In which I chill out

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

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

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

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

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

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

Losing it, live

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

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

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

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

What the hell is wrong with people, episode 1

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

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

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

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

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

Laughing baby!

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

Fleas and soccer and ceiling wax

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

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

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

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

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

I wish I were Catholic

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

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

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

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

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

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

Choose your own adventure

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

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

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

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

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

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

#2 - "

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

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

I lie on questionnaires

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

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

Do you believe in signs?

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

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

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

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

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













Mmmm....cheese.

I am hormones' bitch

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

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

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

Sacrifice

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

Why do we have children again?

My husband is hilarious

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

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

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

9/11 Thoughts

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

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

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

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

Snippets

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

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

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

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

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

Why I may never be a writer

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

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

Quirks run in the family

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?