Happy Things

For no particular reason, here is a list of things I love.

-Lindt chocolate, particularly the Petite Desserts line.

-Rearranging furniture.

-The colors blue and green.

-The smell of spearmint.

-Sepia photography.

-Built in window seats.

-Hydrangeas.

-The new kind of Scrubbing Bubbles, which actually does work well enough that you don't have to follow up your spraying with a scrubbing (provided your tub is reasonably clean to begin with.)

-The new kind of Pledge, with this "protective seal" (I don't know or care what that means) which supposedly guards against fingerprint/food/kid grime. So far, it seems to live up to this claim.

-Irish step dance.

-Caesar salad.

-Baby teeth, which always look like white little pearls.

-Little white twinkly lights, even when it's not Christmas anymore.

-Arrested Development. It still infuriates me that that show got cancelled.

-Gazebos. They remind me of my grandma, who always called them "Kazebos," which caused me to confuse them with kazoos for a long time.

-Dollhouses. I am still powerless before them; I must sit and arrange the tiny chairs and tables and place all the people where they belong.

-Visiting the Biltmore estate in Asheville, NC. I always leave feeling vaguely that my true self should have been born a long time ago. And been insanely rich, of course; obviously my true self wouldn't have been born a SERVANT to the Vanderbilts.

-The way Adelay gets so excited about being given Dum Dum suckers at the doctor's office and stickers from the teller at the bank. It actually makes me a little sad, too, even as it charms me. I think I just wish I still got excited that easily.

And The Winner Is...

Number seventeen! Come on down front, lucky number seventeen! Also known as Astarte! Sorry it took me so long to get the results posted- crazy, crazy last few days with end of soccer camp, family obligations, swimming party, etc. I know, though. Everybody's summers are busy. It's no excuse to be neglecting the ole blog so blatantly.

In regards to the contest, I just have to give an honorable mention to Kelsey, who, in the first comment, guessed my nephew Luke's name correctly! So Kels, you will also be getting some little prize, because that is just psychic! I had goosebumps.

I have no idea what these prizes will consist of, honestly. Perhaps I'll send you every single Barbie or Disney Princess related item in our home, just so I don't have to look at its cloying pinkness anymore! Or maybe you'll be the lucky recipient of Addy's Lil' Iguana Safety DVD, which she adores but which scares the living crap out of me, and not in the way that it intends.

I am lame and tired, lately. I'll think of a topic to post about, but by the time I drag myself online, it is gone, and in my head nothing remains but swirling visions of ice cream, the sofa, and reruns. I sure do miss my wit and humor and relatively broad vocabulary. In its place has taken root a sort of contented, almost drugged-up sleepiness, a jumble of mental post-it notes, and the always nagging priorities, "Get Adelay potty trained (for the love of all that is holy!)" and "Get Eli sleep trained (can't have another baby while you're still getting up to nurse the last one!)"

Not that I am pregnant. But it is an ever-constant thought, the spacing of the next hypothetical baby. Also constant is the fear that I cannot HANDLE a next baby, no matter when it might come. But I still want one. Ah, the greedy, irrational heart, right? Always grasping for more even when both its hands are full.

On potty training- have I already asked for advise? What's that, you say? MULTIPLE TIMES already, I have asked? Well, then. I won't mention how tonight I was reading Addy a lovely bedtime story about ballerinas in pink fluffy tutus, and at the end, when I asked her tenderly if she wanted to dance someday like the girls in the picture, she smiled just as tenderly at me and announced, " I POOPED!"

Nope, I won't even mention it.

I Love Presents! (Because "I Love Packages" Didn't Sound Quite Right)

I had such a fantastic day. These kinds of days, the ones that are so golden from start to finish? I save them in my mind, to take out and stroke and sigh wistfully over when I'm having a three-loads-of-pee-sheets kind of day. I will be stroking this one a lot, I think. (Cracking up over my own delightful junior high school boy humor.)

Why was it so golden, this day? Because I BOUGHT A COUCH today, people. A beautiful, beautiful, very expensive couch for like A FOURTH of the asking price, on clearance at Macy's. I had goosebumps at my own luck in finding it, and that it was just the right color to go with the love seat I needed it to match. AND THEN my Pay It Forward contest prize came in the mail from Sara at Incubation Nation, and it was all such fun, fun stuff, and from Target, I think, which made it all the more special since I live in a Wal-Mart dominated area and rarely do I get to pass over the threshold of a Target.
AnyWHAYS, thanks so much, Sara, especially since if I were thirty eight weeks pregnant, the chances of my dragging myself to the post office would be slim to none. Without further ado, may I present my haul:


Delicious chocolate covered espresso beans and a journal



Adelay, prancing around in her new tutu (which she refused to take off, even when we went to the mall to purchase the couch.)



Me, dorkily modeling the fluffy purple tiara which Adelay graciously allowed me to borrow.




And just for funsies, a picture of all the cousins from Saturday (note how Eli appears actually LARGER than Adelay.)


So, here's MY Pay It Forward contest question- respond to be entered. What's the name of the little boy cousin in the green and blue shirt on the left in the picture above?

Weekend Fun!

Well, that was a heck of a way to make a couple hundred bucks, but by golly I did it, ninety degree temps and wilting humidity be darned (that was a lot of Doris Day type euphemisms for one sentence.) By "did it" I of course mean, "did it inasmuch as the actual sale was in my driveway and I did help put things out, take people's money, and pack things away." But my mom put the ad in the paper, put out the signs, and dragged all her stuff over, and did a lion's share of initial set up as well as attending the sale while I ran back and forth trying to parent as well as make money, so, I should say that I couldn't have done it alone and you are INSANE if you try to do a garage sale by yourself with small children. The end.

We had a semi-hellacious car ride to Michigan yesterday morning, followed by a full day of rain, forcing twenty five people to mingle in approximately fifteen hundred square feet. It is experiences such as these that make me hesitate when thinking of having more kids, but they fade quickly and mercifully from memory, much like certain aspects of childbirth.

Anyways, not much to say other than that: hot, busy, probably going to remain busy for some time what with soccer and a possible trip to Canada next weekend (more car trips why God why?) How about you?

Oh Right, That Reunion I Freaked Out About!

I came, I saw, I conquered. Or, you know, I pulled up in my Focus wagon, hauled out two cute little kids as distracting props, and held my head high despite distinct insecurities.

It was fine, you guys. The dreaded Boyfriend wasn't even there (though I found out later that he WAS in town, he just decided at the last minute not to come. I am sincerely, guiltily hoping it wasn't for fear of seeing me.) About three fourths of the class showed up, and quite a few have gotten married, considering how young we still are. There were lots of little kids running around, and lots of adults standing around lamely with sweating plastic cups in our hands, complaining about the humidity and telling our story ("so I ended up dropping out of college...")half a dozen times as we made the rounds.

It's funny how little changes. Astonishing, even. Sitting there eating, it felt like being in the lunchroom with these people again. Same seating partners, same loud, cackling girls at one end of the table, while the quiet girls and the smart girls and the shy girls roll their eyes at the other end.

Since there was no drinking, the party was slow to take off. A few people milled around reluctantly, but most stuck to the same people they already talk to once a week. But after a while the need to impress/avoid one another wore off, and that old high school vibe returned. UNFORTUNATELY. There was a mofo WATER BALLOON FIGHT, people, complete with drenched tee-shirts and maniacal giggling and breasts a-bouncing as their owners fled the onslaught of BOYS!!! chasing them. Guess which end of the table instigated that one.

Addy had a hysterical meltdown when the first balloon got smashed, and clung to me, sobbing real tears, for the duration. "No hit!" she managed to choke out occasionally, glaring accusingly at the screaming balloon wielders as though she were viewing Saving Private Ryan and not good old fashioned summer fun. So I ended up stuck in a corner for quite a while, calming her down, but I did have a genuine and pleasant conversation while there, so it ended well.

Mostly, I just left feeling SO HAPPY that I am where I am right now, with the family I have. I feel like I literally dodged a bullet.

Hold Me

I... I am having a yard sale this Thursday and Friday. I don't really know why. Apparently I harbor latent masochistic tendencies. And then Friday night, after closing up shop in the driveway, we are going out of town (three hours away) to visit Jim's family for the weekend. And Jim's still got a week and a half of soccer camp (two hours in the morning, two hours in the evening.) But! The den is coming along. We're craning our necks and shielding our eyes, squinting at the ever-more-discernible vision of "finished" that is glowing tantalizingly there on the horizon.

I guess that's all. It doesn't sound THAT rough, written out. I don't know why I feel so disorganized and unravelled right now. I think, sadly, that I'm just kind of an uptight, stick-up-her-arse kind of person when it comes to tidiness and organization, and it just rocks me to my core to have the house in upheaval for weeks at a time like this. My inner voice of serenity (..."to accept the things I cannot change!") is telling me to embrace the chaos and just roll with it, but it's going on four weeks now and I am no more tolerant of the plaster dust than I was to begin with.

So, that's all, I guess. Oh! On Sunday I went to see one of my friends from school who lives about an hour from here, with NO KIDS and WITH another friend! (I mean, I went with no kids and with a friend, not that my friend lives with no kids and with another friend...) I spent HOURS eating and shopping and going to a movie and admiring my friend's new house. It was the best day of my life. Or, you know, this month, anyways, for sure.

Judgement Call

Swistle has once again hit the nail on the head, most recently with her post about priorities and choices. Reading it led me on a tangential train of thought, beginning with Swistle's musings on finding the time to do what we love even at the expense of doing other, equally good things, and ending with what a friend and I were just talking about today while we were doing our grocery shopping.

We were buying baby food, and she kept apologizing about the fact that she felt compelled to buy organic while I was blithely stocking my cart with jars of Parent's Choice. "I hope you don't feel like I think YOU should buy it, too," she was saying. "It's just my thing! I don't judge people who don't care about organic stuff!" And I was laughing and saying, "I don't feel judged! I hope you don't feel judged by MY compulsion to dust everything once a week. That's just MY thing!"

Then we were comparing our shopping cart covers for the babies- hers is mainly of the germ-prevention kind, a barrier between Gabe and any icky surfaces. Mine is a giant pillowed contraption to keep Eli from hurting himself when he (inevitably) begins flailing around in fury, and also to make it a comfortable nap area if he feels so inclined. We both started sort of apologizing to each other then, too, reassuring one another that the other person's cart cover was perfectly nice and acceptable!

Why do we feel so compelled to defend our choices to other people? Why do we feel worried that they are judging us by choosing something different, or that they might feel judged by OUR different choice?

Well, I think it's because we DO compare ourselves to others, to a certain degree, all the time. We try not to, sometimes, and we are partially in denial about it because of our culture's emphasis on diversity and tolerance, but the universal truth is that people observe other people's lives and choices and compare them, favorably or otherwise, to their own. It is human nature.

Sometimes it's a good thing, and encourages us to explore and stretch ourselves. An example of this is a party I attended recently, where I observed the enormous supply of crafts the mom had for her two kids. As I admired her stash, I of course also felt guilty; I mentally chided myself that I "should" be doing more crafts with Addy. But then I dismissed the guilt, and decided I should do crafts only if I thought Adelay and I both WANTED to do more crafts.

A few days later, I went to Hobby Lobby and purchased, not an entire room full of supplies, but one simple project, which we did together the next day and enjoyed. I ended up doing most of it, though, and Addy got about ten minutes of enjoyment for an hour's worth of glitter cleanup. So I decided that art projects do not need to be an everyday part of our world, at least not right now. That is my choice, and I own it, and I do not apologize to anyone.

But there is, of course, a downside to this observation/judgement cycle. That's when we start deciding that our own values must be EVERYONE'S values. Because I enjoy scrapbooking, you must do it, too, or you are a thoughtless mom who doesn't cherish her kids' fleeting childhoods! Because I bake everything from scratch, I love my kids more than you moms who buy Little Debbies! Because I iron my kids' clothes before school every day, you are a slob who lets your kids go to school looking like ragamuffins! And so on.

It's just so lame and tired, all the one-upping and the self-righteousness when it comes to women's, and particularly moms', priorities. The facts are as follows: we all get twenty four hours. We all would like to do- and think we SHOULD do- about twice as much as we actually have time to do. We all have some money. Some of us have less than others. And we all have obligations and responsibilities. Some of us more than others. So we make judgement calls. We prioritize, and we do what we believe to be in the best interest of ourselves and our families and our kids and our pets and our bank statements and the environment. Sometimes all of those things can't get equal priority. Sometimes something has to give. Sometimes we are too tired and stressed to think too hard about it, so we make snap judgements ("Here! Have another fruit snack!" or "Let's just put it on the credit card!") that we might not necessarily be proud of later. Sometimes, for better or worse, we put ourselves first. There has to be give room for these moments. There has to be grace, from ourselves and from others.

So let's save the judging for the pedophiles and the crooked politicians, and cut some slack for each other.

Role Model

I just came in from mowing the lawn. It is about ninety degrees today and the sun is still high, so I felt absolutely justified when I dove face first into a pint of Ben and Jerry's Butter Pecan. Then Eli woke up.
My son spotted the container and began grunting and thrashing in his high chair, frantic for a taste. He is no ice cream virgin, my boy.

I have a feeling Jessica Seinfeld wouldn't approve.

Kind of Like Twitter, But Not As Cool

-Three weeks of soccer camp (Jim coaches high school girls) is kicking our family's collective ass.

-Week three of den remodel. Rest of house is like a ticking bomb of toys and extra furniture, threatening explosion with any false step.

-Am preparing for yard sale next week. WHY LORD WHY? (Because I want money to replace a loveseat in the den. And we are a bunch of smart, unAmerican stick in the muds who try very hard not to put things on credit. You know, except for when we DO. But we make an effort.)

-I forgot how much I hate PMS. Or how much PMS hates me, perhaps. Either way, it's enough to make one wish for pregnancy.

-Addy has taken whining to a whole new level lately, my WORD. I hate how often I hear my voice taking on its stern, no-nonsense-now-young-lady tone. I sound so old and grumpy. Like a... Mom.


Bonus Unrelated Anecdote: The other day, while pushing the kids around the neighborhood in their stroller, a car slowed down next to me. The guy rolled down his window and said, "Michigan? Really?" I should mention that I was wearing blue pants with Michigan written in maize on the seat. ON MY BUTT, ok? Which means, guy was rolling down the street looking at my butt? And stopped to chat with me about it? We don't actually live in Michigan, by the way. So I guess the sight of team related attire for said state confused/agitated this guy? But nonetheless, WTF? I shrugged and said, "My husband's family is from Michigan." The guy persisted to BADGER me about it before finally, after repeatedly getting one-word responses from me, drove away. Fracking people, seriously.

Can Of Worms

It occurred to me this morning that I haven't done a serious post topic in awhile. As I enjoy stirring things up, I felt the need to dig around in your collective psyche and force you to examine perhaps long-buried memories in the quest for the truth. Also in my own selfish quest for parenting advise. So without further ado, here is my Deep, Thought-Provoking Question for the day:

What do you think is the biggest mistake your parents made while raising you, and do you think you've avoided making that same mistake with your own kids? Or, if you don't have kids yet or don't plan to, ever, have you made/avoided making that mistake with other people in your life?

Conversely, what was the BEST thing your parents did for you along the way? And what do you think is your own greatest strength in parenting (or life in general)?

*Feel free to answer anonymously, if you want to.

Wide Open Spaces

Greetings from construction land.



See that wall directly to Jim's right? Well, it is gone now. And I just took a picture to show you, but Blogger is being a wench and won't upload it, even though it JUST UPLOADED THE PICTURE ABOVE. You'll have to take my word for it- it looks better. Very open. Very lack-of-dividing-wall-ish. Also, all the ceiling tiles have been pulled down, all the paneling is ripped off, all the nails (approximate number: 8,716) picked up, the carpet has been shop-vacuumed multiple times, and the electric from the offending wall is rerouted and a new overhead light installed. One wall has even been drywalled! So, lots of progress. But still, lots more to do. Drywall the rest of the walls and the ceiling, obviously, mud and sand, prime and paint, and then rehang the trim. And there's some little nitpicky stuff with leveling out the doorway where the wall came out. BUT. The end is in sight.

Hmm. If Addy yells, "Mommy, where ARE you?" one more time, knowing full well where I am, I'm going to scream. Every time, I call back pleasantly, "I'm in the den, honey, what do you need?" and every time she replies, with escalating levels of aggrieved impatience, "MOOOMmy, where AAAARE you?!"
Mommy's hiding in the den with my secret chocolate bar, sweetie, where else have you ever known me to be?

The Path of Least Resistance (Or, Sleep Training For Wusses)

Teething sucks. Or, infancy sucks. Possibly I just suck. All I know is, Eli's sleep habits are beginning to get me down. He's never been what I'd call a good sleeper, but the past week or so, it has been a freaking three ring circus trying to get him in the perfect state of sleep readiness: Addy in bed, house is quiet, he is full, but not TOO full, burped, changed, relaxed, thumb in his mouth, eyes drooping, water cup at the ready in his crib. I rock him and sing to him and gently lower him into his bed and... Bam. As soon as his butt hits the mattress his eyes are wide in outrage, his mouth a perfect O of screaming, his back arched and limbs flailing. From slumber to meltdown in point five seconds. Over and over we repeat this cycle, from an hour to three hours depending on how tired he is. And then he is up one to three times in the night. It is getting Officially Old.

I should mention that we have never been cry-it-out fans. It seems a little cruel- he is a BABY and we are his PARENTS. Comforting him is our job. It's what we signed on for. Usually we operate by a little parenting theory called Whatever Seems To Be Working This Week. We don't attempt to set arbitrary schedules and then mold our kids' sleep patterns around them: if anything, we go the other way, and have tried to set our timetable based on their tendencies. For Addy, this has worked just fine. Eli, however, is a different breed. He would stay up until one in the morning, I think, if permitted, get up three times at night, and then wake up around nine and not nap until five PM or so. It's just not a timetable that works for the rest of the family. So, we are in new territory, and while we have sort of dabbled in enforced bedtimes and limited crying it out (ten minutes at a time, for example) we have never actually let him scream himself to sleep. We always end up either actually rocking him to sleep, or rocking him to an exhausted enough state that you can lay him down and tiptoe away.

But tonight... I just did it. Because I knew he was full, I knew he wasn't thirsty, I knew he'd recently pooped, I knew he was sleepy, I knew it was ten forty-five PM. I also knew he hates going to sleep and that his gums are likely sore, but I knew there wasn't shit I could do about it other than giving him his ba-ba with cold water and the gum massaging nipple, which I did, and rocking him to sleep, which I tried to do several times to no avail. (I could have tried pain meds or Orajel, but I have had no luck with either of those in the past. The Orajel freaks him right out, and analgesics seem to keep my kids up rather than make them sleepy.) So, I had had it. I was ready to be DONE for the day. I was tired, too, and hadn't had any grown up time with just Jim and me yet.

So I kissed him, sat him in his crib, turned on the lullaby CD, and left. He jumped and screamed in his crib for a solid half hour, you guys. It was, to say the least, not relaxing. A seriously crying baby can make a half hour seem like about two hours, and it can make you feel like the worst, most heartless person in the world to deliberately ignore a crying child. Your own crying child. But... I tried to help him fall asleep gently for a LONG time. I swear. I have never let him cry that long. I always assume after about fifteen minutes that he just plain isn't settling down and I go in and cuddle him some more. A few times I've tried laying down with him, but that doesn't seem to work unless it's the middle of the night and he's already BEEN asleep. So I just rock him and walk him and sing to him and pat him and sigh and try to convince him of how sleepy he really is.

Sometimes he is so hysterical he won't calm down until we remove him from his room altogether, back out to the living room to play on the floor for awhile or cuddle with us and watch TV. Often he just doesn't seem sleepy- he'll have seemed sleepy an hour earlier when we first began the process, but I guess all that screaming wakes him up. So he has to tire himself back out with toys before we can start the ni-night routine again. It tries the patience sorely, this up and down, back and forth business, when all you want is to be done for the night, and to kick back with a nice rerun and an Adult Beverage.

So tonight was the night I finally snapped. I did it, and now everyone in the house is quiet and sleeping. But... My baby cried himself to sleep. That hardly feels like a success.

Insomnia

I went to bed pretty early last night, early for me anyways- ten thirty. But then I stayed up until eleven thirty watching TV because I couldn't unwind, and felt hot and thrashy (only term I can think of for the itchy feeling of wanting to throw all the covers off and exchange them for completely different feeling bedding, and perhaps a new bed while you're at it, kthanx.) I'm pretty sure I had way, way too much caffeine yesterday.

I finally fell asleep close to midnight, and slept very soundly until four thirty, when Eli woke up. Getting nearly five hours of sleep in a row is pretty refreshing for me, as I'm still used to getting up for two feedings per night. So after I nursed him back to sleep, I found myself feeling WIIIDE awake.

I laid in bed for a little while, trying to talk myself into being sleepy, but a million things raced through my mind: thoughts about the remodel going on, and how excited I am, but how I just want it to be DONE ALREADY because I have the patience of a toddler sometimes. I thought about our waterbed, and how sometimes, mostly in the winter or while pregnant, I love it more than anything else in this house, and it is warm and enveloping and molds perfectly around my body's curves. But there are other times, like when I'm having trouble sleeping, for instance, or when I'm trying to nurse in bed, or trying to hoist my pregnant self OUT of bed, that it is WAY too low and soft and has no support and is all sorts of uncomfortable. We need a new bed. We really do, I told myself.

This line of thought did bring up pregnancy, which soon got me off the bed subject. Hmm. Is it the right time yet? I wondered. Eli will be ten months old in two days. When Addy was this age I was very ready for another baby, or at least, ready to start trying for one. I am feeling MORE ready now than I did three months ago, for sure, especially since he is more often than not, the last few weeks, managing to get through the night with just one feeding. But I'm still not one hundred percent convinced that the timing is right. He's such a needy baby, and would I be short changing him by adding another baby and dethroning him so soon? Or would he be happy to have another playmate- he loves Addy SO much.

What about ME? Jim and I both want four or five kids, and want them to be fairly close together. But I feel LESS of a need to have them close together, I guess. I realize Jim is older than me and is hearing the biological clock ticking and the need to hurry our family planning along, and I understand his feelings. The whole "if I have a kid at forty I'll be nearly sixty when they graduate." But if we keep having kids every two years, the fact is that if I'm pregnant for nine months and breastfeed for an average of six months, that's at least- at least!- SIXTY months of my twenties that are going to be physically devoted to feeding, sustaining, and toting around another human being. A human being I love dearly, yes, but it's a lot of unselfishness packed into a fairly short time frame. Am I up for that? Because I don't want to commit to it and then resent it: I really feel that is FAR more selfish than waiting until I do feel ready.

I got up and moved to the couch, got a bowl of cereal, and put in season two of Friends. There are only so many times you can rehash the logic of this decision while staring at the ceiling of your bedroom and trying not to toss and turn too much.

But my brain would not turn off. What if we got pregnant now? You'd be due in late March. You've always wanted an early spring baby, so you wouldn't have to be big and pregnant in the heat. If you wait until Eli's a year old to start trying, chances are it'll take you a few months, you'll get pregnant in November or December, and wind up with another summer pregnancy. Might as well start trying now- if it takes a few months, you'd still be due in May or June, which would avoid the hottest months of summer.

I rolled over on the couch, trying to close my eyes and just listen to the TV. Stop thinking about stuff! Just sleep! It was already five thirty. I could hear BIRDS CHIRPING. I briefly considered going outside for a walk in the faint, faint light, but felt too weirded out by the idea of being up for the day already.

Or you could wait until NEXT summer to try, and then you'd have more of a break between the two, and still have a spring baby. Oh, but then Addy would be almost five, and you've always hoped she'd have a sister fairly close in age to be friends with, like you had.

Of course, there's no way to guarantee this next baby would be a girl. Adelay might still have to wait until she's six or so before she got a sister, even if we DO have another one now. But then at least Eli would have a brother close to his age to be friends with, and that'd be cool too...

I finally fell asleep. I dreamed I was drowning, and woke up physically gasping for air.

Six hours later I have a pounding headache, am utterly exhausted, and am no closer to answers than I was. I guess there are some things you can't really figure out. You just have to feel it out.

Impending Doom or Major Overreaction?

So, my five year high school reunion is in two weeks. (Cue eye rolling and jokes about how you can't even REMEMBER your five year reunion and am I sure I'm not a child bride living on a polygamist compound somewhere?) (Marginally Related Aside: Has anyone read Stolen Innocence yet? AM DYING to read that book!)

AnyWAY! I am not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I went to a very small, private (religious) high school, so this reunion will consist of only twenty to twenty five people, plus our spouses/significant others/children. (Yes, there are others who have kids too! We are a bunch of early marriers, what can I say?) So there is not much chance of NOT running into/greeting everyone who attends. It won't be a crowd into which you can blend or get lost. I was initially very excited about seeing everyone, and about showing off my little fam, but as the date approaches I am getting a major case of the N.T. (Tessie: Is abbreviation of this term permissible?) (Holy freaking parenthesis, Batman!)

This discomfort about the idea of facing my past stems largely from the idea of facing a certain PERSON from my past, a person I have not laid eyes on since the day I finally, officially broke up with him after almost a year of drama. I began dating Jim THE FOLLOWING DAY. And then got engaged SIX WEEKS later. It's not Mayberry, but this is not a BIG town, either, and I have no doubt that word got back to him about all this. Also, the nature of the breakup, while somewhat mutual, was not just a "this isn't working" kind of thing. More of an "I can't take your family's craziness nor your spinelessness one more second" kind of thing, a point which he reluctantly conceded. But a point which I remained bitter about for a long time, and which I explained, with some venom, to anyone who questioned me about the breakup. To be frank, I talked shit, you guys. I was Very Angry. See also, Wounded Pride.

Now, having some distance from the situation, I REALLY wish I had remained silent about the particulars of our breakup. I am sure I only succeeded in hurting him further, and in solidifying in his parents' minds that I was indeed who they thought I was. So much of what happened wasn't his fault, and, while I couldn't see it then, was even (wince) MY fault. So much of it was just immaturity.

I never see him, though I did run into his parents once (while wearing sweatpants and a ponytail, naturally.) He apparently moved to Florida and now works for DISNEY WORLD, for cripes' sake. So, there's a good chance he won't be there at all. (PLEASE GOD.) But his family still lives in town, and the reunion will be around the Fourth of July, so it's possible he'll decide to make a trip of it for the holiday and attend the reunion...

I just have no idea what I would say to him. Where to even begin. "So, um, sorry about being able to get over you so quickly. And telling everyone how awful you and your family were. And sorry for being married and happy and all, even though I imagine you were expecting that my marriage was a shotgun wedding destined to fail in six months. And speaking of which, have you met my dear husband, Jim?"

But you guys... Am I blowing this way out of proportion due to guilt/embarrassment? Is it possible he's totally moved on and holds no bitterness towards me? Or is this going to be one Truly Awkward social situation for everyone involved?

Is it possible a really cute haircut and outfit will carry me through with some dignity intact?

Breaking News!

Well, our house officially went off the market on Friday. And as of Saturday morning, it became an official disaster zone. Jim wasted no time implementing our "fix it up to our liking if we're not going to sell it" plan by tearing down the painted paneling and ceiling tiles in our den, which used to be a sun room and was converted very cheaply into a family room without the use of any actual drywall. Originally the plan was just to hang drywall, but he then, at my request, also knocked out the wall separating the den and the kitchen, so that they are now one big living space- you just step down into the den, but there's no actual doorway. Eventually, when we continue our fixing up, we will convert the den into a dining room area and add on an extra bedroom and bath, with a basement family room to be dug underneath. This will probably not happen SOON, but that is the Long Term Plan. In the meantime, the "new," drywalled, more open den area will be some sort of office/playroom/eating area combo, depending on what actually works and looks okay once the mess gets cleaned up and we see what we have to work with.

I'm sure this would all be a lot easier to visualize if I could post pictures of the destruction to illustrate my explanations, but I misplaced the cord to download pictures from my camera somewhere in all this jumble of stuff. I HAVE pictures, though, pictures of my kitchen completely covered in dust, all the counters piled with crap moved out of the den. There are pictures of walls and ceilings covered only in exposed insulation and decorated in dangling electric cords, pictures of my wonderfully open living space where once there was a stupid wall and a narrow, cave-like doorway. There is dust all over everything and extra furniture and toys stashed in every room of the house (example: FOUR sofas are wedged into our front living room, along with a rocking chair, the play yard, a coffee table, two end tables, a curio cabinet, a bookcase, a secretary desk, and an entertainment center. Now, it's fairly large as living rooms go, but TWELVE pieces of furniture is pushing it.)

I am very excited about the change, excited about choosing a paint color to match the blue of the kitchen and about rearranging the furniture and possibly choosing a new computer desk (I pretty much destroyed the one we're currently using; all the casters are broken off, and it falls apart when moved if you don't hold it JUST SO.) I am less thrilled about the chaos of the house, and the likelihood of it remaining chaotic for another week or so at least. But on the other hand, it's a wonderful excuse not to do any real cleaning- why bother, when everything immediately gets re-covered in dust the next day? Sure, everything will need deep cleaned when this is all over, but for now, my duties consist largely of maneuvering around piles of junk and keeping the kids out of the construction zone.

So, if I'm quiet for the next week or so, you'll understand, right? Busy sneezing every five minutes and keeping the kids from stepping on nails.

And also, because she doesn't have a blog of her own in which to announce it, I have to tell you all that my wonderful friend Jess (you know her from the comments section and also from pictures of her son, Gabriel, who was born the day before Eli) is PREGNANT! About two months along now, and feeling pretty sick, but very excited. And so am I. A new little baby to hold, a pregnancy to obsess over, and I don't have to do any of the actual vomiting or gaining weight or pushing out of heads! This is PURE FUN for me! I love you, Jess! Congratulations!

More Fun With Pee Sticks!

So you know what's super fun about ovulation prediction tests? (Besides explaining them to cashiers, obviously.) Leaving the stick, which looks truly identical to a pregnancy test, lying around on the counter to shock people with its TWO pink lines.

Har har. I am twelve, and also kind of mean, but I don't care. Let the good times roll.

Apparently, I Am A Sex Ed Teacher

So today, I'm checking out at my friendly neighborhood Rite Aid, buying diapers, chocolate ice cream, chocolate Cask and Cream liqueur, and (gasp!) an ovulation predictor kit. The saleswoman, whom I would guess to be early sixties, gave my pile the once over and then, smirking conspiratorially at the liqueur, asked, "So are we celebrating with THAT if the results are positive?"

Ahem. And I was all, "No, dipshit, this is NOT a pregnancy test, it is an ovulation kit. Which for all you know I could be using to AVOID pregnancy. If it WERE a pregnancy test, I would hardly be celebrating a positive with alcohol. EITHER WAY, why are you commenting on my purchases?"

No, I jest. I just blushed and stammered, "Um, it's not a pregnancy test, it's an ovulation predictor?" This was met with furrowed brows. I continued on, to borrow a phrase from Jack Burns, like an unstoppable rebel force. "So that I can, um, know when... Well, when that could happen? Getting... Pregnant, I mean. And it can help you either GET pregnant or, you know, NOT get... Pregnant." She stared at me as though I were trying to pull a fast one on her, then nodded skeptically. "Ok, hon."

Gahhh. Maybe I should just go back on the Pill. At least that doesn't require awkward mini-seminars given to random strangers.

Wanted: Two Cents

Specifically, yours. Here's the dealio: our car is blowing gaskets and whatnot left and right, and now has a broken window and missing stereo TO BOOT. So we're thinking... Maybe now's a good time to spring for a new mode of transportation, since once we hit child number three we're going to need a more spacious vehicle anyways. So if you are currently driving a minivan, an SUV, or some other form of seven-passenger vehicle, what do you think of it? Are you in love with it and want to marry it, do you hate it with the fire of a thousand suns, or are you somewhere in between? Be sure to give SPECIFICS, here- make and model, obviously, year of the vehicle, and what exactly about it has won you over or turned you off.

AND ALSO: Has anyone ever had experience with having AC installed in their (old) home for the first time? We're talking, having the ductwork run and everything, not just buying a unit and hooking it up.

Friday the Thirteenth- IT'S NO JOKE!

A series of unfortunate events, in chronological order, without much commentary from myself lest my head EXPLODE WITH RAGE.


-As of two days ago, BOTH of our vehicles are in separate garages being worked on for what may or may not be expensive problems. One of said vehicles was just repaired for an unrelated problem about three weeks ago. Goodyear is considering putting in a changing table and a toy corner just for me, I think.

-Regarding above item, one of the cars was parked overnight at Jim's office awaiting a tow truck to take it to a town about a half hour from here because, according to Goodyear, where the car was taken initially, "it's not a good idea to have anyone but an authorized Ford dealer work on Fords." Well, apparently leaving your car sit in a parking lot downtown for several consecutive nights isn't a good idea either, because this morning we got a call that our windows were smashed in and our stereo is gone.

-The house we wanted was officially closed on today. By people named NOT US.

-It rained this morning, and we abruptly lost power right in the middle of Eli's nap and Adelay's morning movie-while-Mommy-cleans time. Now, I was >mildly put out that I had to stop mid-vacuum, but Adelay was positively BESIDE HERSELF that her Princess and The Pauper DVD had disappeared from the screen. She raged and tantrumed and sobbed hot salty tears into the carpet for about ten minutes to make sure I was absolutely clear on her feelings regarding the situation.

When I finally explained that the TV was "broken" (what, any port in a storm, that's what I say, even if that port is called lying) she moved on to pitching a fit about the semi-darkness of the living room. "No lights off! I no like it!" she wept, flinging herself into various corners of the sofa and shrugging me violently off anytime I attempted to console her. Finally I just kind of backed off, mentioning, "Sweetie, I'm kind of done talking about the lights. They're broken too, and I'm sorry, but it's not my fault. We just have to wait." Meanwhile, the AC was off too, of course, and the room was turning into a sauna as the steamy air of the storm seeped in. It was dark and hot, and the dog was panting his wet, garbage-breath terror, and Addy was wiping snot trails on the back of her arm and... Well, I can think of more fun ways and more fun company in which to spend a power outage.

-The dog, once the storm was finally over, had to pee like a racehorse, so I let him out, and no sooner had I opened the door than he raced across the lawn and disappeared. Apparently he comforted himself during the storm by plotting his escape.

-Lunch left both the kids a little too gross for just a wet washcloth, so I popped Eli into the bath and talked to Addy while he played. Suddenly a horrified look crossed her face, and I glanced over to see that my freshly washed baby had just had some sort of BOWEL EXPLOSION in the bath water, and was now SPLASHING MERRILY in it. I have made it almost three years into parenthood without once encountering this level of feces-to-water ratio, and I don't even want to say anything more about that whole situation except this: If asked, I would have guessed that I am sort of person who would deal with a bath time poop by saying, "Oh well, the tub needed a good scrubbing anyways." Turns out... NOT SO MUCH.

-The dog finally reappeared, after hiding out in the mud under the deck during the second storm of the day. My hands were actually shaking with rage as I scrubbed him down in the garage. SHAKING, I tell you.

-My computer has been a spaz all day, and while attempting to work on an online newsletter I do on a (semi) regular basis for my family's restaurant, it kept refusing to publish and randomly shutting down the Internet. I now have two hand me down computers which both possess the delightful personality quirk of RANDOMLY ABORTING PROJECTS and refusing to just DO AS TOLD.

Ta-DA!

All right, you holdouts, since the sentimental post isn't exactly raking the comments in, I'll throw you a bone.

[Edit: If you click to enlarge the pictures, as one of my commenters pointed out, you are much better able to see the GLEAM of glitter on my cheeks. Also, the detailing of the bridesmaids' dresses.]


Ah, four years and about forty (combined) pounds ago...




The blushing bride. I am frustrated at how these pictures fail to FULLY CAPTURE the amount of glitter that was on my face and shoulders. I guess I will have to trust that you can imagine it. Also, apparently I was not AS blond as I am remembering. I had a lot of blond highlights at that point, grown out and rehighlighted so often that the bottom half of my hair was pretty much all blond, but I think the updo somewhat conceals the effect. Again- you'll have to take my word for it.




My pretty pretty bridesmaids' dresses. You maybe can't see it in the picture, but the bodices are corset style and had lots of beading and detailing. LOVE! (Um, I love the bridesmaids, too. OBVIOUSLY.) Back row, l to r: sisters Laura and Rachel, and friend Linzi. Front row, l to r: my friends, sisters Kelly and Renee.



The redhaired flower girl, as mentioned previously, is Jim's niece. The blond flower girl was my cousin's daughter. And the boys were... A bunch of guys in identical suits, blah blah blah, no pretty hair or dresses, blah blah blah.

The end.