I'm such a failure

I don't want to go on and on (again) about how awful these babies are, how horrible it is living with no sleep and no hope, but I'm realizing now that they are almost EIGHT MONTHS OLD, and I have to be doing something terribly, terribly wrong.

Yeah. I just sat here staring at the screen, trying to think anything coherent to add or clarify, but I'm out. I feel like I'm dissolving, like what's left of who I used to be is disintegrating under the pressure of never resting, and I don't like who I am and I see no way back to who I was.

Save Ruby!

One of the few shows my boys agree on is Max and Ruby. I make a concerted effort not to pay too much attention to kids shows, in an effort to preserve what little mental facility I have remaining, but this one has crept into my consciousness and is causing me no little amount of concern.

For those of you blissfully unaware of the premise of the show, it is about two bunnies (named, obviously, Max and Ruby). Ruby is the big sister, and she is in charge of little brother Max throughout every episode. I actually looked up how old they're meant to be - Ruby is 7 and Max is 3. There are no parents and the kids are always doing things like crossing town on a city bus or selling "bunny scout" cookies door to door with no supervision. This seems like trouble to me.

It's possible that I've given this a little too much thought, but don't say I didn't warn you if Bunny CPS comes and relieves poor little Ruby of her too-heavy-for-a-7-year-old burden, or if there's a Bunny Amber Alert after Max and Ruby are abducted while cavorting about town unattended.

Five Things People Don't Know About Me

I'm alive! Ish, anyway. I caught the plague from the evil twins (who are much better themselves, mercifully), and have spent the last few days whining and keeping Kleenex in business. I'm feeling marginally human, minus anything like sleep, so here I am!

Thank goodness Cole threw down this gauntlet, because I am running very low on blog subject matter that isn't related to sleep, infant illness, or the general suckassedness that is parenthood.

So, without further ado....Five Things People Don't Know About Me (this is going to be tough, I kind of let it all hang out, generally):

1) I love goofy phrases like "without further ado."
2) When I was little, I wanted to be a ballerina and a princess and an ice skater when I grew up, and I had delusions of gracefulness that my parents humored by putting me in dancing and skating classes (apparently they were unable to find any princess classes). I can still do a very short, very graceless tap routine from when I was about 7 years old.
3) I have absolutely no knowledge of popular culture from before I was about 12. We were only allowed to watch PBS and didn't have an FM radio. I think my parents aspired to Amishness. This is turning into a "5 things you didn't know about my parents" post, whoops. Anyway, I have no frame of reference when my peers discuss movies and music from the early 80s.
4) I am afraid of cows and fish. Well, and spiders, but that's more mainstream.
5) My favorite color is yellow, but I only figured that out recently. I thought it was purple for a long time. I'm not big on self-knowledge.

Whew, thank goodness it was only 5 things, that was difficult. This made me realize I do not maintain an adequate air of mystery, and should maybe stop sharing my innermost feelings and deepest secrets with, say, the checkout clerk at the grocery store. But then who would brighten their day?

A Valentine's Day Shocker

Some of you may know that I am a big fan of the show House. It's not like I yell it from the rooftops or anything, but I may have mentioned it on occasion (true story - my mother went to pick up prescriptions for me the other day from a pharmacy I've been to only twice, and the pharmacist recognized our name and said, "oh, does your daughter have a lot of kids and love House?" I don't even remember talking to him about the show. I may need an intervention.). So, it may come as a surprise that I have an official new favorite show.

I would never have even known about Friday Night Lights on my own, probably. A show about small town high school football? Yeah, not so much my thing. I don't even know why my husband started watching it, but it was excellent from the beginning and has only gotten better. It is amazingly well written, with characters that feel true and deep and a town that really reminds me of my own home town. I just can't say enough about it, really, and finally I must concede that its excellence overcomes its HughLaurielessness. So, welcome to a new era, in which I go on and on and on about Coach Taylor and his wife (neither of whose first names I know, despite my love for them).

Hugh, if you're reading this (and I'm sure you are), don't take it personally. Your place in my heart is unchanged.

Happy Valentine's Day!

It's been a pretty horrific week, but one can not post misery on the day of love, so here instead are things for which I am grateful (see if you can find the gems of bitchery hidden within the gratitude):

1) My husband. I am so lucky to love and be in love with my husband, since we are pretty inextricably linked. Forget vows, having 4 kids with someone will really bind you to them. So, I am very grateful for my husband, and I love him more than I can say, trite as that sounds. Even when he forgets to turn on the baby monitor so he can hear the baby and let me sleep for the first time in days. Even when he tries to weasel out of helping take sick kids to the doctor. Even when I am awake for the 32nd time at night and climb back into bed and see him sleeping soooo peacefully, sleeping like I haven't slept since 2005, I shit you not. Even. Then.

2) My children. I love them so much, and besides their own funny wonderful little selves, they have made me into a much kinder, more patient person (this is me being kind and patient, really). They make me see what matters. Just when I think running naked into the snow and never coming back is the only logical response to my life at the moment, one of them makes me laugh and put my clothes back on. Because who needs to see that, really.

3) My mother. I've always felt close to my mother, but having her here makes me realize how much I missed her when we were far apart. She listens, she steps in when I'm about to plunge right over the edge, she's an extra set of hands with the kids, and she's tolerant of my incessant mockery of her. Plus she does laundry. I really, really love her for doing laundry.

4) My friends. When life starts ganging up on me, my friends listen to me vent and never say that I'm a crazed madwoman, even when I clearly am. They let me take the edge off my all-too-frequent fury at events (and people) outside my control, so my husband and children get a slightly less sharp version of myself.

5) Health. Boy twin spent a night in the hospital this week for RSV with pneumonia, and it really made me appreciate that all of the people on this list and I are generally healthy. Minus debilitating sleep deprivation, of course. Because I couldn't post without pointing out that what I thought was tired a week ago was a fucking Caribbean vacation compared to the soul-crushing, bone-searing agony of staying up for nearly 36 straight hours in the hospital with a sick baby on top of 7 months of grossly inadequate rest.

I'm back, baby! Happy Valentine's Day to you all!

I am, as my son would say, a secret spy

I think I am being conditioned, like a spy or a soldier or a mental patient, to sleep in small bursts whenever the opportunity arises and to function on levels of rest that would qualify as torture under the Geneva Convention (if the US actually recognized the Geneva Convention any more, that is). I got the nearest thing to no sleep one can get last night and was dropping by 2pm today. I got exactly 10 minutes of sleep during my abortive attempt at a nap, and now I am refreshed. Seems unlikely, but I'll take the feeling however I can.

I'm having a fun day anyway, partially because I have discovered a new online tool for helping me manipulate the numbers in my budget in a variety of ways in a futile effort to make income equal to or larger than outgo. Why it is so fun to confirm to myself over and over that we are poor, I have no idea. I do find more satisfaction in finding ways to be frugal than I ever did in blowing money on crap when I was younger and richer, which seems odd. I'm a real contradiction.

This is boring, I'm going to go try to find more stones from which to squeeze blood, I mean money. Starting with Comcast. Rat bastards charging an arm and a leg for broadband.

The lowest blow of all

Boy twin is officially getting his first tooth. I can see the bump and everything. On the one hand, it's nice to know there's a reason for his absolutely godawful horrible hideous wretched unbearable miserable beastly behavior. On the other hand, he has been screaming for most of the past 48 hours, especially the nighttime ones, and it's not as fun as it sounds. Last night, he slept between 1:30 and 6 in half hour increments, each of which was interrupted by a half hour feeding and screaming session. It's amazing how quickly no sleep ruins my whole outlook on life. This evening is shaping up to be more of the same, as he has woken up screaming exactly once an hour since going to bed.

And now, the ultimate insult - he is screaming through a new episode of House. A NEW episode. He's totally ruining my enjoyment of it, too. I'm thinking of lecturing him about how hideous my pregnancy was with him, to officially kick off the lifetime of guilt I plan on laying on his wee head.

How many teeth do kids get? This is going to be a long infancy.

Ahhh, winter

Winter has finally arrived. The crisp cold, the huge, fluffy flakes, the plague. Yes, again. Or maybe still. I think our family size has officially reached that critical mass required to sustain permanent illness with no input needed from the outside world (not that we don't GET input from the outside world, as the children all interact with other disease carriers regularly). I used to think Target should set up a direct-deposit program just for me, but I've kicked that habit and now spend most of our disposable income at the pediatrician's. At least I don't bring home bags of new clutter to put away after each visit.

The twins are 7 months old today and abruptly seem like little people. They sit, they scoot (backwards only, but it's mobility), they seek out choking hazards with laser-like focus and intensity. My body is still destroyed but I no longer look 6 months pregnant, for which I am grateful. My brain is showing signs of activity, which is more of a pain in the ass, really, as I have no constructive avenue of output for mental exercise and no foundation of rest from which to develop such avenues. Saying little but "be quiet" and "blow your nose" all day is more grating when you actually want to have time/energy for deeper thoughts.

Since this is pure stream-of-consciousness, I'll note here that I just reread the 6th Harry Potter book. I really love that series, and I have a whole new set of opinions after this reading. I only read it once, and quickly, when it first came out, so this time I was able to think a little more about what was happening. I doubt anyone cares (or is even still reading), but my main conclusion is that I think Snape is actually still a good guy. You read it here.

Oh, good, girly needs a new diaper (she's currently in a snappi'd hand-dyed indian cotton flat diaper, folded with the origami fold, isn't that awesome?), which frees me from continuing to ramble and you from continuing to read.

I had a dream

Not to be confused with I have a dream. This is about an actual dream. I remember almost all of my dreams these days, as I tend to be ripped from them unceremoniously by the scream of a baby. My dreams end with the scratchy shriek of a record ripped from a record player (remember those?), but I do remember them.

In this particular dream, I was being given a tour of the prison I was about to enter for 26 years. The tour was pleasant and reminiscent of a college orientation - here is the gym, here are the medical facilities. I was to enter the prison the following morning, but first had to have some dental work done. Why was I going to prison? This part was vague, but my impression is that I had stolen a car. I realized, part way through my prison tour, that I would miss the children growing up, and I got very sad.

Then I woke up, started spending time with my children, and decided to steal a car. Ha! Just kidding!

Things to note (I'm list-prone these days, helps my feeble brain feel orderly):

1. I would have suspected that any crime I'd commit would be more violent and less materially-based than grand theft auto.

2. In my dream, I didn't consider for a moment that my husband might not still be waiting for me 26 years later. I must have a lot of faith in our marriage. Good to know.

3. I really should call the dentist. It's been awhile.

I have a dream. Sort of.

At long last, I am writing the promised life dream post. As is my wont, I'm already changing my mind about this, because my attention span can be best measured in seconds, not years or even months, but here it is anyway:

I want to buy a small farm (a farmette, if you will) near the city. Just a few acres. I want to have a couple horses (this is the only part of the dream that has actually persisted throughout my entire life) and some goats. I need the goats - and this is the part that puts my husband into hysterics - so I can card their wool, spin it into yarn, and knit it. Oh, and I want to homeschool my kids on the farm.

It's funny that I'm visualizing this possible future 10 years after moving to the city to start my IT career. I remember that year well, and my dreams then involved climbing the corporate ladder fast and breaking any glass ceilings I encountered. I was engaged, but to someone I actually didn't like all that well (what can I say, my past is littered with ill-conceived choices), and although I knew I wanted children some day, I imagined that day to be far off into the future. Plus, I think I had some vague notion that I could be uber-career-girl AND have a family, having bought the feminist ideals of my mother's generation wholesale and forgetting (or having not yet discovered) that I totally and completely suck on no sleep. And am pretty lazy, really. Oh, and hate working.

I'm fickle, though. I started looking at houses for sale around here the other night (we're not moving, I was just killing time), and found a really gorgeous, huge old house that costs a fortune. So that made me think I should go back to work and make boatloads of money and buy a large house. Why are my dreams so immoderate? I want either extreme simplicity or extreme luxury. Well, since simplicity is cheaper, that's not as hard a decision as it sounds.

What I should dream of is becoming a competitive eating champion. I could totally win at eating. I have been blowing through an alarming amount of food this week, even by my own usually very high standards.

Things I have said waaaaaaay too many times today

1. Be quiet, the babies are asleep.
2. Don't spit on your brother.
3. Stop throwing things.
4. Be quiet.
5. The babies are asleep.
6. Don't knock the baby over.
7. Be quiet.
8. The babies are asleep.
9. Go to your room.
10. Be quiet.
11. I don't want to see your penis in the living room.
12. Be quiet.
13. Go to your room.
14. BE. QUIET. The babies are asleep.

PSA: Dropping is bad for laptops

You know those annoying Dell commercials (well, they're all annoying), where they "test" their computers by banging them around? If they were serious about quality control, they'd hand the equipment over to me for a while. I may have a literally magnetic personality, as hard drives become forgetful in my presence, and my clumsiness is well known within my circle of friends and family. I disregard laptop care basics like not eating while laptopping (because I spend a large percentage of my waking hours both eating AND staring zombie-like at the computer, and I am nothing if not a multitasker) and only putting laptops on stable surfaces.

This last became a real problem today, when the laptop I use, which actually technically belongs to my mother, fell from its oh-so-precarious perch on the arm of the couch. It fell something like 14" (which I would argue is really not that traumatic) and became quite truculent afterward, spouting some obscene-sounding nonsense about its boot record being unmountable. The foul-mouthed ungrateful thing resisted my earnest efforts to soothe it, and I finally gave up (so I could turn my attention to my three year old, who was acting equally truculent despite not having been dropped on his head. Recently.).

But! My husband is a genius. He is the laptop whisperer. He told the stupid thing where to shove its unmountable booted ass, and I am back up and running, baby. None too soon, either, as I was getting the shakes and was unable to find a methadone-equivalent for computer addicts.

My 200th post!

I don't think I've ever stuck with anything this long! Yay me!

It's bedtime, so I'm not actually writing much for this landmark post, but I wanted to give a shout-out to my friend Gina, who will be jumping out of a freaking airplane in support of (oh, crap, I can't remember the exact name) a very good rape-awareness cause. I would maybe consider jumping from a plane if an armed gunman said something horrible would happen to my children otherwise (if he just said I had to jump or get shot, I'm pretty sure I'd opt for the quicker option). I'm so impressed and nervous for her. Take a peek if you have a minute!

"A festering wound of a town"

I know I whine a lot about my 3rd world style hometown. Lest anyone think I exaggerate, the town (Forks) has now been officially recognized for its suck by a book called The Absolutely Worst Places to Live in America, which gave it an honorable mention. Thanks to Tivoli for sharing this article with me and confirming what I already knew. I may have to revise my (as yet unwritten) life dream in favor of a continuation of my children's urban upbringing.

Christmas comes one month late

My husband got his W2 today, so I've spent a fun-filled evening doing our taxes. Man, I love doing taxes. It seems unfair that they only come once a year. I've seriously got a buzz going from the forms and numbers. Whee!

We officially qualify as insane in the eyes of the government - we now have so many dependents that we hardly pay any taxes at all. Seems silly to me, but hey, who am I to argue. I actually recalculated our federal return to see what it would be like if we had one more kid and discovered that if we did, the government would actually pay us. Breeders, unite!

I'm never going to get to sleep, I'm way too excited. I love you, IRS!

Off topic, what's up with the baby channel? I just saw it advertised, and it's an extra $10/month. For programming for babies. I don't even shell out the extra $10/month for HBO except when Sopranos is on. Do babies really need their own channel? I have two of them (babies, that is), and they can spend a really long time being absorbed by things like their own toes or carpet lint. I'm definitely not paying for them to be entertained any time soon, tax return or no tax return.

Kids say the darndest things

I want to post, clearly, but I have little to say. So here are some gems from the crazy little people who live here.

First - the five year old has recently taken over our old iPod shuffle. One of his favorite songs is Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone" (he also loves Justin Timberlake, the boy was born for the top 40). With the earbuds in, his already loud voice reaches new peaks of loud as he shouts out what he believes to be the lyrics: "since you been gooooooooooone/I can't breed with a closed mind." Cracks me up every time.

Second - the three year old threw up in the car yesterday, thanks to his preschool's idea of a "healthy snack" (cookies and juice) followed by a one hour car trip. I asked him what happened (in a concerned mom voice), and he said "someone made it pour out of me."

Kids sure are dumb. Maybe that's the appeal - yes, my brain has been fried by parenthood, but I am still smarter than my offspring. Bigger, too. Plus I get to stay up late and eat chocolate whenever I want (though those are still probably not great ideas). Whee! I love being a grownup!

This week in pictures

I really am going to write the "I have a dream" post at some point, but the twins both have ear infections and I haven't slept in awhile, so I'm going to post with pictures instead of rambling, more-than-usually incoherent words. And here we go...

I just finished a "skirty" diaper cover for girly - this is the first thing I've ever crocheted that was more complicated than a blanket. So, yay me! I love creating things that don't cry or get ear infections.















The twins, taking a bath in their ducky tub. They try to grab the water - it's so cute, you forget how stupid it is.















How the three year old sees boy twin.


























How the three year old sees himself.

Injustice

I was so thrilled to return to new House episodes after the Christmas break (yes, thrilled is the correct word, and yes, I may need to get a life). Imagine, then, my disappointment when the mean announcer-dude said the next new episode would not come on for three more weeks.

Fast-forward to today - or, more accurately, the Today show, which informed me that the State of the Union address is tonight (it is possible that this information has been disseminated before and I just missed it). Skipping over all the reasons that I find any display by this president a grotesquerie, it is just WRONG, WRONG, WRONG to preempt this:

for this:

By the way, I just discovered that doing a Google Image Search for "president bush" returns, among other things, a picture of a "super long turd" (the image poster's description, not mine). I've never thought of the president as being especially long in any way before, but it still made me laugh.

Stupid State of the Union.

Edited to add: What in the hell is wrong w/Blogger and its stupid formatting? I laid out these pics and my witty commentary in a very visually appealing way, but Blogger persists in imposing its own wacky formatting on it. Stupid Blogger.

When you wish upon a star

My hometown is smack in the middle of some real goddamned untamed wilderness. The forest surrounding the town is just biding its time, and abandoned buildings are quickly overwhelmed with moss and seedlings. The distances between home and essentials like real medical care and McDonalds would amaze most city dwellers. Snow storms, while rare, sever all connection with the outside world, as the town is only accessible by one small, windy two-lane highway.

My childhood memories differ pretty radically from those of my city-dwelling friends, thanks to extreme isolation and the absolute drought of fun-for-teenager activities where I grew up. My friends and I mostly relied on hunting, 4-wheeling, and sitting around whining about how boring our town was for entertainment. Bored as I often was, though, my hometown is a beautiful place to live, a glimpse of nature as it was before our species started pillaging it.

I've been thinking about the beauty of home this weekend, following a trip to the county with our two oldest boys. My friend, who lives half an hour from the city, took the boys overnight for a special outing. We were driving to her house and the boys had this conversation:

5 year old (with excitement usually reserved for sightings of Santa or chocolate): Look! Stars!
7 year old (whipping his neck around and using the same incredulous tone): Where???
5 year old: Right there! Look! They're white!
7 year old (in scathing voice): I know what color stars are.

How sad and funny is that? I was whooping with laughter in the car, but what kind of kids am I raising, that a star sighting is strange and rare? I remember driving the five miles to the ocean during breaks in the perpetual mist and rain of home and lying on the beach, staring at the sky. When the clouds pull back, you can see the Milky Way and feel how small you really are. It's strange to realize that my children are growing up without that.

Hey, this actually sort of segues into the post I'm planning that outlines my new life goals. I have a dream, baby, and it's about as diametrically opposed to what I thought I wanted a decade ago as it could possibly be. I'm an enigma, even to myself.

Return of the Whine

You can always assume, when I don't post for a few days, that things are going well and I just don't have enough to bitch about. That has been true the past few days, but today isn't starting off well, so my material is back!

First things first - sleep! The babies have slept in their cribs for the past four nights. Now, I don't mean to imply that they didn't wake up - often even - but they're not sleeping with me, and that is a huge improvement. I sure showed those...um, inert, immobile, helpless little blobs of flesh. The real question is, how did it take me 6 months to outwit the witless? Let's not delve too deeply into that one.

Second things...second. Illness. This is the plague that keeps on giving. I felt better yesterday, just in time for my husband and my mom to go down for the count, but sometime last night it hit me again, and I am once again bound to the couch with snot and misery. My own, that is - I'm usually bound to the couch by the kids' snot and misery. At least it's variety.

This took a ridiculously long time to write. No wonder I never write anything real, and no wonder my attention span is about 3 seconds long - that's how long I go between interruptions.