Save Ruby!

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

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

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

Five Things People Don't Know About Me

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

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

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

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

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

A Valentine's Day Shocker

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

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

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

Happy Valentine's Day!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The lowest blow of all

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

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

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

Ahhh, winter

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

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

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

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

I had a dream

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have a dream. Sort of.

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

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

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

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

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

Things I have said waaaaaaay too many times today

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

PSA: Dropping is bad for laptops

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

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

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

My 200th post!

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

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

"A festering wound of a town"

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

Christmas comes one month late

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

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

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

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

Kids say the darndest things

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

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

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

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

This week in pictures

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

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















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















How the three year old sees boy twin.


























How the three year old sees himself.

Injustice

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

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

for this:

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

Stupid State of the Union.

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

When you wish upon a star

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

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

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

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

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

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

Return of the Whine

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

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

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

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

Golden Globes

I love the Golden Globes. When I lived in LA, my friends and I used to dress up and watch them on TV in our crappy cheap ghetto apartments. Here, they're not such a big deal, and I haven't seen more than one of the nominated movies in years (coincidentally, since I started having children), but I still love them. Now, however, I watch them in my sloppy mom clothes, with no product in my hair, no makeup on my face, and just my husband for company. My husband so does not appreciate how funny I am. For example, I was mocking the Cars guy for saying something like "life is a journey" - I said, "life is a highway, dude, you should want to ride it. All night long." My husband made a very unamused face at me. Note, by the way, how the one category I have an informed opinion about is animated features?

In other news, I love love love (really, I am not exaggerating my feelings here) Hugh Laurie, and I truly hate Renee Zelweger's lemon-sucking look-at-me face. Oh, and Borat had better win, that is the funniest movie ever. That's all for now.

I should have named the twins Hugh and Laurie. Don't think it didn't cross my mind.

Awwwwwwww...

Look at my big grownup girl! I love that I can put her hair up (even though she kind of hates it), I love how cute she is in my new favorite diaper, I love how grown-up her expression is in this picture.

And before you all start in with the "where's boy twin" questions - he's asleep. He's always napping when I get the camera out. Blame the boy.

What an annoying freaking day

I don't think days should be this annoying before 9am. Especially when I thought I'd be posting about how fabulous my baby twins are. My horrible sleeper, my boy who has never slept in his crib in the history of ever, slept in his crib all night. It was rough getting him down (I spent 2 hours in his room with him), but once he was down, he slept from 10-7:30 and only got up twice to eat. I sooooooooo hope that is a trend.

So, why am I so grumpy? Partly because I still feel like crap, partly because I still didn't get a ton of sleep (and I need an actual ton - I'd like to back a truck up to the sleep store and just pile it on), partly because I began the day with a peed-in bed and a misunderstanding, but mostly because of Dr. Martin Luther King. Now, don't get me wrong. I really, truly admire all he did for this country - not for one group of people but for all Americans, by exposing the elephant in the room, by showing us a better way to effect change, by starting the process (glacial though it may be at times) of changing not just people's actions but their words, thoughts, and feelings as well.

If I admire Dr. King so much, how am I blaming him for my grumpy day? Because his contribution was so large, the schools are closed today in his honor. Which means my five year old is home. Actually, he'd probably still be home anyway, as he is still snotty in every sense of the word, so maybe I'll pass on blaming Dr. King and just blame the boy directly. He is being huffy and obnoxious and whiny and oblivious to all attempts at correction or distraction and I am going to pull my hair out. Which would certainly be easier than washing it. Which I really need to do. It was a long weekend.

Also, it stinks of pee everywhere I go in this house, and since I never leave this house, I am always surrounded by the stink. The three year old has had more accidents this past week than since he potty trained, and the dog picks up where he leaves off, peeing on rugs throughout the house.

I'm sure there's more to bitch about, but I need to go lock someone in a closet. Don't call CPS yet, my #1 candidate is myself - a closet sounds like a welcome vacation.

Just in the nick of time...

I've caught whatever plague the children have had this week. Why is this in the nick of time? Because the babies are sleeping much better (especially my daughter, who slept from 7pm to 5:30am, then ate and slept again until 8, rendering her officially my favorite), and heaven forfend I not have something to whine about. That was a close one!

This is the oddest virus alive. All of us (all 4 little kids and now me and I think my mom, although she's being a lot more stoic about it than I am) have weird eye symptoms. The kids' eyes are all pus-y (ha, as in full of pus, not that their eyes are pussies) and red, and mine are so tired and painful I can hardly keep them open. I feel like someone is sitting on my chest, and I keep coughing, but nothing comes up. My nose itches but isn't running, and I've slept more in the past 24 hours than I have in the previous week (no complaint there). Big boy woke up sobbing last night with ear pain, but was fine this morning, and then he couldn't hear out of the other ear this afternoon. Now my ear hurts. Suck.

Other than the pestilence and the accompanying whininess (my own I can handle, the children's is getting to me), things are good. Not that there's ever a great time to feel awful, but this isn't a terrible time, and I am really quite good at sitting around doing nothing. I'm actually pretty impressed with my immune system for keeping me well all this time with no sleep. I attribute it to all the fat I've been eating. Who knew fat was so healthy? Granted, this conclusion is based on my own unscientifically conducted research using just the one test subject (me), but as it's a conclusion that allows me to rationalize having a milkshake in a few minutes to soothe my scratchy throat, I am embracing it.

I am soooooooooo bored

And omg, it's heavenly. I've never been so happy to have nothing to do. I could clean or something, but sucky suck boy freaks out every time I get up, so really I can't. I don't even have to get up to eat junk food, because I already ate it all! That's me, baby, the queen of silver linings.

AND (man, I hate starting sentences with 'and,' and here I've done it twice), I went to the gym today. The gym we signed up for last Saturday and then avoided for five straight days. Now, I didn't work out or anything, but I did take the boys swimming, which exercises my body, my ability to maintain any self-esteem while in a swimsuit, and my patience, all at the same time.

AND. Speaking of swimsuits. I was getting ready to go to the gym when big boy got home from school (okay, okay, I had just gotten out of the shower. It wasn't my most productive day). I wanted to surprise him with the pool trip, because he's been asking to go all week, so I came downstairs in my swimsuit, expecting him to say "yay! we're going to the pool!" Instead, he babbled on about his school day and the science fair project he's working on and didn't give me a second glance. Finally, my mother said, "look at your mom, why do you think she's dressed like that?" My genius child answered, "she's going to go do ballet?"

Because I so often go balleting in the afternoon.

Ooo, Friends reruns on TBS! This is the best evening ever!

I think our house is on a nuclear waste disposal site

My five year old is a mutant. He's always been way off the charts for size, but it never ceases to amaze me how fast he grows. I just measured him (at his insistence), and he has grown between 3/4 and 1 inch since December. Yes, December of 2006. I quadruple checked, because I thought SURELY that couldn't be right, but yep, he really is that big. No wonder he's been so cranky!

He's actually seemed happier the last few days, meaning this is likely yet another example of how I'm overreaction-prone. I've decided to keep him at his current school for the rest of this year and reevaluate then. If I can't make an actual decision (and what else is new there), at least I can delay it.

I kept big boy home Monday because his teacher was absent (and I am not satisfied with the school's absent-teacher contingency planning), and then he had a weird, otherwise-symptomless fever last night, so he's home again today. Of course, now he seems completely fine and no longer has a fever. He and the 3 year old are actually getting along really well lately (knock on wood), and during my low points these last few days have cheered me up instead of making me feel worse. Odd, but I'll take it.

I am Jack's fat lazy ass

Remember in Fight Club, where whatshisface-not-Brad-Pitt read those old Reader's Digests and learned about internal organs from articles like "I am Jack's pancreas" and "I am Jack's liver?" It's probably yet another in a long line of negative indicators about my mental health that I'm beginning to think like that character. What the hell is that actor's name, anyway? Shit, I have to go look it up now, one sec. Aha! Edward Norton. Yeah, I was never going to come up with that on my own. What on earth did people do before the Internet?

So, it's 2:28pm and I'm sitting in the living room in dirty pjs, a robe, and my husband's slippers, ignoring two moderately whiny babies and one large whiny boy (all also in pjs) while the other, mercifully unwhiny boy plays something quietly in the other room. The last couple nights have been better in terms of sleep consumption, but my much anticipated (by me) rebound into energy and joie de vivre has not yet materialized. I can think of plenty of things I should do, even several things I would like to do, and yet I am doing...nothing. I need some kind of gauge, like a car has, to indicate when my laziness descends officially from decadent sloth into plain old unglamorous depression. Not that a car has that specific gauge, just that it has gauges, period. Wow, this is coming out way too literally from my stream of consciousness, I need to invest in some editing.

Oh, goody, big boy is psychically channeling my hideous mood. The very thing we needed right now was for there to be two of us. I can't think of anything else to write that isn't beyond pathetic, so I'm going to go sob in a corner and rock like a mental patient. The beauty of babies is that when you rock while holding them, it looks like you're comforting them instead of just yourself.

My husband is so freaking funny

My husband can crack me up no matter how rotten life feels. This is just about the funniest post ever. I actually have tears of mirth in my eyes. And that's after having washed the pair of wee jeans involved FIVE TIMES to remove the odor in question.

"Guess what?"

"I saw a cricket jumpin on my head. And then it ran away."

Three year old tells this exact, weird, false story about 30 times a day, and has for over a month. Why? It's a mystery.

Big anniversary day

The twins are 6 months old today, and Matt Lauer has been on the Today show for 10 years. I just squandered my whole morning watching the tribute show, and now I'm weepy and maudlin. Only I could turn a show about Matt Lauer into something personal, a sign that my life is flashing by before my eyes. It doesn't help that they had the guy from Five for Fighting on to sing that "I'm 15 for a moment" song that always makes me tear up.

I can't believe it's been 6 months since the twins arrived, either. The week before their birth took more time than this past 6 months (and probably, improbably (ha!), involved more whining, too). They're such little people now, so different from each other and from the other kids. They're starting to think about sitting and crawling and eating proper food, and thinking about them (probably) being my last babies is enough to set off another crying jag. I may, just possibly, need a little more sleep.

Then:














Now:

Thank goodness girly got prettier. That newborn face caused me some concern.

My husband doesn't take me seriously

I've considered homeschooling on and off over the past couple years, but lately my 5 year old has seemed really unhappy at school and I have my own concerns, so I've been thinking about it more seriously. I just mentioned to my husband that I might homeschool, and he made his hysterical amused face and said, "which one?" Like I'm going to pick my favorite kid (or least favorite, maybe, there's no guarantee that homeschooling would make them happier).

Ha. Only my husband could express his total lack of faith in me and entertain me at the same time.

My boy is a nutty nuthead

Nutty nuthead - that's the three year old's favorite jokey name to call someone. This morning, he is a "growmup man" and is stomping around loudly and using a loud voice. He's been doing it for over an hour, but it's not getting old for either of us. It seems patently unfair that almost everything this child does amuses me, when I'm having such a hard time just tolerating his big brother. I wonder all the time, how much of it is built-in personality? How much is that I was an anxious, intense, overwhelmed first time mother with the big boy and irreparably screwed him up?

I didn't do resolutions for New Year's. I was so tired and angry, it just felt like another really long night. I won't do them now, either, not specifically for the new year, but I am trying to enjoy my kids more. Not just raise them or tolerate them or fix the things I've done wrong, but really absorb the quirky craziness of each age. I look at the twins and wonder how my big boys were ever this little and how the babies will ever be that big.

2007 is looking up

Maybe that last awful night was just the twins' way of ushering out the old year, because last night was fabulous. Girly went down at SEVEN and slept until 8am, only got up to eat 3 times. The boy was up a lot for my mom, but only ate twice, so I got loads of sleep and feel like a whole new person. Thank goodness, as the old person was really getting grating.

To top off my much better day, school is back in session, so my late-night screamer is out of the house, and all is calm. All is bright. In other news, Christmas carols are still alive and well in my head.

Why, exactly, did I have children?

I hate to post in this frame of mind, but I don't have all that many moments not in this frame these days. I am beyond tired, beyond hopeless, into mindless rage and chest crushing futility. Last night was by far the worst. I don't think I slept more than half an hour at a time until after 6:30 this morning. And don't think I handled it well, because I certainly didn't. I woke my poor husband up at 3:30 by sobbing into his back.

I am, as I type this, engaged in a screaming battle with my five year old from the first floor to the second. He has been in his room for 2.5 hours. His first day back at school is tomorrow. He started the evening by sobbing that he doesn't ever want to go back to school, that he wishes he'd never been born, and that he wants someone to kill him. It was so disturbing that it wrenched me out of my own Dantean Inferno of rapidly deteriorating mental health temporarily, but I'm well past concern now and back into rage and exhaustion, and if he does not go to sleep very. fucking. soon. I am seriously going to lose my shit. I swear to god, the palms of my hands are hot with the urge to slap him and my head aches from not screaming abuse. I do not have enough left of me to handle this right now. Thank goodness the house is big enough that I can just separate myself from him physically and thereby keep him safe.

5 year old just said to his brother (who he just woke up with all the screaming), "Mommy doesn't even like me." Truer words were never spoken, my small psychic friend. I love him, as evidenced by him still living and breathing, but like? Not right now. Right now, there is very little that I like.

Twin pictures

The babies are starting to think about crawling (let's just hope they're as slow to crawl as they are to sleep). They were exercising on their blanket after the big boys were safely in bed and out of stomping range last night, and I got these pictures. They're really starting to notice each other, and so far they seem to like each other. While we're wishing, let's wish for that to keep up, too.

This picture was cuter in the view finder, when I couldn't see the giant slobber in girly's mouth:














Girl kept leaning on Boy when she got tired. So cute.














I guess I'll keep them, after all.

Always two there are [...], a master and an apprentice

It is probably a testament to my unfunctioning brain that I am beginning to think almost exclusively in quotes from movies and songs. I'm sure my husband will be thrilled when he reads this and learns that he has infected me, at long last, with Star Wars. The master and apprentice quote popped into my head this morning while I was recapping the (long) night's sleep (or lack thereof). My daughter is malleable and bright - after only two days and nights of the new routine, her sleep is measurably improved. She is starting to get tired at the "right" times, is not sleeping in cat naps all evening, went to bed peacefully, and only got up once all night long. I love her. She is beauty and grace and light. My son. Well. Not as bright. Not as malleable. He was pretty much up all night again. It is so fortunate for him that he is cute and did not come with a gift receipt.

Another phrase rattling around in the wasteland of my brain is "I get by with a little help from my friends." I know I bitch a lot, but by and large I'm very happy, and I'd be utterly miserable if it weren't for the incredibly generous people in my life. I have friends checking on me every day, friends taking my big kids so they don't have to endure house arrest with me (and so I don't have to endure them enduring it), friends bringing food. A big part of the reason I can't wait to get some rest and rejoin society is so I can pay it back and (cheese alert) pay it forward. When I worked full time, I rarely came in contact with this side of human nature, this generosity of spirit, and now I live in a world of it and I'm so grateful.

Back in a minute with cute twin pictures!

My house

My house will be 100 years old in 2012. Here are some of the great and not-so-great things about living here:

THE GOOD:
1) There is a special place in our over-stove cupboard just for Oreos, even though we rarely have Oreos (and when we do, they don't last long).
2) There are two parallel staircases, even though the house isn't that big. It's fun watching new people get confused about where they've landed.
3) The old owner was a carpenter, and did many odd customizations to the house (some less charming than others, as when he drove a nail through a steam pipe and didn't repair it, leading to water damage in that wall).
4) The porch is fantastic and large and airy, and I have dreams of one day using it for socializing instead of just for storing crap.
5) The stairway to the attic is in one of the bedroom closets, making it seem like a secret passageway (and again, surprising newcomers when my mother appears to emerge from the closet).

THE BAD:
1) Water is no friend to this house. When it rains, the basement floods. The roof won't hold patches properly any more. The radiators leak to the ceilings below.
2) Storage - although the house is plenty big enough for our family, it lacks room for our stuff. The closets are so narrow hangers don't fit in them properly. Just my luck, buying a house designed by ascetics.
3) Stairs. We're by no means a family of athletes, but you'd think we'd all be rail thin, since we live in the housing equivalent of a StairMaster, with stairs everywhere you turn. Perhaps the Oreo cupboard mentioned above acts as a counterbalance.
4) Neighbors - the woman behind us is stark raving mad and has, in the past, called the police on us for shoveling snow, blocked her driveway with posts so we can't get into our driveway with trucks, and stood in the road in front of our car to yell at us for putting trash out for the trash collectors. The people across the street have now mercifully been evicted, but for years sold crack at all hours of the day and night and threw an ungodly amount of crap in our yard, including dentures and a shopping cart. The people next door are just odd - they work from home, never leave their house, and once said to my son "we don't like children" (he was not doing anything at the time). The people on the other side just moved in, so they are not yet on my list.
5) The yard. Baltimore is not, last time I checked, in the tropics, but our weeds grow so fast you can almost hear the crackling. Within two weeks of the start of spring, it looks like the castle in Sleeping Beauty, all overgrown and just waiting for a prince with a sword to come hack away the brambles.

On balance, it's been a great house for us (and will have to continue to be, as we can't afford to move). Please note, this post is not about sleep! And, once again, does not have pictures, as the twins always start fussing before I get that far. Better go feed them. And eat some Oreos. I love me some Oreos.

I won the nap battle, but...

I was on a roll. I was firm, I was determined, I was focused like a frickin laser. The babies got up at 8 (their preference after a hard night of getting up every hour is to sleep in while I get up and take out my exhaustion on their brothers and grandmother). I kept them awake against their will until 10, when they both napped in their cribs. After they woke up, I kept them up again until 2, and again! they both napped in their cribs. I let them be for the most part after that, and they each of their own accord took a brief nap in the early evening. All signs pointed to a good night. And god. knows. We need a good night.

It is now 10:57. Girl twin fell asleep at 10. I put her in her crib. She slept for ten minutes. She screamed. I patted her. She screamed. I nursed her. She screamed. I turned on her CD. Her brother screamed downstairs. I nursed him while my husband patted her. She is now, 57 minutes later, still screaming. I hate that I hate her right now. She is small and soft and sweet and such a good baby in every other way, but the noise she's making feels like it may actually kill me. I swear, I need sleep in some deep and desperate way and it feels like if I can just express how deep and desperate the need is, somehow the universe will relent and I will get it. I keep thinking "I can't go on," but I haven't figured out an alternative, so on I keep going.

I am as tired of the self-pity as any reader must be, but I have nothing else in my head right now. Hopefully, I'll have something more promising to report in the morning.

Not that there's anything wrong with that

My five year old is having a play date with the love of his life. They met in preschool two years ago, and although they see each other infrequently, their love is true and persistent. They have been playing blissfully for 6 hours, and then the little girl came into the living room and had this conversation with my mother:

Girl: Does Justin have any father?
My mother: Yes, his daddy will be home from work soon.
(long pause)
Girl: Are you his mother too?
My mother, trying not to choke: No, I'm his grandma.

OMG I'm dying laughing. I have now been suspected of being in a lesbian relationship with my own mother.

Editing to add: try doing a google image search on "lesbians" sometimes (preferably not while working on a monitored network). Ha! I love it when what I'm looking for and what google thinks I'm looking for are not in sync.

I'll be staying in for a while...

There is just nothing like motherhood to teach you about the cost of things. Not the financial cost, although that is also brought into sharp relief once you add family members and remove breadwinners, but the fundamental truth that having one thing precludes having something else. You can't be in two places at the same time, and resources are finite. These truths may seem self-evident, but I'm still getting smacked in the face with them over and over.

Take sleep, for example (no! gasps the viewing audience, surely she's not going to talk about sleep!). My babies, you may be shocked to learn, are absolutely abysmal sleepers. I have had a heaping helping of truly good advice, using which I have devised not one but several plans, none of which I have implemented consistently. It is unsurprising to note here that I have always been a really awful dieter (hence the overstuffed upholstery look mentioned in yesterday's post). As with dieting, as soon as I see a glimmer of success I call it a day and am then simply stunned when the progress does not continue after the abandonment of the plan.

Specifically (yes, please, what in the hell are you talking about anyway?), I started putting the twins on a daytime routine a month or so ago, and it was really helping their nighttime sleep. However, putting two babies on a sleep schedule really cramps my not-so-stylish style, so as soon as I got a little bit of sleep, I resumed my regular round of friends and kids' activities and general schedule anarchy. This was (here come the excuses) exacerbated by the holidays, but I know I'd have done it anyway, because that's the self-defeating kind of person I am. So here we are, back where we started, only I'm a little more harried and desperate for a light - hell, from here I can hardly see the tunnel.

The moral of this rambling and oh-god-so-tired post is that I need to sacrifice all external activity to the sleep of the babies. I worked outside the house when my older children were babies, so I didn't really realize how restrictive it is to have to sit home essentially all day so the babies could sleep properly. So, good-bye world. I hope to see you again some day, when the babies and I are all much older and much better rested.

What was I saying?

I just logged onto Blogger and discovered that I never actually posted the 3/4 finished, mind-numbingly dull post I started on Christmas. I will spare you all the post itself and recap briefly - Christmas was really good. See how easy that was?

It's hard to post when everything in my head is either too murky and deep (to me, anyway) to nail down concretely or so utterly the opposite that I get bored while typing it, as in my original Christmas post. The babies (and I) are still not sleeping, I am still obsessing over knitting and (though the obsession is waning) cloth diapers, I still do not know what I want to be when I grow up. Over in the deeper end of the thought pool, I am slowly coming to the realization that this adulthood thing is not just a phase, that my bad hair, no makeup, overstuffed-upholstery look probably no longer counts as temporary after several years, and that I may have to actually take steps in the direction of my goals and dreams (whatever those may be) if I ever want to realize any of them. I seem to be lying in the road, waiting for life to come and run me over, rather than choosing a direction. Or something along those metaphorical lines. This all sounds rather depressing typed out, but I'm feeling contemplative about it all, not despairing. Right this minute, anyway.

Oh look, something shiny - my husband just put in a movie. I begin to suspect that part of my lack of direction stems from a chronic lack of focus.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

I got a lot more sleep last night. My fabulous friend Cole gave me excellent advice regarding the wretched lovely babies, my fabulous friend Karen brought me food, and my fabulous husband and mother cleaned the whole house. Everything is pretty much ready for Christmas, and so I am, finally, getting into the spirit. So much so, in fact, that I just made homemade hot chocolate for the boys and their friends, because they're watching Polar Express.

Wow, it's harder to write a post when I'm not grumpy. That probably says a lot about me, but I'm not going to go too introspective right now. I'm just going to enjoy the twins napping, the boys getting along, and the ability to read 3 straight pages of a book with minimal interruption.

For sale: two slightly used babies

The babies aren't sleeping. I know, babies don't sleep, especially. It's not like it's unexpected. However, this week they're taking it to extremes, and I'm discovering that sleep is like water - go without it for a surprisingly short time and you're done for. Every day without it is exponentially worse than the day before.

The longest I've slept this week is one two-hour nap in the middle of the day. At night, each baby is getting up every one to two hours, resulting in 8-10 interruptions per 8 hours in bed. I lie in bed, hating life, doing the math of my exhaustion. I dream in sharp shards, broken from the whole, in which I scream and scream. I wake up angry that I didn't get the chance to scream for real and fall back to sleep searching for the thread I keep losing. I dream of dying creatures, of blood and danger, of fury and desperation. During the day, I feel my thoughts slow to a crawl and my forehead crease several times a day as I try to remember what really happened and what was just a dream fragment. I search for words and come up with nothing and my sentences trail off into futility.

And now, I have to stop writing so I can go grocery shopping and clean and decorate. Happy holidays!

They like me, they really like me

I know this makes me a dork (like it's the only thing that does, ha), but I'm always a little surprised when my kids show a really strong preference for me over other people. I mean, I love them more than anything, but why do they love ME so much? There are definitely nicer moms out there - my kids even know some of them - but still they choose me, to show off their block towers or Christmas songs or silly faces.

For that matter, why do I love them so much? I'm sure there are other kids in the world who are smarter, prettier, quieter (god knows) than my kids, but I like mine best of all the children in the world. You really do just jump through the looking glass when you have kids, to a world where logic and reason take a back seat when they make it on the bus at all.

I really, really, really need to clean my house. Stupid dirt.

Another baby video

Boy twin just cracks me up.

I love my husband

Cleaning out the basement today was like being an archeologist. We peeled back layers of baby crap, bigger kid crap, and our own crap, and under it all were lingering remnants of my ex-husband, with whom I formerly lived in this house. When my current husband and I moved here four years ago, we had to rent a dumpster just to clean out my ex's crap - and I actually do mean crap, there was dog shit in the attic AND the basement, among other horrors of housekeeping that make me look very Martha Stewart in comparison. After I left him, he took in a series of seriously sketchy roommates/boarders, some of whom kept pit bulls. Mercifully, no one was ever grieviously injured, since I was still on the deed and mortgage.

Back to today - the last evidence of my ex's trashy friends' scary dogs was a giant rusted dog cage in the basement. We didn't dispose of it when we moved here because the dumpster was too full, so today seemed like a good time to get rid of it. I assumed we could just collapse it, but when I went to take a closer look, I discovered that the top was held to the body of the cage with no fewer than four locked padlocks. What kind of beast were they caging down there??? And what is the appeal of having man-eating pets anyway? And who keeps a pet in the basement? Oh, right, my ex.

Which reminds me. I really, really love my husband.

Ah, memories

We rented a dumpster to clean out the gigantic dump our basement has become, and we are spending the day emptying the house into it. It would be much more efficient just to tip the house on its side and let everything shake out, but we haven't been able to design a mechanism. This is the most physical labor I've done in ages, and I'm unsurprised to discover that nope, I still don't enjoy exercise.

During breaks from the gulag, we're watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (for roughly the 9,349th time). My husband's favorite part is when Johnny Depp (doesn't just his name give you shivers? I loooove him) says "don't touch that squirrel's nuts!" I proceeded to explain the double entendre to my five year old. You may think five is a bit young, but I have two scarring memories centered around not knowing slang, and I'm not going to let my children be similarly scarred.

Memory 1: 4th grade. Ms. McKinley's class. Jesus, how did I remember that? Anyway, the boys had a daily routine of coming into home room and proceeding to pretend to kick each other, all yelling "don't kick me in the nuts!" Wanting to join in, one day I ALSO yelled, "don't kick ME in the nuts either!" The whole class fell silent, then began laughing at me as one. It was so mortifying, this only started being funny to me sometime around last week.

Memory 2: Whenever Like a Virgin came out. During gymnastics class (my most vivid memories of gymnastics, by the way, have to do with having to do my stupid vocabulary homework while my sister had her class. Doesn't it seem cruel and unusual to make children copy entries from the dictionary?). With Madonna singing overhead, the cool girls in the class started giggling and saying "are you a virgin?" to everyone. When they got to me, I said "NO!" very emphatically, as I had no idea what a virgin was but knew it sounded like something I wanted no part of.

There is some life lesson I learned from these awful blunders, but the family is gearing up to go back outside, so I'd better wrap it up. I so do not want to be a garbage man when I grow up.

One year ago today...

I used to do this borderline-OCD calendar thing in my head, where I constantly calculated where I was and what I was doing yesterday, last week, last month, last year, etc - it was a little tiring, but I always had sort of a handle on the relative timing of things. I still do it to a smaller extent, for big stuff. One year ago was a big stuff day - it was the day of my first ultrasound, when we saw not one but two little peanut shaped babies. I was not yet 8 weeks pregnant, but I saw the two sacs with their bitty little residents as plain as day, even before the technician turned to us and said "twins?" As if we already knew and could confirm it for her. I can vividly picture my husband's face as it drained of color, and I remember saying "fuck. oh shit, sorry, damn it," as I tried to process what she was saying.

Sometimes, it still feels strange that there are two of them. I don't know if it would seem more or less strange if they were identical. They are as different as they can be, both physically and behaviorally, but I can't imagine having had only one of them. I'd better stop now before I wax (more) maudlin. It's just hard to believe it's already been a year.
















Incidentally, are these not the cutest diapers alive?

Bulimia by proxy

I weighed myself this morning and discovered that I've lost four pounds since Thanksgiving. This seems incredibly unlikely, since my evening food routine involves dinner, then dessert, then a snack, then another dessert, and sometimes another snack. Then I realized that boy twin has been eating a LOT lately, and is a huge vomiter, so it's really like he's having bulimia FOR me - he takes all my calories, then pukes them up. I knew I liked him (although the vomit smell is a bit much at times).

The Sound of Music - a comedy

We are introducing the children to The Sound of Music. I do love this movie, but haven't seen it in a while and did not fully appreciate how much laughter it would generate. It started yesterday, when my husband told the five year old that the man in this movie "has a TON of kids." I pointed out that the Captain actually has only one more child than we do, and my husband actually paled as he muttered something and left for work.

Then, we were just watching it again (we go in movie streaks around here) and were on the wedding scene, which prompted this conversation between me and the 5 year old:

Boy: Are the children going to laugh?
Me: No, why?
Boy: Because they're going to kiss.

Okay, mildly funny. But then there was this, apparently prompted by the multitude of wee von Trapps:

Boy: If you don't want to have another baby, you have to give me real money, and it better be $55.
Me: How are you going to keep me from having another baby?
Boy: (pause) I don't know. Okay, you'd better not marry another man.
Me: I don't want to marry another man, I want to be married to Daddy forever.
Boy: (pause again) Well, you'd better not use daddy to put a sperm in you.

I believe I choked at that point, ending the conversation. I swear, the word sperm is the silliest thing ever, and it's even funnier coming from a little kid.

Incidentally, did you know that the real-life von Trapp descendents are a singing group? I saw them on The View the other day (much to my husband's horror, I watch The View occasionally now. So sue me, I like Rosie O'Donnell).

Today, I love my children

I got sleep! Eight blissful hours with only three interruptions. Love, love, love my children. I was up and showered before 8:30 and I feel human. I'm even planning on leaving the house today. I love sleep. Really, really love it.

I'm so rested, I decided to venture into the world of YouTube and share this video of boy twin attacking a doll. Boy cracks me up. Enjoy!