announced that I was going on a sunset walk. It didn’t take long for everyone to follow me down the long, quiet, flat road.

As the sun disappeared, we began noticing a good number of fireflies.

And then the magic happened.

As dusk descended over the miles of fields, we saw that there were millions of fireflies, flying and blinking in waves of astounding beauty. It was impossible to fully capture on video, which made it somehow all the more magical. I tried to photograph them, but it didn’t even begin to capture the sheer number of fireflies before us.

At least one, and maybe more that one someones, might have cried a bit at the reverence of the moment.

It was such a simple, yet overwhelming beauty.

We started the next morning off with a walk / run / cross-training challenge.

Pretty sure they were the first humans to ever do push-ups in that particular corn field.

To say running the roads around our farm were different than the roads in Birmingham would be an understatement. The gravel beneath our feet and the ability to see for miles at a time was bizarre and delightful. Each “block” was a mile on each side, which made running around the block ridiculous yet interesting.

I even found my favorite roadside snack, a mulberry tree, so that at least was familiar.

Why yes I actually eat berries from trees on the side of the road. You would too if you knew how delicious mulberries are. Unless you confuse it with Nightlock.

Since we had an entire tennis court reserved for us, I decided we needed to use it.

I convinced Kristin to play with me, and we were magnificent.

After a few minutes, we decided we’d keep score by “how many times can we hit the ball back and forth – who cares how many times it bounces first.”

We set a high score goal of 10, but after 45 minutes and a bucket full of balls (many hit over the fence – home run!!), we’d only scored a 9, and called it a success so that we could go hop in the indoor pool to cool off after our super sportsing.

That night a storm came in and snatched the sunset away from us,

but experiencing the drama of a storm in the plains was totally worth it.

Our farm house looked like it was absolutely about to take off, and I felt more than a little bit like Dorothy.

I passed our landlord on my walk, who said “It’s something, isn’t it? But it’ll pass right over and miss us. It always does.”

“But my radar shows it’s definitely coming right here any minute…”

“Yeah, but it won’t.”

I was sure he had to be wrong because my radar is always right in Birmingham. But he was not. All that drama and it barely sprinkled, allowing us a second night of firefly magic.

The next day was all about decorating for the Vow Renewal.

Or, more likely…decorating ourselves.

Because when there are bushels of tulle lying around, someone is going to end up with a Bow Bigger Than Their Butt. It’s a rule.

At one point, the groom’s sister-in-law was unsuccessfully attempting to hang lights. They were heavy and not staying in place, and she asked if I knew where another ladder was so I could help her.

“No…but…I don’t mind cuddling with you.”

I mean we’d known each other for a whole five minutes so why not.

I climbed her ladder and nestled my face into her armpit to hold the lights up while she tied them off. I forgot that I have extremely unfortunate balance, and I started to fall straight backwards, guaranteeing to take the lights, the pole, the ladder, and the sister-in-law with me.

Just in time, a guy I hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting yet stuck his arm out and caught me. And then stood there for the next five minutes, holding me up while I held the lights up while sister-in-law tied them off.

About two hours later I discovered that this was Paul, the bride’s brother.

Hi Paul, nice to meet you.

Thanks for keeping me from breaking my everything.

After stealing greenery from roadside shrubbery and decorating until we could decorate no more, we went back to our farm and prettied up.

The Vow Renewal was perfect and lovely,

and we stayed on our best, most reverent behavior.

We had “allowed” Jon, the groom, to come to our farm house two nights prior and cook for us and kill a wasp for us and do our dishes for us, so of course we had to get a picture with our Farm Boy.

(We tried to convince our husbands that from here on out we would have to take one of them along to be our personal valet, but I don’t think any others were willing to hear and see and live through all that comes with Girl’s Retreat.)

Right as the reception got good and kicked up,

Three hot air balloons happened to fly overhead.

Michigan is, indeed, full of magic.

We caught one more sunset on the way home,

Lydia caught me catching said sunset,

And I captured a couple of moments of our last evening, again filled with millions of friendly fireflies that avoided my camera lens.

The next day we drove Estelle back to the Detroit Airport and gladly abandoned her for eternity, hoping that Michigan also has some sort of magical car rejuvenation process for her sake.

We found the legendary light tunnel in the airport, and I yelled out, “Quick! Do a Charlie’s Angels pose!”

Everyone ran out and posed, and at the last second, Lydia showed us her true hidden talent. Why yes, she’s had five kids. And yes, she can still do the splits.

…which led to the star of the photo actually being Shocked Christen – and who could blame her. We all felt like Shocked Christen in that moment.

Christen managed to hold it together for as second take, but it could never compare to the raw emotion of the first shot.

As soon as we made it back to the Birmingham airport (where it was currently storming) and had our final group hug, we desperately wanted to be back in Michigan. Would we go back to the farm if we could? Absolutely. Would we live in Michigan if we could? At least for the summers.

Dear Michigan: Let us know if you’re looking for a group of reverse snowbirds.

Let Freedom Spew.

July 7, 2017July 6, 2017 Rachel Callahan Just My Luck, Kids: The Experience., Parent of the Year

It was the Fourth of July.

I had woken up at some crazy early hour to check out of our Girl’s Weekend rental house (more on that later), drive to the Detroit airport, and fly home. That night, we had our annual fireworks watching “party” planned, for which thankfully Chris had made the preparations and done all of the organization.

We have this fantastic spot we’ve been going to the last three years. Every year, we have a different group of joiners, and most are usually last minute deciders. This year ended up being the biggest crowd yet – over 20 people circled around our spot in the top of the Children’s Hospital parking deck that directly faces our city’s fireworks extravaganza.

Plenty of other people not-with-us came later, as well – we just tend to get there first.

Chris brought Watermelon, Ice Pops, and Gummies. Noah and Ali each packed additional snack bags. My Mom brought adorable little strawberry shortcakes in tiny Mason Jars (she’s been a Living Breathing Pinterest since before the Commodore 64.) We arrived at 7pm, two hours before the fireworks show, so the children had plenty of time for running and playing and screaming and racing. I got tired of my kids asking if they could have another ice pop, so with grand flourish and holiday cheer, I announced “It is a night for snacking freedom! Eat whatever you want, whenever you want. You don’t have to ask me for anything.”

Being that we have a strict 10:30am/3:00pm snacking schedule at home (created solely to get them to never ask me if they could have a snack ever again), this was huge news. Both children lit up with The Cheer of Independence and began snacking with the fervor of the Declaration signers themselves.

(I assume there were some spectacular snacks at the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The passionate throwing off of Tyranny cannot happen without a good measure of gluten.)

(And I can totally see John Adams being on a gluten-free diet and Alexander Hamilton brattily working in a few overt jabs his way during some awful Hamiltonian 16 hour speech.)

As it approached the 9 o’clock hour, Chris convinced Noah to come sit in his lap for the actual fireworks. Flush-cheeked and sweaty, Noah was obliging – perhaps needing a moment of stillness more than he knew.

I was sitting next to them, my camera tripodded and my phone controlling the shutter so that I could get long-exposure photos with as little camera vibration as possible.

The fireworks began, and we all oohed and aahed. They seemed to come in odd spurts – not the usual nonstop onslaught of previous years. But no one had brought a radio to play the accompanying music, so we murmured that it must have to do with the rise and fall of the melody.

You can see the rest of my fireworks pictures on my Instagram account or Facebook Page.

Then the fireworks stopped.

No grand finale, no obvious ending – they just fizzled out.

It was odd. I mean, I’ve been watching this fireworks show all my life and I know how long it should last and what an ending feels like, and it was clearly short and lacking of ending.

The hoards of people waited around in the parking lot for a few moments, staring impatiently at Vulcan, waiting for the show to pick back up. Then they started leaving.

Something just wasn’t right. So we sat there a little longer, waiting.

Still nothing.

I took my camera off my tripod so that it didn’t get knocked over just as I heard Noah say to Chris,

“I just swallowed a little throw-up.”

Chris sent him to get his water bottle, and said to me, “Too much snacking leads to vurping. Good life lesson.”

Noah crawled back up into Chris’ lap and began to cry. Then wail. He couldn’t say why, he didn’t know what was wrong, he was just sobbing with all his little boy heart.

…Until he leaned over and vomited, nearly on the shoes of the guest sitting next to Chris. (Quite possibly on his shoes and he was just too nice to say so.)

Right as he did, the very tardy fireworks finale ramped up.

Chris quickly shuffled Noah back behind our group, and as the finale popped and banged with color and flourish, Noah did the same. It was the most immersive surround-sound experience anyone could ever wish for.

Heave, crack, gag, bang, vom, pop, splatter, cheer.

Chris and I found ourselves on either side of Noah, helping him lean out, wiping his mouth with voluminous amounts of paper towels, and covering his puddles with more paper towels to prevent passerby trodding.

In between pukes, Noah would cry and scream “I HATE THIS SO MUCH!!!”

After half a dozen heaves, Chris and I made eye contact. And with our eyes dancing in the light of the lovely fireworks behind us and the moisture of the terrible vomit before us, we simultaneously burst out laughing.

I mean how can you not.

Parenting is the most hilarious affliction.

We quickly stifled our laughter for Noah’s sake, and went back to guiding his ice-pop-soaked half-digested fries to the ground.

Chris said that he had it handled and I should really try to get a few photos of the finale. I ran back over to my tripod, slapped my camera back up, and hastily tried to grab a few shots, right as it tapered down and ended – this time, with proper fanfare. I managed to get one single non-blurry finale shot.

Vulcan’s explosions were so much more attractive than Noah’s, but approximately equal in color variety.

I went back to also-tapering Noah to comfort him, apologizing to our friends as they carefully filed past Noah and his freshly birthed lakes.

“Good night. I’m sorry. Hope you had fun. Happy Independence Day! Watch out for that puddle!”

Chris took all our stuff back to the car while I sat and rubbed Noah’s back. He stared ahead of him, looking like the miserable puppy dog that he was.

“Why is it pink? I had green and blue ice pops…”

We had to walk through all of the vast amounts and varieties of food that he consumed that night to track down the color of his output, but he seemed relieved when we’d figured it out.

“It was the red JELL-O!!!”, he said with eureka.

We all made it to the car without further incident, gave Noah a bag in case of Dear-God-No a car emergency, and I sat in the front, downloading and editing pictures, while we zero-miles-per-houred it in the parking lot traffic.

When we finally made it to the exit, we could see the left turn we needed to make, which fortunately was down a clear road with no traffic, but there was a truck quite unnecessarily blocking our way.

Chris calmly ignored it for a few moments, but finally started muttering under his breath about the utter rudeness of this individual that could clearly back up or go forward to allow us a much needed exit and as-quick-as-possible return to home with our Puke-Risk kid.

…Which eventually led Noah to inquire, “Hey Mom, we’re too young to call people jerks like Daddy just did, right?”

So what did we learn from that night?

a) If given no guidelines, our son will binge himself to vomiting like a starving dog who finds a Costco-sized bag of Alpo.

b) Rudeness is, at least in the Callahan household, apparently a privilege of aging.