Monday, April 30, 2007

Paging Dr. Freud

My big boy is turning 6 tomorrow. Before bed, I asked him to give me one last hug and kiss as a five year old. He gave me a regular kiss, a butterfly kiss (fluttering eyelashes), and an Eskimo kiss (rubbing noses), and then he said "now let's kiss sideways like we're married."

Dis.tur.bing.

Of course, I laughed like an insane person, so he wouldn't stop. I can not wait until he has his first real girlfriend and I can torture him back by recounting this trauma.

Saturday, April 28, 2007

And now, for a change of pace...


I looked over my own posts recently and realized that they're heavily weighted toward all the negative things about life with a bunch of kids. I think I tend to post when I'm fed up and need to take a break and blow off steam, so I end up giving a skewed view of things. Plus, annoying things are just funny to me. However, in the interest of balance and fairness, and because today sucked less than days have tended to lately, here are some good things about each of my little monkeys:

1) Our big girl is 10 now, and so grown up lately. Today, she saved the three year old when he lost his mind and ran toward traffic with no warning or observable incentive. She had four teeth pulled this month in the interest of packing the rest of her teeth in her head properly and was so brave about it. And my favorite moment with her today - she came to me and started a sentence with the words, "I don't tell on people often..." I started howling with laughter and made her repeat it several times before allowing her to proceed, and she took my mockery with good grace. She's a good egg.

2) The biggest boy is quite a renaissance kid. Just today, he was in a really cool play that evolved from his drama class (as opposed to a pre-scripted play) and he was amazing. He can really dance, didn't stumble over his lines, and stayed in character and focused the whole time. Then we all went to his baseball game, where he dominated as usual. He's such a natural athlete - it's very clear that he is my stepchild and not a biological relative. I'm afraid my biokids are at a distinct genetic disadvantage, athletically.

3) My first born will be 6 in three days, and I can hardly believe it. He's been having me tell stories from his infancy lately, and never tires of hearing about the time he accidentally "broke" a caterpillar when he was 2 or when he climbed into a bookshelf when he was 7 months old and I panicked because I couldn't find him. He's almost finished with kindergarten and is a math whiz. His behavior is sometimes erratic, but he tries so hard and is really patient with his little brothers and sister.

4) This is a toughie, as the three year old has been a little off lately. Well, more off - he's always a little different. He's also always entertaining, though, and the little glimpses we get into the world of his own mind frequently make my day. Today, he made a friend at his brother's baseball game, and spent an hour playing a game they made up that involved no Star Wars characters at all. I consider that to be a breakthrough. He's smart as a whip and a computer genius, which is probably a mixed blessing, and he does love the babies. A little too much, most of the time.

5) My girlie is just about the best baby alive, really. She is happy and funny and love love loves people and attention. She's flexible and a semi-decent sleeper. Plus, I can dress her up like a doll and paint her toenails. I love her truly-madly-deeply. Oh, and she can suck a golf ball through a garden hose, a skill which came in very handy when I had a blocked milk duct today and one that she will hopefully not find any other uses for.

6) Little bit boy has been much less suckass the last couple days, for which I am incredibly grateful. He is cruising along the couches and clapping for himself, and his wisps of hair look like those of a little old man who has given up on combovers. He has a fierce temper but loves his twin and follows her all over the house. If he would just. sleep. I would be as besotted with him as I am with the wee girl.

Who knew writing non-whine could be so fun? I should try it more often.

Friday, April 27, 2007

I annoy myself

I have been fighting a losing battle with my own grouchiness lately, and I'm sick of it. I want to just react to things normally, without running everything through a filter of hormones and illness and blowing it out of proportion. I have wasted a ridiculous amount of time and energy obsessing about my 5 year old's school lately. It is run by a flock of complete fucking idiots, but his experience has been almost entirely good, so why do I get my panties in such a twist? And now, to top off my own self-annoyance, I just had a conference with his teacher. He's doing well, progressing fine, right on track, and in the middle level group, ability-wise. Which is, you know, exactly what I want for my kids, what I dreamed of myself growing up as a freakish savant who wanted nothing more than to be average. And I know that he is average, academically, so it's not like I think she's wrong. So WHY am I upset? I am deeply irritating.

I'm on day two of antibiotics for the sinus infection that has taken over the entire right side of my head. Certainly my outlook on life will improve dramatically once I no longer feel like my right eyeball and top molars are all moments away from leaping from my head.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

It was the best of days, it was the worst of days

Today sucked some serious ass, but ended really, really well. Things that sucked:

  • Boy twin and his incessant whining.
  • The 3 year old and his oblivious resistance to listening. And that he wet himself again.
  • The involuntary time travel from winter to muggy, sweaty summer, with no pause for spring.
  • The almost-full bottle of salad dressing that fell and exploded all over my kitchen floor and diaper bag.
  • The Gucci bitches at the zoo who shoved my double stroller with 2 sleeping babies out of the way so they wouldn't have to fold up their empty Maclarens while they carried Gareth and Poopyschmoop onto the tram.
  • The frightening person who tried to push past me into my son's school at 6pm, clearly without a legitimate reason to be there. Thank god he was not armed.
  • My son's school itself. I am deeply, deeply annoyed that I am still having to think about school options.
And then the good - I picked up my new minivan! Yes, it's a minivan, so I can't say it's cool, but it is about 4 zillion times better than my old car. It's got some kind of space warping going on, where it seems normal-sized from the outside but is gigantic on the inside. It seats 8 and has huge amounts of storage space and does not smell like donkey balls. I love it! Of course, now I feel guilty about getting it, because American Idol is going all humanitarian on me, but I'm sure I'll move past the guilt in time.

Looking for the good in my boy twin

I'm reaaaaaaally reaching here, but in an effort to go beyond mere holding-on-by-my-fingernails tolerance of my youngest, loudest child to actual positive feelings, here is a brainstorming list of why it is actually a good thing that he does nothing all day and all night but scream:

1) His lungs must be phenomenally strong - that has to be good for his health, right?
2) I don't ever need to worry that he won't speak up for himself. It's sort of his defining characteristic.
3) Similarly, no worries about him being the strong silent type and suppressing his real feelings.
4) We can take him on the road as the amazing chameleon baby - his skin turns red and his eyes turn green.
5) He has made it a LOT easier to come to terms with not having any more children.

Okay, that's all I've got. It's 8:15am, and I have used up all of today's patience. Hell, I've used up all of 2007's patience. Who knew babies could BE so wretched???

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Voice recognition (helllllllllloooo, computer)

This is a test of the Vista speech recognition software's dictation function. I am going to type this, then read it to the voice recognizer thing. Then I will post the original and the one voice recognition took from dictation. You be the judge - is the technology mature? Should I let my finger muscles atrophy with my abs?

(Here's what Vista came up with from dictation):
This is a tax and business beach recognition software to teach an option. I'm going to take bids, then read it to the waist recognizer thing. Then I will close the original and one voice recognition took on DT said. Newbie the giants point and use the technology mature? Should I let my finger muscles atrophy with my hands?

Stephen Hawking, I have bad news for you.

By the way, I'm digging those Mac commercials.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

The list is growing

The list of people I really hate has stayed steady at three for as long as I can remember, but the client I worked with last month is just itching to jump on. Not at the bottom, either. Asswipe.

Hear me out - gun control

The awful shooting incident at Virginia Tech on Monday has me thinking about gun control. There are some social debates that I waver on, like the Pisces I am, but this isn't one of them. I really do not believe that we need the right to handguns. Their sole purpose is to kill people - how is it necessary for individuals to have that power? It makes violence so much cheaper and easier. I really do try to listen to the opposing point of view, but people tend to lose me at "2nd amendment."

The 2nd amendment was not designed to arm citizens against each other, it was intended to protect citizens from the government itself. Do you think the government is going to let you use your 9mm against it? We can shoot each other and ourselves (and we do - according to the CDC, "American kids are 16 times more likely to be murdered with a gun, 11 times more likely to commit suicide with a gun, and nine times more likely to die from a firearm accident than children in 25 other industrialized countries combined"), but law enforcement gets very serious about anything resembling anti-government activity. Which is as it should be - I'm not advocating armed revolt. If the laws of the land are followed, and the intrinsic checks and balances are not just ignored as they have been by this administration, I think we the people can effect change without resorting to violence. But I digress - my point is, the real reason for the 2nd amendment being null and void, why have we allowed it to be coopted by people who just want to have the power to kill other citizens?

Another argument I've heard, and I do love syllogisms, is that "if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." That actually sounds like a plan to me - certainly would make them easy to identify, wouldn't it? If you could lock up criminals for just possessing the tools to commit violent crime, you could prevent a lot of it. It's practically PreCrime! I love Minority Report, even if Tom Cruise is insane.

And another thing - I was surprised to learn that the killer in this case was a resident alien. Not because I think all the crazies in the world have US citizenship, but because I find it hard to believe that our laws, which are so limiting regarding immigration and immigrants' rights, still somehow allow non-citizens to legally purchase handguns. How is this necessary? Even if you disagree with me entirely and think that guns are next to flowers in the book of what makes life grand, does it really seem like a good idea to open this up to visitors, too? I can't believe this wasn't the first law changed after 9/11. We, the citizens of the US, have given up so many of our rights over the past few years, but resident aliens can still arm themselves at will. My mind, it is boggling.

One last point, and I swear I'm done (for now) - to buy a handgun, a person has to prove his or her identity and wait a few days. While he/she waits, the dealer will run a background check to make sure there are no felony convictions or mental institution commitments in the person's past. This check is supposed to ensure that only responsible citizens can purchase handguns, but I would argue (am, in fact, arguing) that this gives a false sense of security. A clean background check could very well mean that the person is an upstanding member of society. Or it could mean that the person is a criminal who has not yet been caught, is using a false identity, or is insane but has never been institutionalized. Look at the Virginia Tech killer - this isn't a case where people shook their heads afterward and said, "he seemed so normal!" This was a troubled person with a history of stalking and mental illness. And yet, he was able to legally purchase a handgun.

I'm not a very good pacifist. I can imagine killing - if someone threatened my children, or in self-defense. I would have to be in a pretty tight corner, though, desperate enough to use whatever came to hand. Guns make it too easy, and don't allow time for second thoughts.

Sometimes I love my kids

I'm watching Pocahontas with my almost-6-year-old, and he just turned to me and said,

"This is like when brown people hated white people and white people hated brown people, huh?"

I love that racism is a history lesson in his mind. I hope he grows up into a world where it really is a thing of the past.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Men are boring

In real life, I know plenty of interesting men, but I'm beginning to conclude that no one in Hollywood knows any. A lot of scorn is heaped on the chick-flick genre, but damn there are a lot of dull men-only movies just itching to be mocked. Or slept through. Movies whose casts consist of 15 identical men in identical suits with identical haircuts, muttering portentously and incoherently about top secret boringness, brightened only by 30 second appearances by Angelina Jolie, or occasionally some other gorgeous but neglected heroine.

We're 3/4 of the way through The Good Shepherd, which I really wanted to watch, and I stopped paying attention at least an hour ago. From what I'm overhearing, though, nothing much has happened. Matt Damon is wearing glasses now, which means he's 20 years older, but Angelina Jolie has not aged with him, and their child is a grown and quite unattractive young man. How do casting agents think Angelina Jolie and Matt Damon are going to have an ugly child? But I digress. My main objections to this movie are that all dialogue is in mutters, everyone looks the same, and nothing happens.

Disclaimer: I have the flu and may be cranky.

Happy birthday!

I prefer the hard-bitten and cynical writing style (or at least bitter and whiny), but I'm going to try to change direction for just a minute to say happy birthday to my wonderful husband.

I've read that the failure rate for second marriages is way higher than for first - up to 80% - but I can't imagine us anywhere but together. I think every day about how lucky I am. My husband is incredibly kind, more patient than anyone I know, and absolutely hilarious. He's an amazing father and a generous husband. He supports me in everything I want to do, even when I'm off my rocker (I suspect that he supports me more when I'm off my rocker, because it amuses him).

Not to say he doesn't drive me crazy sometimes. For example, he refuses all responsibility for turning off the light in our room at night, even when he is the last one to bed. He thinks that it should be my job, because it's on my side of the bed, but it's too high up for me to reach and I'd have to get out of the covers and sit up to turn it off, rendering side of the bed irrelevant. The other night, he tried to wait me out, so I got out of bed and went over to his side. He sleeps with a CPAP machine, and my intention was to pull the hose out so he couldn't breathe. Unfortunately (for him), I don't know my own strength, and I pulled the whole machine onto his head. Whoops! That'll teach him.

So, everything is not always perfect, but it's always interesting and never lonely. Happy birthday, sweetheart. I love you.

Damn, you're getting old.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Heard around our house

My step-daughter flipped through Tivo and didn't find anything she wanted to watch, so she settled for American Idol. While watching the intro, she said, with real awe in her voice

"No wonder people like this, it's so sparkly."

Which leads me to the realization that I have so many kids because I like mocking people.

Seeing things

I was reading Snow White to my 5 year old yesterday (that's a whole other post - my husband's ex-wife edited this copy of Snow White in an effort to remove all traces of sexism - it's interesting and amusing to see what she cut, and to realize that you can't really make Snow White into a strong woman story by changing adjectives, and this is the longest parenthetical ever), and I started seeing lights, mostly in front of my left eye. It got worse fast, and pretty soon it seemed like a dozen fiber optic lights were between me and my field of vision, and I couldn't read the words on the page any more (the originals OR the suggested alternatives). My head didn't hurt yet, but I remembered my grandmother talking about seeing lights before her migraines, so I took advil, turned off the lights, and laid down. About 10 minutes later, the headache moved in and I can hardly even remember the next couple hours. My poor husband came home and took care of all 6 kids while I lay in the dark, whining intermittently. It eased up some after the kids went to bed (all things considered, it was a nicely-timed headache), but it still hurts some this morning and I really didn't care for the am-I-dying weird light thing. I'm guessing it was a migraine, and I'm hoping it was an isolated incident.

And now, for your entertainment, one of the edited passages from Snow White:

"Snow White ran faster and faster, and when she could run no more, she fell to the ground and began to weep rested."

Because, you know, weeping is girly and weak. Men don't weep. Or something. I bet they don't get migraines, either. I feel like a stronger woman already, just from reading the amended version. Censorship now!

Monday, April 09, 2007

Lazy posting

I keep thinking of posts and not typing them, so here's a very un-fleshed-out stream-of-consciousness list of some of them:

1) Yarn, and why I love it.
2) My progressing midlife crisis regarding a career. To work or not to work? To be creative or productive or save the world?
3) Babies, and how they are infinitely cuter when they sleep. I started to write that one yesterday morning, after they went a record ELEVEN HOURS (that's not just a record, it's nearly twice the previous record), but of course they slept for shit last night, so I can't call it a trend. I can, however, call that a runon sentence.
4) Easter math, and how you can not fit 6 bags of candy into 12 plastic eggs. You can, however, fit 2 bags of candy into one overstuffed me in about 30 minutes.
5) Spring break, and why it is a conspiracy by the school systems to make money for the mental institutions. It is Monday, and I'm about to start taking odds on which of us, if any, survive the week with big boy home from school and at very. loose. ends.
6) Taxes, and why they are awesome. My friend is letting me do her taxes and I'm having a ridiculously good time with them. Totally cheered me up after my suckass day of bad children and worse parenting.
7) Illness, and why I am oh so over it. My husband now has a fever of 101, and it will really suck for him to have to miss a day at his still-new job, where he is still fighting a bunch of fires left by the last schmo.
8) Consulting, and why I definitely do NOT want that to be my career choice. I fixed that RPC over HTTP thing two weeks ago, after getting calls and emails approximately once every 30 minutes from the client, checking on status. Guess how many times they've contacted me since I got it working? Guess!

There are more, but I'll spare you for now. That ought to hold everyone over for a while. Anyone want to vote on one or more for me to expand upon? Or should I stick to knitting and taxes?

Saturday, April 07, 2007

This is so cool!

If I only had one baby, I would totally get this stroller:


It's so ingenious! I love things that turn into other things - I was a closet Transformers fan in junior high, and I guess it stuck with me. I just got a new twin stroller, and I like it, but even the smallest twin stroller is huge. Silly babies, coming in pairs.
In other news, I caught the kids' cold and am NOT being stoic about it. I think my husband wishes it were a work day. If I were nice, I would add "suffering in silence" to my list of skills to learn, but since I'm really only annoying other people, I don't care.

Hmm, what other skills DO I want to learn?

1) Speaking a foreign language
2) Colorwork in knitting
3) Being thin
4) Installing solar panels
5) Auto repair
6) Resisting illness

That's all I can think of for now. Going to go blow my nose for the 345th time today. Whee!

Thursday, April 05, 2007

9 months old


I'm sure some of you already know this story - a couple months before I got pregnant with the twins, my then-4-year-old found my basal thermometer and asked what it was for. I told him it was to help me have a baby, and he said "you're going to have TWO babies, and we will call them Twinser and Twinser." Of course, I told him that usually babies only come one at a time - so imagine our surprise at that first ultrasound when we saw these little monkeys hanging out like a little tadpole gang.

Our little Twinser and Twinser are 9 months old today. It's amazing how fast they change at this age - it seems like they started sitting up one day and the next day they were off like a shot. They crawl in tandem across the living room, then look at each other as if to say, "now......BREAK," then split up and crawl furiously in opposite directions. I haven't caught on to their evil genius yet, and one of them almost always makes it to the dog food before I corral the other one. Boy twin is pulling up on everything (which reminds me, I really have to lower his crib mattress), and girly is setting land speed records for mischevious crawling.

This picture is from tonight. As I tried to wrestle monkey-girl into a diaper, I was distracted for all of 3 seconds and turned my head back to discover her knee-deep in my knitting basket, waving needles and yarn and very, very pleased with herself. Boy took the opportunity to hide behind her and postpone banishment to his crib. Smart babies, and so grown up all of a sudden.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Blackmail fodder for adolescence

This is what happens when you are a three year old boy and your sister is almost ten and is not yet allowed to dress up her only sister, who is an infant and has been deemed too young for the ten year old's tender ministrations.

The haircut and lacrosse stick really make the outfit, in my opinion. I'm definitely holding onto this picture in case the boy ever gets any crazy ideas about dating when he's a teenager.

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Pilates: Coming to a mall near you

After much gentle persistence from my friend Cole, I attended her Pilates class yesterday. She's a really good instructor - so good, in fact, that I didn't hate her during the class or even afterward. Until today, when my muscles recovered from the shock of their exertion and started screaming every time I lifted a glass of wine to my lips. Nothing should interfere with Wine Wednesdays. Still, I have to admit the class was effective if it hurts this much, so I'll probably go back next week. Or the week after.


On my way to the Pilates class, I called my husband to brag about using the gym for the FOURTH TIME in only 3 months of membership, bringing our cost-per-use down dramatically. His response was:

"Pilates? Is that a new store?"

Smartass.

Monday, April 02, 2007

Milk as an action verb

My three year old is fascinated by nursing, and has transformed "milk" into a verb. In a game he's playing with my mother, he just told her he would be "Loop Skywalker" and for her role...well, I'll use his words:

"Yer the mom, you can milk!"

Light saber versus milk, it's an epic contest.

Follow-up:
Having just been given the role of Dad, I asked the boy:

Me: What do dads do?
3 year old: Work.
Me: What do moms do?
3 year old: Play.


I knew I had the better deal.

Blowin' in the wind

I'm afraid I'm a very weak-willed, indecisive person. I tend to agree with whomever I'm speaking with at any given time on almost any topic (one exception is politics - under no circumstances was anyone ever able to sway me into thinking Bush was anything less than a complete disaster). It's not just nodding and smiling, either - I can talk to someone with view A and fully believe what they're saying, then talk to another person with diametrically opposed view B and become equally committed to their viewpoint. I like to chalk it up to being a Pisces, rather than to fundamental flakiness.

So now I'm noticing that this wishy-washiness extends to more than ideological debate. Since the twins were just a few months old, I've toyed with the idea of going back to work, at least part time. I don't know why it keeps popping into my head. God knows I have my hands full enough here, and I like being home with the kids, and although we certainly aren't rich, we are fortunate enough not to need me to work to pay bills. So why do I keep thinking of working? I think it comes down to some yearning for instant gratification and a different kind of fulfillment than I get from parenting. I love my kids, but I won't know for years if all this work is effective - and even then, I won't know how much credit to take for success or how much blame for failure. Working has a much more immediate payoff - even on a bad work day, you get the positive feedback of a paycheck and another task to do.

The real indecisiveness enters the picture when I consider what to do, if I do anything at all. So far, the things I've considered (really thought about and looked into, not just gave passing thought to) include: tax preparation, freelance writing, starting an online backup business, knitting children's clothes, and doing IT consulting. I've also thought about going back to school to be: a speech pathologist, an environmental engineer, a lawyer, and a radiology tech. You can see the troubling lack of focus here.

Yesterday, I went house shopping with a friend, and during the course of the two or so hours we were out, I talked to the real estate agent about doing home inspection or becoming a real estate agent myself. I even came home and looked at the courses and requirements for doing real estate. The only thing that held me back from signing up then and there was the hours of the course - 9-5 for eight days, which I can't do because I'm still nursing the twins approximately 7 times an hour.


My husband has started saying "here we go" every time I bring up a new idea, and I don't blame him. I used to frustrate myself with my inability to find anything at all that sounded interesting to me, career-wise, and now I think "that might be fun!" about every job I come across. I'm not sure which is more annoying.

How old is too old for wondering what I want to be when I grow up?