My current conundrum

I'm one of those rare people that actually enjoys doing taxes. Last year, I considered taking H&R Block's tax preparation class so I could pick up a little extra money (and mental stimulation) during tax season, but I ended up going to Italy instead (not a bad tradeoff, really). The class is back in session starting next week, and I just remembered it, so now I have to make a decision quickly. Not so much my forte. I attribute my congenital indecisiveness to my Piscean nature, but my husband scoffs at all things zodiac, so maybe there is a more deep-seated reason.

So, what to do? I'm so tired I find myself having to think about breathing, and leaving the twins for a few hours at a stretch involves pumping and bottles, which is a pain in the ass, but I've been wanting to do this for quite a while and it would be nice to have something non-child-related to think about for a few hours a week. It would be nice to have a potential source of a little extra income at tax-time, too. I'm not too worried about the academic portion of this undertaking, as my intellectual vanity leads me to believe I can pass without too much trouble despite my severely compromised mental faculties, but the sheer effort entailed in getting up and out of the house and then staying somewhat alert for an entire class seems like it might tax (ha, tax, get it?) my meager resources.

Yeah, I don't know. Any thoughts?

Technology clairvoyance and upcoming indolence

I just typed clairvoyance about 6 times and then looked it up to make sure I was spelling it right and I am and still it looks weird to me. Hate it when words lose all meaning through overuse.

Where was I? Oh, right. My husband and I chat via gmail's IM frequently throughout each weekday. I love having that nearly-constant connection without worrying that I'm interrupting (as he can ignore me if necessary). I was sitting in the living room with my mother today and my husband messaged me something about this weekend, so I said to my mother, "Keith said no to tomorrow night." She looked a little startled, and I realized that to the outside observer, I was just sitting still and not interacting with anyone in any way. I've always wanted to be telepathic, and I think I may just have identified my substitute - I can channel people through my IM client. Behold my power.

You may be suspecting by now that I'm a wee bit punchy, and boy would you be right. Whatever hormones or post-baby euphoria has been buoying (damn, had to spellcheck that one, too, I don't trust myself anymore) me up since July has left the building, and I feel flat as a pancake. I've got nothing left, but funnily enough that doesn't stop the obligations from knocking at my door - I thought opportunity was meant to knock. Today was a whirlwind of doctor's appointments and errands and kids' activities. I am totally and completely wiped out, but I also did everything I needed to do, so tomorrow is slated to be my long-awaited and desperately needed day of veg. I plan to stay in pajamas all day, speak in monosyllables, and watch really vacuous television. It's not sleep, but it sounds pretty damn good, and I'm sure my fellow Baltimoreans will appreciate my absence from local roadways. I'm enough of a menace well-rested.

Weather is speaking to my friend

This is the first leg of my friend's flight home today. Does anything about its correlation to weather patterns say "don't go home" to you? I thought so!

I am a bowling trophy

My husband's 20th high school reunion is coming up in two short months, and I'm beginning to panic about the figure I'm likely to cut at the big event. Yes, I did just have twins two months ago, but I'm afraid the absolute truckloads of sugary snacks I've consumed since then have more to do with my gelatinousness than the babies themselves. Sadly, I don't seem to be able to exert any control over my cravings. I don't usually have oodles of willpower anyway, but when I'm sleep deprived, some inner neanderthal kicks in and demands fat and sugar in large quantities to keep going. I would like to convince this neanderthal to use the more than ample existing stores instead, but she's not listening. Bitch.

My evening routine is to zone out after the kids are finally in bed and largely ignore my husband until we actually get into bed, always later than we should, and then I start chattering up a storm as if to pack all of my thoughts into the final five minutes of the day. I don't know why I put off conversation until we're both too tired to talk, or why my husband patiently participates in my desperation-tinged last minute rambles, but that's what happens. Last night, as my husband's red-rimmed eyes started to close, I mentioned my concerns about the upcoming reunion. He tried to reassure me, but I said "people will look at me and say 'what kind of trophy wife is that?'" (I'm younger than my husband and his second wife). My loving husband immediately and with no hesitation replied - "a bowling trophy."

He's so funny, I can't even be offended. So there it is, I am a bowling trophy.

Missing: Wisdom Nuggets

My husband and I went out (alone! with no children!) today to see a movie and we stopped at a bookstore to pick up my next book club book. I hadn't really been feeling restless to escape the house yet but had a wonderful time, and thought of a ton of stuff I wanted to blog about (not least of which is the realization that I think a lot more, and a lot more clearly, when I am not around my children). Because my memory has been failing me of late, I used my handy-dandy cell phone message recorder feature to record several thoughts for later blog use. Sadly, as I recorded the last of them on the way home, I realized that I had misunderstood the handy-dandy cell phone message recorder feature in a fairly fundamental fashion and had not, in fact, actually saved any of my thoughts. Damn.

So, many of my wisdom nuggets (so dubbed by my husband) have been lost to this audience. I know you're all as disappointed as I am, though you're probably less likely to lie awake tonight trying desperately to summon them. I'm sure none were very important, but I struggle against the atrophying of my memory and find a sense of victory in each memory found that I had lost. I remind myself of poor Charly in Flowers for Algernon, knowing that I used to be smart and sadly fearful that I will never be again.

I did write down the thoughts I remembered, so I have some fodder for future posts, but as usual this has been interrupted about 30 times by the insane, demanding, small people I created, so this is it for now.

Penises are always funny

Well, not always always. Sometimes they're useful, or fun, or whatever. But you know what? Even then, they're pretty funny.

Lately, it seems like the level of humor around our house has regressed a bit. Lots of scatalogical and anatomical jokes and dopey laughing complete with snorts. I think the lack of sleep has diminished our capacity for more sophisticated humor. Within the past 24 hours, I have had conversations that included the following two quotes:

First conversation - "What is the thing where your dick is hard all the time?" (to save you google time, the answer is priaprism, and that ought to get me some interesting page hits).

Second conversation, from my husband upon being read the quote above - "It's called the 6 weeks after delivery." Ha!

I think instead of post-partum depression, I am entering into post-partum hysteria. Everything is cracking me up. Including Crazy Frog and his belly button and funny little penis. I'm telling you, penises are always funny.

For Heidi

This post is dedicated to my dear friend Heidi, who I already knew kicked all kinds of ass, but who just won my love and admiration anew with her thorough dismantling of a seriously misguided and arrogant right-wing commenter on our mutual friend's blog. Click HERE for the smackdown. Don't you just love her? So, it's a little challenging to come up with a post topic on the fly, but for Heidi I will do my best.

I've been getting out of the house more and getting less sleep even than usual the last few days, so I have lots of random little daily life stories and even more random half-baked thoughts, but putting together anything coherent seems daunting at best. I've started employing the voice recording features on my cell phone and digital camera to try to stop the attenuation of my brain activity, so I'll begin this most random of posts with the most recent recording. The recording is as follows:

"Goat magazines."

See how deep the thoughts go when I'm away from the computer? This note was recorded while at the Maryland State Fair today. My friend Tivoli is in town and she and I took the 3 youngest children to the fair. By the time we parked and actually made it onto the fairgrounds, we were starving (okay, I was starving), so we immediately parked ourselves on a bench and ate our picnic lunches. As we ate, Tivoli mentioned that she has a friend who buys offbeat magazines and who recently purchased, yes, a GOAT MAGAZINE. This struck me as absolutely hilarious and I wanted to share with all of you, though to be fair, my entire personality is at an angle these days like one of those old V8 commercials. There really is only so much sleep deprivation one can endure without going nutty.

For a more mutisensory experience (hmm, is reading a sense? Guess not - so really, reading and looking at pictures both use just the same one sense. Oh well, work with me), here are some pictures from the fair:





Those are some giant sheep balls





Cute, thirsty (or, as I originally typed, thursday) duckling


These piglets were just minutes old (and reminded me disturbingly of the fetal pig dissection portion of high school). Their poor mama pig was still in the process of delivering more piglets while we were there. I thought having twins was a little rough.





Doesn't this cow look a bit like a younger Mickey Rooney?

That's all I've got for now - so, Heidi, this one's for you.

My own human shield

I wish I could post with my mind. I have vague recollections of having absolutely brilliant ideas for posts at times not conducive to typing (read: nearly always), but when I actually sit down in front of the computer, my mind reverts to its typical blank slate state.

I must therefore resort to just telling you all about my plans for the day. I am either a hero or a glutton for punishment - I have just dressed myself and the 3 littlest kids (big boy is in kindergarten, hurray!) and am going out by myself to a singalong. Also, I stink, because I couldn't quite figure out how to take a shower without having my 3 year old draw all over the twins with markers. However! All of the kids look absolutely adorable, so I will have a human shield of cute on my outing.

The natural thing to do here would be to take and post a picture of said human shield, but this has taken forever to write already, and frankly I've lost interest. I think this blog would be more entertaining if I were capable of coherent thought or attention spans of more than a minute.

A new spin on climate change

I look back on my career days from the perspective of my new life like looking at a film negative (what, by the way, will replace the film negative in our lexicon once a whole generation reaches adulthood without having seen a film camera?). Staying at home may not be for everyone (I used to be certain it would not be for me), but it does seem like a more natural, organic way of life than spending every weekday in a climate controlled, fluorescently lit pod of industry.

Summers here are just ghastly - way too hot and humid on the best days, unbearably stultifying and stifling on the worst. When I worked in an office every day, summer only entered my thoughts for a few minutes each morning and evening while I waited for my car's air conditioning to kick in on my commute. Now that I'm home, and trying cost-consciously to save electricity, I spend my summers sweltering and dreaming of cooler weather. To my fevered, summer-sick eyes, the start of school on Tuesday looks like a line of demarcation between the hell of summer and the promise of fall.

I realized this the other day as I shopped for school supplies for my eldest and started to feel that back-to-school excitement that I haven't had since I was in school myself. Living with and, to a degree, for my children has given me back seasons - something I didn't realize I had lost.

My husband's secret life

As anyone who has gone swimming with my family is aware, my husband is quite hirsute. So imagine my surprise last night when I discovered a 3" triangular patch of baldness in the middle of his back. Even more surprisingly, he doesn't know how it got there. Did he scratch himself while holding a razor? Did one of the boys get to him without his knowledge (although we are lax in some things, we do not let the boys play with razors, I swear). Is he having an affair and the other woman marked him as her territory by carving shapes in his body hair? The possibilities are...kind of the opposite of endless. I mean, how many ways can someone have their back shaved without their knowledge?

A gross injustice

It occurred to me today that what I want most in life right now (and this should give you all a peek at how very small my existence is at the moment) is sleep and food, and that I spend a huge portion of each day begging, bribing, and threatening my children to sleep and eat. It seems like we should be able to achieve some kind of accord in which they can stay up as late as they want and eat only jelly beans and ice cream while I sleep a minimum of eight straight hours a night and eat...well, jelly beans and ice cream doesn't sound so bad. Maybe we're closer to this accord than I realized.

Other people are idiots, too

Lest anyone think I'm singling out my own children for criticism and mockery, allow me to shed some virtual light on recent inanities I've encountered. Having twins has revealed to me a real lack of both education and common sense on the part of the general public. I'm sure this lack is nothing new, it's just more apparent to me now because everyone and their half-wit brother sees the babies as an open invitation to approach with stupid questions and unwelcome groping.

First, the "uneducated" category. The question I am asked most often, and I mean several times per outing, and even once by a person in the medical field, is whether or not the twins are identical. I truly just don't get this one. I understand that not everyone is a doctor, but the word IDENTICAL has a similar meaning in a non-twin context. Here, I'll look it up for everyone -

i·den·ti·cal ( P ) Pronunciation Key
(-dnt-kl)adj.
Being the same: another orator who used the senator's
identical words.
Exactly equal and alike.
Having such a close
similarity or resemblance as to be essentially equal or
interchangeable.
Biology. Of or relating to a twin or twins developed
from the same fertilized ovum and having the same genetic makeup and closely
similar appearance; monozygotic.

So, even if we use the simple "exactly equal and alike" definition and skip the more complicated "biology" definition, we can see fairly quickly that NO, my boy/girl twins, one of whom has blond hair and one of whom has brown, are not identical. Just as your car and your house are not identical, or your head and your...well, you get the point.

Next, the "common sense" category. I have been shocked at the number of people who have just come right up to my babies and grabbed (or tried to grab) their hands or feet or touch their faces or bellies. Please allow me to have a public service announcement moment and advise everyone NOT TO TOUCH BABIES YOU DON'T KNOW. You may even want to extend this warning to ALL people, and not just randomly grope anyone at all, but I'll leave some leeway on that on the premise that if you are dim enough to grab adults, they can take your education into their own hands. Hopefully in a manner emphatic enough to really drive the message home.

There, I feel better having gotten that out. I promise, I am nothing but friendly and polite to the absolute hoardes of people who approach merely to compliment my undeniably gorgeous offspring, and I do enjoy showing them off to a degree. I just worry a teeny bit more about civilization than I did already when confronted with some of the aforementioned behavior, though I tend to rationalize it by assuming that those are the same people who continue to give Bush a double-digit approval rating.

Definition of Insanity

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, then raising children is literally insane. Bedtime, for example - you set up a routine and follow it religiously despite the fact that it NEVER WORKS, and you follow it and follow it and don't alter a single solitary thing and you just keep on doing the same freaking thing night after night after night and THEN (in theory), they suddenly associate the routine with sleep and poof, they go to bed like human beings instead of cats in a bag destined for the bottom of a river.

All the child-rearing books I've read emphasize consistency - consistency of routine, of discipline, of positive feedback - but isn't "be consistent" just another way of saying "do the same thing over and over and expect a different result?" Yeah, I thought so. So, child-rearing experts, you're actually PRESCRIBING INSANITY. Just so you know.

I have to go make dinner so it's ready at the normal dinner time so my kids have a routine framework in which to grow, theoretically, into rational human beings. Wish me luck.

My children are idiots

I try to give people the benefit of the doubt (stop laughing, I do too), especially my own children. I mean, despite myself, I do have some pride invested in their accomplishments and attributes. Doesn't every parent glow a little when someone compliments her child's beauty or kindness or wit? So it's with a heavy heart that I must now concede that my children are imbeciles. My desire for the boys to have some redeeming quality forces me to admit that their stupidity has a certain originality to it. They are specialists, if you will, in a kind of destructive idiocy that I don't believe I even aspired to as a child. The following evidence in support of my conclusion is all drawn from the past week.

Exhibit A - my almost-3-year-old, after roughly 4039 reminders NOT to throw or kick the soccer ball in the house, has officially claimed the prize of First Child to Break a Window. I'm a bit surprised, as he is the 4th of our 6 children, and frankly I was certain our athletic second child would claim the honor. Won't he be embarassed when he learns that his little brother beat him to the punch?







Exhibit B - the 5 year old and almost-3-year-old, working in tandem, beat the living shit out of a plastic toy with the pried-off legs of their toy piano during a 30 second lull in supervision. We have so hoped for the boys to start enjoying each other's company, but recent events are leading us to reconsider that wish. They do seem to lower each other's IQ.

Exhibit C (C is for Clincher) - after playing a fairly normal, serene game involving cardboard squares bearing the letters of the alphabet, the two geniuses decided to deposit said cardboard squares in the dirty diaper pail. No, wait, that's not the dumb part yet! They then reached INTO the diaper pail to retrieve the squares. Then came in, triumphant, to show us their game - AND HANDS - streaked with baby poop.







We're so proud.

Our friends have been encouraging us to get a short bus, now that the twins are here and we no longer fit the whole family into even the largest of mini-vans. Now I think the short bus would be even more appropriate. My poor dim children.

It's 3am, I must be lonely

Those wise songwriters at Matchbox Twenty sure know their stuff. Three am is a lonely time. If you're young and free, 3am is when you realize that you've stayed out too late, had too much to drink, and that the person you found wildly attractive an hour before is not as transcendent as you thought. If you're older and more responsible, 3am is when you realize that you are NOT going to beat insomnia tonight, so you might as well get up and resign yourself to a rough(er) work day tomorrow.

If you are absolutely ancient, like me (in mind and body, if not in chronological age), and have 400 children, 3am is when your twins wake up shrieking and soaked in their own bodily fluids and it's 3 zillion degrees in their nursery and you can't move your arms to put your hair up or turn up the air conditioning or strangle yourself because you're buried in infant flesh. Or maybe that's just me. Yeah, that one's probably just me. Sigh. That makes it all the lonelier.

Things are going well overall. These babies are just the sweetest, if not the best sleepers, and I'm fortunate enough to have a LOT of help. I remember this phase from my other babies - when I feel better physically and am restless as all hell to catch up on all the stuff I haven't done in ages because of the constraints of pregnancy and new motherhood - socializing, shopping, day trips. Hell, cleaning the house. But the babies haven't gotten the memo yet that mom's ready to get back into the swing of things, and like baby birds they chirp and chirp to be fed, so often that there comes a point in each day where I just give up and accept that there will be no further non-baby-related activity in the day.

Oh! That reminds me. My husband and eldest son were doing yardwork the other day and knocked down a small tree that (they then discovered) had a bird's nest in it, with 2 baby birds in it. Fortunately, for the birds, the tree is still sort of propped in place, so they should be okay. Not so fortunately for my husband, the mother bird was on duty and was fairly pissed off that he had jeopardized her babies. She attacked him with squawks and feathers and scared a few years off his life.

That story was not especially relevant, but my mind's not working in an entirely straight line these days. Hey, I'm posting, and that's what matters, right?

Things you never thought you'd say...

My almost-3-year-old just came into the room after using the bathroom. He showed me his damp hand and said, "it's soap." This being patently false, I responded with the following sentence:

"If it comes out of your penis, it's not soap."

Only one of many things I've said since becoming a parent that I never could have foreseen.

Capital One, how I hate you

My one month old twins have a bit of a cold. When my firstborn got his first cold, I was beside myself with worry and anguish over his suffering. I didn't sleep by choice (that level of devotion is nearly impossible for me to imagine now, sleep being more valuable than anything else I can think of), opting instead to spend every moment hovering over his wheezing little body, as if I could help him breathe through sheer force of will. Now, with my third and fourth babies - yeah, not so much. My attitude is more of a brief "aw, poor baby," followed almost immediately by an unspoken but strong sentiment of "suck it up and be quiet, kiddo." I know, they're infants, and I promise I'm taking care of them, I'm just not suffering for them like I did with my eldest.

What, you may ask, has this to do with Capital One? Well, I know I am not alone in my strong dislike of telemarketers. However much time and money has gone into anti-telemarketing legislation and credit card reform in the past few years, I want it back. But my feelings of distaste are multiplied 100-fold when the telemarketer in question interrupts the caretaking of two sick babies and will. not. listen to me. Here's the situation - Capital One has, apparently, issued me a credit card against my will. I don't know why they have done this, but I don't want it and I don't like it. Seems ominous and wrong that they can take actions that affect my credit without my knowledge or permission, but I digress. Since I did not ask for or want this credit card, I have not activated it. Capital One has responded to this lack of action on my part by launching a campaign of phone calls, sometimes as many as three a day, telling me to activate the card. I DON'T WANT TO. This is beyond their comprehension. During today's harassment, I basically begged the woman to cancel the account I did not request and stop calling me. While I took three minutes I did not have to try to impress upon her my lack of desire to enter into a relationship with her parasitic company, both twins resumed their "we don't feel good so we must nurse again even though we just ate" wails. I'm pretty sure she could hear them, as she had no trouble hearing me, but when I said, three times, that I had to go because my babies were crying, she responded with requests for such information as my social security number. Um, no. No no no. Go away, stupid Capital One woman. I finally had to hang up on her. I really don't like hanging up on people, even stupid obnoxious people, especially when I have not yet achieved my aim of ensuring that they don't call back. So, I am for now the not-so-proud possessor of a Capital One credit card of unknown credit limit and interest rate. Can I get anyone anything at the store?

Here's a shock - a twin is fussing. Maybe sucking on my Capital One card will soothe him, it's got to be good for something.

The balance of things

Some days, like today, convince me that we each are allocated our daily lot of suck, and that if one area improves (or worsens), there is a proportional decrease (or increase) of suck in another area.




A fairly average day for me lately, for comparison's sake:
Sleep - virtually none
Health - fine except for the aforementioned no sleep
Big kids' behavior - 6-7 on a scale of 1-10
Babies' cuteness - 10
Fun activity level - 2

Today's tally:
Sleep - almost literally none (it's a subtle distinction, but has an exponential impact on the total)
Health - desperately ill (this may be a slight exagerration, as I'm fairly certain it's just a cold, but I seem to have bubble-boy style immunity due to the no sleep, so it seems to be racing toward pneumonia)
Big kids' behavior - inexplicably, 9!
Babies' cuteness - 10 (some things never change)
Fun activity level - 8

So, if we review, I seem to have exchanged good physical health for good behavior and a fun outing. Doesn't seem like such a bad trade, when I put it that way. Still, in general I think the normal way of things is best for every day, as I miss breathing, and the insides of my face itch.

Parenting extemporanea

I need a brain-dump device to record the posts I write in my head while I'm up with the twins at night. I'm so eloquent in my head, and I come up with lots of great topic ideas, but the sleep deprivation prevents my memory from retaining critical information like where I put the other baby down, much less blog post ideas.

The one idea I do remember from 3am has to do, naturally, with breastfeeding (apologies to my poor father-in-law, if he hasn't already given up reading this blog due to excessive bodily function revelation). It does seem that once you have babies, everything that passes for thought revolves around what goes into the babies and what comes out. No wonder one's social life generally suffers a post-partum decline.

Right, the post. I belong to a local online mother's group, and lately there has been a lot of discussion about the furor caused by the breast on the cover of the latest Babytalk magazine. A lot of statistics are being bandied about regarding how many Americans feel "uncomfortable" with nursing in public (always abbreviated as NIP in the discussion forum, much to my adolescent amusement). My thoughts at 3am were that I don't much care if it makes people uncomfortable. I feel fortunate to live in a time and place where I don't have to choose between nursing and leaving the house. I do wonder if those people offended by public nursing realize how frequently babies (especially newborns) eat, and how limiting it would be for mothers not to be able to go out until their babies are on a predictable, avoidable feeding schedule. If my own experience is anything to go by (and it may not be, but it's what I've got), my mental health post-partum is already a bit shaky, and leaving the house is one of the thin threads holding me together. So, easily offended Puritanical public, avert your prudish eyes, but my babies and I are leaving the damn house. As usual, I mentally follow my pronouncement with an oh-so-sophisticated foot stamp and a "so there." So there.

In other news, my transmogrification from pissy, uptight, Type A working girl to competent, giving, living-my-ideals stay at home mom continues apace. My lovely friend Cole introduced me to the wonders of Whole Foods and Trader Joes yesterday, and I have been snacking on much more healthy fare ever since (minus one small incident with Moose Tracks ice cream, but I was really just emptying the last bit from the container, so it was like cleaning more than eating). AND...drumroll please...we have switched the twins to cloth diapers, now that they have actual bottoms around which to wrap the diapers - we tried cloth when they first came home but their bitty bodies were not sufficient to keep the diapers on.

Nursing twins in public, eating healthier food, and cloth diapers - I've come a long way, baby.

A more than usually random collection of thoughts

I feel like I need to post to keep the momentum going, but I'm more than usually blank this evening. I've had a great weekend filled with actual human contact and ventures from the house, so I'm less in my own head than usual. Most of my thinking seems to be happening during the catnaps that pass for my sleep at night - most recently, I dreamed that I was sitting next to Brad Pitt at some sort of very unpolished performance. I asked him about his kids and he started sobbing that he just couldn't find a way to relate to Angelina's daughter. I comforted him and related my own step-parenting experience, encouraging him to hang in there. Wouldn't you think, if I were to dream of Brad Pitt, the dream would be a little more...exciting? Apparently even my subconscious is fat, exhausted, and libido-less.

The twins are a month old now, and I'm starting to rejoin real life. I realized this evening that my eldest son starts kindergarten in three short weeks. I feel like time has been suspended since the beginning of July - it's hard to realize that summer's almost over. Now I'm stepping up my mental anguish about what to do with my almost-3-year-old this year. Preschool or random enrichment programs or nothing but my scintillating company? Perhaps this week I will progress from mental anguish to actual research into programs. One of the things no one tells you about when you have kids is how tiring the logistics of it all can be, especially when you have more than one. Classes and lessons and school and blah blah blah - especially when they're little and have few expressed interests of their own. Doesn't it seem presumptuous to choose their activities for them? For example, I asked my #2 son (in age, not affection, I assure you) what kind of party he wants for his birthday, and he answered "I want a purple party." Well then. That's clarifying.

Hmm, all this thinking about what needs to be done reminds me - I need to dig up two fines we recently received for, respectively, "weeds on property" and "trash bag on property." Apparently the Baltimore PD is stepping in as neighborhood association for the borderline ghetto in which we reside. Nice of them. Lucrative, too, as the fines total $110 and I just paid another "weeds" fine for $60. Quite the racket they have going. We're planning on contesting the latest ones, though (seriously, a trash bag on the property? In the middle of the day? Maybe we were working on the weeds, Mister Po-po). I think since the crack dealers moved out of the rowhouse across the street the police have had altogether too much time on their hands.

Okay, that's enough randomness for one post. Off to find the fines, research preschools, and try to convince/bribe/smother the boys to sleep, as it is 10pm and they seem to be having a kegger in their room.

A very sweet day

I'm sacked out in front of the TV, wearing my husband's comfortable ancient T-shirt (really, fully half of the man's clothes are older than I am) and watching my favorite new show, Psych. I just had the best day in a long time and I feel totally happy and relaxed. I was just reflecting on the day and realized that this is what I ate:

9:30am - bowl of granola with milk
12:00pm - bowl of cookie dough (what? I don't get sleep, I can't have some joy?)
1:00pm - chalupa and hard taco at Taco Bell
4:00pm - cookie (at least it was cooked)
7:30pm - order of jalapeno poppers
9:30pm - bowl of moose tracks ice cream
10:00pm - another (very small! really!) serving of cookie dough

Hmmm. That's a LOT of sugar. And really very little in the way of actual food. This leads me to two conclusions (I'm big on lists since the twins were born, because I think in fragments if/when I think at all):
1) There is a real correlation between my sugar intake and my mood.
2) My dear friend is a La Leche League volunteer and is almost certainly thinking, and rightly so, that this is not the ideal diet for a nursing mother. Sigh.

For the record, I really HAVE been eating well, especially the last few days - incorporating protein and vegetables (not only in deep fat fried fashion) and limiting my desserts (shut up, I can hear you laughing and it hurts my feelings. I have TOO been limiting my desserts). But today just felt like a holiday somehow. I was going to write all about all the fun stuff we did and how we had a great time with friends and family, but all this thinking about food made me realize I really want something else to eat before bed. I promise it won't be sugary.

We interrupt this whine...

I know, everyone will think this is a guest blogger if the whole post isn't one big rant, but I have to brag about my excellent morning. I got up at 7:45 (unheard-of-early since the twins arrived and rendered me nearly nocturnal) and in the next 45 minutes got all four children dressed, fed, and in the car (having first rearranged car seats) to take biggest boy and his friend to camp. This may not seem like a huge accomplishment to the uninitiated, but I've achieved less in more time with just my two eldest (sort of sad, but true), and this was my first time getting out of the house entirely on my own with all four. So, TAAA-DAAA. Thank you, thank you very much.

I then returned home and the basement power went out. Instead of reverting to helpless-female type and calling my husband, I ventured into the (dank, dark, disgusting) basement and fixed it mySELF. So there, cosmic forces that have been against me this week. I am woman, hear me - well, not roar, but at least I'm not just whimpering, either. Except when I have to nurse on the right side. That still stings a bit.

New meaning of pain

Can you believe another post? This one is necessary, though, as I must purge my memory of the most traumatic experience ever (or at least the most traumatic today). Viewer discretion advised - there will be talk of breasts, but not the kind of talk that men like my husband generally search blogs for.

I took the twins to the pediatrician, thinking they had thrush. Turns out they don't (I know, this sounds like good news, bear with me). The pediatrician is also a lactation consultant, so she asked to look at the breast that hurts, and determined that I have a clogged duct. When mashing it (ouch, but only lowercase ouch) didn't free the clog, she gave me a shot of novacaine IN MY NIPPLE (big uppercase OUCH), then CUT it a little to try to get the clot out. Then, while I was numb, she mashed and mangled it - didn't hurt at the time, but I knew it would kill once the novacaine wore off, and sure enough, it's wearing off now and I can hardly think it hurts so much. On the bright side, at least it won't linger for months like thrush can. God, though, I hurt, and I really really don't want to nurse them on this. The doctor said I should go to bed w/them and just nurse and rest until it's better, that I'm not resting enough. Well, send me a wet nurse and I'll get right on that.

Ow. Ow ow ow ow ow. And to think I was actually ENJOYING nursing this time.

Welcome to the zoo

The twins had a bad night, though not in a useful Timmy's-in-the-well (or the-fridge-is-on-the-blink) fashion this time, just to satisfy their infantile sense of humor. As a result, I'm only now at noon easing into the day. It doesn't feel worth it to even get going when you get up this late, especially when it's already over 100 outside. I was actually contemplating the pool (to the extent of shaving acres of flabby white legs in preparation), then realized my baby friends would fry like little strips of bacon in this heat. So, housebound we shall remain, except for a short (hopefully short) jaunt to the pediatrician to confirm what I suspect is rapidly becoming a 3 person bout of thrush. Because my sleep deprivation was getting lonely and needed some pain to keep it company.

Isn't it amazing how much we love our kids when they try so hard to kill us? I just went to the kitchen for a drink (sadly nonalcoholic) and came back to find girl twin sucking earnestly on the cheek of boy twin while he shrieked helplessly. So funny (to me, obviously not to boy twin). And now, my almost 3 year old is serenading the twins to the accompaniment of a broken toy guitar, naked as a jaybird (he has mastered pulling his pants DOWN to use the bathroom, but not pulling them back UP). Last night, my two big boys put on temporary tattoos and then strutted around the room, striking bodybuilder poses and growling "let's get ROCKIN'" over and over. It's a little like living in an asylum and a lot like living in a zoo - lots of bodily fluid cleanup, lots of staring at the residents and wondering what motivates their bizarre behavior.

Appliances Gone Wild

Look at me, posting twice in a week! Let's pause before proceeding to pat me on the back. While we're tooting my horn (and using the royal "we"), please note that both posts were executed while I was encumbered with not one but two little bundles of humanity. Why won't they let me put them down for a minute when it's over 100 degrees outside? Why?

So, my appliances are conspiring against me. Technically, only the refrigerator has rebelled so far, but the washer sounds wonky and I assume it's only a matter of time before a full-scale revolt is underway. When I got up with the twins at 2am last night, I heard a strange sound downstairs but thought it was the dishwasher (which had better NOT be part of the conspiracy, as it is brand-freaking-new). As I headed back to bed at 3 (the twins are slooooow eaters at night), I heard that the noise was continuing, so I ventured downstairs to investigate. I stepped into the kitchen and into an inch of running water. Not a pleasant surprise. I panicked my way around the room, shutting off the fan and the dishwasher and turning on lights until I finally figured out that the source of the flood was the stupid refrigerator. I already have a grudge against this refrigerator, which brings me to the following tangent:

TANGENT (might as well label them, as they are inevitable): In our 6 year relationship, my husband and I have made many purchasing decisions together. During last night's refrigerator fiasco, I quickly reviewed our purchases mentally and came up with the following list, in severity order, of the stupidest:
1) Chevy Venture van
2) Stupid dog
3) This damned refrigerator:









Okay, so back to the flood. I ran upstairs (no small feat, considering that I weigh a metric ton and have been virtually immobile for the past nine months) and got my husband. Together, we discovered that not only was the kitchen flooded (and the water still flowing freely from the fridge), but the water was POURING into the basement from access holes under the kitchen island and in a waterfall down the basement stairs. Standing water filled the basement and was soaking everything from the cat's litter box to the extra twin stroller. I then flew upstairs again and woke up my mother, because being a 30 year old mother of four has in no way altered my knee-jerk I-want-my-mother response to crisis.

Fortunately (I guess this is fortunate), our basement has a history of usually rain-related flooding, so we recently got both a shop vac and a dehumidifier. My poor husband spent over an hour in the basement working with both (once he got the water turned off), while my mother sopped up the kitchen with towels and moved items in the basement out of the path of the deluge and I twittered about uselessly.

Amazingly, nothing seems to be permanently damaged, and for once I have reason to be glad the babies are up half the night - I hate to think how bad it might have gotten if we'd slept through several more hours of the downpour. I guess this is the cosmic reaction to me commenting about leading a fairly dull life lately, so let me clarify for the record that I was merely commenting, not complaining. I need no further trials or tribulations to brighten my life. Thank you for your attention, cosmic forces.

Snapshot of my living room on a hot day

Allow me to be original and begin my post with a complaint about the ungodly heat. Yes, I'm aware that I haven't posted in, um, 10 months or so (or is it 9? the heat inhibits arithmetic), but I am currently not only housebound but couchbound by a combination of insane heat, human flesh in the form of two newborns, and ennui. I could elaborate on the arrival of the newborns (who weren't even conceived yet last time I posted), but since it would be awfully self-serving to imagine anyone reads this that isn't explicitly directed to it by me, I'll just assume you all know that I recently had twins and have therefore not slept or thought coherently in 27 days now.

Since I also have not really left the house in 27 days, except for food (actually, I haven't much left it since posting in October, thanks to a healthy but still fairly hideous twin pregnancy), I don't have loads of exciting recent adventures to recount. Oh, except for the twins' launch itself, I guess, but I don't feel like writing that up right now. So, to make this reinaugural post slightly longer than one sad paragraph, I will describe my immediate surroundings:

I am, as I have been for months now, on the smaller of the two couches in the living room. If ever I am kidnapped or (more likely, given my not-kidnapper-friendly girth, moodiness, and general lack of hygiene since the twins came) run away from home, my husband can direct the police to my couch so they can make an assprint to match me with when they track me down. I have one twin lying on my arm, as he only wants to sleep or exist at all in constant human contact. The other twin is sprawled out next to me, against my leg - she's more accommodating and will accept this being-held substitute long enough for me to type this. Both are in diapers only, and I am in the same maternity-shirt-and-husband's-shorts fashion statement I wore to bed last night (see what I mean about kidnappers not being likely to target me?). The living room is fairly disheveled - covered in a thick layer of disorganized, mostly broken or at least missing-parts toys - but best of all is my eldest son. He is on the floor at my feet, tethered to my right ankle by a bungee cord that he put around his own neck and licking Sprite out of a plastic cup and barking. Like a dog. Very convincingly, actually. This is his creative-yet-disturbing way of getting attention from a mother in the final stages of terminal sleep deprivation. My other son has escaped with my mother to the grocery store, which I usually hate but which sounds enticing now that I think of its air conditioned atmosphere. We have a window a/c unit in the living room, but it is woefully inadequate to 100 degree, 60% humidity days like today.

Twins are stirring, so this is it for now. Any bets on how long it will be until I post again?

Okay, okay, here I am

So it's been weeks, here I am! And with nothing deep or meaningful to say. Life is mostly back to normal after my trip and miscellaneous personal crap, so now I have the down time to write again. Unfortunately, my down time generally corresponds with me being bored and therefore not having anything especially interesting to say.

I saw something yesterday that I keep replaying in my mind, because it made me happy unexpectedly and in a weird way. So here, I'll share. I was on my way to pick my stepkids up from school. I have to drive through a pretty sketchy neighborhood to get to the freeway. I was kind of cranky in general, mostly just blah, and not paying all that much attention, when traffic stopped for no reason I could see. I peeked around the car in front of me and saw a body darting into traffic. Now, in Baltimore, idiots playing chicken with heavy traffic is hardly note-worthy, but as this person emerged on the other side of the car in front of me, I saw that it was a police officer. He was running hell bent for leather across a major road with a childlike smile of pure joy on his face, like he was really, really enjoying his pursuit. Seemed so out of place, that smile. I looked back over my shoulder, in the direction the officer was heading, and saw two teenagers pummeling each other across the street. Waves of kids flowed across the street after the cop, all with the same look of glee and excitement on their faces. It's nothing unusual to see kids excited by a fight, but the fact that the cop had the same look of invigoration was sort of unexpected and uplifting. Not that that really makes any sense, but it sort of perked me up. I like surprises.

Home Sweet Home

I'm back! I'm sure no one's even checking this blog anymore, it's been so long since I posted, but at least this time I had a good excuse, being in a country with no noticeable infrastructure and all. Not that I'm complaining (about the lack of infrastructure) - a dose of enforced planlessness was very welcome.

Italy is just amazing, and the trip was more wonderful than I could have imagined. We stayed at a villa in Tuscany, near San Gimignano, for a week as part of a destination wedding (the bride was a friend of the friend I was traveling with). Everyone was very nice and interesting and it was a really cool way to be a tourist - with a gorgeous and friendly home base. I saw Siena, San Gimignano, Volterra, and Florence, and each was awe inspiring in its own way. The weather was perfect all week, and I took way too many pictures. After the wedding itself, we went to Venice, with three new friends in tow. Venice is more mind-boggling than the rest put together - it's the fairyland you imagine as a child, brought to vivid (if damp) life. I want to go back immediately.

The boys (and my husband!) did well in my absence - I think I missed them more than they missed me. I can't stop holding them or get used to the big boy's incessant talking. It's good to be home.

I have a million little Italy stories that are probably only funny to me, but they'll have to wait for a bit. Got to squeeze the kids some more.

It is so. damn. hot.

Yes, yes, I know, it's been ages again. I have attention issues.

My epiphany as I headed to bed last night had to do with the invention of the post-it note. As background (stay with me here), it has been approximately 156 degrees and 125% humidity here the past couple days, courtesy of our friendly 2-states-away-and-still-making-my-hair-frizzy buddy, Hurricane Ophelia. Seriously, worst weather ever, at least in the 8 years I've lived in this swampy pit of a climate. We canceled classes at my sons' preschool today because it was so hot. Anyway, and as usual, I digress. So, it's hot. And, more importantly, it is sticky. As I dressed for bed last night, my arm actually stuck to my side. I had gotten sweaty, then flung myself down in front of the (sad, inadequate, not dehumidifying) air conditioning unit to cool/dry off, then immediately become soaked again from the most minor exertion, cooled off, sweated, cooled off, repeat....all day. So, by bedtime, I had a thin but visible veneer of dried sweat. Attractive, I know. I wore a virtual shield of deodorant yesterday, so you need not imagine unpleasant aromas during this exercise. Good god, could I make this post about nothing any longer? Short story long, when my arm stuck to my side, then peeled off, I was reminded of post-it notes and how cleverly they stick but release. I'm guessing they were invented by another inmate of the mid-Atlantic.

I hear fall is due next week, between 2pm and 4pm on Wednesday - I hope it's not late, or I'll miss it while I'm in Italy. I'll be sure to bitch about the freezing cold when I get back.

Another overdue update

My friend Yvette is nagging me to write more, so here I am writing, despite a distinctive lack of things to say. Blame her if this is more than usually boring.

I'm slowly weaning myself off of 24 hours Katrina news coverage and trying to find more constructive things to do with my life. In the same Katrina vein, though, now that the Red Cross has called for 40,000 volunteers, I really want to go. Anyone out there want to watch my kids for 3 weeks?

My boys both started preschool last week. I'm just starting to realize how liberating this could be. My big boy is in school for 2 hours every afternoon, at the same time as the little guy's nap. Two hours, 5 days a week, all to myself. I already have a mental list of projects to do, but I think we all know napping will trump project on many occasions.

Other upcoming events - my baby's turning 2 on Friday, which seems wrong and impossible. He's becoming such a person, even if he is still mute. He's an excellent mime, so communication is less of a problem than you might imagine. The week after his birthday, I leave for Italy - I'm about equal parts excited and terrified. I know it will be an amazing experience, but it sort of feels like amputation not to see my kids for 11 days. Oh, and that man who lives here, too.

So, Yvette, there's an update. I'll try to think of some entertaining stories and come back soon.

If we must blame, blame Bush

Like everyone else, I've been glued to the news this week, weeping and feeling helpless at the unthinkable horrors in the post-hurricane South. I haven't said anything about it on the blog because it's so overwhelming, and what could I say that hasn't been said anyway? However, I just saw a poll that indicates that the blame everyone's looking for is shifting away from Bush and toward local government, and that makes me mad. I can write mad a lot more easily than I can write depressed.

I'm not saying this is the appropriate point in this crisis for blame to be laid anywhere, but people are pointing fingers with or without my input, so I may as well add my two cents. In the midst of my despair and rage earlier this week, when it seemed that aid was awfully slow in coming to New Orleans, I did have moments of relief - a feeling almost like camaraderie with my fellow Americans - when I saw and heard people from both parties united in their frustration and anger at the poorly organized response. It almost seemed that the silver lining of this crisis might be that it could unite a sharply divided citizenry and focus everyone's attention on helping each other instead of on ideological differences.

Now that the last evacuee has finally been removed from the squalid conditions at the Superdome and the New Orleans convention center, it seems that people are already returning to their pre-hurricane corners. The poll I just saw indicates that people agree that the federal and local governments were both unprepared for this kind of emergency, but that most people are not blaming Bush. I do understand that there were failures across the board, but with great power comes great responsibility, and Bush has made some really bad, really big decisions that directly contributed to this week's failures.

1) Bush created a Department of Homeland Security to cover emergencies of this scope, whether natural or man-made - he diverted money and resources to the new department, was reelected largely because of the sense of security it gave the public, and encouraged a meek legislature to suspend many of our civil rights to give it teeth - yet when the acid test came last week, the DHS proved to be woefully unprepared. Four years and huge piles of dollars later, we deserve better than this. This article is pretty slanted, though appears to have facts straight, and its last line is one of its best - "Homeland security should begin at home."

2) Bush sent National Guardsmen to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan under false pretenses. Whether or not one supports the war in Iraq (and I agree that we can't just leave now that we've so badly destabilized the region), even the administration now admits that the reasons they gave for pressing this fight were invalid and ultimately proved completely baseless. The National Guard has long been the most truly defensive branch of the armed forces, aiding and protecting citizens in times of natural or man-made disaster. Unfortunately, our military has been stretched so thin with the war in Iraq that much of the National Guard has had to go to Iraq to supplement our strength there. There is no way of knowing how much more effective the rescue process in New Orleans would have been with a stronger National Guard presence, but it's a fair guess that their experience would have come in very handy.

3) Bush chose the war in Iraq and tax cuts over many necessary social and infrastructure programs, one of which was funding for the maintenance of the New Orleans levees that ultimately failed this week. Local governments warned of the possible failure of the levees and asked for sufficient funding for the Army Corps of Engineers to strengthen them, but Bush had other priorities. He owns a big part of the flooding that followed the levee failures.

4) The argument I'm hearing from the White House about why the slow response was not their fault is that the state has to request assistance before the federal government can come in. First of all, I think there's a case to be made that the local governments did request assistance days in advance of it arriving. However, my bigger complaint is that this is a very childish "I'm rubber and you're glue" type of defense. Their argument is, essentially, "but they didn't ASK for help." Okay, George. I guess we're meant to believe that the entire federal government is so incapable of evaluating a crisis and independently determining what needs to be done that it must wait for specific requests before acting. Sadly, I actually don't find that all that hard to believe.

I do understand that coordinating food and transportation for nearly half a million people must be an enormous logistical challenge, and that immediate aid was probably not even physically possible. My concern is not so much with the timing of aid as with the timing of security. You can not convince me that it would have taken four days to establish a meaningful military presence if one of our great cities had been invaded by a foreign enemy instead of by water and homegrown gangs. The atrocities committed by a subset of New Orleans citizens on the unprotected remainder should not have been possible. Stories of violence and lawlessness began coming from New Orleans last Tuesday, the day after the hurricane, but a strong military presence was not in place until Friday afternoon. That is simply unacceptable. The defense I have heard most is that people on the ground fired on the first responders, so the first responders just went away. Now, I'm not at all saying that it was okay for the people on the ground to shoot at anyone, least of all those providing aid - but wouldn't the logical response be to overwhelm those breaking the law, rather than just giving up and leaving the vast, defenseless majority to be preyed upon?

Okay, I think I'm finally winding down - thank you to anyone who stuck it out this far. I do think that helping the victims is the most important thing, but blame does have its place. If we do not learn from our mistakes (or identify people who persist in making them at others' expense), we really will keep repeating them. I hope that there really is a unifying silver lining here, and that the checks and balances built into our government begin applying to the president a little more effectively.

Speaking of drinking...

I just went down to our disgusting, mold-smelling, cat-dwelling pit of a basement to use the sort-of-bathroom down there (because it seems like less effort to go downstairs to use the bathroom even though I KNOW I'm going to have to walk back up the stairs after). That long, overly informative sentence was not even the point of this post. It may be a long haul, brace yourself.

Here, I think, is the point. I had three thoughts following one upon the other that proved to me conclusively that I have had too much to drink in my effort to drown the anger at all the idiots referenced in the post below. Here are the thoughts:

1) I saw a spider (common in our basement, they outnumber us by a margin of something like 1,000,000 to 1), and instead of my usual (over)reaction of revulsion and fleeing, I marveled at the delicacy and near-transparency of its legs. How odd is that?

2) I washed my sheets earlier today (odd enough in itself, as I avoid laundry as much as possible until at least 3/4 of the members of my family are going about in pajamas or less). On my way up from the basement, to avoid further trips down this evening, I decided to bring the now-clean sheets back up. Unfortunately, all of my laundry baskets are currently in use (holding clean but either folded-but-becoming-unfolded or never-made-it-to-the-folded-point clothing), so I dragged the huge, disfigured, drawn on by children box that originally held our artifical Christmas tree over to the dryer and put the clothes in that. Then hauled it up the stairs. Then, upon seeing my husband's incredulous face, realized this was less efficiency and more insanity.

3) I sat down at the computer and saw the google talk window that shows that I, myself, am online and available. How is this necessary information to me, I wondered? Usually I approve of Google, but in this case I think they have overstepped. I know I'm available, don't waste my eye motions on a green dot that only references me.

I'm sure there's more, but I've lost interest. Going to re-watch Closer, as I made my husband turn it on after he struck out on other viewing options (crap movie on Oxygen of all things (is he gay?), WWE, NFL). I may have to go back through this post first, though, and count the hyphens. And parentheses.

I hate people

I used to be a nice person. I was a friendly child, had lots of friends growing up and even through college. Unfortunately, my first job out of college was running an internal IT Help Desk at a company that had absolutely zero standards for intelligence and seemed to actively encourage rudeness among its employees. My tenure on the help desk hardened me to people (and telephones, though my Pavlovian reaction to the ring of a telephone is another topic altogether). Working at that job, I developed a theory about people that is best expressed via the following chart (look! a graphic in my blog!):









This week, I have had to deal with a ridiculous number of people who were both stupid and mean (see category IV above). Not just the regular fast food employees and telemarketers, either - I have had horrific encounters with the following:

• Doctors (I went to beg for assistance with a heart problem that has been ongoing now for 9 months and was told that it was all psychological, despite the fact that the same doctor later heard the skipping beats and acted surprised that they were really happening)
• Government employees (in re: the preschool and ridiculous regulations I'm convinced are only in place to discourage people from trying to help children)
• Insurance companies (took my money as a deposit so I canceled my old policy, then had a call from the new company asked why I opted NOT to do business with them)
• Heating oil companies (was on hold for 17 minutes to get a representative to say yes, this is the only dept you can reach directly but no, they have no information and can only put you on a wait list to receive a return call within 3-4 days, and this is their SOP not a reaction to recent shortages).

This is why I'm for gun control. Look at the chaos in New Orleans - how much worse is the situation there because lunatics have been pushed to the edge with guns available for looting from the nearby Walmart? I'm being driven to drink by the idiots I've dealt with this week, I can't imagine how the refugees in the South must feel. I know I'm not to be trusted with heavy weaponry, why should I trust my fellow man?

I do feel for all of the people affected by Hurricane Katrina. I hope that this administration is at least as responsive to our citizens as they finally managed to be to the tsunami victims earlier this year.

I'm back!

I've been busy as hell this past week, but I'm back to my life of slovenly leisure now, so look forward to more scintillating posts about nothing! Last week the weather actually did not suck, so I took the opportunity to go (gasp) out w/my kids nearly every day. This week, the weather feels like a hot, wet blanket, and the bugs are so thick in my back yard that my 2yo cried and clung to me when I tried to let him play today, so the living room it is. I clean as fast as I can but realized at one point today that they are just capable of destroying faster than I am capable of cleaning, so I gave it up as a bad job and resigned myself to living like an animal in a cage until the weather turns again.

In other news, I finished three (3!) knitting projects and am on my 4th. Take that, everyone who thinks I don't finish things (oh, wait, that includes me)! AND, I got my passport in the mail. Whoop! Now if I can just get over the fact that there are fatal airplane crashes in the news every. day, I can really get excited about my Italy trip!

My latest in a rapid-fire string of obsessions is couponing and the Grocery Game (as seen recently on the Today show). Last week, I saved 40%, this week my goal is to save at least 60%. Very, very odd to have grocery shopping as a highlight of my week, but that just goes to show you how far a road I've traveled this year. Whether that road leads anywhere remains to be seen.

My heart is driving me crazy again w/palpitations, and since my doctors seem incredibly unconcerned, I have had to resort to self-diagnosis via the Internet. My leading contender at this point is mitral valve prolapse - I like it for several reasons, not least of which is that it requires no treatment and is rarely very dangerous.

Moderation, I know you not

Moderation is not really my thing - I'm very streaky (not in the alarming naked sense of the word, just that I obsess about something intensely for a brief period and then drop it cold). I have closets full of scrapbooking crap from my 6 month foray into scrapbooking 5 years ago. I have half completed craft projects of every description leaking out of closets and attics and wardrobes. I have books and articles scattered throughout the house on topics ranging from politics (given up as too hopeless) to investing (given up as too expensive) to tax code (not yet given up - I have an odd fascination with taxes). Point is, this whole blog-3-times-a-day followed by a week's silence is right up my alley. Especially as I've been busy feeding some other obsessions - knitting and the co-op preschool.

Knitting I know I've already mentioned, but you'll surely (ha! originally spelled that shirley, further proof that my brain is rotting) be impressed to learn that I have completed two entire items - a bag and a hat. I never finish ANYTHING, so this is huge. The preschool has been a major preoccupation this week, as I've had to preside (as I am the president, ha) over orientation meetings nearly every night. I'm not a nervous public speaker, but I am a little sloppy I think, and easily derailed from anything resembling a topic. Must focus at tonight's final meeting, end on a bang, etc.

So, just checking in. Off to print more materials for the preschool. Or work on the scarf I'm knitting. Or, you know, interact with my kids.

Punctuation abuse

I really do try not to be judgmental. I am one of those fortunate (and, evidence suggests, rare) people to whom spelling and punctuation just come naturally. However, sometimes other people's liberties with the written word just drive me completely up the wall. I am the president of my boys' preschool this year, and I have spent much of the past week revising ancient documents in preparation for our orientation. It seems to me that whoever first wrote these documents did not understand the rules for comma usage but knew that commas are necessary and so scattered them throughout the paragraphs wantonly and with utter disregard for rules of grammar or others' sensibilities.

Please, if you do not understand the rules for comma usage, learn them. You may think no one notices, but they do. I assure you.

More info than you wanted about my annual exam

I promise not to get too detailed here, but yesterday was my annual "women's doctor" visit and it was entertaining for a few reasons.

First of all, it was the first such visit I have really wanted to go to, and I owe it all to my children. I don't know if it was a full moon or if the merciful cold front that came through yesterday messed with their little psyches or if they just hate me, but yesterday my two boys were absolutely as bad as it was possible for them to be. My 4 year old literally screamed for 2.5 hours about nothing, and much of that time was during a trip to a public place. Lovely. My 2 year old pinched my neck so hard that it looks like I have a hickey. Now, I'll be the first to admit that my kids have great potential for mischief and mayhem, but the sheer effort they put into yesterday's shenanigans was noteworthy. By the time my doctor appointment rolled around, I was more than ready to ditch the kids with their unsuspecting father and go anywhere at all, as long as it wasn't with them - even the doctor.

Reason 2 - my doctor is a very, very (very) small man. Maybe 4'5, and positively dainty in build. He is dear and funny and completely non-threatening. His only shortcoming is a tendency to ramble on and on with nostalgic stories that would be very interesting in another context, but are distracting in the extreme under exam circumstances. He also lacks the ability to multitask, so I laid captive for 20 minutes, prepared for the exam and wearing a large paper napkin, and listen to his stories about boarding school in India.

Not that I'm especially looking forward to next year, but since I have to do it anyway, I might as well make the best of it!

Time Flies

Wow, it's been ages since I've written. I know you've all been sad. I've been knitting, somewhat obsessively, ever since my knitting stuff arrived on Saturday. My official claim is that we have no money for Christmas gifts (which is true), so I'm saving the family money and showing our affection for friends and family with thoughtful homemade gifts, but I fear the truth is more self-serving and indicative of incipient, if not actual, mental illness. I have a craft sickness - once I start something crafty, it's all I can think about and all I want to do until it's done or until I just burn out (usually the latter). Just writing this makes me itch to do more knitting. The current knitting madness specifically I attribute to the Yarn Harlot, whose blog I love and who inspires me to unhealthy levels of craftiness.

I've also been busy obsessively bargain hunting and coupon clipping, much to my husband's amusement. He can laugh, but I just got a $20 shirt for free and a nice computer desk for $30. So there.

Target - the new Tiffany's

I went to Target this morning for a couple things (and actually only bought about $20 worth of stuff I didn't need - possibly a new record). I've been so happy since I left that it made me think of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's - love that movie. Since I don't live within walking distance of Tiffany's (though I do go there every time I go to New York, and yes it is a powerful mood stabilizer), I have decided that Target is my best local substitute. You just can't be sad at Target, surrounded by colorful, well-organized, reasonably priced things you don't know you need until you see them. I ration my Target trips, since you have to check your willpower at the door, but the deprivation just strengthens my affection.

I know I sound crazy to some of you (read: men), but I bet some of you are nodding in understanding. You are in my head, anyway, and that's all the support I need.

My new invention

My two year old is showing signs of wanting the freedom of a real bed. He sobs and points at his brothers' bunks when it's time to go to sleep, and crawls right in if we're not fast enough to stop him. I know, I know, this shows that he's blossoming into an independent little person. The problem is that independent little people are a pain in the ass. There's a reason babies are appealing, and the reason is that we can lock them up. Don't call CPS - I don't mean in a closet, or with handcuffs, just a crib with nice, solid bars, no more than 2 3/8 inches apart.

In the near term, my solution is to quash my son's bid for independence by keeping him penned in until he actually dismantles the crib. He's obviously not bright enough for freedom anyway, as he is a skilled climber who is frequently found on top of couches and bunk beds and could therefore easily climb out if he really put his mind to it.

It's the long term that concerns me and is the necessity this mother needs to invent. My idea is this - a convertible crib that becomes not a toddler bed but a larger crib, one that can expand to full length and keep my son cooped up safely until he leaves for college. Since it is inevitable that he will eventually figure out how to escape it, my invention will require a secure lock and alarm system. Actually, as I type this, it occurs to me that my invention already exists, in the form of a jail cell. The genius of my plan is therefore not in the development but in identifying the home market. I wonder who at the local jail I can contact to establish a business partnership?

Christmas in August

I've been on self-imposed house arrest for most of the past two weeks due to a combination of extreme heat, extreme laziness, and a nasty summer cold that has been running through the family. What did people do at such times before there were laptops with wireless internet access? I can't imagine spending this much time lying on the couch with just television to entertain me. Of course, my eyes might not feel so puffy and sore if I hadn't just spent 48 hours staring at this screen.

Oh good grief, I actually had to look at the title to remember what I was planning on writing about. My brain is mush. So - during all of my online couch time lately, I've been getting tons of ideas for homemade Christmas gifts. We don't have much money right now, but I love Christmas and I'm all excited about getting started with these projects. How excited I'll be to finish them remains to be seen. I ordered a bunch of supplies and can't wait for them to get here. Too bad I'm going to be very busy catching up on housework once they arrive and won't have time to work on presents until the next time I get sick. I think my husband thinks I'm a little crazy to be getting worked up over Christmas when it's over 90 outside.

In other news - how freaking annoying is Ty Pennington? I swear, he could build me a new house and I'd still want to shove something in his mouth just to shut him up.

Today's I-Can't-Write-Scapegoat - Happiness

I passed by an eviction today - all of someone's worldly belongings thrown into the street. I think my husband did an entry on that phenomenon a while ago, let me see - ah, screw it, I finally found the entry but can't figure out how to link just to that entry, even though I did it before. I think maybe that beer I had for medicinal purposes (did I mention my husband gave me his cold?) wasn't such a hot idea. But we're out of cold medicine.

Okay, the eviction was not the point. The point was - I realized as I drove by this particular eviction that I have never been evicted. Or fired, or really even broken up with. I was watching Kill Reality the other night (really stupid show), and one of the wannabes said that she had never experienced any personal tragedy and was therefore incapable of acting tragic. I think I made fun of her (I don't feel bad about this - I really think it's sort of the point of the show), but now that I think of it, I sort of live a charmed life too. I've been sad, of course, I'm not quite as removed from reality as the dimwit in question - I've lost people I've loved and I have imagination enough to comprehend the tragedies that every mother fears - but I have never gone hungry (or been evicted), I have a husband and children who are healthy and who love me, I had a well-paying if not at all satisfying career and now stay home with my kids by choice and enjoy it. I've never really had to deal with rejection, though the very idea of it can scare me sideways at times. No wonder I can't find anything serious to write about, I'm in the middle of a happy and therefore rather uninteresting life. Not that I'm complaining, if those are the alternatives.

In other news - I'm re-watching The Good Girl. Love Jennifer Aniston.

More politics

Politics is what you all get when I read the news first thing in the morning, before my defenses are up properly. This isn't really so much a political opinion as an overall feeling about the world, country, etc.

I just saw a picture of Bill Clinton and had a feeling of nostalgia - every time I see his face, I remember feeling hopeful, like things were moving in the right direction. It was just after the end of the Cold War, and having grown up with air raid drills in school, the new international cooperation seemed very promising. I graduated from college with no worries about the economy, part of a strong middle class - something that is essential to democracy.

Now I feel like we've squandered all of that - the international goodwill, the strong economy, the protected and productive middle class. It hardly feels like a democracy any more - any time checks and balances trouble this administration, they find a way around them (as in Bolton's appointment). I thank god for term limits and hope the damage isn't irreversible.

I'm really not extremely political, although obviously I slant to the left. I have a lot of friends and family who are conservative, and as I respect them, I respect their opinions. I hold on to the idea that maybe they see something I don't of hope and progress in this current situation that seems so dire to me.

Okay, back to regularly scheduled poop stories and children's antics - sorry for the departure.

Baby Names in the News

So far, I think I've kept my family's names out of this blog, but there's no real point since my husband is always saying them in his, right? So there's no reason for me not to rant about Michelle Branch naming her new daughter Owen. My 2 year old (a BOY) is named Owen, and we thought at the time that his name would be somewhat unique. Since he was born, I've met a ton of little Owens and resigned myself to the rising popularity of the name, but at least they were all boys!

I consider myself a feminist, women should be able to do what they want, blah blah blah, but is nothing sacred??? As a mother of boys, let me tell you - it is a lot harder to name boys than girls. With both of my kids, we came up with tons of girl names that both of us liked (we even have a likely candidate for the as-yet-hypothetical next one, on the wildly improbable chance it's a girl), but we struggled with boy names. There are fewer choices to begin with, and there's a much finer line between too popular and too weird.

I don't begrudge Gwyneth Paltrow her Apple or Julia Roberts her Hazel, or any of the other weird names celebrities give their kids - I get that it must be hard to have a private life in the public eye, and the public would probably complain just as much if they chose ordinary names. But I wish this trend toward hijacking good boy names for girls would stop, especially as I'm sure to need more in the future. My husband needs to buy an x, he seems to have run out of girl sperm.

Stranger Danger (or: children are dumb)

We are watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and just got to the scene where the children get in the car with Truly Scrumptious, whom they do not know. I decided to use the opportunity to quiz my 4 year old on stranger danger, which we HAVE reviewed before.

Me: What do you do if a stranger asks you to get in their car?
Son (emphatically): Get in the car RIGHT AWAY.

Um, no.
Resuming stranger danger boot camp now.

Grocery shopping shouldn't be this fun

I am the grocery shopping master. Our cheeseball local grocery store is having an anniversary sale and so much stuff was on sale for $1 each. I took my 4 year old with me (my husband's home again today so I was able to go without the baby, thank goodness) and I'm glad I did, as I ended up with two full carts and the boy had to push one. Totally tacky reveal of shopping total - $161. So proud of myself. I just about bought out the meat dept - got 4 roasts, 3 huge packs of hamburger, chicken wings, breasts, legs ($.49/lb!), spareribs. I should never have to go to the store again, ever.

I'm sure you all wanted that kind of detail about my groceries. Still high from all the savings, and the fact that I seriously shouldn't have to shop again from ages, as I've basically brought the entire grocery store home.

Not as thrilled about the renewed Al Qaeda threats against London, as I will be there next month en route to Italy. Of course, I don't want anyone else scared or hurt either, my upcoming trip just makes it feel more personal. Why can't we all just get along? :)

Better self-knowledge through beer, and rambling political commentary

Forgive even-more-than-usual excesses of rambling, as I have had 3 beers and a long hot day and am writing even-more-than-usually for myself. I am in the process of transferring all of my data from one laptop to another (my 2 year old has finally defeated me - he has been gradually pulling keys and peripherals from the old laptop until I have at last been forced to concede that it is useless - but I have such a silly attachment to it!). While I wait for files to copy, I have been writing menus and shopping lists and looking at my budget spreadsheet to try to squeeze a few more drops of blood from that stone. I now have all of that pretty well in order but was still fiddling around with the files (I keep menus and shopping lists in one, budgets in another), and realized that I am using this overdone electronic organization as a writing substitute. I feel like my fingers are itching to write something - it doesn't help that my husband is subjecting me to part two of the Mark Twain documentary. When I am busy with the kids or driving or otherwise engaged, ideas for sentences and pages and paragraph leap fully formed into my head, but when I sit at the keyboard, I seem to have no more imagination than is required for shopping lists.

I do remember one of my more-than-shopping-list thoughts from earlier today. It was the juxtaposition of my rereading of A Handmaid's Tale and recent US political events that I have been trying to ignore. The parallel between enforced illiteracy for women in the novel and the current Republican rejection of teaching evolution in school struck me as ominous and significant. It seems to me that any group that relies on ignorance to win adherents must have arguments so thin that reason could not win adherents legitimately. If there are holes to be poked in anything, surely those arguments can better be made openly, with all evidence displayed.

I warned you all this would be rambling. I guess I'm just experiencing a resurgence of that indignation, that need to shake my fist, that I had after the election last year. At times like this, I feel like all of our political clashes must be rooted merely in misunderstanding, that everyone must feel as I do - I find it so hard to believe in the malice of others. I know it is childish and reveals my inability to put myself in others' shoes, but right this minute after 3 beers and 3 paragraphs, it feels like all that is wanting is the right argument to achieve real unity. I've felt this way on and off since becoming a mother. What I want for my children is this - a future of possibility, of opportunity - not guaranteed happiness but the chance for it, given hard work and good choices. I want this for all children, and I have to believe most parents want it for their children too. If that is the case, how is it this hard to find consensus?

Really, Deb, shut it. I had a whole thing to bitch about regarding the kids' nastiness toward each other, but I got sidetracked. Guess I should head to bed. Or have another drink.

Post office misery

I went to the post office today to apply for my passport (Italy! yay!), and had to wait roughly 3 eons, 4 hours, and 32 minutes for them to take the worst ever passport photo, in which I had red-eye in just one eye. The air conditioning at the post office was broken and the lunch rush came in while I was in line to have my picture done. During the wait, my children morphed from cooperative, patient, quiet pictures of perfection to screaming, hitting, grabbing (did I mention screaming?) monsters. The people in the main line looked at them more frequently and obviously as the transformation unfolded itself, and the expressions on their faces changed from "aw, aren't they cute" to "damn, glad I'm not her" to "good God, what is WRONG with those boys." By the time I was finally ushered through the imposing and oh-so-official door to the manager's office (which appeared to be a stockroom with a 20 year old polaroid in it), I think the people waiting for their turn to buy stamps were as relieved as I was that we were leaving the main room.

But I'm getting a passport! I'm going to Italy! I can buy stamps online and never enter a post office again!

The ostrich approach to housework

I have rationalized myself into half of the house. I finally (after 10 days of being home) have the kitchen, dining room, and living room livable. The front room looks like a large, eccentric, and disorganized family is moving into it, and it stresses me out to look at it, so my solution is - I don't. I'm living in the back half of the house with the doors closed. More efficient to air condition anyway. I feel much calmer. And lazier. In fact, this approach is proving so successful, I'm going to apply it to other areas of the house, effective immediately. The refrigerator is an obvious candidate, as I know for a fact some of the food in there has started evolving. Also the guest room, where my husband dumps all clean laundry, apparently with the belief that we have elves or fairies or other friendly sprites that will come fold and put away the clothes while we sleep.

Actually, if I just lay in supplies as if for nuclear war or cult membership, I could stop leaving the house and instead ostrich myself regarding the yard as well. Our yard is always a bit of a fright, but around mid-summer it always becomes really out of control. The heat and humidity that wither me within minutes outdoors have a radiation-on-Dr-Banner effect on the weeds. You can measure their daily growth in feet, not inches. If I had any gardening ability at all, such lushness would inspire me to landscaping, but as I don't, my only visions about my yard involve flamethrowers and salting the earth.

Oh, right, brevity. Summary is - my new strategy for housewifery is to ignore my responsibilities. Hmm, I preferred the more flowery explanation.

I'm going to Italy!

I actually knew this already, but now I am for sure, because my husband found my birth certificate! Poor man inhaled so much dust in the attempt that his eyes swelled up, but he found it! Guess I'm no better a house-keeper than I am a record-keeper. But yay, Italy! Of course, he found it literally 5 minutes after I gave up and placed an order online to get a certified copy - fortunately, if you don't fax in the verification, they cancel your order and don't charge you.

I'm Mark Twain-ish! Having adventures! May have something more exciting than poop to write about after September! Oh, that reminds me my friend Megan, who said I could use her in my blog (see her comment on an earlier post if you don't believe me) - yesterday, she wrote to me and said, "I need a blog. For nothing more than to spare you my insanity. And ask rhetorical questions such as, "Why is it that children determine how well they wiped by sticking their finger in their butt?"

For mothers of young children, no matter how we try to diversify, it always comes back to the poop.