I appear to be taking the day off

When I worked outside the home and didn't have kids, I would occasionally (well, frequently) take mental health days - days when I just didn't feel like working and so did not. After I had kids, I had to save my sick time for their illnesses, working through my own bouts with rotovirus and plague.

Now I stay home with my kids, and the benefits plan kind of blows. As far as I know, and I'm not sure who my HR rep is to verify this, I have no sick leave. Or vacation time or medical/dental or lunch breaks or private bathroom stalls. Or pay. But today, with no prior planning, I am just sort of opting-out of responsibility, and I have to say - it feels pretty good. I'm surprisingly guilt free. I picked a good day to do it. My big boy is at school, my little boy had his 2.5 hour preschool, and the twins are too little to care that they've been in pjs all day. My mother is being a grade A enabler, running the kids to their activities and...here's the biggie...purchasing Ben and Jerry's peanut butter cup ice cream while I napped. Imagine waking up from a nap to find Ben and Jerry's in the freezer. Decadent, I tell you. I did insist on eating soup before the ice cream, in an effort to stay on the right side of the line between relaxation and depravity.

I hereby resolve to enjoy my day off and not allow guilt to seep in and steal my joy. I've been on both sides of the Mommy Wars (though I'm proud to say I've never been a combatant), and both have their perks and their prices. Days off are rare for any mother, and I'm taking mine. Come join me if you wish. Bring your own ice cream.

Memoirs

I've been reading and enjoying a lot of memoirs lately. Usually, I'm more of a fictional-novel kind of girl, so this is a departure for me (look at me, breaking out of one of my many ruts!). As I'm reading, it occurs to me that it seems to help a great deal, if you wish to write a memoir, to have had an absolutely hideous childhood/adolescence/life in general. My life has been largely hideousness-free, so I'm not sure I have enough material for a real memoir, but I do have a couple stories that may be worth telling. Here's a quick one, as quick is all I have the time or attention span for. Ugh, I hate ending sentences with a preposition, but it just sounds so goofy to say "for which I have the time or attention span."

I went to high school in Forks, Washington - it's almost literally the end of the earth. The northwesternmost town in the continental US, Forks survived on timber alone for its first sixty or so years, and was hit hard when new environmental regulations slowed legal logging to a crawl. It's beautiful, but incredibly isolated (the nearest town is 60 miles away) and tiny (there were about 2,500 residents when I lived there).

One of the local pastimes is hunting, and there are a lot of choices - elk, deer, and black bear are prevalent. I was raised by pacifist parents and am myself a strong proponent of gun control. However - a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do, and I was usually restless to the point of insanity, so when my friends and boyfriends went hunting, I often tagged along.

One August evening, my then-boyfriend and I went out with another couple during bear season. On a whim, we took my boyfriend's mother's station wagon way up into the foothills of the Olympic Mountains, still wearing swimsuits under our clothes after an afternoon swimming a local river. We hadn't been out long when we saw a bear loping across a hillside clearing. My boyfriend took aim with his grandfather's gun and brought the bear down with one shot. He and his friend climbed down from the higher road to where the bear fell to clean it, while my friend and I drove the car around to the low road for easier access.

The summer days are long in northern Washington, but the hike up the hill from the car took longer than we anticipated, and we reached the guys under a cerulean sky that seemed chillier than when we arrived. The boys were afire with blood and testosterone, and it felt like a primal celebration. Like I could squint my eyes and see the shadows of ancient man, victorious over nature and assured of survival, however temporary. Our boyfriends began to carry their prize down the hill, but my friend and I were electrified by the night and the kill and the wild boys, and we decided to continue up the hill and have them meet us with the car. We walked, then climbed upward as the slope increased, chattering gaily and carrying the rifles, and were startled near the top by a sudden cascade of pebbles that in turn released a basketball-sized boulder. The boulder crashed through the gun I carried and pinned my leg to the side of the hill, somehow without hurting me. The shock silenced us temporarily, then drove us into teenage girly giggles. Our boyfriends pulled up in the car to find us clutching each other and weeping with laughter.

My boyfriend was unthrilled to find that his grandfather's gun had been shattered in his absence, and I was unthrilled to find that he cared more about a gun than about my leg almost being pulverized by a boulder, but the sun was setting and we were all winding down from high-test giddiness, so we just got in the car with the bear and headed on down the road. About twenty minutes later, just as my boyfriend said "I think I made a wrong turn somewhere," an ominous clunk emanated from the station wagon's front end and we drifted slowly to a stop. The guys got out to look at the engine, but as it was pitch black and they had no fucking idea what they were doing anyway, that didn't get us anywhere, and the bugs drove them back into the car pretty quickly. I don't remember ever being pestered by insects the whole time I lived in Forks except for that one night. We hadn't intended to be out after dark, so we had no supplies at all - no food, water, warm clothes, or entertainment. For a couple hours, we were so desperately bored that we played "guess what time it is" every few minutes, using one boy's digital watch to judge the winner. Our families began searching for us before midnight, but as we had wandered afield of the actual road, they didn't find us until the mountains in the east were rimmed with purple and the bugs had given way to the birds.

That night seemed to last forever, but there was nothing we could do to improve our situation and so no feeling of urgency, except as the smell of the poor dead animal in the back began to permeate our bug-free pocket of air. My boyfriend later had the bear's head mounted and hung on his wall, since he had had to forego the meat after the long night with no refrigeration. And that all seemed normal to me then.

I write this from the perspective of fourteen years of city life - I moved straight from Forks to Los Angeles, and have since lived in Seattle and Baltimore. It's hard to believe now how much time I used to spend off in the woods. Off-season or over-limit, we would spotlight deer or go elk calling, things my husband had never heard of until he met me. My idea of roughing it now is to roll the window down instead of using the air conditioning in the car when the temperature hits 80, in an effort to conserve gas. It's hard to believe I was fourteen and so unconcerned in the wilderness.















Three of the children in front of the big log in downtown Forks last summer.

Things I should be doing

In no particular order:

1 - Cleaning my house. Exhibit A, a picture of the pile of dirt I swept in just the kitchen this afternoon. Truly, we are animals.

2 - Ridding myself of the lingering specter of the preschool that died. Despite the fact that we closed the school in freaking February, I am still corresponding with the IRS and the workman's comp people. Out, out, damn...um, school. Not as catchy as the original, but I need an exorcism or something to shake this thing.

3 - Sending out the rest of my birth announcements, before the twins are in high school. They already barely resemble the pictures I had printed for the announcements.





I am totally postally impaired.

4 - Sorting through my 3 year old's clothes. I got a ton of really great clothes for him for fall and winter from generous friends, but I can't fit most of them in his dresser because of the backlog of too-small, weather-inappropriate crap clogging the drawers. My husband found a pair of 6 month pants in there today, no joke.

5 - Situps. I am a manatee.







I'm sure there are more, but five is a nice round number. If I don't stop now, I'll have to push on to ten, and then I'll really feel overwhelmed. Besides, I have all the sitting and ice cream-eating and Amazing Race-watching to get back to, and I don't want to fall behind on those critical tasks.

Free associating before bed

Animal Planet is running a special about Jeff Corwin. So far, the biggest shocker is that he's married. Really? He's literally singing show tunes to the animals. Married? To a woman? Okay then, whatever floats his boat. I'm just not sure he's totally found his authentic self yet, if you know what I mean. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Actually, he's pretty funny, I may have to start watching his show.

Miscellaneous updates - the rest of my day improved, after a craptastic beginning. I didn't really accomplish anything, but I rarely let that get in the way of considering a day a success. We did end up going out to breakfast, and the 5 year old and I both chilled out considerably after a healthy helping of grease. During breakfast, my husband very gently expressed his skepticism about my carpentry abilities. Like some of the commenters, he thought I should maybe start smaller than a dining room table. I'm easily swayed, so we have a date with Ikea tomorrow to look for an extension table that doesn't cost a fortune or result in me amputating something or burying the house in sawdust and curse words.

So, I still have not found my calling, but I'm feeling a little less urgent about it. In the meantime, I have a project. My step-daughter spent her afternoon moving furniture around in her room and has decided upon a "nature" theme (when asked what her previous theme was, she replied, "messy." Good to have that self-awareness, kiddo). I offered to paint nature-y murals on her walls, so I can begin obsessing over a design forthwith. Fortunately, this is something I can do while nursing, as my girl twin is the human leech and is shrieking pretty much every second she's not actively eating these days. She is sooo lucky she's cute. I got my camera back today (I had left it at a friend's house), so I can show you...
















Couldn't you just eat her up?

And now for something completely different...

My parents used to love Monty Python. I sort of see the humor, but mostly I just have flashbacks to the nightmares I had as a kid after seeing the fat guy blow up in The Meaning of Life. However, the phrase "and now for something completely different" cracks me up for some reason, and therefore I will use it now to segue oh-so-smoothly from running commentary on my own life to a different kind of offering. I've been trying to think of what I can contribute to the internet, besides my own special brand of whining, so this is it, folks, my first non-whiny, you-yourself-can-try-this-at-home entry. This time, it will be a recipe, but I have other tricks up my sleeve, maybe, if my focus doesn't waver too much.

And now, the recipe - my first real cooking invention, and I'm very proud of it. It's easy, uses just a few on-hand ingredients, goes in the crockpot (my hands-down favorite kitchen item) and it's actually very good. Try it, you'll like it!

Crockpot Chicken Chili for a Crowd
5 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 1/2 16oz jars of salsa
1 can diced tomatoes (with liquid)
2 cans whole kernel corn (drained)
2 cans black beans (drained)
2 Tbsp chili powder
1 Tbsp cumin
1 Tbsp garlic powder
1 tsp cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste

Put chicken breasts in crockpot (you can put them in frozen, then you don't have to touch oogy raw chicken!). Sprinkle with all spices (chili powder, cumin, garlic power, cayenne pepper, and salt and pepper). Pour the salsa and the can of diced tomatoes (including liquid) evenly over the top of the chicken. Cook on low for 4-5 hours. Using two forks, shred the chicken in the crockpot. Add the cans of corn and black beans, stir to mix. Cook for an additional 3 hours. Serve with shredded cheddar cheese, sour cream, chopped avocado, and tortilla chips. Makes 10-12 servings. Yum!

I feel like I've done a good deed now. Yay me!

Is perfection really that much to ask?

Our Saturday has not gotten off to the greatest start. Despite wretched weather and little sleep, we wrapped all the children in layers of warmth and headed out to the soccer field, having been assured by the 5 year old's coach that we would receive a phone call if the game was canceled. Of course, no one else was there, as it's pouring, and of course we did not receive a phone call. We changed teams the 2nd week, so I'm sure that's why we didn't get a call, but come on. It's that hard to add people to the phone tree?

Damn it, I just remembered that last year, when I was president of the doomed co-op preschool, we had to close school one day for heat and I forgot to call one of the new families. Damn, damn, damn. That memory just took all the wind out of my sails. Karma's a bitch. And so, believe you me, am I. At least today.

My five year old has been doing SO much better since the inception of the Kindness Jar. Really, he's like a whole new kid. Or, more accurately, he's like a whole old kid - I'm remembering how much fun we had together before the great miserable personality meltdown of 2006. Until today, naturally, when he apparently woke up and decided to be a raging asshole. I'm sorry, that may not sound maternal, but there's really no other word for it. Whining, yelling, flopping on the floor while I try to reason with him, eyes rolling in the head, annoying asshole. It is very hard to maintain my hard-earned, newfound zen mommy persona in the face of this. My husband, bless his incredible patience, is trying to keep us separated by playing "chest" with the evil little beast. In fact, he (my husband) just said, "I got checkmate in 6 moves!" Way to beat the 5 year old at chess, sweetie. Somehow, I suspect that Deep Blue is not trembling with fear.

I hate getting so grouchy, I feel crunchy inside my head and everything is irritating and my eyes turn green (no joke, I'm a freak). I could make a long list of the things that are driving me crazy at the moment, but I'll spare you all and go on a hunt for food to soothe the savage beast instead. I was thinking of going out to breakfast, since we're all dressed anyway, but upon reflection it doesn't seem that wise to be out with my children in public right now. I don't need any witnesses.

I may need a hobby

I've been home with my kids now part-time for two years and full-time for a year and a half, and I've enjoyed it so much more than I ever would have thought. I absolutely loathed my job, which made my decision to quit a lot easier, but I was still nervous about spending all of my time devoted to home and family. One of the biggest surprises has been how busy I am, just keeping the trains running reasonably on schedule.

Most changes have been for the better. I think I'm a better mother now that I'm less stressed and have a less externally driven schedule (of course, I also have twice as many children now, so my time is a bit divided even without a job). My house is usually cleaner and better organized than it used to be. I've learned to cook, and been shocked to discover that I love it. Unfortunately, I've also learned that I love eating what I cook, which has lead to some serious weight gain - one of the less positive changes in the past two years.

But, as usual, I digress. My girl twin is making a concerted effort to change the tone of this post by driving me batshit with her incessant fussing. This is either a 3-month growth spurt or the emergence of a very unpleasant facet of her personality. My point (I swear I had one) is that I'm a very content stay-at-home mother most of the time. I don't miss my old job - in fact, the further I get from my old job, the more I realize how awful it was and how unhappy I was. It was an environment much like that on The Office, only without the redeeming humor.

So, I don't want to go back there (ever, no no no), and I don't see myself working full time anywhere for at least a few more years, but lately I've been spending evenings looking things up. I pick a topic and google it for an evening, imagining possibilities, and then, a night or two later, I move on to another topic. Some are areas of study - continuing education, tax prep classes, cooking school, law school, economics masters programs. Some are current events - I'm sure you're all getting tired of where that leads me.

Most recently, I've been reading about woodworking. Yes, woodworking. I missed out on shop class in school because I was in the choir (stop laughing, everyone who's ever heard me do karaoke). I'm dreaming of a fabulous extension dining room table. Our immediate family is huge (9 people), and we host most of our extended family gatherings, and our current table only seats 6. See how the rationalization begins? I've seen a couple tables I like online, but they're pretty expensive, and wouldn't it just be too cool to make my own table?

Clearly, I need to find something to broaden my horizons a bit. What should it be? A part time job? An enrichment class? An actual writing project? A dining room table?

Angry update to the post I JUST made

I just showed my husband the post I just made, and he asked who Dennis Hastert is. AND HE WAS WATCHING THE NEWS WITH ME. I told him that he (my husband, well and Dennis Hastert too) is what's wrong with this country, and that I bet he knows Anna Nicole Smith's baby's name (and, of course, he did - Danielynn, wtf).

So, in case anyone else out there is living under my husband's rock with him, Dennis Hastert is the Speaker of the House. You know, the House of Representatives. AKA the jackasses who have been systematically stripping us of our rights while voters stay home on election night to watch Project Runway reruns. Don't get me wrong, I love Project Runway (although I find Heidi Klum to be disturbingly animatronic), but get a Tivo and vote first, THEN watch PR. Please.

Dear God. Who is Dennis Hastert, indeed.

Peer pressure, blogging style

I've known about Technorati for a long time but never visited until today. On my visit, I discovered that I am ranked....wait for it...

586,843

Yes, my friends, you are in the presence of greatness. I clearly have a hotline to the people. The weight of the world is suddenly on my shoulders as I ponder the moral obligation I have to use this power wisely.

Or, you know, I suck and am all alone in the world. So now I'm torn - do I cry into my soup (or, tonight's dinner, peanut butter chicken, yum yum), do my damnedest (that can't possibly be spelled correctly, but I can't slow down to look it up now) to improve my ranking, or accept that I am one small, unoriginal voice in a sea of same?

It would be easier to incorporate this knowledge, this feeling of being small and pointless, if I really understood why I blog anyway. I started, as I start most things, because everyone else is doing it, and I'm nothing if not a follower. Baa. But now it's a habit and a stress reliever. I think of things I want to blog about while I'm out and about, sort of the way I think "I can't wait to tell Keith that!" when something happens while my husband's at work. Sadly, I usually forget whatever it is before I blog (or tell my husband, for that matter). Hmm, I don't even really remember what I'm saying now, and I'm in mid-post.

Moving on. Dennis Hastert is on the news and looks like a heart attack waiting to happen. That would be sad, now, wouldn't it? Sigh. I'm a bad, bad person, wishing ill on evil people. I should rise above it and turn the other cheek and love my enemies and embrace some other cliches. Not likely to happen, though. Okay, how about instead of wishing physical harm on anyone, I instead hope that all these sex scandals will turn people against the Republicans at the polls next month. It does seem that people care more about politicians' peccadillos than their power abuses, which makes me wonder about the wisdom of governing "by the people," but whatever gets these assholes out, right?

Warning: I'm afraid I may be subject to increasingly frequent political outbursts between now and the election, but I'll try to pipe down afterwards and concentrate on things like Christmas and kittens. I like kittens.

Free time! (?)

My 5 year old is in full-day kindergarten and the 3 year old is in preschool two days a week for 2.5 hours. I had/have delusions that I would use this blessedly nearly-child-free time to accomplish great things, like cleaning and grocery shopping (my dreams are small, but they are mine). Sadly, and perhaps predictably, it's been a month since the new schedule started, and I am currently sitting on my couch, in pjs, eating "fun size" candy bars (whee! they're fun! it says so on the package!), updating my home information on Zillow (I love Zillow!) and watching House on Tivo (I love House!). Amazing how I can enjoy myself so much despite having to acknowledge that I am the human slug.

I am, after all, in the dairy business myself these days

I love me some Dairy Queen. I love the fluffy nutritionlessness of it all. I love that there are like 4 things there that I love almost equally, which sets up a delicious (get it?) tension for me at the order counter (one of my quirks is that I have one thing that I get at each of most eateries, and I rarely vary it). I love that I have really strong childhood memories of going to DQ with my parents and little sister before my parents got divorced, although one time we were eating outside and did witness a fairly horrific accident involving an unhelmeted motorcyclist and a car.

My husband is very patient with me, and he just said yes with a resigned air when I suggested going to DQ tonight after soccer practice as a treat "for the kids." I mean, they do like ice cream, so it's not a total lie, right? It almost would have been worth going even if I didn't have ice cream myself, just for the 30 times my 3 year old hugged me and said, "thank you for the ice cream, Mommy." He's usually not very physically demonstrative. Of course, I did have ice cream, so that was, you know, the icing on the cake. Or the whipped topping on the large hot fudge sundae with peanuts. Yum, yum.

I was totally born with the wrong genes. Thinness is wasted on the non-Dairy Queen worshipers. Doesn't that word look like it needs two Ps? Hate words that look wrong. I also hate Vincent D'Onofrio - House is on hiatus and we're reduced to watching whichever train wreck of a Law and Order variety features this moron. But I love Dairy Queen more than I hate weird words and bad actors. And so ends tonight's one-note song.

Woohoo, 100 posts!

That wasn't going to be this post's title, but I'm easily distracted. 100 posts! That's sort of like actually writing, right?

This will be random and short. We're all on the mend, and I'm starting to sleep a bit, but not enough yet to be coherent or creative, and certainly not both at once. I was thinking about posting earlier, but realized that all of the topics I could think of involved sleep (specifically, the lack of said priceless precious item), poop (and the absolutely fascinating yet revolting effect of antibiotics on same), and children's whininess (really, that one just speaks for itself). I decided to spare you all my thoughts on those topics, aren't you grateful?

I was moved to post by my new favorite TV show, Studio 60 (what, I should try reading or something, to start a thoughtful discourse?). I love Aaron Sorkin. Of course, I'm going to get this line wrong because it's been like 10 minutes since I heard it, and I'm too lazy to rewind the Tivo - ah, screw it, I rewound it after all. Matthew Perry's character was writing political humor and, when criticized for only mocking the Republicans, he said "I'd be happy to take shots at Democrats, too, if only one of them would say or do something." Yes! Seriously, I love Aaron Sorkin. I want to be him.

My focus is divided, as the show is still on and I'm using the part of my brain not paying attention to the show to squirm mentally about the emails I just sent to loved ones pimping overpriced crap for my son's school fundraiser. I love the school and it really does need the money, but I hate fundraisers. I hate being accosted for them and I hate accosting others. Does saying I hate it let me off the hook for doing it anyway? I'm such a pimp.

Lastly, I'm in a Last Man Standing football pool thing, which is ludicrous, as I know almost literally nothing about football. My pick for this week is the Philadelphia Eagles, one of my favorite teams just by virtue of my in-laws' long and passionate of love of them. They're cutting it a little close at the moment, with a teensy little 1-point lead. Oooh, I think I helped them with my mind - as I typed that, they got a touchdown. Sometimes I scare myself. E-A-G-L-E-S, EAGLES! My children all learned that cheer as soon as they learned to talk. Go Eagles!

Apropos of nothing...

Everyone else in my house is sleeping, and god knows I should be, too. However, just as I was heading to bed, a discussion thread on Fark caught my eye, and I've just spent the past hour trying to unravel the details behind it, getting angrier by the minute, mouth literally hanging open and red eyes half-closed in exhaustion and futile rage.

Before I even go into what I've been reading, I have to say how frustrated I am that this is not headline news everywhere. People need to know what this administration is doing. It's like we have corruption fatigue - maybe Bush and his people have figured out that by piling corruption on corruption and never pausing or apologizing, the public focus will never remain on any one abomination long enough to force resolution.

Okay, so here's what I understand. This week, as the legislative session wrapped up, the House passed a resolution that had buried in it a provision protecting any personnel involved in torturing detainees from prosecution, retroactively to September 11, 2001. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that the detainees are covered by the Geneva convention, the adminstration is concerned, because under the War Crimes Act, violations of the Geneva convention are war crimes. The administration is preempting legal action, eliminating the need for pardons later, by waving its hand Obi Wan Kenobi-like and saying "these aren't the torturers you're looking for." Here's a link to the bill - the relevant portion begins on page 81, with "protection of personnel."

This is bigger than a what the hell is wrong with people post, this is more despair than annoyance. I want to hire a skywriter and a television station and a bullhorn and a Broadway stage and any other venue I can think of that people actually look at and shout "open your eyes!" Our freedoms have been being chipped away under the guise of protecting us for the past 4 years, and now the people responsible are throwing a blanket of protection over themselves before the mid-term elections, just in case they lose their monopoly.

I used to be more specific in my political views. I used to care a lot about issues like the death penalty, and taxation, and abortion rights. Right now, all I want is a return to democracy. I'd be happy with a Republican leadership that at least acted in what they believed to be the interests of the country, rather than in a constant struggle to acquire and conserve their own power. Democracy is supposed to be the government working for the people, not against them. Our leaders should feel constrained by their obligations to the citizenry, rather than private citizens feeling powerless and even frightened in the face of a governing body that can and does write its own rules to suit its chosen behavior.

I wish I were rich. Hell, I'd settle for articulate. I wish I could think of a way to rein these people in without hurting what I think is still the best, most viable form of government for our country. I am horrified by the current Republican leadership and disdainful of the weak Democrats who have let them twist the Constitution for four years. I guess my most specific wish at this point is that every single representative who voted for this atrocity would be voted out in November. Our leaders - Republicans and Democrats alike - need a reminder that ours is a government of checks and balances.

So ends the late-night political ramble. I need to stop reading political news right before bed. I so do not need George Bush in my dreams.

What's that smell?

This is not my favorite part of parenting. I haven't slept since, um, let me think...Thursday. That's assuming today is Saturday. I think it is, but I can't be sure. One thing I am sure of is that I smell really, really bad. Besides my own special brand of when-did-I-last-shower, I have also been peed on, puked on, cried on, snotted on, and possibly even pooped on, much of that repeatedly, since whenever that last shower happened. I also don't think I have brushed my teeth lately, or eaten anything resembling actual food. Oh, wait, yes I did eat meatloaf last night, courtesy of my fantastic life-saving friend Cole, who recovered my crockpot from the bottom of a sinkful of filth and washed it so I could make dinner. Love her.

Where was I? Oh, right, hating life. Or at least life with sick babies. This is how I feared life with twins would always be - chained to the couch, covered in babies and nastiness, trying everything and still having at least one of them crying all. the. time. Mercifully, it really isn't usually like this, but it sucks for now. Really, really sucks. Really. Funny word if you type it a lot. Really.

So, I had an epiphany while on the phone, also with Cole. I apologized for being whiny (which, dude, I really, really am), and I said I should suck it up. She very kindly suggested that I was sucking it up by still being here. I explained that I couldn't possibly run away, as just my odor would frighten away hotel clerks or other vagabonds, wherever I went. The moral of this story is that one of the tools babies have for keeping you around is to make you too disgusting to run away from home. They really have quite an arsenal (really), considering that they can't control their limbs or blow their noses (damn, I wish they could blow their noses) - first they reel you in with the cute, then they tie you down with the gross. Plus, I'd have to at least pack a toothbrush, and that's all the way upstairs. Yeah, I don't see that happening any time soon.

Thing 1 (aka girl twin) won't take medicine. Well, she'll take it, as she's very small and we can make her, but she won't KEEP it. She vomits up anything that isn't milk, along with huge amounts of other ick that she seems to store in her stomach, squirrel-like, as if on stand by in case the need arises to express her severe disapproval of medicine. This means that she is not getting better yet (we can hardly keep any of the antibiotics in her) and that she can't get pain relief. This, in turn, leads to the no-sleeping. I can't really (really) remember much of last night, and I'm having a very hard time telling what memories really (really) happened and which were catnap dreams, but I think she was up all night. I'm pretty sure of that. It sucks to feel awful for the poor thing, she's clearly in a lot of pain, while also being very, very annoyed that she won't just take the goddamned medicine so she can feel better.

Then there's Thing 2. He'll take medicine, and he seems to be feeling better, but he's the human vomit fountain. It doesn't seem to bother him that much, but I'm here to tell you, it's starting to bug the crap out of me. And anyone with a functioning olfactory system within a 100 yard radius of me. I've given up changing clothes when he pukes on me and I just use one part of my shirt to wipe up the newly wet part. My clothes are way the hell upstairs, and if I were going to go to that much effort, I might be tempted to grab my toothbrush and just hit the road. We so do not need me driving at this point in life. I feel close to hallucinations (which actually might be kind of fun, but not ideal for motor safety).

Well, I seem to have run out of whine, and have no logical wrap-up. That was always my problem in school (the wrap-up, not the whine). I'd write the intro, the body, sources, etc, but then just fizzle out. I guess the conclusion just seems redundant to me - if you didn't get what I meant from the introduction and the body, I guess I feel like it's too late. Wow, this is free association at its least intelligible, I think I'll just stop typing. There's an idea!

Kindness jar and illness updates

We are now 6 days into the great kindness jar experiment, and I'm seeing real progress. I'm very encouraged. My five-year-old, especially, has been acting much sweeter. I know that sometimes he's actively thinking, "I'll be nice so I can get a slip in the jar," but more and more, he seems to just be being nice, with no ulterior motive. Hurray! Just now, he shared his roller skates with the 3 year old without being asked, helped him put them on, then hugged him when he (inevitably) got hurt. HUGGED HIM. AND, the 3 year old hugged him back.

Yes, I know that in some families, less insane families, calmer and quieter families, a single hug between siblings might not be cause for celebration, but it is here. It's been a long road for these boys, and a rough one lately for the older boy, and I'm so happy I could just weep. If only I had the energy.

Which leads me to an update on current twin events - they both have ear infections. I was just reading the other day (damn it, can't find the article, just trust me) that there are new medical recommendations that ear infections not be treated with antibiotics, as most will resolve on their own after 5-7 days. At the time, I totally agreed with the article. My father is a microbiologist, and I grew up with a fear of a world without effective antibiotics (what? you didn't grow up worrying about this? I didn't have a normal childhood?). It was amazing how my hypocrisy sprouted full-grown from my head like Athena when I heard that the twins had ear infections. I didn't so much as peep when the doctor whipped out her prescription pad, and I've already given them each a dose. I'm a weak, sad little person.

Wow. While I was writing this, my friend called (shout out to Donna, by the way, who actually read my blog this week - she's a little bit of a Luddite, so this is big), and I spent an hour on the phone and in the kitchen (having entirely forgotten what I was doing, as I am wont to do), and the boys were quiet. And didn't fight. And were still breathing. All at the same time. It's a freaking miracle, I tell you. All hail the kindness jar!

Boobs, don't fail me now

My poor twins are very sad little sacks tonight. They've been fairly stoic about the sniffling and coughing, but tonight they are both abruptly very tired of it, and they are expressing their fed-uppedness very loudly. My husband walked into the living room a little while ago to find all three of us sobbing in unison on the couch, and it wasn't even the kind of crying that makes things feel better. Sucky virus. Worst of all, for me, is that they aren't eating very well, so my secret weapon against the whine has been neutralized. My mom and husband have a whole repertoire of tricks for shutting them up (I mean, comforting the wee beasties), but I pretty much rely on the "stick-a-boob-in-his/her-mouth" soothing method, so I'm at a bit of a loss now.

Speaking of hapless family members, my father-in-law just today emailed the following:

Too bad you are skipping over the breastfeeding stories – my therapist told me I was growing, mentally, because I was reading all those stories and not overreacting to them.....

He cracks me up. And here I am, posting about the boobies again. Sorry, Sal!

Losing my marbles

My mind has overshot the mark and gone from never thinking of posting topics to having altogether too much to say. Either way, it results in a jumble, so the distinction may not be clear from the outside. Let's leave it that way, and just pretend this little conversation never happened, okay?

Roaming about in my head like the marbles I'm losing:

Oracle is a cool word, sadly overtaken by a software company. Another cool word compromised in the same fashion is Tivoli. Tivoli is an island in Washington, gardens in Copenhagen, and one of my best friends. Sadly, now Tivoli is also an IBM brand. Damn the man, stripping the romance from pretty words. And making this the linkiest paragraph in the history of the internet.

I really need to cut my nails, it's getting hard to type and I kind of skewered one of the babies with one the other day. I think we've passed some critical fingernail point in this household, where there are too many nails among us to keep them all adequately groomed, even with constant attention. I cut the nails of two children just yesterday, but was then skewered myself by a (different) child's nails this morning (that plus a deep and abiding love of My Name Is Earl confirms the existence of karma for me).

One perk of having so many children is that you let yourself off the hook for more of their personality quirks. When I only had one child, I blamed myself for his shyness, his tentativeness (I so want that word to be tentativity), and his incessant mindless chatter. Okay, maybe I am kind of responsible for the latter. But now that I have several children, and they are all wacky in completely different ways, I realize that they really are their own people and that no amount of perfection or failure by me is going to alter their fundamental personalities, short of real abuse or neglect. Very liberating, this realization.

I've read several new books recently. This is a sign to me that I'm coming out of my pregnancy/post-partum coma, as I'd been in a reading rut, sticking with old favorites that didn't require much in the way of thought or memory from me. I'm glad I'm venturing forth now, as I've just added a new book to my all-time favorites list.

That's it, I've reached the end of the marbles for now. Whew, that feels better.

My invisible man

My three year old's favorite toy is a blue blanket. He makes it into a lot of things - a tunnel, a cape, a jacket, a nest. Just now, he was hiding under the blanket and we had this conversation:

3 year old: Mommy! Where is me?
Me: Under the blanket. (I'm sick, so sue me if I'm not a font of creative play today)
3 year old: I impossible!
Me: Invisible, Owen. Well, and impossible.

He's the funniest. And yes, I'm a little dour today.

Autumn leaves and pestilence

Ah, the crisp weather, clear blue skies, and virulent illnesses of autumn. Just the other day, I was remarking on how fall may well be my favorite season - I love the relief from heat and the promise of holidays - but I may have jumped the gun a bit, and I definitely overlooked the sickness factor. One drawback of having a million children is that we catch everything. Seriously, everything. Our kids go to three different schools, and I think they must spend their recesses licking doorknobs and other children. We usually start off in late September with a cold, work our way up the ladder of nastiness to a December-through-February crescendo of rotavirus, then wrap up the season of sick with a lingering, month-long group sniffle.

Right on schedule, we are all sliding into a pit of snot this week. It started with two boys getting a small cold, so minor we weren't sure if it was a cold or allergies. Patients zero, naturally, are also the family members with the strongest immune systems (as they get to eat and sleep at will, lucky kids), so having passed their viral load to the rest of the family, they are mostly better themselves. Now one of the babies and I are down for the count, and I can only assume that the other baby is just incubating her germs and biding her time, to prolong the misery as long as possible.

What was I saying? I can't hear or think through the packed cotton that seems to have replaced my brain. My ears itch on the inside and someone has been sandpapering my throat. I have a headband of headache wrapped just above my ears. Good thing I'm stoic and just push on through the pain, right?

Happy autumn, everyone.

Multigenerational living at its finest

It flies in the face of logic and reasonable expectation, but I love having my mother live with us. I'm not even just saying that because she reads this blog (hi mom!). She is funny and loving and incredibly, life-savingly helpful. However...sometimes, she's disturbing. As in this scene from a moment ago:


Me: I just dropped peanut butter on my toe. [not the point, move on]
Mom, to my husband: Keith, you have to lick Debbi's toes tonight.
Me: That? Is just disturbing. On several levels.
Mom: How else are you going to clean your feet? (pause) I like to be disturbing.


Little known facts about me:

1. I hate having my feet touched, or even looked at.
2. Unlike my friend Christina, I do not wash my feet before bed (nor do I have them licked).
3. My mother is insane.

Actually, upon further reflection, I think #3 is becoming a fairly well-established fact.

In which I chill out

After my adolescent fit of pique last night, I decided to approach today more constructively. It took me the entire 12 hours between my big boys going to sleep last night and me seeing them this morning for me to suck it up and want to reengage as a parent, but suck it up I finally did.

I began by mentally evaluating what, specifically, I want to accomplish (see how dispassionately analytical I was in my approach?). In addition to my 5 year old's much-discussed screaming fits, he's been noticeably unkind lately - mostly to me, his little brother, and his best friend. So, the two issues I would really like to address are 1) screaming exorcist-style meltdowns, and 2) kindness. I decided the two are probably related and have similar roots. The poor guy has had a lot going on - two new siblings and starting kindergarten being the obvious biggies.

Another factor, that I haven't discussed much on here, is how he is treated by my stepchildren when they are here on the weekends. I have to put in a disclaimer that I really do love my stepkids. I know how lucky that makes me as a step-parent. Even so, I find being a step-parent much more difficult than being a parent. That's a whole other post/series of posts, so let me just move on to the point (at last! I hear everyone thinking loudly). Although I love my stepkids, they are a big influence on my boys, and they have a different standard of behavior at their mother's house, so I find myself walking a line of wanting my boys to love their siblings but not exactly emulate everything they do. One example of this from today was the tone my stepson used with my five year old. It sounded exactly like the tone the five year old has been using with his friend. That realization made me think that I need to get all of the big kids involved in a solution, not just the one being the most overtly difficult.

I took an idea from a new blog I've been reading and modified it for my family. I got the kids involved in making and decorating a "kindness jar." I started it off by putting in four folded pieces of paper (one for each of the big kids). They will lose a piece of paper for being unkind and get a new paper for being kind. I also drilled into their heads the following definition of kindness - "thinking of other people's feelings." Their first response was to want four jars (one for each of them) instead of one communal jar, but I think I finally got into their heads the teamwork component of the exercise. If the jar is ever emptied, they will lose a group privilege (like computer time, which is always in contention), and if they fill it to the top (unlikely, but I can dream), they will get a joint reward, like an outing to the zoo or a chosen-together toy (I'm guessing that they will lose a bunch of kindness slips in the process of trying to choose their reward, that should be entertaining in a why-do-I-bother-parenting kind of way).

It may have been a fluke, but today was definitely better, all the way around. At least I feel like I'm trying something (god I hate this word) proactive, instead of just saying no, no, no all day.

I should just change the name of this blog to parenting for dummies or something (me being the dummy), since what's in my head these days, if anything, has to do with how to survive life with children. This post is disjointed and dull, due in large part to 4 baby feedings, 2 bedtime routines, 1 phone call and an emergency smoothie making, but I'm putting it up anyway, because I feel hopeful and marginally in charge of my own fate today, and I can't miss an opportunity to post something that isn't just bitching start to finish. Tomorrow is back to school night at my son's kindergarten, so I'm sure the bitching will recommence shortly afterwards.

Losing it, live

I was just starting to post another installment of my gripping new series, what the hell is wrong with people (yes, already), when I spilled my god.damned. water. and that straw broke this camel's back.

My five year old (yes, that five year old) has had yet another horrible day, and I am officially a donkey on the edge. Maybe over the edge. After having a huge fit that cost him participation in a friend's birthday party earlier today, my lovely son just spent the first half of dinner spewing food and putting his feet on the table and the second half screaming from his room while we finished dinner without him (he did get to eat, just after us, I'm not quite to the point of starving him. yet.). My husband left the door open and let in approximately 4,309 mosquitoes, 4,308 of which have bitten me and 1 of which has bitten the 3 year old, who is now whining about it. One of the babies is emitting a low, grating whine for no reason I can ascertain, and my husband just employed me to try screwing in sheetrock in the new bathroom (and I use the term "new" loosely - while it is not yet finished, it has been under construction for a very. long. time. now and therefore does not really qualify as "new"), and the stupid fucking screws kept jumping off the drill.

Then, I sat back down to work on my post. You know, the post about why I ALREADY hate the world and everyone in it. Or something just slightly less all-encompassing. And I knocked my full glass of water over. And promptly burst into tears.

"Don't post angry," says my husband as he passes through the room. I told him that I know I'm as out of control as the 5 year old, but I have one advantage - if he tried to send me to MY room, I'd go in a heartbeat. God I could use a nap.

What the hell is wrong with people, episode 1

As promised, I'm back and starting what I plan to make a recurring feature. Because really, people are stupid. They are careless and unthinking and self-absorbed and, above all, really annoying. Not you, of course. I would never say that about you. But all the other people.

I'm going to try to restrain myself to just one example per edition, so this blog doesn't become one long play-by-play of the perils of driving in "the city that reads" (aka the city that smokes crack and then drives while high, usually while also on the phone). I have a feeling it may make for a lot of installments, but it may also put something of a brake on my misanthropic ranting.

For the first installment, I would like to introduce the receptionist at the lab I visited yesterday for blood work. I signed in and sat down with a magazine. After only twenty minutes, one of the techs called me up and asked for my insurance card and requisition. I was holding one of the babies in one arm and handed her the paperwork. She drew back her hand as if I were handing her a snake (by far the fastest motion I'd seen from either her or her colleague) and said loudly, "I don't open no envelope, oh no, you open it yourself." I did so, awkwardly because of the baby, and she continued to ramble on for the remainder of my time at the desk about how she doesn't get paid enough to open envelopes, that you never know what might be in there, that "it ain't legal to open other people's mail, I used to work for the government, so I know."

I know it's not that big a deal - so I had to juggle a baby and open my own envelope. I'm trying to find the words for why it annoyed me so much. I guess it seemed to me like this woman was substituting what in her head passed for safety precautions (from what?) for courtesy and good judgement. The envelope had the return label of my doctor's office on it (the office right next door) and my name. It was not sealed, it was not mail, and I couldn't be much less threatening (I arrived looking post-partum chic in my sweatpants and maternity shirt, with two infants and my mother). It sort of felt symptomatic of a society in which a million imagined or exagerrated dangers are preventing normal human interaction, or at least providing an excuse for rudeness.

So, there's the first installment of what the hell is wrong with people. Feeding my own irritability, one anecdote of annoyance at a time.

Laughing baby!

Last night, I went out with a bunch of great girlfriends and had the most fun relaxing time in forever, so I was going to post about that. But Cole already did such a good job, I'll just link to her instead. Then, today sort of sucked - just low-grade, garden-variety suck, of the annoying errands, children melting down, idiots in traffic type, so I was going to post about that. Actually, I was contemplating a whole new blog or at least a regular feature on this one entitled "what the hell is wrong with people." But then, just a minute ago, my 2.5 month old boy twin laughed at me when I made a face at him, and he is continuing to be so freaking cute, I'm tearing up and actually sort of getting a headache. Just from the cute. So instead, I'll just post this picture of him and go back to turning myself inside out to try to get him to laugh again. I'll be back with the misanthropy tomorrow.

Fleas and soccer and ceiling wax

You know that line in Puff the Magic Dragon, "and brought him strings and sealing wax and other fancy stuff?" And from The Walrus and the Carpenter - "of shoes, and ships, and sealing-wax, of cabbages and kings?" The whole time I was growing up, I thought it was ceiling wax, in both cases, as if there were some kind of special wax used just on ceilings. I wonder how many other things there are like that, that I still have wrong in my head.

I really, really need to invest in some kind of convenient recording device, because I have a ton of thoughts in the car every day that I feel, at the time, urgently need to be shared with the world. If not to enrich the world, at least to get them the hell out of my head, because god knows I need the room. Of course, one might argue that I have gotten the thoughts out of my head, as I can't remember them now, but now I'm using valuable mental energy trying to dredge them up. I think the problem is that I seem to be living entirely in the present. I think that sleep deprivation has pushed me into survival mode, in which I must dispense with luxuries like, you know, thoughts of past and future.

For example, right now I'm watching Wife Swap, and all I can think is what the hell is wrong with people. This show is such a train wreck, and I can't stop watching. I think it underscores the insufficiency of putting oneself in others' shoes - I literally can NOT imagine what moves these people. Did you guys see this one, with the family that thinks they're pirates? Like actual pirates. And their house had fleas, and the dad's response was that there weren't too MANY fleas, like that makes it okay. And did you further know that it is nearly impossible, at least for me, to type the word "fleas" without adding an "e" to the end? Flease. Flease, flease, flease.

In other news, I am officially a soccer mom. My five year old has started soccer, and while he plays in games with fun-to-watch enthusiasm, his attitude during the less thrilling moments of drills and practice is more like my own approach to athletics. A sort of "where is the couch and snack" approach. Poor guy. I'm glad we're starting him in sports early, maybe he can overcome congenital laziness. It's hard to keep a straight face and encourage him to keep going when he's lying flat on his back in the middle of the field, plucking blades of grass and sprinkling them on himself.

This is exceedingly random, but I'm being distracted by my other favorite train wreck, Supernanny. This woman is still wiping her 7 year old's butt after every poop. I love this show, it is such a self-esteem booster. I'm just sure I had loads of other mental minutiae to sprinkle across this post, but this will have to be it for now. Thanks, by the way, to everyone who commented on my last post - it is reassuring to realize I'm not alone in occasionally loathing my offspring. The last few days have been better, and I choose to believe that it's a trend.

I wish I were Catholic

I would totally dig the confession thing. It would make parenting a lot easier, I think. By far my most common confession these days would be hating my five year old. I know, hate is a horrible, strong word, and I promise I really do love him all the time, even when I can't stand him, but that's how I feel during these all-too-frequent moments (minutes, hours, days) when he acts like an insane, alien-possessed, deranged lunatic asshole.

Usually this happens at bedtime. To try to curtail the Linda Blair behavior, we have written a pictorial chart of the bedtime routine, and we follow it religiously. We have moved his bedtime up to make sure he's getting enough sleep. We try to wind him down before bed with calm activities. Nothing seems to help when he's hell-bent on freaking out.

Tonight, he calmly said goodnight to everyone. Calmly went upstairs and calmly brushed his teeth. Calmly put on his pjs and read a book with me. Started to balk at picking a song, as that's the last pre-bed step. I finally gave an ultimatum - pick a song or go to bed without. He wouldn't, so I said goodnight, and he put in a last minute bid for me to pick the song. I did so, and he began to wind himself up about the (insufficient) duration of the song. I tucked him in, gave him a hug and kiss, said goodnight, approached the door.

That's when he kicked it into high gear. His behavior at these times really defies explanation. There is screaming, there is inarticulate whiny gibbering, there is leg kicking and flailing, and there is a particular high pitched grating noise specifically designed to boil my blood and make my palms just itch to beat him senseless. As if he is senseful. If I lived 50 years ago, he would be one hurting child, but as I am of a more enlightened era of parenting (damn it), I refrain from indulging my corporal punishment urges and try desperately to find the word or tone or bribe or threat that will keep. him. in. his. goddamned. bed. Preferably silent.

So, forgive me, not-Father, for I have sinned. It has been 30 years, 6 months, and 3 days since my last confession. I want desperately to act the way I should because I feel the way I should, and not because I am holding onto my temper by the skin of my teeth, folding my hands together to keep from lashing out. I want to remember the 95% of the time that he is a really wonderful kid, loving and sensitive and smart and funny, during that 5% of the time that he is a mindless savage.

I hate to even post this, because deep in my heart I fear that I am alone with this frustration, that every other mother loves her children more perfectly than I do. I want to pour out assurances that I do love my children, I do I do I do, that I take care of them as well as I know how (and do not beat them, honest) and feed them well and play with them and advocate for them and take them to fun activities and try to teach them to be independent and kind. But....sometimes I feel like the only word for how I feel is hate. And I'm embarassed to admit that. I could really use a priest.

Choose your own adventure

Man, I used to love those choose your own adventure books. I always read them with a finger at each of five different next steps, trying to figure out both the longest and the shortest path to completion. I think my favorite part was the fantasy of choosing what I knew to be the wrong path - the dangerous, the cruel, the unwise. What I could never do in real life, as I was (unlikely as it seems) an angelic child, pathetically eager to please.

I sometimes wish for that choose-the-wrong-path option now. I play out the adventure to its logical conclusion in my head, but it's not as satisfying. Usually the situation in which I wish to do the wrong thing involves telling someone off. I've nearly bitten my tongue off taking the high road at times, but I've also learned as I've gotten older that the maintenance of a close and special network of important people (friends, family) requires curbing some of my baser impulses.

One bad thing about having a blog is that it's a temptation to vent some of the more chronic annoyances in my life, but I'm not really anonymous enough to do so. The choices are, either censor some things here, or start a secret blog, not tell anyone about it, and vent there. That's not satisfying, though, because most of the people who I know who read this are people I WANT to commiserate with. I guess it's just an extension of real life, ultimately - in my little personal world, people are connected enough with each other to render some complaints inappropriate.

Vague enough? I'm not even sure where I'm going with this. The combination of extreme sleep deprivation (last week's 2 good nights were a fluke, apparently) and a very exciting, fun-filled birthday for my three year old have rendered me even less lucid than usual. For example, I wrote half a post earlier today. Why half a post? Because I realized at the halfway point that I had completely forgotten whatever the second half was meant to be. Here, for your mocking pleasure, is what I had written:

"The funniest things that happen in any given day in my life tend to be product of either my husband's or my children's wackiness. I feel like I'm just channeling their humor here lately, instead of coming up with my own material, but I can't deprive the world of the insanity, so here are two from today.

#1 - I noticed a white hair on my husband's head and commented on it with great sensitivity and tact, as is my wont. While he glared at me, I may also have noted that at least there wasn't as much hair left to go grey as there used to be. His response, as I tried to repress my snorts of mirth, was "my hair likes its space, just like I do." Ha!

#2 - "

And that's where memory failed me. My memory failing is hardly a rare event these days, but in this case, Keith had just said whatever funny thing I was going to put down as #2, and I walked directly in here to post, and that quickly I entirely forgot whatever it was. And naturally, he has either also forgotten or is torturing me by pretending he has.

I am a ramblin man tonight. Or woman. Whatever. I love my kids' birthdays. I like spending a whole day focusing on just one person's happiness, and seeing how special they feel in the spotlight. Now that my big three year old is in bed, and the rest of us are watching movies amidst the detritus of birthday fun, I find myself unmotivated to...well, do anything. Including write further, so you are all now released from my randomness. Good night!

I lie on questionnaires

Not on purpose, but I overthink my answers. Maybe that's why none of those career surveys ever helped me find a career I'd actually enjoy (or maybe I really am just cut out not to work at all and am a boil on the butt of humanity, which is a totally possible alternative explanation). For example, if a survey asked, "what is your idea of a perfect day?" I would probably answer something like "getting out of the house to the beach/fair/other activity with my family on a beautiful day." I now realize, however, that this is not the truth, because today has been nearly flawless. Today it is pouring down rain, I am still in pajamas at 2:30, most of my family has been out of the house all day (husband at work, big boy at school, little boy on playdate), and I have spent the whole day either napping or clearing out piles of paperwork large enough to start composting on their own if they linger any longer. Who would ever write this day down on their questionnaire? I am so not the queen of self-knowledge.

What's your perfect day? Does anyone else's involve sloth, solitude, and slovenliness?

Do you believe in signs?

Despite what my husband thinks, I don't really believe in signs. BUT, if I did, I would give up on the internet. It is clearly against me. That and/or my brain has atrophied to the point that any attempt to do anything requiring any thought at all is officially ill-advised.

I decided not to do the tax class this year in favor of trying to do some writing, on the premise that writing would be more flexible and more what I really want to do anyway. In an effort to find a starting point for said writing, I had the genius idea to start a new blog specifically for information and anecdotes about being the mother of twins. I thought I could put up a few articles, add an adsense ticker thing, and see if I could generate enough traffic to maybe make a few dollars. Build up my confidence, get some writing practice, maybe even make a couple bucks.

Sadly, my plan has already gone awry. I spent every free second I had today (not many at a time, but cumulatively quite a chunk) putting together a starter blog on wordpress that I was pretty happy with. I showed it off triumphantly to my husband, then read the fine print - no ads allowed on wordpress. Apparently, they are morally opposed to internet-leech-wannabes like me. Damn them and their principles.

So, I'm starting over on blogger. What do I have to lose, except of course free time I don't have. And maybe self-respect. If I ever get it off the ground, I'll let you all know.

To rub salt in my internet wound, I totally had a good idea for a post today in the car and have naturally forgotten it entirely. My brain is a sieve. Or...pause for image incentive...swiss cheese.













Mmmm....cheese.

I am hormones' bitch

I know my post-pregnancy hormones are leveling off - the first surefire sign is that my hair is falling out. Lovely accompaniment to the lingering blubber. Nothing says sexy like balding and fat. Until today, though, I've mostly been on an even keel emotionally. Tonight, I'm (at least mentally) on a rampage. My children give me plenty of legitimate reasons to be annoyed, but this is beyond. For example, the stupid fucking dog is squeaking and jumping on the couch off the couch on the couch off the couch and I'm. going. to. whack. him. with a 2x4. Like I even know what a 2x4 is. Wood, right?

So, if you live in my vicinity and have any intention of seeing me in person any time soon, I advise caution. And a heat shield, to keep from being scorched by my incandescent irritation.

The big boys are (finally, weepily, delayingly, unpleasantly) in bed. Keith is watching the 432nd installment of the Dateline catch-a-pervert special. The twins are, for the moment, asleep. Maybe I can shed this thin skin and resume some kind of normalcy before I must go forth into the world and interact again.

Sacrifice

I was just saying to my mother that my children have to be intelligent, as I sacrificed my own mind to have them. Then I realized that I also sacrificed my body. And my financial well-being. And now, as the final triumph of child over parent, my sanity.

Why do we have children again?

My husband is hilarious

Seriously, my husband is the funniest person I know, including celebrities (not that I know any celebrities, but you know what I mean). His hilariousness has saved not only our marriage but my sanity, on many occasions.

Take a few minutes ago, after dinner, when I was contemplating self-immolation rather than face another 5-6 hours of listening to my daughter fuss. My mother had just changed the baby's diaper and she (the baby) was not fussing for the first five minutes today, and Keith said "well, princess, has the pea been removed from your mattress?" Mom and I started giggling, and Keith thought for a second and marveled, "that works on so many levels!"

Ha, once again I'm laughing just typing it. Very, very funny man. I don't think life with children would be at all tolerable without someone here to make me laugh.

9/11 Thoughts

I want to post, but it's hard to come up with suitable material on the five year anniversary of 9/11. I don't know that I have anything useful to add to the national discourse, and my own continued feelings of loss and fear and anger and frustration aren't any larger or smaller today than they were yesterday or will be tomorrow just because of the date.

I think we all knew five years ago that the attacks would change things, but I don't think I correctly anticipated exactly what would change and what wouldn't. I think I felt like the fear would go on and on, but acute fear doesn't have much of a shelf-life - even with the Republicans deliberately trying to whip us into a frenzy at every opportunity, even now that we can't take lotion or purell on airplanes, the national mood seems from my layperson's perspective to be no more terrified than it was five years ago yesterday. If I were to guess, with no actual statistical analysis, what are the largest threats to my family's well-being today, I'd rank the neighborhood crack dealers and local idiot drivers much higher than Al Queda (although I may be more of a danger to the other drivers than they are to me, there seems to have been a surge in driving stupidity around here lately and I'm contemplating strapping a rocket launcher to my front bumper). You just can't hold fear in the front of your mind and maintain any quality of life.

That's not to say that I don't think we should do what makes sense to try to prevent future attacks. What makes sense to me, though, may not be what makes sense to someone else (for example, President Bush). One of the memories from 9/11 that most surprises me is that I actually thought well of Bush's initial public statements and strong front. I'm not proud of that now, but it's true - he felt like a leader to me, for just a minute, and maybe a uniting force. That just goes to show how much this administration has squandered. If someone like ME was willing to rally behind him in 2001, Bush's star was truly high, and now it seems that only the truly uninformed and/or blindly zealous agree with his foreign policy. When I consider that there are people in the world who hate America so deeply they are willing to kill themselves if it will hurt us, I don't see that deliberately engendering still more hatred is the answer. Acting like the bully many around the world already consider us to be can not possibly be making us more safe.

My oldest son was 4 months old on 9/11, and I remember sobbing and looking into his innocent face and wondering what I had done, bringing him into a world so off kilter. I've had three more children since then, and although I can't help moments of worry about what the world will be like by the time they're my age, I try to focus more on enjoying life with them now and teaching them as well as I can to live fairly and in balance with others. I want them to grow up with hope instead of fear. Besides being a better, happier way to live, it seems like a better tribute to those who died on 9/11 than returning hatred with hatred and violence with violence.

Snippets

I keep thinking of little mini-posts, but don't have the time/attention/energy to expand any of them. I started thinking of them as snippets. Snippets is my favorite, funniest word, courtesy of my husband's sleep-talking years ago. He usually sleeps really soundly (and soundlessly), so the fact that he talked in his sleep on this occasion was special in itself. Halfway through the conversation, I ran out to the living room and grabbed a notebook to take dictation, so some of the funniness has been preserved for posterity and is therefore available to be posted here and now. It went something like this:

Keith: There were so many trips, so many outings. Can't keep track, too many blankets. Each of them has had its own special moment in time.
Me: Each of what?
Keith: The radios.
Me: The radios?
Keith: No, not the radios, the show you're talking about. Each little snippet...
Me: Which show?
Keith: It doesn't matter which show...each little [pause]...well, NOW it's a show (annoyed voice).
Me: (laughing hysterically)
Keith: F you, I'll tell you in the morning, shut the hell up.

I'm snorting with laughter just typing this. Keith just said "you're cracking yourself up." I answered, "no, you're cracking me up." His answer? "Oh, dear, that's my biggest fear." Snort again. Seriously, no one else may find humor in this post, but it's making my whole day. And I even had a good day (hung out at the beach with friends, ate half a tub of hummus followed by half a jar of chocolate covered soy nuts (curse you, demon tempter Trader Joes), beautiful weather), minus having to help my slooooooow 5 year old do his homework.

So, all of this hysteria was motivated by my annoyance with the newspaper Keith brought home. We don't subscribe to the newspaper but frequently pick up the Sunday edition from the homeless street vendors (a whole other debate between me and Keith, they are too homeless), mostly just for the coupons. I was feeding one of the babies and was bored, and the only reading material at hand was the newspaper. I quickly became frustrated trying to get the gestalt of any article with one hand, and rapid-fire the questions popped into my head - how are newspapers still viable? Who can stand reading them, when they get ink all over you, break stories into multiple pages, use giant weird paper that flops and requires two hands and biceps with which to hold the whole stupid thing UP for viewing? It just seems like such an anachronism. I get my news online, for the most part, and maybe a little from TV. By the time the newspaper gets here, it's outdated anyway, so what is the point? We might as well still deliver mail on ponyback.

And there's my snippet for now. I just became aware of an unnatural quiet in the house and think that the babies may actually be sleeping. I must immediately throw myself into bed so they can wake me in 10 minutes - it seems unsportsmanlike not to act out my role in the nighttime routine/deathmatch.

Why I may never be a writer

Like so many other people, I am utterly convinced at intervals that there is a great American novel, or maybe a small but well-regarded novella, or, okay, just a Danielle Steele-esque crapfest (but lucrative!) lurking in my brain. I've mostly decided to forego the tax class for this year in favor of spending whatever spare time I muster up trying to write instead. Tonight, I got a wild hair and actually sat down to start a trial chapter of a memoir, just to shake loose some of the rust from my brain and typing fingers (plus I just love the word memoir, totally disguises the fact that all I can think of to write about is my own life, as I'm seriously lacking in imagination). I got literally three sentences down in half an hour, not because of brain freeze or finger cramp or bad lighting but because my children are numerous and wretched.

I recently read a book of advice about becoming a published author, and the venues covered ranged from novels to greeting cards. Perhaps I've been too ambitious in my imagination, and I should restrict myself to the one-liner market. Like I could ever restrain my verbose self to one line.

Quirks run in the family

My second son, who turns three next week, has always developed according to his own internal schedule. He does some things, like knowing his letters, freakishly early, and other things really really late. Like speaking, and allowing other people to touch him. He's been evaluated by Early Intervention (incidentally, one of the best uses of tax dollars I've seen) and by Kennedy Krieger, and both evaluators described my boy as "not autistic, but quirky."

Quirky. I like it. Not as ominous as a diagnosis, not as mundane as normality. It recognizes but does not pathologize my son's special approach to life. I don't get a handy label to use when trying to warn new people in my son's life not to touch him (and I think I often end up sounding loopy myself instead of accurately conveying his loopiness), but otherwise, it works nicely as an adjective for the boy.

Since my mother moved in with us last year, the adults in the household have spent many evenings companionably watching TV and chatting, and it has become apparent to me from some of my husband's reactions that my mother and I are not entirely quirk-free ourselves. Perhaps quirkiness has a genetic component.

Tonight, for example, I have spent several hours in the fruitless pursuit of curtains for my front room while watching Donnie Darko (which I'm really loving, by the way, it's like a clinically insane Napoleon Dynamite). Curtain shopping may seem normal, but I've been looking for curtains for the front room for going on three years now. I hate to think of the number of hours I've spent so far looking for that perfect fabric. I vascillate between tapestry and lace and crewelwork and ultimately just start clicking links in ebay at random and going to bed with dry eyes and a headache. Tell me that isn't classic Pisces indecision!

I could give dozens of examples of my mother's quirks to prove the multi-generational quirk connection, but I'm losing both the thread of the movie and the inclination to type. Who knew Patrick Swayze was still working, by the way?

Damn it. My posts would have more images if Blogger didn't suck. I swear, it's at least half the time that it just doesn't work at all. Stupid Blogger. I think I might switch to wordpress.