Blissfully Bitchy

Don't Discredit Me, "Reverend."

2010-06-22T14:00:00.003-04:00

Because we can't go one entire season in Detroit without two or more bizarre happenings on the political front, last Friday we were treated to the news that subliterate school board president Otis Mathis resigned after being accused of touching his penis -- and touching it, um, affectionately -- during meetings with the district's superindendent. Who reports to him. The final straw was him whacking it during a meeting discussing her employment contract.

Sounds like a massive sexual harrassment lawsuit waiting to happen, no? Especially since she says she informed other people about his behavior and documented each incident, to no avail.

Mathis' conduct is despicable and gross and creepy, of course. But what truly has me infuriated is the following, from board member "Reverend" David Murray. Who changed his first name to Reverend so idiotic Detroit voters would vote for him, and who also has had foster children removed from his home for various reasons (and, for that matter, who shares a name with the husband of a friend of mine, who's about the polar opposite of this jackhole).

Murray's been quoted locally, and of course right now I cannot find it, as saying that such behavior is something "some women" might find offensive and that "maybe he thought she liked it."

Rage. Raaaaagggggeee.

Here's the deal: I've been sexually harrassed, both in the workplace and elsewhere ('cause guess what, guys? Catcalling a woman as she walks down the street is HARASSMENT, no matter how funny you think it is). Ask any woman who's old enough to have been in the workforce for any length of time, and she'll tell you the same, I'm sure of it.

Even acts that don't rise to an actionable level are just fucking irritating because men NEVER EVER EVER have to put up with this shit just to earn a paycheck. Or, you know, go outside. We've all experienced this: Men who have entire conversations with just our chest. Men who feel the need to comment on our appearance in any way, positive or negative, because that reduces us to JUST appearance, not a person.

And when we have the temerity to stand up to it, to inform the Dick in question that their behavior is unacceptable, they do just what Murray did. Discredit us. Imply that we somehow encouraged the behavior. Suggest that maybe we liked it, and if we don't we're just too sensitive. "Hey, it was just a joke." "God, lighten up, bitch." "She has at fatal attraction crush on me and that's why she makes up lies" (Murray suggested that, too, about the superintendent, that maybe she had a little thing for Mathis).

I'm not talking about joking around here, or complimenting a friend or coworker. I've worked in newsrooms, for fuck's sake, and the easily offended and the embracers of victimhood do NOT do well there. I can unblushingly discuss my sex life and breast size with certain male friends.

But the difference between joking among people who know and like each other and creepy, uncomfortable sexual harrassment is this: The guys I joke with are seeing ME first, a woman with likes and dislikes and a whole personhood that has nothing to do with my status as a female. They're as likely to give me a hard time about my political affliations or my taste in music as they are the length of my skirt or height of my neckline -- and respect my feelings and apologize if I tell them they've crossed a line. Creepy sexual harrassers see Woman first, and it might be added "Inferior." Because to reduce us to just a place on your do-or-not-do list is fundamentally insulting. And to discredit our standing up for ourselves is just simply outrageous.

On a side note: Many people have questioned why the superindendent continued the meeting after becoming aware of Mathis's actions. Her letter informing the board of his behavior recounts her trying to block him from her line of sight.

I can tell you why, having been given The Full Mathis by not one but two random flashers back in college (yes, it's okay, you can laugh). First, there's sheer horror, just the desperate desire to have this Not Be Happening. Secondly, it's the "don't reward bad behavior" approach -- a big reaction just rewards and reinforces the behavior, and trust me, this is not a situatin you want to escalate. Also, I'm sure she was just hoping if she made it obvious she was on to him, without having to actually look at it, oops, him, he'd stop.

Finally, let's not gloss over the fact that the superintendent reports to the board, and so Mathis, as the president of the board, is her boss. That's a pretty intimidating situation, to say the least.

40

2010-06-08T11:44:00.002-04:00

Fuuuuu--(thinks better of it)--dge.

So I turned 40 this weekend, and overall, it's not too bad. Reaching the day itself was sort of like pulling off a band-aid--I'd had all this angst about it and once it hit, it felt no different than being 39...or 38, for that matter. I may have been somewhat numbed by the aftereffects of staying up very late the night before with some of my favorite people in a typically deep and interesting conversation which wrapped up a fun birthday party, but overall I think I've pretty much found my Zen -- or at least the path there.

One thing that helped ease my mind a bit was, of all things, a silly parody of "Single Ladies" a friend of mine posted on Facebook. It was as you'd expect, but had a couple of lines that hit me pretty hard. Specifically, one that talked about these lines on her face meaning she's lived her years, and also "You can't change it so you'd better make your peace with it."

And damn, that's harder than you'd think. In my darker moments, I want my 25-year-old body and face --but I wouldn;t want to actually be 25 again. I'll keep my 40-year-old maturity, perspective and experience, and with knowledge that the stuff that kept me up at night then would mostly all turn out just fine (and be replaced with a whole new set of worries).

I'm not thrilled with the physical aspects of getting older, I'll admit. This surprises me, because I've never really had the looks to run with the pretty girls (despite having some really good-looking friends), so being out of that race completely bothers me more than I like to admit. I acknowledge it's all patriarchal society bullshit, but still. I've always been more of a brains over beauty kind of a person, and my brain still works (more or less, and that which doesn't has more to do with being a parent than being 40). I'd just like it to function well in a body less worked over by 40 years on this planet, the last six of which included gestating, birthing and nursing two babies.

I've been exercising at the Y pretty frequently for the last year or so, which has helped me reconcile with my 40-year-old body in more ways than one. Not only am I stronger, tougher and more flexible than I was five years ago, but I have had a glimpse into the future. See, I shower there most days, and am frequently hitting the locker room as the older women who swim or do water aerobics are getting ready or drying off after class. And you know what? They show no shame, no angst, no self-consciousness at all about their bodies. There are wrinkles, there are sags and bulges and cellulite, there are scars -- and yet there they are, in all their glory, casually gossiping with their friends while wearing only a towel and sometimes less. They just don't care.

I don't know if it's because they're active and thus feel good about themselves, or if it's being so far outside of what society considers attractive that they aren't bothered by it anymore, or that they just have enough perspective on life to not give a rat's ass what anyone else thinks (although I'd vote for the latter). They may not be what the world considers beautiful, but they are magnificent. And I hope it doesn't take me until my next big birthday to be just like them.

Well hello again

2010-02-18T21:56:00.002-05:00

yeah yeah. Facebook, work, not much to say.

So I've come back, and I think today is an opportune time. See, my darling boy is going to be two tomorrow, and so it just feels right.

He's as cute as can be right now. Paul and I say frequently that he is made of chocolate, because he's just delicious. He talks a ton more than Maggie did at this age, and has to say! Everything! at the top of his lungs! for no apparent reason. He's obsessed with trains, dinosaurs, and trucks. He loves to announce to us what he's doing (I running!! I spinning!! I dancing!!). He does this goofy little grin that he's figured out is kryptonite to his mother, so he unleashes it on me all the time. And his favorite game of late is to give me big wet kisses with a mwwwaaahhh sound, over and over.

The thing that really melts me, though, is that after ignoring him for the first year of his life, Maggie and her brother have become best friends. He adores her and always has, but now that affection is returned. Lots of kisses and hugs and games.

Of course, there's a lot of Two. He refuses to eat pretty much anything except pasta and cheese, we've dubbed him NoCan the Contrarian (after a Word Girl character) because everything is No No No, and he has these enormous tantrums that are almost funny in their drama.

So overall, things are good. My little girl is a kindergartener and doing even better than I hoped, we have somehow acquired a kitten, we have some tough decisions to make about our house, and I sense some big job changes coming up. All of these are things I'd like to write about. So hello, again.

How Things Have Changed

2009-04-09T21:51:00.002-04:00

Last year, Maggie got, in her Easter basket, chocolate and Matchbox cars.

This year? Chocolate, a little purse with yellow flowers on it that matches her Easter dress, and a some piece of plastic collectible crap.

The four year old gender identification thing has begun, and it's really funny. The girl is a tomboy and has been since day one -- she loves to be on the move, run, tussle, and generally be active. Sitting still is not her thing, to say the least. But suddenly the pink, the sparkly, the flowery and the girly have become irresistible. She wants to grow out her chin-length hair and loves "jewels" aka anything applied to any other thing.

This also comes with a bit of a bonus for me. She loovvvveesss me right now. As she tells her daddy at night "Only persons with long brown hair can lay down next to me." My hair's not that long (nor is it all that brown any more, which is a sob-choked subject for another post). Frequently she talks about how we are on the Girl Team and Will and Daddy are on the Boy Team.

And I admit, I eat this shit up. She's been a bit of a daddy's girl for a long time, and now having my delightful little daughter decide I am her best friend ever makes me really happy. Plus, well, if the preschool years are previews of the teens, things are going to be jusssttt a bit stormy around here. My own teenage relationship with my mother is the stuff of family legend -- slammed doors, screaming matches and general fury marked the years. Maggie makes me look chill, temper-wise, and is about the most stubborn and rebellious little person already. So I am trying to enjoy this closeness while I can.

I like to think, and hope, I am a better mother than my own. I've spent a lot more time acknowledging my own weaknesses and working on them. Reading "Raising Your Spirited Child" was so soothing to me, more because of my own childhood than Maggie's. I realized that I wasn't some sort of horrible bad out of step child, I was just me, made this way. I understand that a little better with Maggie than was understood with me, and so I have a slightly better ability to give her what she needs because I understand it. Do I always do it perfectly? No, nowehere near it (witness the pitched battle today over getting her to put her shoes on and help me go get Paul from work, featuring screaming (her), swearing (me), and in a truly superior Parenting Moment, threats to return the Easter presents I got her. Please send my mother of the year award c/o Blogger).

But mostly? It's awesom being on the Girl Team around here. And I hope, even through hormonal upheavals and adolescent turmoil, on some level we always will be Girl Team.

A Parenting Moment

2009-03-27T15:49:00.002-04:00

Parenthood is about the only type of relationship I can imagine where you not only wipe someone else's nose, but think "Oh boy. I do not like the look of that mucus."

(I think Will's gearing up for his seventh or eighth ear infection in his short life. And Paul will be gone tonight. Send prayers and Shiraz, please).

Boys Vs. Girls

2009-03-05T14:49:00.002-05:00

I've never really dealt that much in gender stereotypes, especially when it comes to my kids. I want Maggie to be Maggie and Will to be Will, and am trying really hard to not make my kids relieve or fix my own childhood (and I'll let you know as soon as I figure that out to my satisfaction).

But it's funny to see the kind of things I hoped to avoid play themselves out right in front of my eyes.

for example, Maggie was always been more of a tomboy and less of a girlie girl, which I am actually very proud of. When I pick her up from school, most of the time she's barrelling around the playground with the boys or scaling one of the climbers while all the other little girls are clustered in one corner, playing some cooperative, imaginative, well-regulated game.

But. As she's gotten older, the influence of the older girls is starting to meld with the normal gender-identification stuff they start doing at this age, and suddenly there is LOTS of pink in my house. Maggie insists that her favorite colors are pink and purple, she is super attached to me because we are both on the "girl team," and yes, those evil princesses have made their debut in my house.

I hold the line on that one -- no clothing with their images on it, and very little of the avalanche of plastic crap that lines Target. However, one cannot attend a birthday party without the goody bag being filled with princessy trinkets, and I have caved on things like a book at a mom-to-mom sale for 25 cents.

Of course, she also has dinosaur PJs clearly meant for boys (why aren't dinosaurs gender-neutral? Annoying), loves her baseball mitt, and has, um, hitting issues at school.

Will, however, is such a boy. And I hate saying that, because why wouldn't girls like to bang every single toy they touch on the floor, or play with cars, or climb like little monkeys? And as a matter of fact Maggie did some of that -- her Easter basket had Matchbox cars in it last year, for example. But she hasn't done any of those things with the single minded determination with which Will does it.

Of course, he's also obsessed with her light-up wand she plays with in the tub, loves anything sparkly and likes her My Little Pony.

I know their personalities will grow and change as they do, and that their likes and dislikes will be informed by a million things in addition to gender. But it's funny to see these very gendered behaviors from both of them right now, and equally funny to see the ways in which they deviate.

Morning After President's Day

2009-02-17T11:15:00.003-05:00

2008:

I wake up, shift in bed, trying to get a little more rest before what will be a momentous day. The baby starts to move and kick and squirm. I try to burn this feeling into my brain, knowing this will be one of my last pregnant monents probably ever, and whisper, "Will, today we're going to get to see each other for the first time. I finally get to see your face, and you get to see the person whose voice you've been hearing all these months."

2009:

I am awake, but wish I wasn't, and shift in bed, trying to get a little more rest. The baby starts to move and kick and squirm. I open my eyes, look at the bed next to me, and see this:

You're almost one, little man, and I can't believe there was a time you weren't here.

Weaning.

2009-02-04T21:11:00.003-05:00

Damn it.

I was really, really hoping I'd make it to a full year. I even entertained the idea of nursing a little beyond that, if Will wanted. We had a rough start -- he wouldn't latch, and when he did it HURT. But we got that ironed out, and so I have been spending quite a bit of time over the last year with my baby snuggled up against me, pulling at my breast and reaching his hand up to brush at my hair.

But sometime in the last few weeks he started fussing when I'd feed him, often taking only a few pulls and arching away angrily. His crumpled, angry face would break my heart, especially once he started to let loose these furious yells.

It's partially my fault, and probably part nature's too. Paul and I had a night without the kids a few weeks ago, and I didn't pump while he was gone. I'd nursed the evening before, when we dropped the kids off at my parents' house, and then for whatever reason didn't pump the next day until I saw him sometime after noon. The problems with supply started then, but they'd seemed to resolve themselves -- now, though, it's clear the girls are no longer up to the job.

What I'd really wanted this time, though, is to know, and mark, the last time I nursed him, nursed my last baby for the last time. I had to wean Maggie very abruptly, and I wanted to be able to say goodbye to it a little more consciously this time.

I had started to attempt to focus on the experience a little more in the last month, knowing that sooner rather than later, our nursing time would end. But it cropped up suddenly -- some days he'd nurse, some days he wouldn't, until finally this week it's been none. Yesterday was the first time the only breastmilk I dispensed was expressed into a pump, not an eager little pink mouth.

I should be pumping now. I probably won't, will let nature take its course and end things only a few weeks earlier than I had planned. Like last time, I know my supply has been dropping because it doesn't hurt to have not nursed, and yesterday, when I pumped, I got a measly little three ounces.

I hate that this part of motherhood is over, which is odd because I am really not a fan of nursing, but both times stopping it has made me really sad and this time moreso, since there's not even the thought of another little baby coming down the pike. I feel like it was so key to my relationship with Will. Anybody else could love him, play with him and cuddle him like I do, but nobody else could nurse him.

And damn, did that baby love to nurse. When he was a newborn, he'd make this funny little "unnnhh unnhhh unnnhhh" sound when I nursed him, like this was just the happiest he could ever be. More recently, he'd wrap up a feeding, pop off, and lean back, grinning at me. He's always been a quick nurser, so much so I was afraid he wasn't getting enough. But his fat little thighs and chubby cheeks and cankles and wrist rolls quickly put that to rest, and filled me with pride that I'd grown this chubby little guy. He picked up the drill quickly, too -- when he was a newborn he'd do the "pecking" thing where he'd start to sort of headbutt my shoulder. Maggie did the same thing, but Will added the twist of flinging himself bodily sideways and attempting to latch on to whatever was available.

When he was a little older, he'd get excited when he'd see we were headed for the den, where I usually nursed him. And he would just stare at my boobs and drool, an unattractively frat boy habit in an older male but awfully funny in a baby. I would tell him, "Will, if your mother teaches you nothing else: EYES UP HERE."

As a second kid, he's gotten very little one on one time, so it's been so nice for both of us to have that break in the day. I feel like our relationship is changing now, growing a little more distant, as it must. It goes from him beiung snuggled inside my body to being outside but nourished by it to trying his own nourishment to his own life, slowly of course, but all too fast.

I'm planning a spicy-Indian-food and martini fest for this weekend to celebrate the end of nursing, but I am still sad. As many firsts as there will be for Will, because I am not planning another baby, there will also be lots of lasts. My last birth, my last newborn, my last bleary eyed new mother haze. And sometime in the early morning hours of Sunday, my last nursing session.

Oh, Detroit....

2009-01-28T10:13:00.002-05:00

MORE corruption investigations.

I read this today and was just holding my head and saying "This is UNBELIEVABLE." But it is, of course, all too believable.

I always knew John Conyers was out of it, but you've got seriously question his judgement when he is married to that crazy ghetto screecher. Not to mention that he and Carolyn Cheeks Kwame-Mommy Kilaptrick are our representaion in Washington. For years, the lone Republican vote I cast is whoever is running against Conyers, just to make a point, but the power of incumbency is real.

I just feel so beaten down. People (OK, mostly suburbanites) talk about the city not wanting good leadership, but what about the majority of us that do, but find ourselves powerless against the entrenched political culture here? Let me tell you, the current city council are hardly the best nine people for the job, nor were they the nine best candidates. What they are is politically connnected and/or related to the people who are. I know tons of people who might even consider a run for city council but when you know, unequivocally, it's goign to be a huge waste of time and money and that Council seems to be an employment program for those otherwise totally unemployable, what are you going to do?

That said, the Cockrels have impressed me, as has, so far, Kwame Kenyatta of all people. But I am hoping aginst hope AND experience that somewhere in the mess of people who will be running this fall, there's a good, smart, professional core of people who are fed up with what's wrong with this crazy city and are ready to bring real leadership back. Anyone have any suggestions? Because I am ready to bring it for someone who simply doesn't make me embarassed to live here anymore.

It's not a high bar, folks.

Anybody out there got some good candiates for me to get behind?

Courtesy of Poison Control

2009-01-23T11:07:00.002-05:00

An interesting fact: when your baby somehow gets ahold of one of the watercolor disks from his sister's paint set, and chews it, sending rivulets of purple drool all over his face, clothing, and hands, it is not toxic.

It will, however, cause purple poop.

Today

2009-01-20T09:56:00.002-05:00

I think today is as good a day as any to come back.

Like most people, I am feeling a great sense of hope and awe today. A country that just 50 years ago didn't extend full citizenship rights to African Americans will, in just a few hours, inaugurate a black man as president. And the man himself is a remarkable American story. Born to student parents, soon abandoned by his father, raised all over, yet able to leverage his intelligence and discipline to ascend to the highest office in the land. Whatever your politics, that's got to make you feel good about the promise that exists in this country. We need, desperately, to be reminded right now that anything is possible here, and I think that's why this is striking such a chord with so many people.

Also? I have a giant girlcrush on Michelle Obama. Is she ever cool. I think this is the first First Lady I have really liked.

More things: My girl is hilarious. She's definitely developing big-kid attitude, but she's also getting more mature and sweeter and more of a remarkable grown-up type person every day. She informed me yesterday that watching the inaguration with me will be "exasperating." When I asked her what that would mean, she said "That means AWFUL and BORING."

I don't think I need to worry about her speaking her mind.

And Will is just the most delicious baby, but becoming more toddlerlike every day. His fat little legs are getting longer and adding a little more muscle and a little less chub, and he's really responsive and cute. And an enormous flirt -- he loves women and smiles at them everywhere we go. So far, women, especially blondes, and older people get beaming Will smiles -- everybody else gets serious-baby face.

Thanks for coming back, if you do. I promise not to be gone so long again.

Strange Days Indeed

2008-11-12T11:06:00.003-05:00

The funeral tour is over, thank God, knock wood. We went up to Saginaw Friday to be with Paul's family, which was brutal. His mother and father had been married for 56 years. Paul's dad has Alzheimer's, as well, and in some ways is like a little child. He was very dependent on Irene and deeply devoted to her, and is understandably devastated by her loss.

Since my family was in for my grandmother's funeral, we asked them to take Maggie so she could be with her beloved cousins, and we all reconvened at home that night. Then it was up early the next morning to go to my grandmother's funeral. It was at the church she was born near, bapitzed in, met her husband on the front steps of, married in, and the place she bapitzed all three of her sons. It's a beautiful place in a nierghborhood that's gone from Polish to Mexican over the years. Unlike many Detroit churches which refuse to relfect the change in their neighborhoods, they've included the newcomers in their ministry and the church bulletin is an almost comical mix of consonant-heavy Polish names and toungue-rolling Mexican ones. The pastor is Polish, the associate is Mexican.

It was sad -- it was the first time I cried for her, really -- but beautiful, a warm, loving reflection of the woman she was. We should all have such a funeral. I did one of the readings, from Romans, and did a fairly nice job given the fact it was shoved into my hands five minutes before the service began.

My father did a speech at the end of Mass, and it was lovely -- affectionate and funny, with many of the details we'll remember about her. She was a hard worker, driven, energetic (she used to complain to me, at age 90, that she had "no zip" and just didn't know what was wrong with her), funny, and quite a people person. My dad mentioned that she loved to sing despite having the worst singing voice in history, and that her boys could do no wrong. They would come for dinner and she would wait on them, and they could make her laugh like no one else.

After the Mass and the gravesite ceremony, there was a lunch (and open bar) at a banquet hall which was very well attended, something she would have loved. Then we all went back to my uncle and aunt's house, went through her jewelry (all costume, but she loved jewelry and so we all took things that would remind us of her), ate and drank more and told stories.

Finally, it was time to go home, and the next day we headed back to Saginaw for the visitation for Paul's mom. This was, well, a lot different. A lot of that is the differences between the families --Paul's family is stoic, phleghmatic, reserved, and mine is pretty emotional and verbal. And it was also because of the manner of Irene's death, so sudden and shocking.

It was hard for me -- she and I never really saw eye to eye, and we didn't have a good relationship. She was passive-aggressive, dour, and had that "real Americans live in small towns" attitude I find so annoying. Everyone else was crying at the funeral -- I stayed dry-eyed, which made me feel guilty. But I was surprised by how sad I felt. Much as we didn't care for each other, she raised a great son who is a wonderful husband and father, and she never willingly hurt another living soul.

And to end on a funny note: There was a lunch after the funeral, prepared by the ladies of the church in this little tiny town where Carl and Irene lived. I don't want to mock the food, because it's really a kindly and beautiful thing to do for a greiving family. It's the kind of food Paul grew up on and I never, ever cook. Including, poh yes, tater tot casserole. Which was exacly as one would expect such a thing would be.

Please tell me these things don't actually come in threes

2008-11-07T09:36:00.002-05:00

Paul's mom died this morning.

She's been battling cancer, but it was sudden. We're all in shock. Poor Maggie --we've been having to teach her about death a hell of a lot sooner than I ever hoped to. And Will will never know his grandma.

Speaking of whom, he's crying. More later.

Random Day

2008-11-06T14:11:00.002-05:00

* Happy though I was yesterday, I was really in kind of a post election funk. We'd been following this so close for so long and now what? Because fact is Obama is getting handed a great big mess and while obviously I think he's the guy to fix it, it's not going to be easy.

Or maybe that was just a bit of a hangover. Ahem.

* Plus, gay rights. Gah. Come ON , California! I expect better of you than that! Although my designated gay gurus (Shannon on SD, among others) seem to think what really matters is the Supreme Court picks Obama is going to make which should settle the issue once and for all.

* Maggie is actually interested in the election a little bit. She called me a Barack Obama-head the other day. We were talking about the election and I told her he won, and that he's a daddy and has two little girls. Later we were having a snack and the newspaper was on the table, with a picture of the Obamas facing up. I showed Maggie the picture and said "those are the little girls were were talking about. "Mom, I love their dresses," she said. "I would like to meet them."

So of course now that's all I want for the next four years.

* The visitation starts tonight for my grandmother. I'm dreading it -- not only will it be sad but all the crazy family dynamics will come into play. My aunt will be at full tilt Irish grieving drama, my mom will be so tense you could bounce quarters off her, my dad will be sad and I hate seeing my dad sad, and I either have to find a way to keep Maggie away from the casket or explain to her what Gigi is doing in there. And oh yes, my grandmother is dead. If I didn't love my father to the ends of the Earth I SO would be trying to get out of doing this for the next three days.

And maybe it's a Polish thing but I am not getting why two days of visitation. We have "family viewing" tonight for FOUR HOURS, public visitation tomorrow, and the funeral and funeral lunch Saturday. Of course we had longstanding plans with friends tomorrow and Saturday I had to cancel, which made me even more sad because I don't see my friends enough as it is.

All I know is, tonight I am looking forward to a large glass of wine and some serious couch time in my PJs.

YES WE CAN!!!

2008-11-05T00:12:00.002-05:00

And we did.

There is more that unites us than divides us. That is one of my fundamental, truest beliefs. I have more in common with Sarah Palin, who I loathe, than I have differences with her--especially since I share with her the most transformative experience of my life--motherhood. We all, at heart, want the same things.

And this, my friends, this election, proves that. We voted in favor of the best of what America is instead of what is the worst. Hope instead of fear, unity instead of division, belief in a better world.

I'm happy. And more so, I am inspired. Not only by Barack Obama, but honeslty? McCain's concession speech reminded me of why I used to hold such respect for him. He's showed more class than I ever remember from the losing candidate, including those I have voted for. Way to lose with dignity, Senator.

Yes, we can.

"In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope."

--Barack Obama

Calling it

2008-11-04T17:30:00.002-05:00

This may be premature, but based on the lines at my polling place this morning and what I have heard from other people, I'm calling Michigan for Obama.

Whee.

Now to nervously await the rest of the country....

Not so funny today

2008-11-03T18:32:00.002-05:00

I had this whole funny tidbits type post planned out, and kind of a reflective one on how Halloween is really making me aware of how fast time flies --it seems amazing how just last year I was scuffing through the leaves in my new maternity jeans, watching Maggie trick or treat for the first time and it seems like yesterday. How Will seems deeply unimpressed with Halloween so far.

But then my grandma died yesterday. It's not all sad -- she was nearly 96 years old, would have turned 96 at the end of the month, and lived long enough to see her children and grandchildren grow up and get established in the world. And she's been really ready to go for the last few years -- she would be telling me some story about how she wasn't feeling good or something she forgot and say to me "Amy, I don't know why God is keeping me here."

She could be a difficult lady -- she held grudges, worshipped the boys at the expense of the girls, and hated having to depend on others as she aged. Still, she loved us, loved her sons and grandkids deeply.

She told great stories, too. Her family owned a bar -- a fact she was embarassed about. When I was a kid she told me it was a store. But she told us about being 14 years old and her mother sending her out to drive down to the river front and get booze from the Purple Gang.

She'll be missed, a lot. She taught me about faith and style and staying engaged and mentally and physically active (she watched, God help us, Fox News and CNN religiously until a few years ago when her eyes got too bad to see much anymore). She spoke Polish and taught me a few things, and I was honored by being the only grandchild to learn her fabulous pierogi recipe.

She died on All Soul's Day -- when Catholics honor the dead. And ironically I was thinking of her during Mass -- probably right about the time she was dying -- during a prayer about the dying finding comfort in God inviting them home.

It helped in telling Maggie as well. She went to what she's dubbed "kid church"-- the children's Liturgy of The Word -- and returned with a scribbled-in picture of an angel with the name "Bear" written on it. I asked her why and she told me it was because they'd talked about lost toys -- and the toys were in heaven (mind you, Bear was at that very moment in her bed, but he's been lost, once, for a few hours). So when I'd gotten the news and Paul and I sat her down to tell her, we had a framework to discuss it.

I'll be doing a prayer or a reading at the funeral; and the family is rolling in starting Wednesday. Polish wakes are second only to Irish wakes in the drinking and the storytelling, and my father and his brothers together are never not funny. I'm actually, in a sad way, looking forward to it. And I think Grandma would think that's OK -- she loved being in the midst of her boys, letting them razz her about some of their growing-up stories, and listening to her grandkids laugh.

I wish I had some profound way to wind this up, so I'll just end. I'm sure there will be tales to tell as the week unfolds.

Sweet Fancy Moses

2008-10-21T10:44:00.002-04:00

It's been quite a while since I posted. Lack of anything to say, baby who's refusing to nap, wayyyyy too much work, and oh yes, did I mention that my sweet boy is perfect in every way except he just. won't. nap?

That being said, he's been sleeping for like an hour right now. We're sleep training. Kindly don't share what a horrible mother that makes me.

I'm just really upset abut the election, among other things. Until Palin was nominated, I could honestly say that while I really, really want Obama to win, I wouldn't be horrifed if McCain did, becauase I thought he was a man of honor and would not be bad for the country. Enter Caribou Barbie. She's unqualified, not bright, and I have serious issues with much of what does come out of her mouth. Like that big-city, liberal-leaning people are somehow not American, not "real" Americans anyway. So, um, do I get to stop paying my taxes now?

And the hate mongering at the rallies has been just awful. It turns my stomach to think that in 2008, we're still here, with race-baiting and nastiness. When screaming "Terrorist" and "Kill him" at rallies is okay, when John McCain tells Barack Obama during their last debate that he's proud of the people coming to their rallies, these people calling for his head. How is this even acceptable? These people even booed McCain himself when he tried to show some class and tell them to simmer down. It scares me that America still harbors these kind of people, who are so distrustful of someone who looks different and has a strange name that they'd rather see him killed than president.

I care about and love many Republicans -- my dad, sister in law, and two best friends from college just for starters. None of these people are evil, scary racists, nor are they stupid enough to believe Obama is some kind of terrorist. I don't know how they can justify this kind of stuff happening in their name (if you're reading, feel free to weigh in, guys).

I'm just really, really eager for it to be Novmber 5th and this all to be over.

6 Months

2008-09-05T10:41:00.005-04:00

My darling Will:

You've lived your first half year on this planet. And what a remarkable baby you are. Sweet, good natured, pleasant, laid-back -- when you were a newborn, your Papa described you as "easy to get along with."And you are. You fuss when you're hungry, when you hurt from your teeth (those awful teeth which are causing your great discomfort but refuse to just break through already) or a stomachache, or when you're tired and don't get why we won't just lay you in your crib.

Other than that, you're just chill. You don't like to be alone, and will protest vigorously if I put you in, say, the exersaucer and move out of sight. But as long as you know where I am, you're perfectly happy to amuse yourself, rolling around or playing with toys or eating your feet.

One thing you've been doing since you were a newborn that just melts my heart is to stop crying and relax almost the minute your Daddy or I pick you up. I can't put into words how that makes me feel, to know I am your comfort and that just being held by me makes you
relax and feel like all will probably be right with your world, eventually.

You're also funny. You love to be tickled, especially when I kiss your ginormous pudgy cheeks or Daddy tickles your "Dunlop" (where your big belly "done lops" over the top of your diaper. It's a bad family joke. There are many. I apologize in advance). We dance together, you and I, and you squeal with delight when I spin you around and lift you over my head or swing you back and forth. I'm fairly convinced you're a genius because you now get all excited when I walk over to the CD player and turn it on. And you've just learned to blow raspberries -- and that it makes me laugh -- so you do that a lot.

I tell you you're cute, or gorgeous, or a great baby about nine million times a day, because you really are. You aren't a super smiley guy, but your smiles, when they come, are sweet and genuine and absolutely adorable. You are as chubby and solid and delightful as can be --we have nicknamed you Yokozuna, which is the highest level of sumo wrester, because of your chub. You have great squeezy thighs and multiple chins and pudgy little fingers and rolls of fat at your ankles and wrists. I don't worry, because your sister was the same way at your age and now she is a tall skinny stringbean of a girl -- and actually, you look almost exactly like your daddy at the same age too.

You're interested in the world around you, too. It's wonderful to watch you just look and observe things. We've moved you into the sitting-up part of the stroller, and you loooovvve being able to face forward. I miss being able to see you and chat with you, but you really like greeting the world.

Your eyes are changing --they were dark gray at birth, and now are, surprisingly, changing into the same hazel green as mine. I'm selfishly pleased that one of you will have an obvious genetic marker that you came from me, and glad that if its anything it's the somewhat unusal eye color we share with my dad's side of the family. Your eyes are the same huge and arresting shape as Maggie's, though, with the same long dark lashes. I think our father and I are screwed if the two of you choose to team up and beg for things.

I'm recognizing in you now the same baby I used to tell "settle down in there!" when you were still inside my body. You kick those strong little legs with great enthusiasm and can pull HARD when you reach for things. You're really close to sitting up on your own. And you're so far the kind of kid who thinks things through. I don't see you making a lot of multiple attempts at a skill -- you clearly will be trying to do something, and make lots of little feints trying to work out how it's done, until one day boom you roll over, or sit, or get toys into your mouth. I see signs of the analytical nature of my mom's family in you, although you're also pleasant like my dad's side and placid like your dad's.

Sibling stuff is starting --you LOVE Maggie and grin and hoot the minute she comes into view. She's, um, not too thrilled with you yet. Sometime she likes you and wants to play, sometimes she's not so patient. I'm kind of following the notion of letting you two develop your own relationship without a lot of intervention from me, but I hope you'll eventually like each other.

Essentially, little Will, I can't imagine life without you. You've brought so much joy and fun to this family in your short time here, and I always tell you there was a huge Will-shaped hole in our family we didn't know was there until you came. I was reading over some of my entries when I discovered you were on your way last year, and I can't get over that that was you. And I am so glad it was. We're so blessed to have you, and we love you very very much.

Much love,

Mama

Thank God

2008-09-05T10:32:00.002-04:00

It's over.

I thought I'd be happy. I'm not. I'm sad, sad it came to this, sad such a promising politician destroyed himself --and nearly destroyed his city --because of his own failings.

And I am angry. Angry at Kilpatrick's smirky demeanor in court, angry that he chose to go after the governor instead of just apologize and be done with it, and especially angry that he seems, still, to want to point the finger at everybody else, that he shows no real regret for putting the city through this, that it's someone else's fault.

And especially angry that his last line last night was "Detroit, you have set me up for a comeback."

So help me God if he gets re-elected I am done. We'll abandon our house, turn our backs on the city, and just walk away. We're through. They don't deserve us, or anybody who truly wants to make a difference here.

And that's all.

The good,the bad, and the ugly

2008-08-07T21:06:00.002-04:00

The Good:

Maggie was in swim classes at the Y this week. First of all, nothing is cuter than a happy little three-year-old in her "swimming suit"and her hair in a ponytail and her goggles (she insisted), making friends with her whole class and embracing her pal from preschool that was taking the class with her.

And nothing will break your heart more than standing behind the plate glass window that flanks the pool and watching that three year old scream and sob in full, abject terror once she got in the water and realized how deep it was (almost exactly as deep as she is tall).

After class, she walked through the showers holding her instructor's hand and just stood there, eyes, nose and cheeks beet red from crying, her little shoulders slumped and a look of total defeat on her face. I held my arms out to her and she grabbed onto me for a long time, wailing.

But I am so proud of that little girl of mine. Despite her terror, despite sobbing the whole way home that she didn't like swimming class and she was too scared to go in the pool, despite spending the whole next day intermittently bursting into tears about how scared she was, brave little Maggie went to class the next day, and the next. We'd asked her to give it one more try, thinking she might be OK once the initial strangeness of the pool faded, and told her she didn't have to go again if she didn't want to after the second night.

Well, that night a private lesson didn't show, so the instructor who was there for the lesson took Maggie aside and just drifted with her slowly through the water, talking her through it and coaxing her to try paddling with her feet and then her arms. I was gone, but Paul told me she was absolutely joyous at the end of class.

The next night didn't go well -- I was half laughing, half heartbroken watching her literally crabwalk backwards from the side of the pool when her turn was approaching, so we told her she'd given it a good try like she asked and she didn't have to go tonight, the last night of class, if she didn't want to.

She opted not to go, which was fine with us. Overindulgent? Probably, but she's three. And was petrified.

I'm just so proud of her for trying again. She did something a lot of adults can't do -- fail at something, be terrified of it, and go back to face it again, even though she was scared. Her strong will is driving me crazy right now, but that's the flipside of it, right there -- that little girl is made of tough stuff. And I couldn't be more proud.

Props to the swim instructors at South Oakland Y, too -- they could not have been kinder or more encouraging, congratulating her for doing a great job, ending class with high fives, and gently urging her to try when she was freaking out.

So that Olympic swimming gold? Probably not going to Maggie.

The Bad

It''s good she's done something so great because SHE IS KILLING ME. Twice she's peed on the floor (once) and the couch (once), on purpose. She knows how to get to the potty, knows how to get on it, and both times it was after she asked me to come sit with her and I was busy, so she revenge peed. ARGH. And she took off running away from me at Target, giggling. Like it was a game. And today at the park, same deal (toward a very busy street, no less) and then looked right at me and said "NO" while she shook her head when I asked her to leave the milk jug alone and close the fridge, I would get her her milk in a minute. I had her in a time out for like ten minutes, and yesterday I think it stretched to twenty, and I yelled at her so loud I'm pretty sure the neighbors heard. And even raised my voice to sweet little Will, who was screeching at being left in his car seat during the TO.

My mom's theory is sibling issues combined with psycho three-year-old stuff, and so we've begun scheduling one-on-one time with her and each parent. "Mommy and Maggie dates." Last week we went to the park and to the bakery for a cupcake, Where she proceded to run down long hallway away from me and I got the "What a horrible mother" look. Again.

And she was up at 6:30 today and finally made a break for downstairs after we told her NO, her choices were to lay quietly with us or play in her room.

I am losing my damn mind here, people. No lie. I'm reading "Raising Your Spirited Child" and trying not to let this damage my relationship with her, but is it so difficult to just DO WHAT SHE'S TOLD?

Ahhh. More wine, please.

The Ugly:

My yard. My mangy cat who had like five bg mats cut out of his back by Paul. And more often than not, my mood.

I am alive

2008-07-22T15:12:00.002-04:00

And sorry it's been so long since I posted. My new gig is keeping me hopping, and most things I would typically sound off on over here I have been saving for Strollerderby.

And quite frankly, things have been less than great over here. Parenting two kids is kicking my ass. Hard. Will has been teething, poor little guy, so he is cranky and gritchy and not too into the whole "sleep" thing. One night a few weeks ago, I flopped down onto the couch, exhausted, next to Paul and said "Remember that baby we had? The one that would go down easily, even the mythical "drowsy but awake"? The one that would sleep seven or eight hours at a stretch? I want THAT baby back."

Which would be doable, except Maggie is going through A Phase right now, at least I hope it's a phase, that has me seriously considering walking the hell out of here and never coming back on especially bad days. She's just awful, quite frankly. She screams at me, she's kicked us, and she openly defies what she's been told to do and not do. Like looks right at us and does it with what can only be described as a "screw you" look on her little face.

Which makes me feel like the most incompetent, stupid, ineffectual mother on the planet. Nobody else seems to get this kind of behavior out of their kid, at least no one who, you know, actually parents them versus letting them run wild. The people I know have lovely children. I feel like people are either watching her behave like a maniac and thinking "Who is that child's mother??" or hearing me say "Maggie, stop touching that! Margaret, come back here! Mar. Gar.Et. Put. That. Down" while she capers around like a mountain goat on crack and think I am Hell Bitch.

Here's an example: We went to a wedding this weekend, one of my cousins. I love my mom's side of the family, I have a bajillion cousins and some of the awesomest aunts and uncles on the planet. We decided to spend the money and time and go, thinking it would be so much fun to watch Maggie dance with her cousins and carry on.

But disaster on top of disaster (we couldn't get her to nap, and dinner took forever to be served, and I made her stop running around and fondling the ice sculpture), and sure enough, Melt. Down. Our fun family night was over by 9 pm. On the way home the next day, when she'd finally fallen asleep, I asked Paul if he thought she might be, you know, "diagnosable." Or is her issue just that she's three and a half coupled with a very strong will?

Monday night, she fought going to bed tooth and nail and showed up in our room (for the first time) twice to tell us she couldn't sleep. She's been getting up before 7 every morning, and with Will still up at least twice a night and me usually working until 10:30-11ish that REALLY blows. She finally copped to having nightmares last night, and with lots of cuddling and encouragement, got herself to sleep and stayed there.

The worst part is, his behavior makes me not want to be around my daughter. My daughter, who is beautiful and charming and delightful and one of my favorite people, who is growing up so fast I feel like she'll be in college in about a week. And I am not enjoying Will and his utter deliciousness (seriously, were I to post a picture right now you'd be threatening to eat him with a spoon with the chubby thighs and the enormous cheeks and the sweet smile) as much as I should because I am just so damn exhausted all the time.

It just feels like other people can handle all this, too. Other people keep up with their blogs and hold down jobs and work out and keep their houses clean and their friendships maintained, while I've had friends admit to having their feelings hurt because I am so out of touch, and our house looks like it's abandoned practically because of the state of the yard, and let's not discuss the last time my entire upstairs bathroom was clean, and I am always a load behind on the laundry and owe one client a story and my cellphone is broken and I have no idea when I'll be able to burn the time again to fix it.

And yet I am so blessed by these beautiful children I can't stand it. And I know, just as there as a day when Maggie was maybe ten months old when I realized I had hit my groove, there will be one with us as a family of four. And I will sleep, and I will be productive workwise, and have time to talk to my husband and remember why we got ourselves into this situation in the first place, and running away to Costa Rica will no longer seem so appealing.

I'm enormously grateful to have these two children, and even with the teething and behavior issues I would still pick these two delightful kids over any others in the world. But damn. I am tired.

Meme, meme!

2008-06-13T00:13:00.003-04:00

Oz and Zellner both tagged me for this, the "Six random things" meme. I've actually had this ready to go for awhile and finally can get links going. So, here are six random things about moi:

1) I am terrified of chickens. Like, seriously phobic. If you want to see me freak right the fuck out, present me with a live, clucking, flapping chicken. Yes, I do eat chicken, the only good one is a dead one.

I went to a college that had a major agricultural sciences program, and there was a building where chicken research happened. Rumor had it it was all in the basement. I got stuck with a class there once and had to use the bathrooom IN THE BASEMENT. I swear I have never been so jumpy--I kept convincing myself I heard rustling wings and was totally sure I would open the door of the stall to find a chicken gang cornering me.

And my friends are all enormously amused by this, damn them. I cannot tell you the amount of chicken stuff I own. And at least two former boyfriends wanted to buy me a baby chick, thinking I might get over the terror if I raised one from a cute little fluffy chick. Would have been a gigantic fail. As were the boyfriends.

2) I'm really bad at creative arty-crafty things, like crocheting, sewing and painting. But I love doing all three. Luckily I don't have to be especially good at something to enjoy it.

3) To paraphrase Anne Lamott, many of my friends are surprised I am religious --I mean I am surprised I am religious. I'm pretty irreverent by nature, am quite the liberal, and I was an atheist, agnostic, and raging anti-Catholic for years, so it still surprises me I get up and go to church most Sundays and love my church community.

4) I want to change my hairstyle and am stalking good haircuts lately. I haven't worn it this long since I was 27, 10 years ago. Nothing's more aging than long flippy hair on someone with wrinkles, etc, and let's just say another thing I am stalking is a good eye cream. I think I want a Pob. Which would be a bitch to grow out if I am wrong. Thoughts? (NOTE: Since I wrote this, I have gotten a fabulous modified short in the back, long in the front, awesome, cool, I love it bob. Still looking for help on the eye cream, though. Issues are dark circles, puffiness and fine lines, and I would prefer to not spend $85).

5) I used to be a vegetarian. Now I am not. We eat 2-3 meatless dinners a week, probably, around here but that tends to be by circumstance, not actual planning.

6) I use my male cat's name when I sign up for mailing lists, etc. Casey gets a lot of mail. And he's dumber than a box of hair, so even people attempting to reach the nine-year-old, wildly affectionate, pampered-housecat demographic would probably be disappointed.

Hmm, whom shall I tag? How 'bout Summer, , Nictoria, and Brett?

Where I have been

2008-06-05T16:26:00.004-04:00

So I have a nifty new gig! I am the Detroit correspondent for Savvy Source. My mission, along with the 17 other bloggers in several big cities, is to write about cool, fun educational things to do with your kids here in tha D.
Go here:

And check it out. I am, to put it mildly, open to suggestion (AmyPT, anything you can suggest on the East Side would be awesome). It's been insane working toward launch, but I think it's going to be a blast once we get going. And I totally feel like I get to sit at the cool table what with the bloggers we have involved.

Joy Comes in the Morning

2008-05-12T18:31:00.000-04:00

Yesterday marked the fourth Mother's Day that didn’t suck for me since, well, about since I've been in my 30s.

The beginning part of the decade was marked by a really rocky relationship with my own mother. She was in the midst of this utterly ridiculous midlife crisis that caused a lot of questionable behavior, including separating from my father. The first year we were in our house, I carefully planned with her what she might want to do and what she'd be comfortable with given the broken nature of my family. I prepared a nice brunch for her and my grandmother, cleaning and cooking and buying a gift, only to get a call the next morning that she was too sick to come.

The sickness in question being a raging case of brown-bottle flu, since she and her friend had been boozing it up at the Bue Martini the night before. And this behavior was not atypical.

In my mom's defense, that remains the worst thing she's ever done to me.

And Mother's Day when you're going through infertility is just a minefield of hell. I had to stop going to church that day — I just couldn’t take it anymore.

And then came Maggie, and suddenly I was the mother on Mother's Day.

Last year, my friend Karyn gave birth to her long-awaited second son the day before Mothers' Day, and I got the call the next afternoon as I arrived home from church. My period had started that day too, and I remember thinking as Maggie clambered on me as I tried to listen to the message that my period coming on Mothers' Day was the kind of thing that used to really suck, but instead I was just happy for my friend and hopeful for myself.

Of course, I had no way of knowing that was the last period I’d have for a year, that the cycle I began that day would result in the pregnancy that would result in Will.

My sweet little Will, who was baptized Saturday, again the day before Mother's Day, in a ceremony I couldn’t help but feel marked the closing of a circle and a rebirth for both me and my baby. From hurting daughter and barren wife to a joyful mother, dipping my son in the holy water, my daughter and godson looking on. From feeling like an outcast in my church community and like my family would never heal, to being warmed by the glow of the family Paul and I created and my parents, standing together, reunited.

A day that once pointed out everything I lacked was, yesterday, a reminder of everything I have gained. And to say I am grateful is not enough. I am redeemed.

Notorious

2008-05-07T12:15:00.001-04:00

Holy shit, we made the Daily Show:

Niblets

2008-04-29T14:37:00.002-04:00

(A word that sounds dirty, but isn't).

* Which of the following makes me the bigger nerd: That I was scrubbing the bathroom on Saturday night, or that I was doing so while making my own personal Ipod commercial to Grandmaster Flash's "White Lines"?

* Maggie has pinkeye. On top of a terrible cold we all have gotten to varying degrees--me and Will just stuffy and headachey, she's coughing and snotty but full of her usual enormous stock of energy, and Paul is apparently sicker than anyone has ever been before. Ever. She stayed home from school today and yesterday. It's actually been kind of fun.

* Except for the "giving an incredibly dramatic three-year-old eyedrops" part. That part has sucked. I've resorted to flat out bribery, allowing her a piece of chocolate after each application. Resulting in my husband saying these delightful words, "Awesome idea. You need to buy lots more chocolate."

* After a week or two in which he was going as long as seven hours at night in between feeds, he's been up 2-3 times a night for the last several. And the little guy would not suffer to miss any meals--he is HUGE and chubby and weighed 13 lbs 7 oz at his two month appointment last week. He was 7-11 at birth. We've dubbed him Yokozuna, which is the highest level of sumo wrestler (love Google). I'm TIRED. But quite proud too--he's had maybe 5 oz of formula, ever. Go Mama's Dairy Bar!

* Thaks for all your comments on my last post. I am making peace with the idea I will just never get anything done until Will starts kindergarten.

* He is smiling, like a lot. This is the cutest thing ever. He's got like an Elvis thing happening where he draws up one side of his mouth and then bursts into full-blooming smile. Kills me every time. Many is the morning I have dragged myself into his room first thing, exhausted from a rough night (Maggie's sleep has been disturbed too) only to be greeted by that darling smile and it's totally worth having gotten out of bed.

* And said darling is beginning to gritch, so I'm back on.

WAHMmed

2008-04-24T10:15:00.004-04:00

The next person who tells me how lucky I am to work at home? Is going to get a big hearty offer to go fuck themselves.

The scene: Monday, late afternoon. Will hasn't been napping well, and neither did Maggie. I have a deadline for a project I should have had done a week prior, and have been playing phone tag with my last key interview all day long. Finally she calls at just after 5 pm, and both kids are (temporarily) happy. Maggie's been given a snack and then settled in front of her favorite show after I explain to her I have an interview to do and won't be able to play with her for a little while, Will is ensconced in the bouncy seat near me, and I'm perched in front of the laptop in the kitchen nook.

So I am smoothly and professionally asking my first question when it begins.

"Mommy. Mommy. Mommy. Mommy. Mommy."

"I'm sorry--as you can probably tell I work at home and my three-year-old is demanding attention. A three-year-old and a two-month-old. Yes, it's a challenging and wonderful age."

"Mommy. Mommy. Mommy."

"CanIputyouonholdforoneminute? Thanks."

"Maggie. Remember how I told you I was doing a phone interview and couldn't play right now? I will play with you when I am done, but can you go look at a book maybe please?"

"Okay!"

She goes to get a book, I continue with the interview.

"Mommy. Mommy. Mommy. MomEEEE."

I pull a full (my mother's name) and snap my fingers and glare while pointing toward the living room.

"Mommy. (starts to cry.) Mommy. Mommy. Mooommmeeeeee.""

Stroke hair while trying to type notes one handed.

Will decided to get in on the act, pushing his binky out of his mouth and crying. Replace binky. Still trying to retain and process what interview subject is saying. Maggie leaves room. Briefly worry about what the hell she might be getting into. Decide it's unlikely to be dangerous so I don't care. Mentally sigh and return full attention to intelligent, creative interview subject.

"Mommy. Mommy. Mommy. Mommy."

Decide to employ No-Cry Discipline Solution interruption-busting techhnique we've begun to use with her. Squeeze her arm to acknowledge I have heard her. She squeezes mine back. While intoning "Mommy. Mommy. Mommy." I shake my head at her, point at the phone, and squeeze her arm again. She squeezes mine. Laughs. "This is fun!" she says.

Will cries again. replace binky. Lather, rinse, repeat like 20 times. Maggie commences jealous fit because he got attention. Dog enters room, vomits on floor. Mentally take Lord's name in vain in egregious fashion while simultaneously noting this will be funny someday. In the mental ward, most likely. Maggie leaves room. Comes storming back with note of urgency in voice. "MOOOMMMEE! Momeee!"

I glare, mouth "STOP" and take her by the hand out of the room. She sobs, runs away. I continue interview interrupted only by frequent binky replacement. Am wrapping up this clusterfuck when Maggie enters room. With wet underpants. See Paul walking up driveway. Open back door before he can and begin ranting. He shoots a sympatitec look, investigates child. Who has peed on ratty old futon we use in the den. With great abundance.

Nurse Will who was fussing in the first place for that reason. Desire large, cold, delicious martini. Consumed alone, someplace quiet where there are no children, especially mine. Wonder if showing up at parent teacher conference that evening with martini breath is a bad idea. Wonder if giving baby gin-laced breastmilk is a bad idea. Decide it is. Opt to make normal dinner instead of tell family Martini Night is Mommy's theme for the evening and they are on their own ("Olives! Lemon twists! Nutritious!").

Throw dinner at family including parents who have arrived on mission of mercy to watch children while we attend parent-teacher conference.

Go to parent teacher conference to hear my delightful, bright daughter described as such. Feel as if I may not be world's worst mother after all. Worst freelancer, sure, but not worst mother. Go home. Hug kids.

Still here

2008-04-15T10:11:00.002-04:00

Cranky as hell (I did taxes last night -- are you remotely surprised I procrastinate? -- and am well and truly pissed I stayed up so late just to send a ton of money to Bush), but here. Just crazy busy. Trying to get anything done with two children feels like pushing a rock uphill. If I get more than two things accomplished personally and professionally over the course of a day I feel like Miss Competent America 2008. One of the benefits of the second child --I know my brain will return to form eventually instead of being permamush.

One thing that's helping--my baby? That cute and totally awesome little guy? Is now sleeping a long stretch at night. The other day it was seven hours. Mind you, it started at 8pm and went until 3am, but that meant I got FOUR HOURS of sleep IN A ROW. I'm fairly sure that hasn't happened since he was born, possibly even before. I felt so great I actually could not figure out what to do with myself and all this energy I had.

Also helping: Paul and I joined the Y. Not sure how exactly we're going to afford it, but I knew I needed to exercise for mood and health. They have child care, so I go in the late afternoon, drop off the kids, do my thing, and Paul meets me there and begins his workout while I go home and start dinner. There's a history of diabetes in my family on both sides and at my current weight and activity level, plus PCOS (which is just a form of insulin resistance) I knew I was cruising for it if I didn't make some changes. My mother, who had always been thin and is quite active, was recently diagnosed as borderline and if she can be at high risk, I was really at high risk. Recent studies show that losing even a relatively small amount of weight and being active most days a week can reduce your risk by some crazy amount, like more than half. One of the signs of being older --instead of being concerned about how I look in a miniskirt I am worried about cholesterol and glucose. Damn.

Plus, these two little children I have are going to take every ounce of strength, stamina and Nice I can muster, and exercise helps with all three. If Will's half as energetic as his big sister who runs instead of walks everywhere she goes and never sits still ever ever ever both of us are going to need a lot more energy to even manage the chaos. Two doesn't feel like twice the work quite yet, but most days it's 5 pm before I even know what hit me and we both fall into bed and are asleep before our heads hit the pillow most nights (which is not me normally, to say the least). I don't so much sleep as go semi-comatose.

So, time's just zipping by here and I am hoping to blog more son. What's up with y'alls?

Forming a Family of Four, Part III

2008-03-15T17:29:00.002-04:00

(In our last installment, I'd been ministered to by a wonderful "bonding nurse" in recovery, and was snuggling my little baby boy bundle).

We were still there when my parents and Maggie were ushered in. I'd debated letting Maggie see me in recovery, but figured since they were right there and I didn't want GrandJan and Papa to meet the baby before her, she could come see me (I think they wouldn't let Paul walk out with the baby or it didn't occur to me to ask). . This was a mistake. I tried to show her the baby, but all she was interested in was the wires and tubes and her clearly out of it mommy in the bed. Her big blue eyes stared at me over the bed rail, and she kept asking, in a small clear worried voice, "Mommy? Are you okay?"

Finally, she gave Will, still on my chest, a cautious glance. "That baby is soo cute…" she said. "When is Will going to be born?"

We explained to her that the baby is Will, and she gave us a clearly skeptical look, but accepted it.

The rest of this part is a little blurry, because of the dopiness from the drugs and the generally feeling awful. I remember my parents holding Will each in turn, exclaiming in delight, and my father getting teary eyed as he kissed my cheek and congratulated me. I remember Maggie pulling Paul away to go play and hearing them on the other side of the curtain while Paul explained to her that unfortunately there was not a lot to play with here and no she couldn't climb on that empty bed. And I really remember being completely unable to follow the conversation or much of anything.

Finally the nurse came in and said they were taking Will off to the nursery, so I was able to lay there in peace as everyone cleared out to follow him, and attempt to will my recovery to speed along. Last time I was so chilly and could not get warm; this time, I was hot and sweaty. The recovery nurse kept laying cool washcloths over me, which felt wonderful, and encouraging me to close my eyes if I felt like it. My blood pressure kept going up and down, which had happened last time too. And something I forgot from having Maggie until right then: Apparently the gold standard for recovery is the ability to wiggle your toes. If you can do that, they'll spring you. Because of the emergency nature of her birth, I was scared and numb from shock and just wanted to see this baby already. I felt like if I couldn’t be with her they might switch her up with another, lesser baby or lose or steal her or something. This time, I'd seen Will, held him, even let him sort of nurse so I was more eager to just feel good than to get up to my room and get my hands on my baby. I knew I'd see him again shortly, and like we'd been imprinted with each other.

With Maggie, I actually tried to lie my way out of recovery, claiming I felt great and could totally wiggle my toes until the nurse called me on it. This time, I still felt pretty crappy when they decided I was clear to go. I did vomit once from the anesthesia, I think still while in recovery, again, blurry. I do remember Paul came back with me and fed me ice chips and tried to joke around, and went with me to my room .

So I got moved, and a funny thing I don’t remember at all from Maggie's birth is that they throw you on an elevator with regular staff and go right along the balcony I remember walking along while heading to Maggie's sibling class, which looks out plain as day over the deli and Starbucks in the hospital's main lobby. I asked Paul "did they DO this last time? I don’t remember this being quite so, ummm, public." I was just there recently buying breast pads and peeked up into the lobby, wondering if I could see a woman being wheeled along just as I was that day.

Strangely, none of the mother-baby unit looked familiar from last time – I couldn’t even remember the entrance when we were there for sibling class

When we had Maggie, the new South Tower had just been opened and our childbirth class nurse told us they referred to the mother-baby unit as "the Hilton" because it was so nice, and this time it was nicer still. Because all those 50 rooms they'd built to house two patients per? Somewhere in the intervening three years, they'd all gone to private rooms. So we had a huge room complete with two flat screen TVs all to ourselves. A nursing assistant and the nurse who was going to become my BFF for the next three days, Patti, hefted me onto my bed and got me settled, and somewhere in there Will was brought in, flowers from Paul's office were delivered, and my parents and Maggie joined us again.

The rest of the day was taken up with attempting to nurse, attempting to sleep, and later another visit from my folks and Maggie, who was still pretty shy about seeing me all hooked up to monitors and IVs and such. After awhile, the four of them, Paul, my parents, and Maggie went of to have dinner and I slept, Will in his little baby bucket cart next to me.

One of my powerful moments with Maggie's birth was suddenly falling in love with her at the hospital — I so clearly remember the moment it happened, while nursing her in the dark quiet that first night. I didn’t have the same thing with Will – instead, it was instant joy and recognition on first laying eyes on him (instead of great relief and dull wonder when they showed us Maggie), and feeling good and normal and complete, like he just belonged here with us and of course he was my son, just like the sky is blue or my dog is annoying. Maggie's birth felt like the incredible end to the infertility story — Will's feels like the beginning of something not yet known.

Paul says he'll never forget how I looked that morning, that I had kind of a glow about me like I was very thrilled with life; and I remember telling him at one point that I was as happy as I had ever been, ever. Our dream had come true – two children, and even the configuration we used to say we wanted, a little girl and then a little boy. There's a picture of Maggie sitting on my lap while I nursed Will my last full day in the hospital, and I was just so filled with joy to be cuddling both my children I just could not stand it.

There's been challenges since I got home; everybody's been sick, nursing hurts like a bitch, and my contention I would not get PPD this time turned out not to be true (and will be the topic of my next post, I acted fast and am doing much better already). But overall, I feel incredibly blessed and lucky for my little boy, and the girl who came before, and the man I did all this with. Th other night, all four of us snuggled into Maggie's bed for the bedtime ritual, both kids next to each other. Maggie started at and snuggled her brother, and Paul and I looked at each other, smiling. "Our family," he said.

And it's lovely.

Forming a Family of Four, Part II

2008-03-11T11:13:00.002-04:00

(when I posted last, I was majorly regretting the c-section decision, too late).

I'd chosen the c-section this time, but was filled with fears that I would bleed out, that I'd have some sort of awful reaction to the anesthesia, that something would be wrong with Will and I'd gone through all this for nothing. Or that the spinal would slip, rendering me paralyzed for life (Does that even happen?). As they were wheeling me down the hallway into the OR, I started shaking with fear and cold. I DID NOT want to do this anymore, I decided, but I'd made my bed and now I had to lie in it. Literally. And I just wanted it to be over and Will to be out, and well. To meet this little baby we'd been waiting for.

The OR was larger, whiter and less bright then I remembered it being with Maggie, and felt much more institutional and clinical. Here people were actually just going about their jobs and spared much less of a thought for Paul and me (the nurses were much more comforting when I had Maggie, I am sure because it was an emergency and I was flat out fucking terrified.). I remember the two doctors putting these weird little caps over part of the light that would illuminate me, and a conversation my doctor was having with someone about his Iphone and about leaning Polish swear words, which I wish I could have participated in (my grandmother has refused to teach us any).

Paul was allowed into the room just as surgery started, and informed me he'd spoken to Maggie who told him "I am at lunch with Grandjan and Papa!" Guess he'd had the same urge I did, to connect with our loved ones in the outside world and let them know where we were. Nothing is weirder than attempting small talk with your husband while two doctors cut through your stomach muscles to deliver your second child, let me tell you, and have never once found it harder to think of anything to talk about.

Last time, he was my rock. I will never forget staring into his blue eyes as they did the surgery, willing myself to only focus on them, and then his crumpling into tears when we heard Maggie's first, glorious cry. There was so much behind those tears—the years of heartbreaking infertility, the nine months of pregnancy and the terrifying hours just before when we feared she wouldn’t survive.

This time was different. I was afraid for myself, but not afraid for Will. They'd had me on a monitor from the time I came in to the time they wheeled me into the operating room, so I knew his heartbeat was strong and steady. Sooner than I thought possible, the nurse anesthetist told me "You're going to feel some pushing now as they get the baby out" and boy did I —it’s the strangest feeling because while you can’t feel pain or movement, you do feel a ton of pushing on your belly and the very empty sense of something Big being removed. Sort of like when your stomach drops when you go over the top of a rollercoaster, but bigger, and more.

And then. The nurse anesthetist, without really asking, positioned a MIRROR right THERE so we could see Will's tiny, thin, side-lying blue body being removed from THE GAPING and BLOODY HOLE in my ACTUAL STOMACH. OMG OMG. And GAH. I wish I hadn’t seen it. I am quite a wussy and bad with blood and goo, especially my own blood and goo. Every ache or pain I've had in the incision these last weeks, I'd flash onto that image. GAH. And my stomach was iodine swabbed, making it look even more horrifying. I suppose I am glad to have somewhat seen him be born but was politely trying to avert my eyes elsewhere, subtly.

But then, we heard it — that wonderful cry, followed quickly by a series of quite pissed off cries. When we heard the first one, I smiled at Paul. "There he is. That's our baby." We both agreed it sounded much different than Maggie's had. And a few minutes later, smiling again, "And apparently he shares his sister's temper." He was pissed right off by this whole birth business, and had no qualms about letting everybody know

And then, something delightful, which I didn’t get to do with Maggie and was one of the best moments of my whole life. The nurse came over with this wrapped little bundle and handed him to Paul, who greeted him, and then she instructed him to lay the baby's head on my shoulder. Unexpectedly, I was able to snuggle against his sweet little head, kiss his face and tell him I am his mom. Feeling that tiny newborn head on my shoulder, the rougher knit of the stocking cap and his warm, warm skin on mine was amazing – I felt my heart fill with that profound love you never lose.

He opened up his tiny round dark eyes and stared at me and we stayed like that for a long time, him making little snuffly newborn noises and me filled with joy to finally look upon this little face. My doctor asked us who he looked like, and I paused a second before replying "kind of like Maggie. But really like himself." I really remember feeling nothing but happiness and gratitude and transcendent joy, to finally have my baby with me. It seemed like he knew me right away, and I him. I even glanced at the still-blood-smeared head under the stocking cap, because I thought I saw hair. And I had — he has a ton of soft, dark brown hair. His dark-haired parents were surprisingly mystified by that, since the baby we had already had no hair to speak of until she was two and what she first had was blond, although it's since darkened to a nice light brown. We were both like "wait, is that HAIR?"

Another wonderful aspect of this birth was that the hospital has instituted a bonding nurse who assists with surgical births where everything is normal and helps get bonding and breastfeeding established. In practical terms, this meant that when he was finally taken away after surgery, he went to the recovery room to wait for me with Paul instead of off to a sterile bright nursery bed all alone.

When they wheeled me in, I saw through a swirl of nausea Paul, back in his regular clothes already, snuggling and holding our little boy. Much of those immediate moments are a blur because as soon as they moved the bed out of the OR I was overcome by a horrible wave of nausea, and then panic from trying to hold down the nausea. But I do remember that as soon as they got me settled, as soon as I could, the lovely nurse brought him over and I could hold him. She unwrapped him and put him on the breast right away, and it was remarkable to see this tiny stocking-capped newborn look me in the eyes, work his way over to my breast and start licking and suckling immediately. It was amazing, and unfortunately cut short because of another nausea wave, but she wrapped him back up and placed him on my chest so he could hear my heartbeat, and we laid like that for a long time.

(next--Maggie meets her brother).

Forming a Family of Four

2008-03-07T16:03:00.002-05:00

Compared to Maggie's birth story, Will's is not at all dramatic. It's as if their stories, from finding out I was pregnant with each of them to the pregnancy itself to their births, reflects their personalities — Maggie's dramatic, with lots of peaks and valleys, highs and lows, and suspenseful moments, and Will's pretty chill and easygoing, with some blips along the way but mostly just completely straightforward. Of course it could be the different mother they each had –Maggie's sure that every! Decision! Carried such grave weight and would significantly affect her beloved baby's chances of a happy life unto eternity, while the mother Will got had been through some great successes and some royal screwups in the three years since his sister was born and feels a lot more confident in her abilities and her choices. I'm not struggling ith the identity crisis I did with Maggie, with the world-rocking love for this little person and the vulnerability I felt from that love. Maggie remade my heart, and Will gets to benefit from that.

So onto the story before I forget things.

Maggie was off school Monday for President's Day (WTF is up with that, anyway? In nearly 20 years of schooling I never once, not one time, remember getting that day off). It was serendipitous for us, because Paul's "paternity leave" had begun so we were able to spend our whole last day as a family of three together. We took Maggie to the Children's Museum, went home and enjoyed our naps, and then headed out for a celebratory ice cream. I made roast chicken for dinner, and then waddlingly helped Paul put Maggie to bed.

I felt like I needed to keep reassuring her that I love her beyond measure, that she is and would remain my darling girl. She was of course all "whatever, mommy, you love me, I get it." I was a weird mixture of excited, terrified, joyous, and feeling like it all needed to slow down a little. I never emotionally connected to pregnancy the way I did the first time. I pretty much consider it a state to be endured, not enjoyed. But I realized this will likely be my last chance to ever be pregnant, so I spent a lot of time running my hands over my giant belly, trying to imprint the feeling of a little body flipping around in there.

But mostly I was just so excited to finally see the face of my little boy I just couldn't wait.

My main memory of that morning is waking up and feeling that little body moving urgently. I told Will he was finally, in just a few hours, going to get to see us and put faces to the voices he'd been hearing all these months, and that we were so excited to be able to hold him and get to see his face as well.

Paul loaded our stuff and our girlie into the car, and then I said, "Let's go have a baby."

We dropped Maggie off at school, making sure her teachers knew today was the day and that my folks would be picking her up. They were all excited for us, and she ran up to her teacher Karen and declared "My baby brother is coming today!" My only tough moment came in giving her a big hug and saying goodbye, knowing that the next time I saw her, even though it would only be a few hours, everything would be different.

I'd been having some cramping in the last day, so that fact we'd made it and my doctor of choice would be doing the surgery was a nice relief. Also unlike Maggie, I was able to waddle under my own power to labor and delivery. The path from the parking garage takes you past the place you get the "big" ultrasound as well as the ultrasound that goes with the quad screen, and I was very conscious that this would be my last time making this trip through that skywalk, past OB ultrasound, over to the labor and delivery floor. I wanted to remember everything about what it was like to be there. This institutional hospital setting has been the site of some of the most joyous moments of my life and thus is imbued with a beauty totally out of proportion to how it really looks. It's where I found out both kids were healthy, that Maggie was a Maggie and Will a Will, where I remember very clearly standing in the hallway clutching an ultrasound photo of Maggie and weeping grateful tears. The thought I will never be there again, as a hopeful and nervous pregnant woman or as a big waddling about to deliver mama to be headed to L&D makes me surprisingly sorrowful. The fact that I never get to have this experience again is bumming me out – the next time I spend lot of time at a hospital will be for something that sucks, for example.

We checked in and were stowed in the jam packed family waiting room, filled with one enormous extended clan awaiting a baby. If you ever want to feel like Exhibit A, be nine months pregnant in the family waiting room.

They quickly got us into triage. One of the many advantages to Beaumont is they have like the nicest nurses in the world – I have adored almost all of the ones I have dealt with and miss them when it is time for us to part.

And they're professional too – Thank God. Because one, reviewing my chart, asked, "Now, you'll be getting a tubal today as well?"

WHAT?? Paul and I had discussed the issue, my OB and I had discussed the issue, I’d told the person from his office who booked the date, and the answer had always been NO TUBAL. We're more than likely all done, but after infertility treatment including some invasive testing and painful IUIs and two c-sections, if anyone's junk is getting messed with to avoid any new babies it will be Paul's.

"I am SO giving Brodsky a piece of my mind" I muttered to Paul. The nurses swore up and down they wrote "NO TUBAL" in big red letters all over my chart, and I learned a new factoid — that even I had gone in there avowing my deep desire for a tubal but had not prearranged it, they wouldn’t let me. "You're in no state of mind to be deciding that at this point," Margee explained.

Then, a tall, handsome doctor with an eastern European accent and ice-blue eyes came in — turns out he was assisting my doctor on the surgery. I just laughed—I have a great rapport with my doctor and think he's kinda cute, which many of my friends find horrifying. I'd seen this doctor walking around the floor and thought, what would my friends think of THAT guy as an obstetrician? He would also turn out to be the one who made rounds early in the morning, so woke me up and checked my incision at 6 am for the next three mornings. There are indeed worse ways to wake up in the hospital, although I was very conscious I looked like crap on a cracker every time he came in.

Finally the word came—time to get Paul into this thoroughly hilarious white paper hazmat suit so he could go into surgery. Last time they tossed him some scrubs — this time, he was encased neck to toe in these white coveralls. We'd left the camera in the car to avoid the possibility of losing it, and I strongly regret not having those photos.

And then I started getting scared.

Updates

2008-03-05T11:36:00.002-05:00

* I'm still working on the birth story. I'm to the morning I got out of the hospital in the unabridged version I am writing for myself, so soon.

* Will has had, since he's been born, massive gas and blackish green poops caused by too much foremilk and not enough hindmilk combined with bloody nipples (mine, not his), and a really bad cold courtesy of his big sister. Our pediatrician is going to think I have Munchausen's syndrome by proxy since we've called them after-hours twice and gone in three times (twice for routine appointments, but still, the kid's only 15 days old today). And now it looks like he might have picked up the stomach bug Maggie's been dealing with. I swear we do wash our hands a lot and use Purell and everything....

* I was enormously impressed with how well I was coping with two kids. Then Paul went back to work Monday. And I spent much of the day weeping. The babymoon is over now, and I never get to do this again, and I'm surprised at how much I hate the idea of this being my last baby. Plus, here's what happened Monday: Little sleep, because of Will's cold; Maggie developed some stomach bug and puked on the floor; Will was cranky and would not let me put him down one time all day long; and I had both of them crying hard at one point. Had to hold Will on one shoulder while I hugged Maggie with the other arm. I never got lunch or five minutes to pee all day long. Today, to complicate matters, was a snow day for Maggie's school and I have been up with Will since 5:30 am. Turns out Paul's work was also closed for the day and he is home, and he is already working half-weeks this week and next. So thank God, but also Holy CRAP are things going to go to hell in a handbasket week after next. And I was actually feeling pretty up for the challenge of both kids home today. We even had a tea party, which was as cute as one would expect.

* Except for the fact I can't seem to keep him potentially life-threatening-germ-free, Will is a wonderful baby. He's cute, very alert, almost never cries and always has a good reason when he does, and seems to like me already. We're so lucky. If he could just stay not sick for more than a day I'd be over the moon. He's got big round, dark gray eyes I think will turn brown, and a male patern baldness widow's peak hairline that is characteristic of the men in my mother's family and is completely hilarious on a newborn. He looks like a little pissed-off middle-aged man sometimes, especially since he also has forehead wrinkles and pudgy cheeks, which makes me giggle whenever he shoots me a look. He'll stare intently (and cross-eyed) at us and pucker his lips into a perfect little circle, as if really trying hard to figure us out. He's also got long, narrow feet and long toes. He's a beautiful baby with a very nice temperament and I am hoping I can not break him with the germs and so on. And did I mention the snuffly newborn noises when he nurses? Kills me.

* I do miss my alone time with Maggie as much as I thought I would, and she misses me. No way out of this one but through, I think--eventually Will will be more scheduled and more interactive, which will leave me time I know I can set aside for her and also be more fun for her, because he'll actually respond to her (he's fascinated with her already, which is adorable). Still, I'm glad I anticipated this and tried to lay the groundwork.

So, to sum up, we're adjusting, probably doing OK overall, the baby is adorable, but I would love advice from readers with two or more about how I can give Will adequate stimulation and attention and love while still doing the same for a little three year old that needs her mommy desperately right now. And if you can figure out how I can do this while still earning a living, so much the better.

Well, hello there

2008-02-24T22:02:00.004-05:00

William Paul. Called will Born February 19th, 2008 at 12:15 pm, via c-section, right on schedule and with a head of dark brown hair. He's everything we hoped for and very much a dearly loved part of our family, already. I'm finding myself happier than I ever thought I'd be. It's worth it, my friends.

Birth story and notes on a repeat c-section (Short form: OUCH) coming soon, as soon as I can write it all down in coherent form.

Nearing the End

2008-02-15T13:32:00.003-05:00

I was going to write this thoughtful and touching post on how emotional it is to near the end of this second pregnancy, how wistful I feel about saying goodbye to our family of three as I look forward to being a family of four. Then Jim wrote this and Erin wrote this and I realized I don't really need to say anything else.

I'm feeling very, very emotional today. For some reason, what triggered it was bringing Maggie to school for the last time as a mother of one. She doesn't have school Monday, and Tuesday we will probably be dropping her off on the way to the hospital (unless they can take me Monday, which I hope they can). I don't look forward to that little scene, because I know I'll cry and hug her too tight and not want to leave--basically the reverse of most parent's preschool dropoff dramas. Surgery, which although I feel confident about it, is still a risk, and then four days away from her, and coming home to nothing being the same anymore. Have I mentioned I do not do well with change? Well, i don't, and this is one of the bigger ones.

I know this will be good for her, that her brother will enrich her life in all kinds of ways and that life as a family of four will be just as sweet--if more stressful --than life with just her. Buut I will miss our many little rituals, our "just us" time. I'm feeling like every moment right now is so precious--as if I will miss too much of her growing up with another child to distract me. That somehow her funny little ways and sweet piping voice and huge blue eyes will be less wondrous to me when it's not just her I have to dote on.

And I fear I won't love him enough, won't let him be him and not expect him to be a carbon copy of his gregarious, happy-baby sister. That I will be exhausted yelly mommy all the time. That I will somehow damage Maggie through my own lack of patience and adaptability.

But oh, the payoff. He's just completely out of room now, and I can feel him shift and roll and squirm, trying to get comfortable in his confined space, and realize I will soon be meeting my baby. Not "my second pregnancy" but my son. I'm consumed with wondering what he will look like, if he'll be big (he feels big), if he'll be Mr. Social like Maggie or more of a reserved little dude.

And on a lighter note, I am really, really looking forward to getting some mental function back. Holy shit, people, the wheels are off the cart. The other day, I got lost meeting friends--we were supposed to meet at one place but the wait was too long, so we agreed to meet elsewhere just one mile road and one north-south road away. I proceeded to go the wrong direction not just on the mile road but on the north-south road (which is Woodward, which I LIVE TWO BLOCKS FROM and could not find)--and I have been to this restaurant probably 30 times over the years. I am an idiot.

I am also so much more tired than I thought possible. I was this exhausted during first trimester because of the heat and Maggie not sleeping and OH YES it being first trimester, exhausted like I hadn't been since she was new, but I seem to remember being able to sleep like the dead again right before Maggie came. This time, not so much. And it's scary because I know good restful sleep will elude both of us for awhile. I'm looking forward to this weekend so we both can rest a bit before the Newborn Onslaught begins.

Ad then there's the physical stuff--I know it will take awhile before I feel normal, but I cannot sit up at a 90 degree angle right now, for example. I made Maggie a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch and smelled it burning, and attempted to go running into the kitchen to save it. Hah. My pelvic bones are so far apart right now I think they may not be in the same county and running is simply impossible. Hell, waddling with any degree of grace is simply impossible. Getting out of bed is something I have to think through. I told Paul the other day I feel like a walking protrusion, and he who usually tries to make me feel better about how I look, eyeing my belly, just smiled and said "well, you kind of are right now."

This will probably be my last post before the baby arrives. Thanks all of you for your good thoughts and kindness through all of this, and I will make sure we get a post up ASAP as soon as there is news. I'm so grateful for my friends inside and outside the computer right now.

Scare

2008-02-06T10:01:00.000-05:00

You know where is not a fun place to watch Super Tuesday results?

From a triage bed in L&D, is where.

All's well, thank God, but here's what happened. I'm going down our two little steps to the basement landing last night, planning to retrieve stuff for pancakes for Shrove Tuesday dinner. When WHAM, suddenly I am on my ass instead of my feet and flailing like a turned-over turtle to catch myself. I'd tripped on a pair of Paul's shoes he'd left there. I laid there for a second thinking "FUCK that hurt" then "Oh CRAP this is probably not good for the baby" and then "Fuck again, I'll have to call the OB and she'll tell me to go in."

I went in the living room where Paul and Maggie were playing, curled up on the chair to nurse my wounds for a minute and informed Paul with as much implied swearing as possible what had happened. I was thinking maybe I wouldn't call the OB, but when I got up I had a stabbing pain in my lower abdomen so off we went.

We still had our pancakes, and then my dad showed up to stay with Maggie and we headed off the the hospital per OB instructions. And thank God for my dad, because do you know how long they keep you on the monitors in this kind of situation? Even when the baby is fine? FOUR HOURS. We got home after midnight.

But you know what? It sucked but I am grateful. The baby is fine, very active, and there were clearly at least two other people in triage who'd had bad news. I'll take a long, boring and uncomfortable wait anytime over hearing words like "bleeding" and "it's very early but those are labor contractions" which I could overhear through the curtains.

Ironically, had I done what I might have chosen, I would have been in L&D yesterday anyway to give birth. Now to just keep this kid in here for the two weeks we hope for.

An answer, and a question

2008-01-31T22:56:00.000-05:00

A couple of you have asked--no he didn't resign, but he didn't play the race card or play the victim either. The text of the speech is on the Free Press website today. He very much stuck to the personal, and didn't address the questionable at best use of public funds. He probably couldn't, legally. He looke dlike a kicked puppy, pledged to get back to work today, and told Detroiters he would never quit on us. To which I said "Of course not, there is stiill some money in the city treasury!"
His wife showed up with him and basically told the press to back off. It was quite the spectacle.

Here's my question (reaalllyyy off the latest topic). Do any of you sew? And if so, can you answer this? I love every bit of sewing, but I cannot figure out how to wind the motherfucking bobbin. I have an IQ of, well, it's high. Many of you probably weigh less than my IQ number. And yet? the art of the whole leadup process that's supposed to be easiest MOCKS ME. I won't sew when Maggie's awake because she should not hearing the kind of language it cause s me to use. Anyone??

What I'd like to hear tonight

2008-01-30T14:15:00.000-05:00

"My fellow Detroiters.

Let me begin by apologizing to you for my conduct in concealing my extramarital romantic involvement with Christine Beatty. I have betrayed my wife, my children, and the longtime friendship I shared with both her and her former husband, Lou. And I betrayed the trust that the voters of this city placed in me when they elected me to a second term in 2005.

Because of this, I have decided to resign my post as mayor of Detroit, effective immediately. I can no longer effectively run the city and continue the great progress we have made with this scandal hanging over my head. I acted inappropriately by attempting to conceal our handling of the Gary Brown matter and further, by pre-emptively settling this lawsuit with taxpayer dollars in an attempt to keep the affair and our untruthful denials of it secret.

I speak to you from my church, because I am humbled before God and am asking His grace and forgiveness and for yours. Again, I apologize for the shame and dismay this conduct has brought to my family and to the city that nurtured me and that I love. I believe this is the best way to continue moving forward to the Next Detroit.

Thank you."

What I will hear tonight:

Blah blah blah outside white media suburban interests taking down black man blah blah hubris blah blah ego blah blah race-baiting blah blah not my fault.

Sigh.

Oh, Kwame, Kwame, Kwame

2008-01-28T16:10:00.000-05:00

So there's been a little tiny news story going on around here, something you all may have perhaps heard about. Our esteemed mayor has been doing the horizontal mambo with a top aide and lied about it. No big deal, you say? Well, yes, you'd be right, except the lying in question happened while under oath in a police whistleblower lawsuit.

A lawsuit which was abruptly settled this fall to the tune of NINE. MILLION DOLLARS.

According to the Free Press, which broke the story, $9 million is something like 143 cops on the street, or enough to reduce or eliminate the $300 per household trash pickup fee instituted last year.

I'm just beyond angry on so many levels. First of all, while I don't want or need my politicians to be bastions of sexual morality, I have no respect for someone who runs as a devoted family man while he's boning a family friend.

Lied under oath. Both about the affair and they fact the two of them decided to fire one of thecops in question, who, if he didn't know about the affair, was getting damn close.

I'm livid at any asshole who dares play the race card in this. As the Free Press reporter who broke the story said on the Detroit Today radio show this morning "I don't create these things, I just write them down." If he has not been repeatedly found to be using the city treasury as his own personal checkbook (we apparently paid for these two on at least one of their rendezvous, among other things), if he had come out and said "Yes we were having an affair, but these cops needed to be gone and here's why," if he didn't go around like a rap star with all his high school buddies playing security detail (item: the mayor is like 6 foot 7 and very big, yet travels with one of the biggest security details of any big city mayor), if he hadn't behaved, especially in his first term, with embarrassing lack of professionalism and judgement, then OK, I might believe this was a desire to take down a strong, promising young black man. But with the facts laid out before me? No way.

He invited this kind of scrutiny because of his own behavior. He, and his family, show a breathtaking amount of hubris and entitlement and a willingness to pay to the lowest common denominator at the first challenge. His mother, who represents the other side of the city in Congress, is a ghetto-talking embarassment. She famously exhotred a crowd of supporters to "don't let them talk about y'all's boy!" His wife drove around in a city-paid Navigator while city staff were being cut and residents couldn't get services. Tales of total lack of response from the administration are rampant.

Now, to anyone who dares to say "When will the people of Detroit wake up" paternalistic racist blah blah," let me remind you of a few things: he damn near lost the race in 2005. Two things happened to change his fortunes: A series of debates, in which smart, uptight Freman Hendrix came across as slow and temperamental while gifted orator Kilpatrick sounded contrite and stayed completely on message. Hell, I come from a family personally acquainted with Freman Hendrix and was very supportive of his campaign, and I was half ready to vote for Kilpatrick. The other was this: several enormously wealthy people with Detroit interests but who do not live here, including Pete Karmanos of Compuware and Rick Wagoner of GM, made a huge infusion of cash to Kilpatrick's campaign late in the game. IT's been two and a half years and I am still pissed about that--the dollar value of their investments in the city certainly dwarf mine, but my home is my biggest investment and by helping to get him back in office, I'll be lucky to not lose everything on it. A Kilpatrick win wouldn't hit these guys right in the net worth, but it sure as hell screwed a lot of Detroiters who actually put our hopes, dreams, and biggest investment here.

(also, I will go to my grave believing that election was dirty. Allegedly, KIlpatrick carried even North Rosedale Park, the neighborhood Freman Hendrix is from. I grew up there, and I'll just say that sounds mighty fishy to me).

And let's remember also that the election was a surprise to, well, everyone. He barely squeaked by.

I'm just so disappointed in him. I felt very much that he was chastened by almost losing the election, and was behaving himself quite a bit better in his second term. While the city still has problems, there are encouraging signs everywhere. We've had our taxes rolled back, seen police patrols in the neighborhood, and our local commercial strip is one of those targeted with this neighborhood revitalization effort. And that leaves out the Super Bowl, the riverwalk, the downtown developments that have changed the city enormously for the better.

And damn it, I wanted to like the guy. He's two days younger than me, a mayor who was not trying to return Detroit to some mythical 1950s golden age, but look at the city with clear eyes, as it is now and could be. Like me, he was born near the nadir or the bad times and grew up with a city that was gritty at best but held amazing community and opportunity. He represented Detroit well on the national stage --a good-looking, intelligent young black man who could speak the language of the streets and of the boardroom with equal facility. He was OUR mayor, the generation of people who grew to know and love a different Detroit.

And now it's all lost, if anyone has any sense. He needs to step down for the good of the city he professes to love.

What a fucking waste.

.

Hey look!

2008-01-19T15:19:00.000-05:00

A picture! --->

I love this photo of the three of us, taken by my cousin at my grandma's 95th birthday dinner. I LOATHE getting my picture taken, so for me to like one enough to show the whole world is big deal.

I will note Maggie's belly sticking out (not sure how that happened) and my ginormous GRAY roots. And Paul's hair looks weird, but what you're seeing is actually MY hair, smooshed against his.

I love those two. (something I need to remember right now as Paul is upstairs napping with Maggie. Paul, who fell asleep putting her to bed last night, went to bed at 11:30, woke up at 8:30, and is now taking a NAP. Grrr. How much sleep DOES a normal adult male need?)

Did you miss me?

2008-01-16T22:08:00.000-05:00

So, so sorry. One of my new Years resolutions I didn't write about was to keep up better with my own blog and post a minimum of once a week. Does once every ten days, oh crap, eleven days count?

An update of sorts: AT&T Michigan doesn't suck as much, at least their field staff here in Detroit doesn't. Spent a long time at my house getting everything wired correctly, gave me a fancy new wireless modem, and bumped up my speed, all for what I am assuming to be free. Andre, of their field staff, ought to be running the damn company for as good a job as he did.

Of course, once I got the Internet back, I had to catch up on all the shit I couldn't do without it. And I am swamped right now--I figured out I am going to be making a large amount of my monthly income this week. Not a lot of posting as a result.

I'm still gestating, and have reached the point where I am not sleeping really well and turning over in bed is a project (or as Nikki, bookmarked at right, put it "You feel like, 'get out the crane'?" This is how cool a mom NIkki is--she drove from Pittsburgh to take her ten year old to see Hannah Montana here in Detroit. I am hoping to be so cool when Maggie is ten).

This will, more than likely, be my last pregnancy so I am trying to concentrate on all the things I forgot about last time. Some of those I was more than happy to forget about, like bleeding gums and this time, I got an actual nosebleed. Yikes. But I am trying really remember the trippy feeling of a baby moving around in there. And now he's even recognizable as a baby--I can feel arms and legs and a butt and hiccups. Amazing, and something I will miss.

I've had a phenomenally easy pregnancy, really, I cannot complain. And yet I will. Another thing I had forgotten about is how by this point, the baby has just taken over and your body is not yours anymore. To wit:

Emotions all over the map. Yelly Mommy (and her sister, Bitchy Wife) have made a few too many appearances around here of late. Drama Queen and Our Lady Queen Of Martyrs have been around far too much as well. In the middle of the whole Internet debacle, I was bitching and moaning to Paul about what a pain in the ass it all was, and he was sympathetically nodding and trying to make me feel better. I stopped, looked at him and said "I can tell you are trying to be really nice to me. Even thought I am acting like a crazy person. If I forget to tell you later, I appreciate it."

Bouncing between total denial and total panic about what lies ahead. Surgery. Leaving Maggie for four whole days. Breastfeeding again (it HURT last time). No sleep. But this time with a rambunctious three-year-old. Dealing with said rambunctious three year old whose world I have just blown apart, with all the love and patience I can muster, while sparing some for the baby, Paul, and oh yes myself. Knowing I will not be able to spend as much time with my sweet Maggie as I do now. Knowing that before I know it they'll be 10 and 13 and not care about time with me anyway.

My hair. Oh, my lovely lovely hair. Why can't I keep it? Why?

Sitting curled up in our cozy living room chair last week, talking with Paul. I get up to go to bed and almost fall down. My hip has slipped out of joint and it took me awhile to be able to get it back into where it should be. I suddenly realized it took a long time for that to go away last time. Must do yoga and other interesting stretchy things to take advantage.

I'm apparently making truly lovely whistling noises at night. It's like the War of the Roses in our room, where I am trying to stop Paul from snoring and he's trying to stop me from whistling. The other night, I woke up to find him reaching his hand across my face. "What are you... HEY!" I think he was totally asleep, because he didn't answer. Or that's what he wants me to believe.

In the coming weeks: a real rumination on saying goodbye to mothering one and getting ready for two. Maggie and her big girl bed. Maggie in general--she is delightful, but Paul and I have each had moments with her in the last week where we look at each other and say, "There will be TWO OF THEM. Clearly, we did not think this through." And, since some of you asked, photos of our "Organizing System For Two Grownups With ADD."

Dear AT&T Michigan:

2008-01-05T14:15:00.000-05:00

You SUCK.

Thank you.

--Amy BB

Seriously--Internet started to crap out around Christmas. Some CSR tells me it's my modem. How, I ask, can she ascertian that when she is halfway around the world in a call center and has not in fact SEEN my modem? That modem is defective, she tells me. Then isn't it their responsbility to replace it? No, here's the sales office, I say fine I am calling Comcast for my high speed Internet needs.

I got it working again, until it crapped out AGAIN Wednesday. So I called. This time, after the guy tries to sell me a MORE EXPENSIVE INTERNET SERVCE (because i I am not happy with your service, certainly, upsell me, that's a GREAT IDEA) they finally allowed me to set up a maintenance visit (mind you this is ny fifth call in like a month, just perhaps they could have done that on, OH, the second call?)

It's set up for two days away. This does not work as the vast majority of my clients communicate with me via email and Strollerderby expects 2 posts a day which are not submitted by carrier pigeon or a series of tubes or anything, we use the Internet. Luckily my favorite coffeehouse has free wi-fi, which worked for Thursday but not Friday because I had to sit home waiting for them.

When they finally called to tell me they were on their way, the guy also told me that they were replacing a control box in my neighborhood, that that was why I was having problems, that there would be no point in looking at the line because there was no DSL signal anyway anywhere in the 'hood, and no he couldn't tell me why no one had thought to inform me of this before so I had to waste hours of time on the phone with them and sitting at home waiting for them while I could have been getting things done. Oh yes, and I likely would not have the Internet for THREE OR FOUR MORE DAYS.

I reacted like, well, like you would expect an eight-months-pregnant woman who'd had little sleep the night before and who depends heavily on the Internet to get her jobs done and who is not, let's just say, the least dramatic person on the planet when she's in her right mind to react. Crying, fury, while explaining I was going to lose at least one job because of their incompetence and my little three year old wouldn't be able to have shoes and I hope they were happy.

Yeah.

Cried for half an hour, talked to Paul (who because he is lovely and kind did not mention that maybe just maybe I was overdramatizing the situation), put it behind me and went to the coffeehouse that night to get shit done.

Today, after we all got back from running errands, guess what? Phone message the problem was resolved and here I am blogging away.

FUCKERS. I am so pissed I am not even happy about having the internet up sooner than promised.

Two fairly sucky options here: stay with the incompetents or take my business to Comcast. I hate Comcast. But I really hate being jerked around like a puppet when I am just trying to get a fairly essential service I AM PAYING FOR to work.

Does anyone who reads have Comcast internet? Any good? Anyone else hate AT&T as much as I do right now?

Ring Out The Old

2007-12-31T17:51:00.000-05:00

Everybody else is doing it, so I think I should too. So, herewith is my list of New Years resolutions:

1) Have a healthy baby. Really, if this doesn't happen nothing much else is going to matter in 2008. And figure out how to manage my life with two instead of one (advice welcome, darling readers, I am freaking out about how exactly I am going to pull this off).

2) Continue the career progress I have made in 2007. I picked up three whole new clients in 2007, all of which I am crazy about and love working for.

3) Continue with the great strides I have made toward getting organized in 2007. Really, you could walk into my house now and think I was someone who totally has her shit together, and I'd like to keep that up. And it doesn't take much longer than being a disorganized slob, but causes much less stress.

4) Learn to sew, if I can figure out the nifty sewing machine I got as a Christmas present.

5) Start exercising again. I mean I'd love to drop 50 lbs and be all MILFy once the baby comes, but realistically, I need to start working out again to have the energy necessary to keep up with two kids, a job, and a house. Plus the more I work out the less likely I am to get depressed, etc. So weight loss isn't really the goal --energy and stamina is.

6) Be a better friend. I realized this year I do not keep up with my friends enough, and I need to be better about that. I value my friends a lot, but friendships always get pushed to the back burner when I get busy and that has to stop.

In keeping with the end of the year, we finally moved all Maggie's stuff out of her old room and into her new one. The new room is adorable--we have great polka-dotted, brown and blue bedding, her tent, her litte play kitchen, and all her clothes in fabric drawers on the shelves.

But it still makes me sad. I'm having a really hard time thinking that tonight, or maybe tomorrow will be her last night in the crib we first tucked her into as a little bean of a newborn three years ago. Instead of rocking a baby to sleep. I am cuddling and comforting a tall, slim, extremely verbal little girl with not the slightest vestige of baby left. Tempis fugit -- but in the case of this little girl we ached for so long and adore so much, it's a difficult thing to realize how fast she's growing up. It feels like a day's time until I'm looking at a bright, smartmouthed teenager taller than me, a week until she' s a grown woman with her own life and friends. I just love being around her and the idea that someday she''ll belong to other places and other people, while The Way It's Supposed to Be, makes me want to slow down time.

So I guess that's my most important resolution of all--to savor this time with her. To really feel her small form snuggling against me as we read books, to enjoy her hand twined into my hair for comfort, to memorize that inquisitive little face, so much thinner than it used to be. And of course, to realize how fleeting babyhood is when our little boy arrives, to not wish it away.

One thing infertility did for me is to keep me more profoundly grateful for motherhood than I think I would have been had it come easy. I've had many a moment over the past three years when I just hold Maggie close and feel so blessed to have her --this child who we thought would never come to us is Right Here, an unstoppable force that cannot be denied. The idea that that room, whose emptiness mocked us for so long and has been so filled, stands empty again in wait for another baby who will be rocked to sleep there is a remarkable one.

But it's still bittersweet.

Thanks, y'alls

2007-12-18T16:03:00.000-05:00

Well, aren't you all just lovely? Thanks to all of you who commented or emailed about my dilemma. I appreciate the helpful tone and the respect for me and each other.

I decided to go for a repeat c-section--until eaaarrrly this morning when I had an OB appointment and a big old wrinkle got thrown into the plans. My doctor had mentioned before that his birthday was a week or so before my due date, and I realized this could cause an issue. Oh, well, a couple days here or there won't make a difference, I thought.

And so they wouldn't.. What would is the fact he is going out of town for a WEEK. He's turning 40 and his wife is taking him to the islands, very nice, BUT WHAT ABOUT MY BABY???

Ahem.

So, my options are as follows:

Have an amnio to make sure the baby's lungs are mature and then do the c-section at 38 weeks, in early Feb.;

Do it when he's back, periously close to the actual due date. If I was sure I'd go late again, I would choose this option. But when I told him I wasn't worried about going into labor early because I was late with Maggie and all of my friends seemed to follow the "once late, always late" pattern, he said that isn't in fact the case (and I am going to trust an OB with more than a decade's experience over my own particular social circle, there).

Hope the other doctor in the practice, who is due to deliver any minute now, is back from her leave by then. I had some bad experiences with her when I was pregnant with Maggie and while my only experience seeing her this time was good, I still would rather Dr. B do it.

At least I know her--if I go into labor on my own, I am dealing with whatever doctor is on call or the doctor he refers me to. This doctor delivered his kids, so he obviously trusts her, but you don't want to meet somebody five minutes before they slice your abdomen open, you know? Awkward...

So, 38-week C-section, which could be bad for the baby according to some recent studies. Wait, and hope I don't go into labor on my own and deal with whatever doctor happens by L and D that day. Or do it at 39 weeks and have a stranger do it.

Not great choices, eh? Love my doctor, glad he's getting a nice vacation with his family, he totally deserves it, but GEEZ. I'd finally made up my jellolike Gemini mind about what to do and now there's some more factors to consider.

In other news, I am turning into a blobby hormonal weepfest right on schedule. Here, for your amusement, is a partial list of things that made me cry today (and don't worry, the doctor situation is not one):

Hearing Band-Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas" on the radio. "Yes! DO they know it's Christmas? Poor sick sad starving people! Why can't I feed the world? Why must people suffer?"

Everything on "the baby block" on Discovery Health, which I had on in the background while doing my Strollerderby posts for the day. And I do mean everything, including the commercials, and let's not discuss what went on when a baby was actually born. Except when they were all gross and blue and vernix-y, then I was revulsed. And still crying.

Thinking about saying goodbye to Maggie when I go to the hospital.

The fact we don't have a Christmas tree yet. I literally forgot last week, and then there was the snowstorm, and now my husband is sick.

(oops, speaking off Maggie, I hear her dulcet tones now. Long nap, yay).

I report, you decide

2007-12-04T10:27:00.000-05:00

So Maggie's birthday just happened, and I have been working on a post about how wondrous it is that my sweet angel girl who was a baby like a WEEK ago is now three. With all that three entails (she agreed with me this morning that she is ready for her own job and own place, just for starters). It's sappy and horrible so I'll spare you, but suffice it to say the last three years have been more joy-filled, even with a lot of crap that's gone down, than I thought possible because of that delightful little girl. One of the amazing things about parenthood is that you get to bring your favorite person into the world. All my other favorite people I met because I lived with or near them, or stumbled into the right party, but this one? I have gotten to know since the minute she was born.

So, sappy over. I have a major life decision to make, peeps, and I cannot decide. So, I am consulting my friends inside the computer to see what you think.
Namely: VBAC or repeat C-section?

Here are the facts playing into my decision:

--I recovered very well and quickly from the c-section for Maggie. No complaints, no complications, I was able to breastfeed just fine. Same doc and same hospital this time, so I'm expecting the same outcome if I have a c-section again.

--I did not have a snuggly 36-pound child at the time.

--I would have to be away from said 36-pound child for a LONG time--the one mistake I made when in the hospital with her was going home after two days and I am NOT doing that again. It was too soon. I needed more rest. This time, while Paul is fully on board with making sure I take it easy, there is, again, the Maggie factor. She will need attention and care, and I feel like if I opt for a repeat C it's better for me to take the full hospital time so I don't do stupid things like attempt to play with her and carry her around like I usually would (I am a DAMN stubborn Polack). I'd be gone probably four nights, and I have never been away from her that long nor do I want to be -- but I don't want to risk my own health by attempting to recover at home where I know my usual obligations will be tempting me to overreach.

--This will be my last go-round, barring a spectacular reversal of PCOS and failure of birth control, and I might never get to experience a vaginal birth. I want to, want that "I did it!" feeling of triumph so many women seem to have. I want to smack the earthy-birthies who refer to c-sections as not giving birth, because hello, the baby was IN and now it's OUT, but I also want to experience what a normal one is like.

--I am fully aware that I could go in there with the best of intentions and end up laboring for hours and STILL have a c-section. I have no idea of what labor might be like for me. With Maggie, my water broke at 2 am and she was born just after 8 -- I tink we were in a room at the hospital for less than two hours. Her heart rate was dropping -- and twice almost stopped -- because her cord was wrapped around her neck and compressing against something. I was so miserable emotionally during that time, so full of horror and fear that after everything I could be losing this baby, that even the mild labor pain I was feeling receded into the background. I don't know at all what it would be like to go thrugh labor so I can't draw any conclusions from that.

--I am terrfied to my soul of the same thing happening if I try to labor again. Those few hours were without a doubt the worst thing I have experienced, and three years of a perectly healthy and energetic girl later I still get panicky and teary-eyed thinking about it (despite reassurances from my doctor and Karen the wonderful nurse practioner that we were being monitored all the time and if she went into serious distress they would have had her out so fast my head would have spun). A scheduled C would be free of all that fear -- just march in at 39 weeks, a brief surgery and hello baby! That's enormously reassuring to me --that the birth of at least one of my babies could be free from such wrenching fear. I feel terrible when I think of Maggie's birth, not because of how it happened (I was pretty close to asking for the scalpel myself just to GET HER OUT where she could be cared for if need be) but because of the awfulness that led up to it. I'd love to be in a good place emotionally to greet my baby, instead of numb from shock and fear.

--That being said, I hate to this day that I couldn't hold her immediately and that it was Paul who got to go off with her while I had to be stitched up and wait in recovery. With a vaginal birth I could greet him right away.

-- I would HATE laboring for God knows how long and STILL having to have a C-section, even if labor goes OK. And I do fall into several categories that put me at higher risk for a C-section even without having had one before --overweight and older being the two most significant.

-- I went a week overdue and damn near lost my shit. It seems, based on my friends's experiences, that if you go late once you always go late and same thing with going early.

--Paul would prefer I have a c-section because have had more discomfort with this pregnancy and he's afraid of something going really wrong (like uterine rupture--not a concern of mine bcause according to my doc it happens less than 1 percent of the time). He's leaving it up to me, though.

Now, if you are yourself a sanctimounious earthy-birthy and think c-sections are the worst thing to happen and women! are such victims! of a cruel and uncaring medical establishment! kindly keep your comments to yourself (regular old earthy-birthies can fire away, I just don't want to hear that c-sections are evil and women who have them are weak because having one saved the life of my baby thank you very much). I have a very trusting relationship with my OB. We've talked about this already and he refuses to push me one way or the other (despite my TRYING to get him to, DAMN YOU DR B). My main goals with this birth are 1) not to be fucking terrifed like I was with Maggie and 2) live me, live baby. That's it.

So, what do y'alls think?

Well hi there!

2007-11-25T14:33:00.001-05:00

I know, long time no post. I had delusions of doing NaBloPoMo (GOD I HATE THAT PHRASE, it sounds like coughing up mashed potatoes) but Hah.

Although I have been posting once a day, mostly twice. Not here. Here. Go there, seriously, and not to stroke my ego but because dayum these people are interesting and funny --and that's just what makes it onto the site. The behind-the-scenes trash talking is incredibly hilarious and quite dirty and I intend to majorly up my caffiene intake after I have the kid so I can keep up.

We're winding up a truly lovely Thanksgiving weekend around here. Paul got home early Wednesday, which freed me up to both work and to end work at a reasonable hour so we could enjoy some time together. Thanksgiving Day, we went over to my parents' house for our traditional meal. As much as I love to cook and experiment day-to-day and eschew the canned, the boxed, the processed, I lean traditionalist to the point of reactionary on Thanksgiving. Must be the same stuff every year, no variations, no being fancy, no exceptions.

One year I had done a tasting for our local artisanal bakery and had a ton of leftover bread. Beautiful stuff, made skillfully with all the best ingredients. I turned some of those leftovers into stuffing, using copious amounts of butter, celery, onions, and the last of the fresh herbs from my garden. Should have been delicious, and probably, objectively, was. But you know what? Just wrong --because I have been raised to expect the boxed Croquettes brand stuffing my mom has made for decades and that is what I want.

I think my palate would totally be a Romney voter.

Friday I worked, we all lazed, took loooonnnngg naps and then went to Target. Yes, because we are frickin' nutjobs. It actually was fine and not too crowded, and we scored a $25 DVD player for his (impossible to buy for) parents along with a movie they might like, and a $64 vacuum cleaner for ourselves. Why a vacuum cleaner? Because we have made it through seven years married, five years of homeownership, and three pets including the only beaglelike dog on on the planet that sheds (seriously, everything I read about beagles proclaims they never! ever! shed! BULLSHIT. Ours sheds if you walk by her too fast) without one. Paul, as Chairman of Floor Maintenance around here, proclaims it dreamy.

Yesterday, we fortified ourselves with coffee and doughnuts and went to the newly-remodeled Detroit Institute of Arts. It's awesome, although I would personally say no less confusing than it was before the remodel. There's been lots of talk about dumbing it down with placards and interactive activities and such but I actually think it gives you new insight into the art and a pathway in if you want to learn more. As coarse as our current culture is, I think anything that can draw Joe Average in to appreciate the beauty and meaning inherent in great art is all to the good. The art snobs will always be served, but for people who hunger for more than reality TV and celebrity news but shy away from anything that feels like school, this reimagining of the museum gives them a chance to connect with ideas and visuals that can make us more fully understand what it means to be human. I've studied art history and find it fascinating, and I didn't feel talked down to.

And, we very nearly have finished clearing out the erstwhile office, converting the kitchen nook into an office space, and converting the office to Maggie's Big Girl Room. I am not, ummm, noted for my organizational skills (stop laughing, Brett and Nikki, geez, you miss one midterm and it follows you around for-EV-er) but have created a really awesome system. Our dining room table, where mail and crap tends to land, has not been this clear for this long, well, ever. I love it. Although my parents and husband have kinda hinted that they suspect I have been taken over by a pod person what with the "File that there" and the "This goes in this clearly labeled box here." I'll post pics, especially since I am curious what the Internets will think of our crazy-ass color scheme.

Soon, Maggie will move out of her baby room and into a new space with a big bed and her own shelves, and we will be rocking a new baby to sleep in that carefully-decorated green-and-yellow room with the white crib and cleverly repurposed Salvation Army dresser. I'm surprisingly sad about moving her out of her room.

But that's another post for another day. Hope all of you had a lovely, restful Thanksgiving and are ready for the holiday season.

One of the 12.5 percent

2007-11-08T13:30:00.000-05:00

I'm not always so sure about how far blog activisim can go, but I think this is a good idea.

So here's my contribution:

Do only well-off people, people with tons of disposable income and resources, face infertility? How is it possible that the 12.5 percent of us facing fertility challenges ALL must fall into the highest income brackets?

Or is it just that most of us stay silent?

And why is this even a question at all? Because in most states and through most insurance plans, infertility isn't covered. It's not, somehow, considered "real." Erectile dysfunction? Here's your Viagra, $10 co-pay, please. Acid reflux? Sure, and enjoy that spicy meal and cup of coffee you would otherwise have to pass up. Don't ovulate due to a recogized medical condition such as PCOS? Hm, sorry. Have you tried just relaxing?

We were lucky, in that the insurance we had at the time we were undergoing treatment covered most testing. We still were on the hook for higher co-pays, but bloodwork, ultrasounds, sperm analysis, and even Clomid were covered.

IUIs, lucky us, were covered at 50 percent. In going back though my records while cleaning the office recently, I realized it was actually $250 per month, not the $150 I had thought, every time we did one. And our insurance only allowed us to go to the biggest, most impersonal, most horrible clinic in town (for those local who may be looking at ferility clinics right now, combine the initials of the most well-known infertility procedure with the name of this state, and please take your hard-earned money and your hopes and dreams elsewhere).

I knew it was thrown-away money most months because they were not timing them right. I'd go for the ultrasound, schedule the IUI for a day or two later, and that night begin doubling over in pain from my Clomid-swollen ovaries struggling to release their payload, every month. Those eggs were long gone by the time they'd deign to get us ready for the IUI. I raised the concern that maybe we should be shifting everything a couple days earlier, but it fell on deaf ears. The nurse, yes, nurse, told me no. The doctor, who was actually getting paid for all this? Never saw him.

Had our insurance offered us even one option, we could have walked. We couldn't, and they knew it, so half-assed treatment ensued. Had we lived in a mandated-coverage state, we could have gone straight to IVF since nothing in the testing on either one of us indicated an advantage to doing IUIs.

We were lucky, damn lucky, in that we somehow concieved on our own one month after the aforementioned doctor told us we'd never have a biological child without IVF, and called our desire to be parents into question because we didn't have the money for it. And like mind-bogglingly lucky that we were able to concieve after only eight months this time, with no drugs, no doctors, and no heartbreak. I'm out of the infertility club now, and rightly so. But it changed me forever, and I needed to raise my voice on behalf of the thousands like us, looking at limited financial resources and aching for a child, knowing one will likely preclude the other.

At least she's cute....

2007-11-07T11:18:00.000-05:00

Note the horrifying color of the kitchen nook. It's nice in natural light, not so much in the dreary CFL light from our new fixture.

And no, we did not let her carve her own pumpkin -- we took dirction from Maggie on what Madame wanted.

Hoo boy

2007-10-29T15:45:00.000-04:00

Are we in trouble.

Yesterday, at church (one of Maggie's favorite places on earth--not that we're so devout but because church features friends, music and doughnuts), she was really energetic--just couldn't stop moving. And usually, she's pretty good about maintaining "church voice" and whispering. Not yesterday.

Finally, during the communion hymn, our choir was doing their usual great job and Maggie was paging through a hymnal, singing. Not, mind you, what the choir was singing, her own little song. Tunelessly, and loudly too. I whispered to her to be quiet a few times, and she didn't. Just ignored me. But interestingly, the next line in the song she was singing was "Be quiet NOT. Be quiet yourself."
"Be quiet yourself" quickly turned into the chorus, but that was most likely because I was laughing so hard (while trying to, in fact, be quiet myself) that I had tears leaking out of my eyes. Little shit. How exactly am I supposed to discipine a child like that?

We are in so much trouble. She knows she's funny, she's completely fearless, and incredibly strong-willed. And that latter trait is quicky beginning to assert itself at this age. She tries to yell at me, order me around, and just generally be unpleasant when I am trying to get her to do something she doesn't want to. We tell her she doesn't get to yell at us, that she doesn't get what she wants if she's mean and that we only hear her if she asks nicely.

She's just so cute when she's NOT being horrible. And I remember this happening when she turned two--that a lot of the worst aspects of terrible twos began a few months before. She'll be three a month from Friday, and right on schedule here we are! This is making Moxie's review of "Your Three Year Old: Friend or Enemy?" quite timely. I know friends who swear by it too.

But. OY. If shes this much of a snot now, what WILL she be like at 17? Off to research boarding schools....

Gah

2007-10-22T23:38:00.000-04:00

Sorry no post. Overwhelmed. Too much work, too much house stuff (how is it possible that a person who will likely, please God, weigh less than either of my not-very-big cats can cause so much chaos?), crazy-ass mother in law who's been self medicating with heavy drugs and worse, marital unpleasantness, and now, a stomach bug, are conspiring to mean that f I tried to compose a post it would just be a lengthy string of swear words and who wants to read that?

First the house stuff. The arrival of our new baby means we are:
Emptying out the office and moving that function to the kitchen nook (we have one of thse old-school houses that has a small eat-in nook in the kitchen, very charming). This entails going through five years' worth of paperwork, bills, old page proofs, etc. The pile of drawing paper I am sending to Maggie's school is beocming enormous. And it's super scary to realizie exactly how much my organizational system broke down once we had a kid. Files are detailed and tidy through Dec. 2004. Then it all goes to hell. I'm thinking things don't improve with the second.

Making repairs to said kitchen and painting it. Paul's been working on most of that due to lead paint concerns, and GOD DAMN IT. I will not discuss it here because you all would start making comments about knowing good divorce lawyers, but JEEZ. I'll say this: spackle is not repair. Neither is fake wood. Detail is good. Fussing over every nail hole in the walls FOR TWO MONTHS while the major repair project looks like it was delegated to the two year old does not lead to blissful happiness at home. I know people who have done complete kitchen replacements in less time. Oh, and? A chartreuse office nook that was supposed to be apple green but holy HELL that paint is bright looks cool, right? I cannot believe the, umm, vivid nature of the paint color I chose in the can versus on the chip. It goes on the walls tomorrow so that swear-words-only post might be forthcoming after all.

Moving Maggie from her room into the erstwhile office. She is not thrilled. "No! I sleep in my crib! I no want a big bed like (her cousin) does!"

Putting the baby's (nonexistent as yet) wardrobe into Maggie's dresser, etc. to get the room ready for him.

Plus side is, we get an IKEA trip! And fancy new organizational stuff for the kitchen! And a new faucet to replace the dated brass disaster! And maybe even new cabinet hardware! I'll post pics when we are done--it looks good enough with just primer on the walls now that I'm pretty pumped about the outcome.

I hear the shop vac. That CAN'T be good, esepcially since it's midnight.

An Open Letter

2007-10-09T18:01:00.000-04:00

Dear Maternity Clothes Manufacturers of America:

Just curious as to whether or not you have ever met a pregnant woman?

Because based on all the clothes I have been trying on, you apparently think we grow exponentially in the belly and everything else stays the same or gets smaller. I have been down this road twice. And the majority of my female friends and acquaintances have as well. And let me tell you something – ain’t nothing getting smaller.
Okay, because I have more or less maintained my starting weight during this pregnancy, my shoulders and collarbone area are smaller. Everything else below my collarbones, though, from boobage to ankles, has gotten bigger. As is the case with most women. Even those who look like they are “all baby” get wider thighs, broader hips, and more “upholstery” everywhere.

Which is why I find it particularly galling to try on clothes that practically fall down in the belly, stretch across the butt (how does THAT happen?) and are incredibly skinny in the thighs. I try a size up, and everything falls down.

Also? Short women get pregnant. Just thought you might want to know, since every damn pair of pants I have tried on are miles too long. Like, I could make another pair of pants out of the fabric I have to get rid of. And I am not Lilliputian short, I’m 5’2.” Short-length pants are cuff-able, but regular pants, forget it.

And? Even people who don’t want to spend thousands on their maternity wardrobes have a sense of chic. Plain, boring tee shirts, ugly polyester-clingy stretch pants, and dorky little florals are not things I prefer to wear when I am not gestating, what makes you think I would now? When I am crabbier?

(although here’s a sign the hormones are kicking in: I saw a matching nightgown-onesie set and actually considered it. Let us just discuss The Ugly possessed by both items. The nightgown was barely a notch above hospital gowns in style and pattern. There were teddy bears involved, I believe, and perhaps some depiction of pacifiers or bottles or some such. For a grownup).

Here’s what we want: attractive, simple, well-made clothes in natural fibers that fit a range of sizes. Some acknowledgement that every bit of our bodies change, not just our bellies. Personal style, at, hell, a reasonable price (a girl can dream, right?).

Thank you.

Amy I. Motown

Question time

2007-10-03T14:00:00.000-04:00

What does the modern person do when confounded by questions? Why, we ask the Internet. So here goes:

Cloth diapers: In my quest to become ever more of a goddamn hippie, I think I'd like to use cloth diapers with the Impending Boy. I'm not so sure I am up for the insane amounts of poop-soaked laundry that will cause, however. Since I am innundated with yucky training-underpants accidents on an almost daily basis I have become much less enthused about the whole cloth idea. For those of you who have used them, what do you think? Is the laundry that copious and/or disgusting? And, do any of you who are local know if there are still diaper services around here? Fervent Googling has led me only to places that deliver disposables (and really, people? I can see if you have multiples and are going through cases of diapers a day, but, really? Going to Target or Costco to replenish was one of my prime get-us-the-hell-out-of-the-house activities in the early days).

One of my ideas is to use a service or disposables early on when we're going through like 10 diapers a day, and then move on to home-washed cloth when he's older. (it still feels weird to type "he," by the way). Still mitigates the environmental impact without turning me into crazy laundry person.

Project Deuce: So, um, a boy. Anything I should know? Previous to Maggie, I'd only really cared for boy babies as an aunt and nanny and hadn't taken care of many girls. Now, after almost three years of Girldom, I feel utterly clueless and kind of nerved up as to dealing with a boy and his boy parts and his male psyche.
Can I smooch him all the time and tell him he's gorgeous and funny and smart like I do with Maggie?
Will he hate me when he's 13 like I am sure she will?
Are those pee-pee teepees things as ridiculous as they seem?
How do I get a cute, smart boy and not a nasty, frat-boy-like one? My friends pretty much all have nice boys --how do I do that? I'm pretty sure "don't marry, or be, an asshole" is high on the list and I have that nailed--what else?
Where do I find boy clothes that don't look white trash but are not so expensive as to dry up the college fund?
Do I have to give him a buzz cut? I don't like buzz cuts, on any male not currently serving in the US Military. I don't like the hipster-parent shaggy do either. Is there a middle ground?
Any diaper-related issues I need to know about? I know about putting a diaper over the penis-ular area to avoid a shower--anything else?

More later. I just heard a certain cute little person say plaintively over her monitor, "Mama, where ARE you?" so I'd best go grab her.

Drum roll please....

2007-09-30T18:53:00.000-04:00

It's a

BOY!!!

We are excited and thrilled and looking forward to having "one of each."
Maggie pronounced the blobby ultrasound pictures "sooo cute!" and still is insisting it's Baby Henry (my nephew) who is coming to live with us, not some other boy baby. I am struck by the realization I am going to be raising not just a little boy, but a GUY, as in someone like the ones I used to go out with and am married to. If he ends up going for women, someone is going to be cursing or praising me for the job I did (or most likely both) decades hence.

As far as raising a Boy, as in loud and boisterous and physical, well, I have just described Maggie to a T, so not so worried there.

Must go run a an errand, and I was in Cleveland all weekend celebrating the aforementioned Henry's birthday, so we're pretty tired around here. More later!

Betting window opens now

2007-09-27T18:17:00.001-04:00

Ultrasound tomorrow at 9:30 am. Hoping to find out the sex of this little person kicking me in the bladder. 98 percent sure it's a boy. Extra-hoping it's a healthy baby more than anything.

Anyone want a piece of the action? Winner will get, um, nothing, just interested to see what you all think (Paul, me, my family and one friend says boy, one friend and Maggie says girl, no one else has an opinion). Tiebreakers are: name guesses (no fair guessing if I have already told you) and what grade Maggie will be in when she's finally potty trained.

The great divide

2007-09-20T10:38:00.000-04:00

Dutch from Sweet Juniper (in my list of links, over to the right, click on it) put up an awesome and thought-provoking post the other day about his family's, um, discouraging attitude toward his staying home. It drew, last I checked, 67 comments. Obviously this is an issue that's not going away among parents, even as I see more and more willing to make the arrangements that work best for their families, instead of stuff themselves into some traditional mold that does not fit. Even my friend Brett, the Republican, stays home with his sons now (and who told me, when we were discussing it as he and his wife were making that decision, "I don't know, it just seems so...liberal.")

If we could handle it, Paul would sooooo be the stay-at-home parent. He is more patient and lots more fun than I am. However, I have a job (freelance writer) that can and most frequently is done from home. My profession is not especially well-paid, and I probably could not match Paul's salary and benefits with full-time work of my own. Our plan is, when both kids are in school and/or we feel comfortable with a more extensive daycare situation, I'll shoulder the burden of a full-time job and he will begin launching his therapy practice. For a lot of reasons including licensing and health insurance, that's not feasible right now.

I find myself very muddled about the stay-at-home/work-outside-the-home debate. On the one hand, despite the pathetic pay available to me if I were to go back to work full time, our finances would be a hell of a lot smoother if I worked (Attention readers--from here on out to avaoid driving myself crazy, I am goingt o use the term "work" to mean a paid job outside the home, and "stay home" to mean not work for pay. Not trying to lob grenades in the mommy wars, just trying to avoid driving myself nuts).

On the other hand, the idea of dropping Maggie off at a daycare 40 hours or more a week? Yikes. Especially having had to do so when she was just three months old? Nope, not happening, I will eat a LOT of ramen to avoid that. Not so much because I think it's bad for her --although I do, and if this country had halfway decent maternity leave policies parents would not be forced into these awful decisions just to keep their jobs -- but because it would be bad for ME. We tried for a long time for this child, and longed with everything we had to be parents. Now that we are, I want to be the one who soothes her to sleep at naptime, who listens to the running commentary on all things letter-and number related. I know that the vast majority of childcare workers are gentle, loving and kind and generally regard their work as more than just "a job." Maggie's teachers are all enormously patient and fun and very, very important people in her life. Ihave no qualms leaving her with them, and I don't think daycare is bad inherently. But it's bad for me.

I'm as surprised as anyone that I feel like this. When Paul and I were discussing marriage, and how we each thought an ideal marriage and family life would look, I adamantly said "I am NOT staying home. I want to work, I need to work." And I meant it. My own mother was a stay-at-home mom for much of my childhood and was one of those people who did it because it was done, not because she actually enjoyed it. I was sure I would be that kind of mom too, that needed to work in order to be a better mother in all aspects of the job.

Surprisingly I am not. I think that has a lot to do with becoming a mother at 34, when I'd already had a chance to spread my wings and do things professionally I was proud of, versus having my first child at 24 with exactly one year's work in a low-prestige job like my own mother did. I've often said of motherhood at this age that I feel like I'm not missing out on anything--I had my fun and my All About Me years, now I am finally ready to make my life about someone else for awhile.

I've often said I have a foot in both camps. I work, and what I do is meaningful and important to me and I really really want to do a good job and succeed and someday go back and do this full time again (or do something else, maybe, since my favorite thing is writing for newspapers and they aren't doing so well in these parts). I'm so lucky to have a job I love, and even more lucky it can be done from home.

That being said, not everybody wants to be home all the time, and that's OK. It's completely possible to be a great, involved, loving, fun parent and have a job besides. I have friends who do it, and I have a whole new level of respect for those friends who work outside the home now that I have experienced the juggle to a smaller degree myself. And of course, lots of people can't afford not to work. I'm one--even the measly income I bring in from freelancing means we can buy groceries and Maggie can have shoes.

Here's what DO have a problem with--people who bemoan how they "have" to work, how they wish they could be home, but it's just! so! expensive! to live where they do and they need both incomes. But -- they are driving BMWs, they shop at Nordstrom for themselves and God forbid anything, even pajamas, touch their darling's body that isn't from Gymboree or the Gap or the astronomically priced baby boutique in the tony suburb where their 3,500 square-foot house is located. These people don't need to work, or want to for their own sense of identity and competency. They work for materialism, for status, to show off what they have. That's the only working parent I don't have respect for --that claims a desire to be home but refuses to make the simple and in their case SMALL lifestyle changes it would take to do so. If keeping up with the Joneses is a value for you, at least have the balls to own it and admit that's why you work. Don't bemoan your need to work while flicking your eyes critically over another child's Target outfit and gulping your second Starbucks of the day.

I know people like this and it pisses me off. It just makes working parents who are doing it for damn good reasons that have nothing to do with making payments on the Beamer look bad and parents who stay home and have cut back their lifestyles to do so feel like off-the-grid back-to-the-land whackos. And in some ways it's a double slam to have that attitude --moaning that you wish you stay home bcause isn't that how all "good" parents feel? and yet slamming those who choose to do because God forbid you have to live like THEM.

One of the things I tell myself about parenting a lot is that there are relatively few ways to irretrievably fuck it up, and lots of ways to do it well. Most parents, even the materialistic ones, are just trying to do their best for their children. I would love to come to a place where we can all acknowledge all work, whether that be lawyering or teaching or managing a restaurant or raising your children, has value. Where that work tradionally done by women is valued economically and socially as much as that done by men. And where everybody feels validated though their choice, not marginalized as a boring housewife or vilifed as "letting someone else raise your kids."

Kumbaya, anyone?

The level of discourse

2007-09-18T09:50:00.000-04:00

"I have the worst earworm going through my head."
(oh God don't share look)
"'Sometimes When we Touch.'"

"WOW. Thanks. Now it's stuck in my head. And I just had the "Franklin" theme song. Less annoying."
(singing) "Sometimes when we touch, the HONESTY'S too much..."
"Glaahhh."
"Yeah, that song has "stalker" written all over it."
"No, I mean the song is clearly about his, you know, LOVAH. I think it has erectile dysfunction written all over it."

Let's get happy!

2007-09-07T10:54:00.000-04:00

I said in my last bitchy little post I would next mention some things that are making me happy. So, to wit:

* Maggie and I went to see Liz/Elizabeth Mitchell at the super-awesome Ladel's Books last week. The show was honestly kind of a disaster -- she has a soft, sweet voice that can't project over traffic noise and a zillion little kids, and there was no microphone. Plus, there was this horrible smell from a nearby dumpster that stole over the crowd as the show progressed.
However, I loved what I did hear so opted to buy the CD. Even though the show didn't go well, she could not have been nicer or more gracious, and signed our CD, played with Maggie and said nice things about her. Plus, her husband plays guitar and she included her daughter and goddaughter in the show as harmonica players and backup singers. I think family bands are really cool (I always imagine familes who play music together gathered around the fireplace having a fine old time singing and strumming their guitars all hootenanny-like), so that was fun to see. Totally want to start a family band now (although I would have to piggyback on Paul and Maggie's musical talent, doomed to be the Ringo of my family band).
The CD is wonderful. The songs are all traditional children's folksongs and some that aren't specifically kid's songs ("Three Little Birds" for one). They are pretty, melodic, and easy for even a tone-deaf non-singer like me to sing. Maggie has already learned several songs from the CD and we've only listened to it maybe 3-4 times. Two-year-olds? Awesome singers.

* Maggie got a toy for completing her sticker chart for potty training. She wanted a stuffed animal, and chose a big stuffed rottweiler-looking thing. Which she named, wait for it, Ragsdale Mango the Third. (Ragsdale and the Third comes from the Sandra Boynton song "Fifteen Animals." I have no earthly idea where the "Mango" came from).

* I can see a day this child might be potty trained. Maybe even before high school.

* My sweet husband fetched me my pregnancy-craving dinner last night. I haven't had a ton of these this go-round, but this one was macaroni and cheese and meatloaf from the deli of one of the fancy markets around here. Had to have it, nothing else would be as good, and it HAD to be from there, it could not be homemade. Weird. But nice of Paul to not act like it was as weird as it was.

* Speaking of pregnancy etc., I am feeling the baby move. So wondrous, these little flickers and nudges and spins. It's too soon for Paul to feel it, so for now it's just me and Deuce.
This one seems quite active. Maggie wasn't, which is ironic because she never. stops. moving now. So I wonder if I might even be getting a kid capable of sitting still for more than two seconds! Wooo!

See? Pleasant. Positive. Life is actually more than okay.

Crabby McCrabass

2007-09-06T10:49:00.000-04:00

JEEBUS H. Christ, I am crabby. I hate everyone. Except, maybe, probably, you.

And Maggie, although she is driving me up the wall and back down again the last couple days. Much like her father, the concept of "let's GO, we have to be somewhere!" does not register. She started preschool yesterday, which is very exciting for all concerned. However, the school requires them to be potty trained to be in preschool. AAAGH. We've been working on it, and she's actually doing quite well, but this morning she sat on the potty THREE times to no avail, ran away and giggled when I tried to get her dressed (I was unamused), and is generally just Not Getting It that we have to move right along here and get the hell out the door.

Then I picked her up from school and she clearly needed a change. When we got home, I took off her training pants to find another pair of underwear beneath them. Causing me to utter a sentence I fervently hope I never have to say again.

"Maggie? Why are you wearing someone else's underwear?"

Not to mention her response:

(Looks over, inspects them) "Oh! That Jimmy's underwear."

Moving rapidly out the door in the morning is important because I am busy with work. Great--it's good clients and new clients, a happy happy mix to say the least.
However.

Let's say you work in public relations. A large part of that job description involves, well, RELATING to the public. And media. So, let's say a nice media person called you several weeks before her deadline hoping to speak to an expert within your orgaization on a certain topic. Now I have worked with some outstanding PR people, and this request tends to be pretty routine. You let the reporter know who to talk to, exchange contact info for both parties, perhaps even set up the interview yourself or at least help out the reporter if she comes back and tells you she is having trouble reaching the person you suggested.

AND, you don't insist that all media calls to your school district go through you and then not return said media calls, despite frequent follow-up from the reporter in question. Can we say unconscionably unprofessional?

Although I must add I deleted a paragraph ranting about one such person I was dealing with --she just called and basically leveled with me about all the behind the scenes stuff going on in her district and I feel much better about the situation (not about the district, though--eeessh). The other one, though? Dead to me. Two of my friends work in her district (a married couple) and I was really hoping to feature this place because of it; not now. Jerk.

More petty annoyances: hello, Weather Gods -- It is SEPTEMBER already. It does not need to be in the high 80s-low 90s and humid. There's been plenty of that. If my neighborhood is going to be overrun with migrating geese and my dog is going to be barfing up the acorns she eats on her walks, could we have some fall weather to go with? Please? 'K, thanks, appreciate it!!

Also, my darling daughter has been up repeated times every night. We're all exhausted and my husband turns into a zombie when he gets less than his needed 8 hours for more than one night in a row. Talking to him is like having a conversation with Non Sequitir Man. I'll say something, he comes back with something that makes no sense whatsoever. Gah.

And finally: if you live in the suburbs, especially one of the wealthier ones in wealthy Oakland County, DO NOT sport the hipster "313" shirt or any other products from Pure Detroit or Made in Detroit. Just. Do. Not. You look like an idiot. You want Detroit hipster street cred? Move here and pay these fucking obscene taxes and put up with our inept government and/or at least get to know and maybe even live near a few people whose skin color and income bracket don't match yours, and THEN you can sport the D pride. We EARN that shit. If you work for the city, the schools/universities, or a Detroit nonprofit I'll give you a pass. Otherwise shut up.

Okay, I promise later I will post about the many fabulous things that are making me happy. Because there are some, lots actually. But what is a blog for if not to keep one from losing one's shit in public?

Maggie quote of the day

2007-08-30T15:16:00.001-04:00

"Daddy, it not your turn to dress me. It Mommy's turn. I know these things."

We also played a few rounds of hide and seek today and I could not count, I was laughing so hard to hear her running commentary. "Where I should hide? Oh! I know! I hide on duh couch!"

So much of "two years old, almost three" is kicking my BUTT, but I love listening to her talk. She's a funny little person. I was known as a kid for using words I didn't know how to pronounce or exactly what they meant (all my dolls were "delicate") and she does the exact same thing. She "reads" some of her simpler books. She's bossy as hell ("no, not like DAT!!! Dis way!") and her favorite response when I ask her to do something is "I give it a twry." Okay, honestly, her favorite response is to either pretend I have not spoken, or "No!" but her willlingness to try stuff is much cuter. She'll yell "SHHHHH! Don't talk, guys!" at Paul and I when we're trying to have a grownup conversation, and has attempted to put us in Time Out.

She just really is who she is -- a stubborn, strong willed, beautiful, active, loving, opinionated, pushy, mischievious girl. I don't know anyone else like her. And even on days like yesterday, when I literally burst into tears because it's been so difficult, I can't bellieve I got so lucky.

Dribs and drabs

2007-08-24T16:47:00.000-04:00

Some people hate posts like this. Some love them. I am both in the Love category and too effing hot to flesh out any of the post ideas I have so it's time for.... tidbits.

1) So it turns out my MIL does have cancer after all. It's sad, my heart breaks for my husband, and I would do anything I can to make things easier, of course.

That being said, WOW has it apparently unleashed The Mean. I just trashed a long post I wrote about some egregious behavior she showed me. She's been telling people off right and left, screwed over her middle son badly and has been essentially been the opposite of her usual passive-agressive self. It would be funny, if I weren't worried she was going to go after me next. I know there are psychological reasons people facing serious illness lash out, but is that an excuse for saying and doing things that in normal times would destroy relationships? She has no friends and strained relationships with much of her family and her husband's. Now I know why. SHEESH. I am praying for strength, grace and the ability to dodge whatever she aims at me. I keep repeating this rule my wise and fabulous friend Tonya gave me for dealing with difficult people: "You don't have to swing at every pitch."

2) On a lighter note: It's summer, I'm pregnant, it's hot. My brain has turned to mush and that means reality TV. Top Chef? Last episode? Holy crap, I can chop onions faster than that and the main reason I didn't go to culinary school a couple years ago when I was considering it is that my manual dexterity and thus knife skills BLOW. Also, I was developing a little crush on CJ, until he showed his snakelike ways. Dead to me.

3) I notice many of the fashhions of my youth are coming back into style almost completely unchanged. It's honestly kind of funny --I flip through magazines or catalogs and I swear I've already owned half this shit, worn it past its expiration date and given it to St. Vincent de Paul. I've always had a Thing that if you were old enough to wear the trend the first time around, you should stay away from it the second time. That being said, some of the looks I know look good on me. Temptatious. Also, WTF is up with Old Navy? Last time I was in there, everything looked like maternity clothes! Big bonus, because I God willing will be wearing lots of those this fall and winter and then can look all trendy (if utterly ridiculous) once I have the baby. But still, I remember the women I babysat for wearing these styles as maternity clothes back in the early 1980s. Two bad trends that look bad together, methinks.

4) So I had a dream about an ex-boyfriend last night. What makes this funny enough to be blogworthy is that Paul, Maggie and I were on this great family trip through Europe, and then I ran into Ex and realized "Oh right, we're together" and off I went tra la. Until, not only did Dream Me remember what a crappy boyfriend he was in life, but remembered a previous dream I'd had where we got back together (no Paul in that one) and he'd been great for like a week until he was right back to his crappy ways and I'd dream-dumped him then too. Apparently my subconscious is a slow learner. I almost never think about this guy in life unless I see his name somewhere (we're in the same line of work, and he and a bad experience in college led me to the No Intra-Profession Dating Ever No Seriously Never rule. Scarily, Paul's job is edging ever closer to mine but he is keeping the "Assholic-I-Am-The Second-Hemingway-or-Maybe-Bukowski-or-Even-Hunter-S. factor" extremely low thus far).

Thoughts? On 80s fashion on the not-25? On difficult and seriously ill mothers in law? On why the hell this ex keeps showing up in traveling dreams? Guilty pleasure reality TV?

Coming out

2007-08-13T22:15:00.001-04:00

I am successfully past the first trimester, so we have started telling people outside of our families (and the Internet). We hadn't yet told the most important person, though, the one who will, with us, be most affected by this. Yes, the Big Sister to Be. I wanted to wait until I was bigger, but when we told a friend we ran into Saturday, her first words to Maggie were "You're going to be a big sister!" Ooops. This woman is a) extra smart b) pregnant with #2 herself and 3) has a son who is a few months older than Maggie, so I she assumed we'd already told her.
Realizing that would be the reaction from most people who didn't already know, we decided it was time to break the news that she would have to share the spotight around here. When she woke up Sunday morning, we brought her into bed with us and I told her we had important news. "You are going to be a big sister, sweetie. There is another baby coming to live with us."

"Another BABY??" (big smile)

"Yes, another little baby."

"Let's play tent!"

.....

I explained the baby was growing in Mommy's belly.

"Oh. Let's gwab it!"

"We can't grab it yet, honey, it needs to grow a lot longer."

"Oh! Play tent with me?"

So in other words, she was fine and completely, utterly unimpressed with the whole situation. If asked about it, she seems happy--otherwise, she just doesn't care.

Let's hope she remains as imperturbable about the whole thing six months from now.

Grrrrr-OOUCH!

2007-08-08T09:26:00.000-04:00

(The Grouchketeer Cheer, for those who don't rot their children's brains with Sesame Street).

It is fucking HOT here. Hot. And humid. Yesterday we went to the zoo for Member Appreciation Night. We hopped the train to get to the back of the zoo, and as we were riding we suddenly headed into a wall of rain. We all got soaked (my darling daughter because she ran in the rain and stomped in puddles, and then complained loudly that her shoes were wet the rest of the time). It's so humid that two hours later, as we were leaving, my hair was still damp. My hair is typical thin soft white-people hair and usually dries in minutes.

It's too hot to sleep, even with the AC on in our room. Our window unit is loud, so it's either suffer in our hot room or be awakened frequently by the AC unit. Since I hate being hot more than just about anything in the world, I'll take the frequent waking, but it's doing nothing for my deep crankitude.

I'm constantly low-level nauseous, which I think has little to do with the pregnancy and everything to do with the heat (since during a brief rainy reprieve yesterday I ate like a damn lumberjack). I can't make myself eat much, which means I'll suddenly realize midafternoon I am about to keel over from low blood sugar. Normally I love to cook and right now I canot make it happen. I'm pickier than my two year old daughter. Vegetables? Gross. Meat? Are you TRYING to make me throw up? Yogurt? Yum, no, wait, yuck. Even chocolate and ice cream are nasty (I may have developed a mutliple personality, because that is atypical to say the least). Picky eaters irritate the living hell out of me, so it's doubly irritating that I have become one!

Also. the World's Most Annoying Event aka the Woodward Dream Cruise is coming up, which means idiots who cannot read a fucking CALENDAR and do not know the Dream Cruise is NEXT WEEK are lining Woodward with their lawnchairs, staring at....traffic. Regulat day to day traffic. If I ever have such a low capacity for entertainment, shoot me on sight, please. However, those idiots bring out other idiots who take out their classic cars and clog one of Detroit's major thoroughfares for days before the event. Apparently no one has an actual life and need of living it along the road that week, it's all for Bubba and his friends. I have gone just the weensiest bit road rage crazy over the years and may possibly have flipped off a cruiser. Or twelve. Or driven down the road yelling obscenities. The event's bad enough, but it's a day; it's the spillover that really brings on the rage.

And? Major in-law time coming up. Enough said there.

So--how do you nice people battle nausea, heat, stupid-ass rednecks, and stick-in-the-mud in-laws who act as if you are a deeply odd person when in fact you are so average as to be boring? Tips?

Best comment ever

2007-08-02T09:39:00.000-04:00

"Aww, it's like Hands Across America...but with boobs."

From AmyPT de Blanco de Sinki: http://blancodesinki.blogspot.com/

Seriously, let's all give ourselves nice gold stars for such intelligent and civil comments. Even those of you who disagreed did so thoughtfully and brought interesting insights to the debate. It's sad that breastfeeding can inspire real unpleasantness on both sides and I was expecting the trolls and "sanctimommies" (another great one from pnuts mama, who needs to get a blog already AHEM) to come a-runnin'. But no! I love when I get pleasa

ntly surprised.

Moving on....

It is HOT. I hate hot weather in the best of times, but yesterday it was 96 degrees, my high-needs, larger, fluffier cat decided that my lap was the place to be (dumb shit, when I WANT to pet him he's nowhere to be found, yesterday he lovvveeesss me), or my dog was snuggled next to me with her hot stinky breath, or Maggie needed to be on my lap and "gwab some hair." We fled to my aunt and uncle's house in the burbs for the afternoon. With central air. And a POOL. Maggie loved the pool. We got in and her first words were "this is going to be GREAT!"

And it was.

Today it's going to be even more hot, so we're going to the play area at the mall. I HATE the mall. HATE. HATE. But they have a Lord of the Flies-esque play area and air conditioning and my high energy kid can run around like a maniac, which is enough for a day like today. And they have cookies. We like cookies.

Oh for the love of PETE

2007-07-31T15:21:00.000-04:00

Found this linked from Strollerderby--I picked it up on Lactations.org. Some people are, for reasons passing understanding, attempting to set a record for "synchronized breastfeeding" around the world. Here's my edited version:

RE: SYNCHRONIZED BREASTFEEDING WORLDWIDE

10:00 AM LOCAL STANDARD TIME around the world, August 8, 2007

(snipped)
Authorized by Guinness World Record under Claim Number 191535 of Children for Breastfeeding, Inc. with Membership ID 139335, we decided that our Synchronized Breastfeeding Worldwide be attempted in one single day, August 8, 2007, at the end of the World Breastfeeding Week.

Therefore, the Synchronized Breastfeeding must start at 10 AM (1200 GMT) local time August 8, 2007 at the International Date Line, at Time Zone Number One, comprising New Zealand , Marshall Islands , Wake Island and Fiji . Then an hour later the event will be continued in Time Zone Number Two, at 10 AM (1300 GMT) (more of the same, snipped) Thus, New Zealand gets its wish – to be the first and starting point of the event. Please see attached Time Zones for your respective schedules.

The purposes of this Exercise are

(1) To break the Guinness World Record for Simultaneous Breastfeeding in multiple sites (17,000 nursing mothers, soon to be credited by Guinness) established by the Philippines on May 2, 2007. We mean to do this not by pitting one nation against another, but to establish the record by international cooperation among those countries that belong to the same Time Zone.

(2) To make a permanent and on-going roster of the national records of each nation on simultaneous breastfeeding in a single site and in multiple sites, urging each nation to surpass its own record every succeeding year.

(3) To compare the efforts and achievements of each nation by standards based on population. Each nation will be judged by the number of simultaneously breastfeeding mothers “per million population” (pmp), thus negating the obvious advantages of countries with huge populations like China and India .

(4) To provide a measure of how the Breastfeeding Movement around the world is progressing every year, and to achieve the numbers worldwide that will make all nations cooperate in reviving the breastfeeding culture.

(5) To establish simultaneous breastfeeding as a form of universal prayer for peace and thanksgiving for the gift of motherhood and breastfeeding.

People. WTF is the POINT?? This is so ridiculous, but I wasn't going to blog it until I read that last little gem there.

Now, let me note that I breastfed Maggie, and am extremely glad I did so. This isn't the "bitter ravings of an incomplete woman" or whatever the lactivists would call someone who couldn't or wouldn't breastfeed. And let me admit that yes, I have a serious scorn going on for La Leche and their ilk. Here's why. To my knowledge, they have never apologized for inviting what is essentially a practioner of hate speech against adoptive parents, infertile couples and gay famiies to speak at their national convention. At best, they were guilty of breathtaking ignorance in not checking this woman out (like, GOOGLING her, for example) and at worst, they are guilty of holding the same repugnant views.

I do think breastfeeding is best, or I wouldn't have fought to make it work through weeks of blinding pain and frustration at being pinned to the couch every two hours or less. I don't know why anyone wouldn't at least give it a real try. I look forward to nursing the baby I am carrying now. I also think mothers should feel comfortable nursing anywhere they would feel comfortable giving a bottle -- which does NOT include a skanky bathroom. I never got comfortable with it myself (big boobs, short waist, and a squirmy and very distractible baby add up to more potential embarassment than I care to face) but I fully support anyone's right to latch that baby on anywhere they please.

However, can we all just get some fucking SENSE already and acknowledge that breastfeeding is a way to feed a baby, and that is ALL it is? It is not a badge of superior mothering, it is not some feminist statement, it is not the foundation on which all that is good and right in society is built. It is also not an exhibistionist act or tatamount to pissing in public. It is a way, a damn good way, to accomplish one of the most fundamental tasks in parenting, which is to feed and nurture your child.

Lactivists drive me craazzzyyy because they get so smug and exercised over how greaaaaattt they are for breastfeeding. They brag about how and where they have nursed in public, how long they nursed each kid, etc. What they don't get is this: BBY being so self-satisfied and so militant about how "breast is best" (I have even had blog comment wars with people who think it's okay to walk up to a non-nursing mother and expound about the superiority of breastfeeding!!) they turn off moderate people like me who would otherwise be supportive of their cause. Similarly, people who oppose breastfeeding and make comments about how "gross" it is for a mother to nurse her baby in public play right into the hands of these tiresome people who want to make it seem like breastfeeding mothers are some persecuted minority.

And that's my other big beef with lactivists. Is there ANYONE out there who has parented an infant and hasn't heard ad infinitum that "breast is best?" Is it news to anyone that breastfeeding is the preferred baby-feeding method these days? Anyone who hasn't felt even a leetttle guilty taking that can of formula off the shelf? If anyone is a persecuted minority these days (and I am not implying anyone is) it's formula feeders, who get comments from random passersby about how they should really be breastfeeding and unhelpful advice from everyone about how to make it work.

Breast is best, and supporting mothers in their choice to breastfeed is important. But staging meaningless events and trying to give it this soft focus romantic wonderfulness draws attention away from very real battles mothers face every day --battles for safer neighborhoods, for decent childcare, for a little freakin' respect already. It doesn't escape me that the lactivist movement appears to be exclusively made up of middle-class women. There are a lot of real problems facing mothers --sufficient support for breastfeeding isn't one of them.

Sweet, sweet sleep

2007-07-20T10:04:00.000-04:00

One of my biggest ongoing disagreements with my husband is because of our differing needs for sleep. I am a big fan, but can get by with like 7 hours consistently. He LOVES sleep. Needs like 10 hours. Naps whenever he can. I maintain that naps are for babies and small children and that grownups SUCK IT UP.

Ahem. Of course, now I find myself in the first trimester of pregnancy and I AM TIRED. I haven't watched a non-DVR'ed Daily Show in more than a month. Most days find me wanting a little Vitamin N around Maggie's naptime. In other words, we have completely switched roles --it's now common for Paul to come to bed and find me out cold, the blankets wrapped around me like a cocoon.

Which has made the last 10 days or so all the more difficult. Because my beautiful daughter? Has decided sleep is the enemy.

For what feels like the last month, but is probably less (my mind is a blur) she wakes up every four hours or so during the night, screaming and sobbing and refusing to go back to sleep unless one of us lays down on the cold hardwood next to her. We recently discovered her top molars are breaking through. I hate those teeth --this happened last time as well, when the bottom two came in.

Most nights, it's me that does the Maggie shift--Paul goes in to her (which for my sleep loving husband is a gift akin to precious rubies) and she screams and screams at him that NO Daddy, NO. STOP. NO. MOMMY!!!! Now during the day Daddy is her bestest friend ever and I am far and away the least fun parent, but at night? All about the (exhausted, at the end of her rope, sore) Mommy.

And naps? Forget it. They've been ranging between an hour or so to nothing. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes I go downstairs and scream into a pillow and slam a door before I calm down and retrieve her.

Here's ne day I find funny: She's in the crib, I am laying on her floor and pass out COLD, I am so exhausted. I awaken to a stuffed animal bouncing gently off my face. Then another, as she gently whispers "here ya go." Apparently she thought I needed company. I steeled myself not to laugh and opened my eyes, only to see sparkling blue eyes and a dimpled little face smiling down at me, her blanket poised to go over next.

The other night was the worst--both Maggie and I stricken with insomnia, unable to sleep at all from 3:30 to shortly before wakeup time at 7. I spent most of yesterday feeling like I had the flu. And? I am not a very good mother when I am this tired. I am short tempered, uncreative, slack. More TV? Sure. Chicken nuggets for lunch? Sure. Don't want to go outside and play?Fine. Her normal two-year old sass feels like more than can be borne, and her crankiness from lack of sleep makes the days very very long.

But joy comes in the morning. Today's a new day. It's a beautiful, sunny, crisp 75 degrees, my darling is in school, and she SLEPT. Until 5:30 this morning, when we brought her into bed with us. She nestled against me and slept more, until 7. She's been remarkably good natured, even without anything resembling adequate rest, but this morning she is the curious, funny, happy kid I remember. I have a reasonable-length fuse again, and so does she. It's glorious. I don't know if the teeth are finally through, or if it's the Orajel and Children's Tylenol she got last night, or if the Sleep Gods finally decided to give us a break, but it's wonderful.

Now I just pray she takes a nap.

What a week.

2007-07-16T09:11:00.000-04:00

After our great news on Tuesday, I felt like things could calm down for a bit. Until Paul called me on his way home from work that night, sounding quite rattled.

His mom had been taken to the hospital that day by ambulance.

Paul had found out because he'd seen some news story about a new Alzheimer's medication. His dad was diagnosed about two years ago with mild to moderate Alzheimer's. Mild to moderate seems to have progressed to worse, because his dad couldn't really tell Paul what was wrong except that she'd turned yellow or why he was at home instead of at the hospital with her.

Typical behavior from my inlaws --they are famous for, in passing, mentioning that they were in a car accident or one of them had been hospitalized or whatever.

Paul, to his great credit, got on the case immediately and alerted all his brothers (none of whom knew) including his next oldest, who is a doctor and has medical power of attorney.

Turns out she had a biliary tumor, near the pancreas and in the bile duct. When tumors occur there, they are almost always cancerous and can't be removed though surgery (the case with this one). Her doctors told her this Thursday and that she had about 6-7 months to live.

Paul was devastated, of course, and I was pretty upset myself. I make no bones about the fact my inlaws drive me up every available wall, but my MIL is a good woman at heart and doesn't deserve this. Dick Cheney keeps surviving heart attack after heart attack, but my MIL, whose worst sin is being anoyingly passive-aggressive, gets terminal cancer? NOT fair.

And apparently God or whoever agreed with us. Paul went up to visit yesterday, and IN PASSING she mentioned that the biopsy had come back and was noncancerous. Like, "yeah, that whole emotional hell you've been going through all week thinking you were about to lose me? BY THE WAY, I am probably not dying but I'll wait TWO DAYS to tell you that."

I've never been so grateful and so furious at one time.

She's not out of the woods--the fact is there still this thing in there and it needs to go away, but she's likely to be around for awhile. And I still have more teeth-on-edge moments facing me. Paul has finally convinced his brothers of the need to get together and discuss his parents' needs in the future, so we'll see how that goes. Denial runs strong in that family--their motto might as well be "If you ignore it, it's not really happening" -- so that should be fun. His dad is not going to get better and seems to be getting worse, and even if his mom recovers fully she can't continue to take care of a 6-foot-2, 190 lb. man all by herself.

Right now, I am praying for my MIL, for patience, and to do things out of kindness. To keep my short temper and general snottiness at bay and to let my feelings toward my husband I love dearly guide my actions toward the family I do not. If you're a praying sort, toss her and me one, huh?

8 weeks

2007-07-10T12:09:00.000-04:00

Heartbeat: Good.

Size: Right where it should be.

Due date: Feb. 19

Hollly crap. It looks like I'm going to be having a baby next year, God willing and all goes well.

I'd been feeling really nervous, because I had like two days of horrible nausea and then nothing. I'm still tired, but got through BOTH days this weekend without taking a nap. Veins are still weirdly blue, boobs are still huge and sore, face breaking out disgustingly, but other than that I could not have felt less pregnant.

Amazing. There does in fact appear to be a baby in there. More later, but I have to go pick up Maggie and attempt to not melt in the 9 ZILLION DEGREE heat we're experiencing right now.

Mean kids

2007-07-06T10:24:00.000-04:00

Is it wrong that I wanted to kick a four-year-old in the face this morning?

I dropped Maggie off at school, around my usual time. Only two boys were there, one of whom is in her class and the other who is older, neither of whom are especially friends of hers. The two boys were playing together on a rug. Maggie said "I want to go play with them," so I told her to go ask.

She did, all cheerful and smiley with her sweet little face and big blue eyes.

And the older boy yelled, "NO!! YOU can't play with us!"

Maggie's face crumpled and she burst into tears, running to me sobbing.

I picked her up, comforted her, and directed her toward the bean table (a sand table filled with beans, which she loves), telling her she can have fun all by herself and that she could play with the beans without having to share. She snuffled, calmed down, and began playing, her face still sad. Much as I wanted to hover over her making sure the day would spare her any more heartbreak, I kissed her soft round cheek, wished her a good day and quickly left, my eyes stinging and my mama-bear side roaring.

The truest cliche about parenting for me is that you now have your heart walking around outside your body. And mine feels broken, as hurt as if it happened to me. She'll be fine, I am sure, by pickup time. And yet I am sitting here sobbing.

Of course this reopens old wounds for me, of always being the new kid, the weird kid, the one the cool girls treated like dirt and the mean girls zeroed in on as a target. But I'd rather face down a phalanx of ugly oversized bullies than have my darling girl face this for a minute.

Maggie is a singular person. She's gregarious, friendly, open and funny, and walks out to meet the world with the full expectation that she will be loved right back. It's awful knowing that this world will chew up and spit out my openhearted, loving girl unless she learns to toughen up. I want to keep her as freespirited and uniquely herself as she is forever, to help her hold on to the beat of the drummer only she hears. I want the world to love her as I do.

Every parent worries about our child's physical vulnerability --that what once seemed a pretty safe world suddenly seems full of sharp edges and sinister germs, of monsters masquerading in human form. But what's just as bad for me is her emotional vulnerability, the slashes and stabs and blows that come from kids struggling to find their place in the world. I want to protect her forever, and have tried to only surround her with nice kids with nice parents, people who would be as dismayed to see their child unkindly exclude another as I was to see Maggie excluded. But the world isn't made up of people like that. I'm tasked with teaching her to toughen herself against the mean while maintaining her own kind heart and learning to seek out others who are the same. Not an easy job, or one I feel even remotely equipped to handle.

Huh. This started out with the intent of making it a funny post about harboring violent impulses toward someone who can't yet spell his own name (and I should add that while what this kid did was mean, my experience of him is that he's a pretty nice kid overall). Guess it's not funny yet. I wonder if it ever will be.

I've been outed!

2007-07-05T16:06:00.000-04:00

I love my husband, I really do. He's a wonderful human being, and I have become a far better person because of his steady, loving presence in my life.

That being said, I could have stabbed him to death with a grill fork yesterday.

You see, no one in my family knows I have a blog (with the possible exception of my brother, to whom I may have admitted such in a moment of breathtaking stupidity). They like my writing and would probably enjoy reading it, but I need the space to vent about them occasionally. I've got at least one post on here that would cause MAJOR fireworks. My two best college friends have blogs, and my parents, who love them both dearly, have asked for their blog addresses and I've vaguely promised to email it to them when I find them. I comment on both their blogs and would DIE if either parent tracked back to here.

Also, this whole little gestational situation I find myself in? I'm keeping it secret, except to both sets of parents, my brother and SIL and oh yes YOU the Internet (and such friends as read this blog).

So we're sitting around post-dinner yesterday, all happy and sated with potato salad and ribs and such yummy things, when the talk turned to when we planned to tell people (when I am out of the first trimester, five weeks from now). My mom was bemoaning this fact and noting I should be very proud of her because she saw much of the extended family last weekend and did not tell.

When my husband, for reasons passing understanding, remarked, "Well, it doesn't really matter because Amy has already announced it to the whole world on her website."

I shot him dagger looks and said "WHAT?"

His response: "What? Oh. Sorry."
My mom of course immediately asked que pasa and I sheepishly said "I keep a blog. But, I, uh, don't like to talk about it."

So smooth. Plesase trust us with no state secrets.

Luckily she confused that, I think, with the message board I was part of for a long time when I was going through infertility (why I didn't just say that's what Paul meant, I don't know). Still. I later asked him what the HELL he was thinking and he couldn't really answer me.

Why why why?? Why?

On other notes, if you left a comment in the last post, it's posted now. For some reason they were not arriving in my email box.

I don't get your email addresses when you post a comment, so if you have asked a question and I don't email you, that's why. If you want me to respond, please note your email in the comment and I promise I'll edit it out before I post, promise promise.

Good things are happening

2007-07-02T13:48:00.000-04:00

I've lived in Detroit a long, long time. I was born here, moved to the burbs, moved to Ohio, and finally settled here (with my family, obviously) in 1982. This August, it will be 25 years I have lived here, with brief breaks for school. I've never lived outside the city limits since.

Paul and I joke about my deep cynicsm regarding the city's progress. He'll come home from a meeting all upbeat about this transportation plan or that new retail devleopment, and I'll sigh and say "I've seen like five of these not happen over the years. I'll believe it when I am riding that high-speed rail down Woodward/walking to Starbucks/fending off profitable offers on our house."

In many ways, though, I am hugely optimistic about Detroit's future. It angers me when people deign to come down from the suburbs and turn up their noses because, apparently, it's not Chicago (to which I ask "Did you take a wrong turn at the lake or something? It's never been Chicago."). Or when people write off the entire city with a wave of their hand. Because see, things are changing here.

I've recently met some very cool families (See Sweet Juniper at right, for one) who are EXACTLY the kind of people we need here. They are all five or so years younger than me, and have decided to put down their roots here instead of one of the suburbs. These are bright, educated young families who have the luxury of choice and for various reasons have chosen the city. Just like they might in more celebrated places, they investigated neighborhoods and said "This is where it feels right for me to be." Instead of insulating themselves in suburbs where everyone else is likely to be white, middle class and educated just like them, they dove into the urban stew.

Detroit's certainly not the easiest place to raise a child, and as a reasonably economically secure two-parent family, we've got it better than most. But when things like this happen, how can you not love city life?

Or this--Maggie digs the Candy Band....

In my quarter century (JESUS JUMPING CHRIST) I have lived here, I've seen things go from shitty to kinda bad to worse. Now, it's pretty exciting to see new things rise, like the riverfront parks, that were never there before and that no amount of economic distress can take away. The naysayers can go back to Oakland County and stay there--this is a new Detroit. And I am really proud to be a part of it.

Rockin' the crankypants

2007-06-27T14:31:00.000-04:00

TIme at which Maggie began weeping piteously in her crib: 6:11 am.

Minutes previous to that my husband woke me up to tell me he was going to the drugstore to buy Immodium because the stomach bug that got Maggie got him: 75

Time he'd gone to bed the previous night with my blessing because he was feeling like hell: 7:15 pm

Minutes Maggie slept after I settled her down in our bed and explained it was Sleep TIme, not Play Time: Perhaps 10

Her cranky level, on a scale of 1-10: 8

Mine: 10. Maybe 11.

Number of inhabitants of this house whose poop I have cleaned up from the kitchen floor: 2

Total number of legs possessed by the above: 6

Days Maggie has had God knows what wrong with her digestive system: 3

Ounces of food she has consumed over that time: 8

Number of times my cell phone died during a conversation with Paul about poop that was not mine: 3

Extremely bad swear words I said in front of Maggie today: 2

Phone calls from OB/GYN's office: 1

Purpose of said call: to inform me they wanted me to do another beta. Could not explain why except to say the doctor flagged it but there's not a problem.

Freakout level: Orange (elevated)

It's not all bad: At Trader Joe's today, a random stranger ran in and got her a balloon after she lost hers in the parking lot. Proving my theory that people genuinely want to be nice and not assholes, it's just that the assholes ruin it for the rest of us.

I think I'll be a much nicer peron if I can get some rest.

Whirlwind

2007-06-26T17:02:00.000-04:00

This was such a crazy weekend it took me until Tuesday to write about it.

A few things I have learned:

Never, EVER tell a two year old you're going to do something she'll really like until you're actually in the car on the way there.

Case in point: We headed to Ohio this weekend for a whirlwind visit to attend my nephew's fourth birthday party. Maggie adores her cousin TK--he is her favorite person and usually wins as her favorite friend of the day when we ask her who that was at the end of each day. So I made the mistake of telling her last Tuesday that we were going to get in the car and drive with Grandma and Papa for a long long time and then go to TK's birthday party that weekend.

She proceeded to repeat this plan back to me, with embellishment such as balloons and "birthday hats" EVERY. BLESSED. DAY. Every time I got her from her nap, she'd ask hopefully "Go to TK's house now?" By the time the party rolled around (after a few practice rounds of Happy Birthday on the way down) she was just incredibly excited. Add in some sugar, running around like a crazy perosn with other little kids, and all her favorite people except for Daddy in one place and she ended up staying up until nearly 11 pm from sheer excitement. And then went perpendicualr on the bed so I had about a one fott space to squeeze into and sleep. Such as it was....

I did this without Paul although both my parents were there to help, and let me tell you, I have a whole new respect for single moms who are gettin' it done. I could not do this alone.

Saturday I crashed and we helped with a baptism at church, and then crashed some more. Sunday, we visited Detroit River Days to see the Candy Band and let Maggie run through the squirty things, aout which more later, and then met friends and their kids for dinner.

All was well--until about 3 am. When Kurabrecht Pukefest 2007 commenced and didn't stop until the next morning. I don't know what she ate, but it violently disagreed with her. She'd only puked like twice in her life before, and this exceeded the lifetime total in the span of less than 2 hours.
aIn between fits of vomiting, she was quite happy and social. I think she figured, "hey I'm up, they're up, let's party!" At one point, she laid her head against mine and announced ""Mommy and Maggie are having a SLEEPover!!"

The horror --the laundry, the misery, the helplessness of having a sick little kiddo and not being able to do anything about it. Not to mention the disgusting factor. Now I have an oversensitive gag reflex and am easily grossed out, but having a kid has more or less inured me to the grossness of her effluvia, if nothing else. Until yesterday, when Maggie wasn't the only one who hurled.

Between that, the fact it's approximately 9 zillion degrees, this little parasite who seems to still be growing, and the fact my lovely was up at 4 am this morning and didn't want to go to sleep, I am EXHAUSTED. I bought wine at the grocery store today (not for me, for Paul, taking advantge of a local grocery store's closing sale) and the cashier carded me because "You don't look 40 to me" and I nearly kissed her. Now Paul is sick and I'm hoping I am not next (food poisioning is bad for embryos, methinks). I might not look 40 today (I think I look like a 50 year old who's lived a hard life) but I feel about 70.

Going to go prop my eyes open with toothpicks and try to give Maggie some decent parenting....

We're famous!

2007-06-19T13:14:00.000-04:00

(click on the link in the title--or on the Model D link at right, for a story callled sidewalking)

Well, Paul and Maggie are anyway....I refused to be in the picture, but my cute husband, daughter, dog and house carried the day. Maureen's a neighbor and a fellow freelancer--she covered for me when Maggie was born.

Off to enjoy our 15 minutes...

Wow

2007-06-15T13:05:00.000-04:00

I'll get right to the point to spare you guys what I went through this morning: The beta doubled, up to 266.

Still not the rate of increase or huge number I'd hope for (or that I had with Maggie), but we all know high betas don't always mean more viable pregnancies. Nor do low-ish ones mean all is doomed. But I do appear to have gone and gotten all knocked up, for the foreseeable future.

Hollllyyyy crap.

Now, my tale of WTF from this morning. Went in yesterday for more blood work, and the nice phlebotomist (one of my favorite words, BTW) said to call tomorrow. So Paul was still home at 9 (It's his last day at his current job), so I decided to call right then and there. Got what I recognized to be the after-hours message (with the regular one you get a phone tree and can leave direct messages for the nurses). Left a message, took a shower, realized I had never been so nervous in my LIFE. Decided not to put in my contacts or put on mascara in case I was crying soon. Told Paul I was calling again and if I didn't get the regular message we were going over there (understanding that this would get me branded The Crazy Patient for the remainder of my pregnancy). I didn't, so we piled Mags into the station wagon (yes in fact we ARE super super cool) and off to the office we went.

To be confronted with a sign saying they were closed today.

NO ONE TOLD ME.

There was a number to calll for an office on the other side of town so I wrote that down (twice, because I was so mad I wasn't sure how legible my writing would be). Maggie was loudly demanding a playground visit, so I stopped to grab something to eat and decided to call the office from the car while heading to the playground rather than take her home.
I got the same type of after hours message.

I may have sworn in front of Maggie.

Left a desperate message on their machine and went to call another OB that allegedly my doctor sometimes covers for. While I was getting connected through 411, my call waiting beeped. It was the other office! Now one of the reasons I love this OB is that his staff is wonderful, and this woman was no exception. She talked calmly to my about how tests don't mean much and if I am not bleeding everything should be fine, and then read off my numbers to me.

I'm stunned, overjoyed, and terrified. And incredibly grateful. I'm not sure what the future holds, but I thank God for even being able to get this far. And I thank all of you lovely people for riding this rollercoaster with me.

...but apparently she's sticking around...

2007-06-13T10:32:00.000-04:00

You people? Awesome. Big inapropriate hugs all around.

Beta was 105.
Which is normal, and I think kinda close to where I was with Maggie.
Boobs still sore, cramping gone. Test this morning (yes, I am weak weak weak) was all but negative. The NP (who seriously, I think I want to marry a little) said not to worry about the tests. And she called in a prescription for prenatals.

I'm still not entirely optimistic, but I am much more encouraged about at least making it to the next step of, oh, making a prenatal appointment. I'm going in tomorrow for another beta. Updates as information warrants.

Hope is a bitch

2007-06-12T15:30:00.000-04:00

For those of you who have been around the infertility blogosphere for awhile, remember the Hope Addict?

The Hope Addict is a pretty little thing that whispers in your ear and tells you things and makes you believe that something wonderful might be true, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Bitch is living in my house. And needs a good pummeling.

I am more of the “habituated trauma” type — I tend to believe that something shitty’s just ready to smack me in the face whenever good things start happening. I have evidence to support this view (although I conveniently ignore the evidence that does not). And have the last couple days ever given Hopey and Habituated a chance to tango.

Late last week, around my birthday, the possibility I may be pregnant entered my head. Remember that cute little scene from my birthday entry, with Maggie’s head on my stomach? Well, it was gently relocated there after she first placed it on my right breast and it felt like she’d punched me. Over the weekend, my period failed to show. After a wrestling match with one of my favorite bras just trying to jam my newly luscious rack into its cottony confines, I realized “something is going on here.”

Didn’t stop me from getting my drink on with some good friends Saturday, or having wine at my birthday dinner with my parents on Sunday. After all, been down this road countless times and have one baby to show for it, you know? Monday morning, though, when still no red tide cometh, I decided to use an ovualtion stick and test.

TWO! LINES! Wahoo!

Now, like a good little infertile, I didn’t believe the test, and headed out to Target to buy more. My eyes slid along the Liz Lange Maternity section, but a toddler serving me “tea” out of the pitcher I was buying proved a really good distraction.

The second test showed a light line, but a line, there, nonetheless. Of course I bought the two-pack (what, you think you’re dealing with some kind of amateur here?) and took that one this morning.

The line was even lighter, barely perceptible, really.

What does a normal person do in this situation? Beats the crap out of me. What I did… is probably not that. Upon discussion with Paul, I decided to call the doctor and get a blood test, which is the only real way to tell anything meaningful anyway. We’d discussed the possibility of stocking up on the dollar store tests, which are actually more sensitive, but dismissed it in favor of the doctor and actual medical knowledge, instead of reading a piece of plastic like it’s tea leaves.

However, when an unexpected detour on the way home sent me in the direction of the dollar store .…yep, $3 later I have three cassette tests in my possession. (if the Hope Addict were real she would SO be the shill for the pregnancy test industry. Slogan: “Come on, what’s one more?”)

I took test #3 after Maggie went down for her nap.

A line, but this one so insubstantial as to be barely so. With a much more sensitive test.

That sound you hear is the fat lady singing. And me giving the Hope Addict an ungentle escort off my property.

This sucks. I, we, want another baby. I let myself get gushy and stupid yesterday, thinking about sweet newborn feet and creased newborn necks and dragging out my maternity clothes as soon as vaguely appropriate. About getting to do this again, watching a remarkable personality grow and develop before my eyes.

I knew it was stupid, knew that a positive pregnancy test is miles away from having a baby in your arms. I knew the lighter test yesterday afternoon was a bad sign.

This happened before, you see, something no one but Paul knows. Last fall, I was having these same symptoms, but I put off testing much longer. The day we decided to finally bite the bullet and do it, I started feeling less and less pregnant — literally, noticing my symptoms disappear over the course of an afternoon. A fact confirmed by the stark black letters telling me “Not Pregnant” on the fancy digital test. I’m sure, had I tested as early as I did this time, the same thing would have happened.

If it had worked, that baby would be on its way any day now.

I mean, it IS possible that I got every bad test currently residing in the Metro Woodward Corridor, and is possible that the blood test comes back with nice high numbers. Luckily, the nurse who I’ll be talking to for my results tomorrow is my absolutely favorite one at the practice and maybe ever, and she may have some ideas as to why this ”chemical pregnancy” thing keeps happening. I don’t know how much more of this I can handle. I know this is so, so much easier with my precious Maggie upstairs sleeping, and I know worse things happen to better people all the time, and I know what I am losing here is a bit of hope and a ball of cells, not a baby.

But still.

37

2007-06-06T21:37:00.000-04:00

Holy fock, I am old.

And no, that's not a typo. I'm trying to swear less. After the following incident Monday:

Me: (muttering angrily and not especially verbally at the computer)

Maggie (on my lap watching Dora while I work, cheerily): DAMMIT!!!

Oh God. Paul would KILL ME if I told him (he'd just that weekend made a comment about how my pottymouthed self had to stop with the swearing now that we have Miss Chatterbox) so I'll just share it with the whole Internet instead.

Back on ze topic: Today was my 37th birthday. Aside from the treacherous closeness of that number to 40, it was a wonderful, beautiful day. Except for the fact I awakened at 3am to discover one of my cats had begun a pukefest ON MY PILLOW. if you have cats, you know there's usually quite a bit of fanfare that accompanies such an event, so how in God's name I didn't awaken is beyond me. However, I got right back to sleep. Maggie woke up around 8 and Paul brought her into our bed, as usual. She snuggled with her head on my stomach and her feet on Paul, looked up at me and said "Mommy? I love you."

I can't imagine starting a new year any better way.

Really, today seemed designed to remind me how rich I am. I'd been noodling a little bit about how far I am financially and professionally from where I'd like to be at this advanced age. People have written books already at my age, gotten famous, have thriving careers. I'm not there, and I need to figure out how much I want to be and how I'm going to pull it off.

But my day started with the sunny face of my beautiful daughter and the loving attention of my husband. Other than sleeping in and eating steak for dinner, nothing much happened with them today that woudn't have any other day. And that's an amazing gift, when you think about it -- that I am blessed to have a husband that treats me as if every day is special, and a daughter so delightful that joy is pretty much an everyday occurence. Ten years ago, I never thought I would be so lucky. One year ago, I'd begun to fight off a pretty horrifying depression thanks to medication and my fierce desire to do right by my husband and daughter. Now, life is immeasurably better.

There are all kinds of things I wish for: new running shoes, a new roof, and hell, maybe a flat-screen TV for good measure. Paul and I didn't get each other gifts this year, although we're going to buy something for ourselves as a joint gift when our financials improve. My cousin left me a message wishing "that you got everything you want, need and deserve." It sounds weird to acknowledge we didn't even do presents (although I don't think she was talking about material goods either). But I am brimming over with gratitude today, because I already have everything I ever hoped for.

Postlets:blah blah blog

2007-06-04T14:23:00.000-04:00

We went to Cleveland this weekend, to visit the fam and go to a Tigers-Indians baseball game at Jacobs Field. What a cool stadium that is! Much better views for a wider range of seats than Comerica Park. They have a kid's play area with tons of Little Tikes and Step 2 plastic climbey things and cars and such. When I become Empress, every public venue is going to be required to have such a thing within 200 feet. Maggie had a ball and spent lots of time chasing her cousin around. Poor munkus didn't get a nap, and was out cold within minutes of us getting in the car, but KidsLand kept her happy for the hours we were there. Brilliant.
*****

This is the first time I have been in a city where my team has lost a crucial game to that city's team. I watched the Pistons game with Paul, my dad and my brother Saturday night. I'm not that much of a sports fan, but am wife, daughter, sister and friend to guys who are. In between the political discussions that always break out when my family is together (my Republican father and I agree HIllary Clinton '08 is a VERY. Bad. Idea, for even some of the same reasons) we winced as the Pistons completely fell apart in the final minutes of the game. While I was getting ready to go to bed, I could hear cheers and honking from the street near their house, which boasts tons of restaurants and bars. It was strange to be in the middle of all that rejoicing and not sharing it. I'm not the kind of person whose day would be ruined because the Pistons tanked (and thank God, neither is Paul) but it stung a little.
We had an encounter with that kind of person, though. The event we were at was a fundraiser for St. Vincent de Paul (a Catholic charitable organization that feeds hungry people and such) which included Mass, lunch and the game. We arrived as Mass was ending and stood at the back of the tent where it was being held. Now, when Paul and I were planning our trip, we decided Maggie would wear her Tayshaun Prince jersey win or lose, because we're not That Guy and you gotta represent. So, decked out in her jersey and her Tigers cap, in her Daddy's arms, there she was waiting for Mass to end. Some guy wearing a LeBron James jersey looked at her, sneered and motioned to the back of his jersey.

To a TWO YEAR OLD.
During MASS.

Way to Witness, asshole.

***

Have people lost their flipping MINDS?
I'm dumbfounded. I don't know what else I can say. In our circle it's a Big Bash when a kid has a party at one of those playscape places with coffee and WiFi for the grownups. Maggie's two birthdays have been celebrated with family and cake.
The people who own the place where we board our dog when we leave town were able to let us pick her up last night, after closing, because they held their daughter's seventh birthday party there. It's a great place, full of wide-open, easily hosed-off space, and I bet the dogs got to come too (Dobby did not come home with a goody bag, so who knows). If I were a seven year old girl I'd LOVE it.
(Incidentally, if you're looking for a place to board your dog or need doggie daycare, a concept I cannot get my head around, we can't recommend these guys highly enough: Pawz Inn. Love them. And no, we don't know them personally or anything.)

***

Quote of the day: Maggie, looking at herself in the rear view mirror while I drove her to school. She'd let me put her hair in pigtails, a vanishingly rare occurence: "I look like a panda!!"

And ya know, she kind of did...

So much better

2007-05-30T14:50:00.001-04:00

Thank you, lovely Internet people (and at least two real-life friends). Things are better. Paul was off over Memorial Day--his birthday was the Thursday before so he took his birthday and the Friday off. One of the things we do spend cash on is memberships, to the art museum and the zoo. So we took full advantage, heading to the zoo on Paul's birthday and the art museum on Friday. Know what's NOT fun to do with a two year old? The art museum. Every time we go I think "wow, she's too young for this" and yet still, hope triumphs over experience. This time, she made a break for it here, at the Great Hall of the Detroit Institute of Arts.

It's where she took her first real steps, whhere she propelled hersef for more than a few feet without our help. She saw something across the way that she wanted and made a dash for it, toddling away purposefully and leaving her amazed parents in her wake.

This time was not so cute. She thinks it's funny to run away from us, and took off full speed toward the hard, slippery marble steps that lead down to the packed main lobby. Ignnoring our cries of "Maggie, STOP" she kept giggling and running. Paul stood there dumbfounded, while I tore off after her, my not so sylphlike form encumbered with the stroller AND the diaper bag. I finally caught up to her but I'd hardly ever been so embarrassed in my life. Paul's response to my "what were you THINKING?" question was "I thought she'd stop." Uh, no.

More to post, but the goofy two year old in question is currently kicking her crib and singing a medley of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "Old McDonald." I'd best get her before she kicks it to pieces.

Filthy lucre

2007-05-21T14:57:00.000-04:00

I fucking hate this.

"This" being feeling poor. I know in reality I am not in fact poor, that we are better off than much of America and most of the world.

But I'm looking at Strollerderby, and they are flashing some ad for baby clothes from Fred Segal. Meanwhile, I am literally too broke to go to Target and pick up some much needed sandals, shorts and tees for Maggie his summer at like $5/pop. Forget about anything new for me, including the new running shoes I so desperately want so I can start running again and not be so ginormous. We need to fix our roof and our fence, and can't afford to.

And on top of our normal money worries, my husband got careless with the checking account and we are out $350 in overdraft fees. The bank, thank God, waived $105 of the total but is refusing to waive more. Suffice it to say that losing $350 is a hit we absolutely cannot afford. That's our food (and wine!) budget for a month, almost two months of school tuition, more than a car payment, etc. Because of this, neither Paul or I can buy each other gifts for our upcoming birthdays, my mom won't get her Mother's Day gift made good on for awhile, and our much needed night out together this coming weekend will have to be canceled. I can't even think about what bills won't get paid or how we'll manage to buy groceries because that sends me into panic attack.

The stupid thing? Minutes before Paul called me to confess what happened, I was thinking "I am so glad we're in better shape than we were a year ago, or two years ago." And then...CRASH!!!

I'm done being mad at my husband, although I think our days of joint accounts are over for many reasons. But this just points up how shitty I feel all the time about our finances. It seems like all our friends can afford things, can go shopping and buy what they need and even some of what they want, can keep their kids in tons of toys and clothes and even go on vacations every now and again. Everybody else I know who waited to have kids did so to be financially secure---we are less secure than ever.

And I HATE myself for being so envious of what other people have and can afford. I should be a better person than this. I should realize I am incredibly rich in what matters--I have a lovely, comfortable, if somewhat shabby, house in one of the nicest neighborhoods in Detroit, I have enough clothes to keep me warm and shoes to keep me covered, we've never gone hungry and I know if any of us had a health issue we could manage. And most importantly, I have a great husband (although a complete doofus about financial matters) and the world's most wonderful little girl. My parents are both healthy, Paul's parents mostly are, and no one whose opinion well and truly matters (okay, maybe one person) looks down on us for being so chronically broke all the damn time. And of course, I don't know what financial situations actually face the people I envy. For all I know they are in debt up to their eyes and a job loss or serious expense would wipe them out.

But it doesn't stop me from hating it. I want to do better for Maggie than this. I want to be able to shop someplace that's not Target or a rummage sale. I want to not feel my throat close with anxiety when the car or the fridge or something else we can't afford to replace acts up. I want to buy something just because it's pretty. I'm a thrifty sort by nature, and wouldn't be buying the $$$$ Fred Segal clothes for Maggie even if money were never a concern. But it sucks that it's always a concern.

And I am so fucking envious of people doing better than me. Why can't I make enough from writing to be able to help us out? Where are the lucrative freelance jobs? Why do things keep getting harder? I could go back to work full time, but with what we would pay in daycare I'd barely clear enough to make a difference, if there were any jobs in my field which there aren't. Plus, I do want to be with Maggie. I waited a long time for her and the thought of tossing her in daycare, even the loving, caring environment she's in now, hurts my heart. But I worry that I am making the wrong choice, that she is going to bitterly resent us for not being able to provide the best of everything for her, for always being "the poor kid."

I worry that she'll be as ashamed of her parent's lack of means as I am. I don't have what my friends have, and it makes me embarrassed. And this seems to be the one thing you can't write about--I have read about bloggers' struggle with mental illness, maritial issues and cervical mucus, but if anyone out there is worrying constantly about money, I don't read about it. It's like the worst thing you can be as a blogger isn't a bad writer or boring--it's POOR.

I just wish I could either go all hippie and not care about material things at all (although I will say many of the "hippies" I know of are still pushing the MacLarens and driving the Volvos) or say "fuck it," go find a lucrative job (which would mean changing my kline of work) and only see my kid on weekends and evenings. Instead, I am stuck in the middle, knowing I am not doing as well for Maggie as the other parents I know are doing for theirs, and hoping that giving her the gift of time will be the right choice in the end.

Nursing some love

2007-05-08T16:31:00.000-04:00

Julie, of A Little Pregnant, wrote a really touching post the other day in celebration of National Nurses Week. Essentially, she thanked nurses who, in ways large and small, helped her through tough times.

It's a lovely idea and one I am stealing. My grandmother was a nurse, part of the first graduating class of a hospital in Ohio (back then, around 1930, it wasn't a degree, the hospitals trained their nurses). I've seen her graduating-class photo, turned to sepia now, her looking so serious and brave with her white cap atop her finger-waved hair. Her oldest daughter, my aunt, also became a nurse. And two of my sisters in law, Paul's brother's wife and my brother's wife, are nurses. I have an enormous amount of respect for the hard work and compassion these people undertake to provide every day. I read the Sue Barton and Cherry Ames series as a girl and, I am embarrassed to admit, ate them up.

So, here are my personal Nurses Who Rule:

Chris, the businesslike, warm, and wonderful nurse at the IVF Mill From Hell. I hated that place, but she was the only person who made me feel like an actual human being with rights, not a statistic. She was always kind and optimistic and didn't even laugh when I drove 30 minutes so she could administer an HcG trigger shot instead of having to do it myself (HUGE wussy about needles).

Every nurse at my OB-GYN's office. Especially: Summer, the nurse I jabbered away to when my mega surprise pregnancy was confirmed. She listened to our situation and calmly got me in for a quick second beta, doctor visit and ultrasound as if this kind of stuff happened there every day. Karen, who was just wonderful from start to finish. At my two-week checkup, she listened while I cried about how hard a time I was having. Her response was that it was absolutely normal to love my baby while grieving my old life, and two weeks was absolutely NOT enough time to be adjusted. But, why didn't she load me up with Zoloft samples just in case? I needed that so much right then, when everyone around me expected just blissful happiness.

All the nurses I dealt with during the scary hours I was in labor. Their calm about her heartrate dropping went such a long way toward keeping me from freaking right out worse than I was. Trudy, the nurse who was with me during the C-section, told me that I should never ever feel bad about having a C-section, that it was the right thing to do. Made me feel a hell of a lot better when the earthy-birthies bust out the self-righteousness.

Julie, at my primary care doctor's office. The doctor sucks, and she runs lots of interference so I don't have to deal.

The young student nurses who volunteer during our church homeless shelter week. I've gotten to work with them a few times and they are so kind, personable and unfazed. I know they'll make great nurses when they finish school.

Thanks, nurses. You were there for me during some of the scariest times of my life, and I'll remember it forever.

Nifty nifty looky looky!

2007-05-02T14:54:00.000-04:00

Links! Over there ===>!

If you want a link, ask. I'm especially interested in finding out about new Detroit-based blogs. There will be more coming, when my laptop screen is fixed (yes, AGAIN, and I didn't even drop the damn thing this time, it just stopped working) and all my pretty and well-organized links are in one place. Now I feel like a real blogger, with a blogroll and everything....

Random crap

2007-04-30T14:27:00.000-04:00

I haven't written in too long. I have a couple posts spinning around in my head, but nothing forming into a coherent series of thoughts or insights. So, herewith:

* I'm discovering my inner hippie to a larger degree than I ever have since I stopped smoking weed (and I never smoked THAT MUCH, for the record). I'm carrying canvas totes to the grocery store to avoid plastic bags! I am excited about using all my carefully-created compost in this year's garden! I listenened, and SANG ALONG WITH, a whole Indigo Girls CD on the way to Cleveland this weekend! I want to name my (still verryy theoretical) next daughter Eden! Yes, EDEN!!The hell? It's a lovely name, but we really need to smoke lots more pot and eat lots less meat and probably join a commune before we feel like the kind of people who would name a child Eden. So pretty though....

* The whole hipster parent thing makes me scoff. The people I know of who would in fact qualify for such a label don't strive for it, they just ARE hip. I think hipness is one of those things that if you consciously strive for, you are automatically not hip. Nothing is LESS cool than trying hard to be cool. I live near a town that's sort of the local Hipster Parent capital, and just rollllll my eyes clean out of my head when I see someone with a fancy stroller, "vintage-esque" clothes and their kids with funky haircuts and Misfits onesies. It's so fucking shallow.
This is sort of the collorary to my Nerd Axiom--that if you think you're a nerd, you probably aren't. True nerds think they are really, really awesome. Somebody who likes to read a book on a Saturday night or cringes when they realize they are belting out, say, "Wildfire" while stopped at a light and oh my God people are loookkkinnngg? Probably not nerds, at least not in that socially cancerous kind of way.

* That being said, I uttered, where people could hear me, the words "Oh goodness gracious." In context, I was at a Moms to Moms sale waiting for Paul to finish paying for this little backyard playset we bought for Maggie. Monkey Girl was climbing on things, and I turned my back for a second and the child was halfway up a rickety changing table. "Margaret!"I yelled. "Oh goodness gracious, that is not for climbing!"
Yeah.
Half the room laughed, either because what's up with Rebecca of Sunnnybrook Farm over there, or perhaps because at least some of the parents realized I was saying that instead of "Jesus Effing CHRIST, child, get down from there NOW!!" I am glad the inner censor immediately kicked in, but did it have to feed me THAT instead?

* I don't always get blogging ettiquette,so maybe someone can help me here. I read, and comment on, lots of blogs. Only like three link to me. Do I need to learn to work my own stupid blog and maybe add a blogroll over on the side there to get more of them to link to me, or is it just more confirmation that I am really quite lame and should shut up already?

* Speaking of links, etc....the comment on the post below this, where I linked to BrooklynGirl? Even more amen. A great take on the whole abortion decision, from the point of view of another liberal Catholic. It's what I would say if I knew what the hell I was talking about in matters theological. Go read.

Amen, Sister

2007-04-20T22:48:00.000-04:00

Read this.

(In case I screwed up the link as I always do: BrooklynGirl.typepad.com, post called Second Class. It's so perfect I can add not one thing).

eeep

2007-04-17T19:03:00.000-04:00

Despite the title of my blog and all my Big Talk, I am a pretty wussy person.

But I just essentially told a client to suck it.

Let me backtrack. Some weeks ago I answered an ad on Craigslist. Several red flags went up almost immediately--canceling scheduled interviews, etc. Then in the first meeting I had with the principal of the company he makes some comment about "Employing the unemployable, moms at home."

Yeee-IKES.

There were other things, but the editor I had the most contact with was pretty chill and I thought this might not be so bad---doesn't pay well, but steady work and not too much of a hassle, so what the hell?

Then the hassle started kicking up. A barrage of phone calls, daily emails, changes on a dime, all the lovely hassle of working on a team, but with no salary or benefits. My uneasiness was increasing, but oh well. My other cients were also suffering, but I decided to just set limits on my time and not budge.

THEN, I invoiced, as requested, for the two weeks of work I'd done during March. Mr. Principal tells me he'd have a check for me at the staff meeting last week, intead of putting it in the mail. Fine, I say, but then discover none of my backup sitters were available and they refuse to schedule meetings during the times Maggie's in school, so I can't make the meeting. The check doesn't come up, but I expect he'll just pop it in the mail. So I wait. And wait. And finally ask the editor about it.

"Oh, he decided to just tack that on to your April invoice since it was such a small amount."

This was yesterday, April 16. Two more weeks of work time left in April before I can invoice (they want monthly invoices) and probably another week afetr that until I have a check in my hand. This is a new client, one I don't know from a hole in the ground, and they never told me they were doing that. Six weeks of work (weekly deadlines) with not so much as a penny in compensation and an excuse instead of the promised check.

Alarm bells, red flags, OH CRAP they are never going to pay me are they?

So I just sent an email to him essentally saying "No money, no work" and that he should have told me he was delaying payment at the very least. This guy's already proven himself to be an unprofessional jackass, so I fear this is going to get nasty.

I'm finding my spine.

Memory Lane II

2007-03-28T14:28:00.000-04:00

When we left off, we’d gotten the phenomenal news that a young woman who was considering placing her child had chosen us as the potential parents.

It was amazing. Paul and I checked out baby stuff online, popped a bottle of champagne (oh, THIS becomes important later), and snuggled up on the couch, marveling that our miracle had actually happened.

That weekend was fun, with several parties and plenty of late nights and drinking.

All the while, I was aware that my period was due, and not coming. My breasts hurt, I was moody as hell, and could smell a slightly overripe banana at 30 feet, but I attributed the above to my first month in a long time without fertility drugs, and the fact I’d quit smoking nine months before, improving my sense of smell.

Finally Monday I alerted Paul to the fact I was Late. I was really reluctant to test. First, because pregnancy tests typically came up negative and touched off a day of crying. Second, because if we got a different result this time, it would throw everything into chaos.

At last, I finally got the nerve to test that Tuesday. I took my first one after Paul left for work, screwed my eyes shut, set the test on the back of the toilet and finally looked.

Nothing. People, I had TAKEN THE TEST WRONG. How one manages that EVER and especially after several “please God” tests taken during the infertility treatment, I do not know. But I managed it.

However, it looked like, had I gotten a result, it might have been two lines. Like a good little infertile, I had another test lying around. I called Paul to update him and told him I had one, but had to wait at least three hours to test again. “Test now,” he said. So I did.

The second line appeared before I could even set the test down.

Yikes.

We were both shell-shocked that night, me more than Paul. I felt like I had been hit in the face by a 2 by 4.

This is something that’s hard for me to talk about. I love Maggie so much; she’s the joy of my life. To know that when I first found out she was coming, my reaction was something considerably shy of joy makes me sad for her and for me. I’d given up on this way of becoming a mother and embraced adopting. I was ready, and terrified about the many uncontrollable things that can go wrong in pregnancy. We’d had friends lose a baby at 20 weeks just a month before; what if we gave up on the adoption and then lost this baby too?

Also, what would this do to the baby’s mother? There she was, pregnant and scared (a condition I could certainly at that point empathize with) and she was trying to do a great thing out of a difficult situation (I know the basics; I won’t share them here). She’d chosen us in generosity and good faith, and we turn right around and get knocked up?

Doing both, adopting and birthing, was an option, we later discovered. The baby was due in July; the one that would become Maggie was due in November. I wanted to, so much, despite all the reasons not to. As Paul pointed out, finances were already tight and would become impossible under the weight of two babies. Not to mention emotional capital, all the logistics of having an adopted boy and a biological girl within five months of each other.

Regretfully, we called the agency and told them we were dropping out. I told our social worker how sorry we were, that this wasn’t planned by any means. I still regret it. Still wish we could have done both. I think of that young girl often and wonder how she felt when she heard we dropped out, wonder what she decided to do, how she coped with the aftermath. I wonder what the little boy looked like, and hope he’s loved and treasured and happy with whoever got to raise him. I think of the other potential parents and hope they had the same day of joy and awe that we did.

And most of all, I still mull What This All Meant. Part of it, I think, is that Maggie was just meant to be, and meant to be ours. She fits so well with us and makes our home feel complete. The other is that I think maybe God was trying to make sure I knew good and well than I am not driving this bus. Someday I’ll get it, but probably not while I am on this earth.

Our story has a happy ending. Three years later, we have this magical, bright, funny, bossy little toddler with vivid blue eyes, wispy dark blond hair and a mind of her own. She loves us as much as we do her – the last two Sundays in church she grabbed my face, looked deeply into my eyes, said “I love you, Mama” and proceeded to loudly plant a series of sloppy wet kisses on me. Every horrible moment of the fertility treatment, every heartbreaking failure, is redeemed in moments like that. She goes a million miles an hour all day every day, causing chaos and making us laugh. We’re so lucky, and I can’t imagine my life any other way. But I still sometimes wonder what might have been.

Brief break to bitch

2007-03-23T01:13:00.000-04:00

Okay, yins are very good for my ego. I will share the second half of the story next post, if all goes well. But first:

What the fuckety FUCK is wrong with people? have we turned into a nation of self-aborbed jerks (yeah, yeah, quoth the blogger, whatever)?

I am awake right now, at 1:15 AM, with a 6:30 wakeup staring me in the face, because of a gigantic pissing contest. I was covering a municipal meeting tonight, a meeting which would have been a good hour shorter if the dozen or so members of the public who spoke about an issue which was not even on the agenda would have stood up and said "You know what? Given the lateness of the hour and the fact that this is not at all germane to any decisions being made tonight, I'll save my comments for another day." Nope, it was their damn turn to talk and talk they did, at great length. Then al th elected officials had to weigh in because WE REALLY CARE WHAT YOU THINK AT 12:30 AM, THANKS.

Yesterday, I was at Costco and it was taking nine zillion years for the poor lone optical lady to get through one customer so I could get my contacts. So I ran off, grabbed what I needed to buy and came back to find three other customers ahead of me. I exlained to one couple that I had been there before (mind you, I put my THREE measly items in the cart I had sitting right THERE), I just needed to get my contacts and be on my merry way, no fitting or trying on or attention at ALL neccessary, and I had a two year old I needed to get home to get to bed. So, since I had been already waiting and all and left for ten minutes to get something, could I please go next? Nope. And know what these assholes had to do? TRY ON GLASSES. Know what takes forever at an optician's office? Trying on glasses!

Why in the name of heaven would they not just let me jump in for my nice short transaction and have a good feeling that they were doing a good deed? Ended up ruining my night, the (much nicer to me than I deserved) optical lady's night after I went and bitched to the manager about having to wait so long, Paul's night because Maggie threw a previously-unprecedented Category 6 tantrum waiting for me to get home, and Maggie because who has fun having a tantrum? Hope they liked their glasses.

My friend Amy called this feeling of deep annnoyance with the world "riding the hate train." I just wish people could understand there are other people in the world, and a little consideration goes a long way. Sheesh.

Memory Lane

2007-03-20T16:06:00.000-04:00

Three years ago this past Sunday, I found out I was (most likely) going to be become a mother.

Five days later, I found out I was pregnant.

Here’s how that happened.

In February of 2004, we were nearing the end of the road with fertility treatment. We’d done three Clomid IUIs, with no luck. I ovulated like a champ on Clomid, but neither sex nor insemination got egg to meet sperm. In retrospect, I realize the horrible IVF mill of a clinic we were going to because it was the only one that took the insurance we were blessed to even have was probably timing IUIs wrong. That place and their stunningly incompetent receptionist (seriously, how does someone who answers the phone in a fertility clinic NOT understand the concept of cycle days?) is a whole ‘nother post someday.

So, after undergoing the last, painful, miserable IUI and wondering what our next step was, I made an appointment with the doctor. (snotty receptionist: “You want to see the doctor? On whose authority?” Me, as icily as I could muster: “As I am the patient (you horrid bitch), My Own.”)

That meeting was one of the most devastating of my life. I remember sitting there with Paul and going numb as the doctor tried to push us into a course of IVF we’d already been very clear we’d ruled out. Mind, I am not anti-IVF for anyone but myself; we could not afford it, and even if we could, the idea of spending $10,000 on one cycle that might or might not work was terrifying. We’d already decided that being parents was the goal, not necessarily having a genetic connection to our kids. I’d already gone to one international adoption meeting and started researching agencies, and the money we could spend on IVF would go to adoption instead

Thus, I resented mightily this doctor sitting in his cushy office and implying that clearly we weren’t committed to parenthood because we didn’t want to waste thousands more of our precious dollars with him. He even started quoting us odds of success I knew damn well were ridiculous: 75-80 percent. The most fertile person on the damn plant doesn’t have those kinds of odds with IVF and clearly, after 2 and a half years of trying, I was not that person.

Finally, he dropped the bomb: “If you’re not willing to do IVF, you have less than a one percent chance of getting pregnant.”

Paul and I left the office in a haze, passing the Holocaust Museum then going up nearby, and settled into a Starbucks to talk and regroup. We were both devastated and angry, too
Stunned to cry or rant.

Finally, though, I shook it off, and we almost immediately decided we’d take a few months break before making any decision, and hell, maybe that last IUI actually worked, you know? (all my infertile or formerly so readers can take a break to snicker here)

About ten days later, I got a call from an adoption agency we’d attended an orientation at several months before. The impression we had was that they concentrated almost exclusively on adoptions of kids from the foster system, and special needs kids at that, so we’d never done much beyond filling out the introductory form at the orientation meeting.

The social worker said she’d been reviewing our application and that she saw we were interested in a healthy white infant. Were we still interested in adopting?

“Holy crap,” I thought.

“Yes, we are, and honestly healthy or white are negotiable, but we do want a baby.”

Well. A young woman (this is always what they called her. I know some consider calling her “birth mother” unfair or dehumanizing, which is why I have chosen not to use it. As I don’t know how the story ended, and she preferred a mostly closed adoption I know almost nothing else about her) had begun working with them and was considering placing her child. Would we be interested in being considered?

Oh hell yes.

As expected, a few days later my period arrived, signaling the end of the road for our pregnancy dreams. As did, the same day, the packet of paperwork we needed to fill out for the young woman to review as she made her decision. It felt like a sign from God, that the very day the door of biological motherhood was closed to me, the paperwork arrived that could help make me a mother after all.

I put all my writerly energy to use on this packet. It was a thing of beauty. We sent it out, and tried to forget about it. Somewhere in there, I knew I was ovulating and we had sex, but given that the same damn thing had happened countless other months, I didn’t give it another thought.

I should note here that LOTS of people gave us the old “See, you stopped worrying about it and you got pregnant!” line. The fact that I managed to not kick anyone in the head while pregnant and hormonal is something I am proud of.
If you’re reading this and think that’s a valid comment and why would I be pissed off: 1) Why are you here? Perhaps TMZ.com would be more your speed, Bambi and 2) Being told we’d never have a biological child was heartbreaking beyond almost anything else I’ve yet experienced. While sending off the paperwork gave us some hope, it also opened us up to yet more channels of heartbreak and loss. No, we weren’t thinking about getting pregnant, but we were mired in sadness mixed with lots of nervous tension.

A few weeks later, the morning after St. Patrick’s Day, I was busily working in my home office when the phone rang. It was the agency. I knew the mother was making her decision about who she’d want to place with around then, and my heart started to beat wildly as I heard the social worker say she had some news.
“The young woman has looked over the packets, and she chose you and your husband.”

I started to shake. Then I started to cry. Then I called Paul and asked him what he was doing Tuesday, because how would he like to do a homestudy interview because we’d been chosen!!!! Such joy. It’s something I’ll never forget, ever, and bless that young woman for giving us that day even though things didn’t end as anyone planned. To be told we could be a family, finally, was an amazing gift.

That’s where I’ll end this post, to be picked up another day. But it’s far from the end of the story.

Rain Woman

2007-03-17T00:46:00.000-04:00

I am a basketball savant.

I'm in an ESPN pool for March Madness with some of my favorite people.

I am astride the top after two days of play.

Me.

Here's how I made my picks: a mix of sentiment, instinct and reading the little one-paragraph ESPN blurbs.

My husband? Nummer Zwie.

This is KILLING my Best Guy Friend, I know it.

Hee.

No regrets

2007-03-07T10:48:00.000-05:00

Dooce (like I need to link it) had an interesting post the other day asking readers about their regrets. I didn't post a reply, but it got me started on the notion of what I regret and what I don't.

I generally second-guess myself a lot. It's a weakness, or perhaps part of my Gemini nature, that I can't just DO something and let it go. I've done lots of things I regret, and I really doubt people who say that they live life with none. I think they're either hopelessly self-involved and not concerned with the effect their actions have on others, or they're lying. Or, worse yet, never taken a risk.

However, I have been thinking of things I don't regret, that if given the chance knowing what I know now I'd still do, no matter how it turned out in the end. Here are some:

* Blowing much of what I earned in my high school job on a trip to Europe.

* Fooling around with him. And him, and him. Oh, yeah, and those two guys too.

* Choosing the right major.

* Refraining from telling off my bitchy former boss when I had the chance. Leaving with dignity matters.

* Moving almost everywhere I did. Even this old house, with its questionable roof, teensy kitchen, spiders in the basement and drafty windows.

* Picking up that clawing, squeaky, swaybacked, bowlegged, cross-eyed kitten and saying "Sure, I'll take him."

* Maybe I should have given you my unbidden opinion of what you were about to do and maybe you wouldn't have made the mistake. I didn't, and it means I get to be there for you if I do turn out to be right. And if I turn out to be wrong.

* Responding when you reached out, even if I since haven't been as good about keeping up our rekindled friendship. I missed you, too.

* Actually shutting my enormous cakehole when I realized the only good of what I was about to say would be unburdening myself and taking you down a peg or two. Most people regret the things they don't do more than the things they did, and many of my regrets are that sort. But sometimes, it feels right to take the kindest path even though the other person will never know what you DON'T say.

* Therapy. And Wellbutrin.

* Smoking my last cigarette in July of 2003. Chickening out when I tried to bum one nine months later, because little did I know I was pregnant then.

* Sleep training.

* Getting in your truck to go to that bar even though I barely knew you. Almost ten years, one house, one baby and three pets later, I'm glad I listened to my instinct that you were not in fact a psycho.

* Keeping the friends I've kept.

That's quite a few things, more than I thought. Any of my friendly commenters want to share some of their non-regrets?

Full-out freakout

2007-02-21T15:14:00.000-05:00

Even if I didn't agree with the whole "cocktail mom" thing, today I would have gone through a drive through liquor store if they had them here. (Do you know they have them in Ohio? You just drive right through and they load you up. Weird.)

See, Maggie had to go to the doctor. She has had a cold for, like, ever and has been getting increasingly snotty and cranky. She hasn't had more than an hour nap in the last three days (which means I out-crankypants her) and this morning woke up at 5 am. FIVE. A. M. Paul brought her into bed with us and she just laid there and snarked for awhile until all of us fell into a fitful sleep. She finally woke up at 7 am and reacted with violent insult to the idea that maybe just maybe she'd like to sleep a little more. NO she did not want her diaper changed and NO she did not want to put on the shirt she'd JUST picked out and NO she was not going to wear shoes and why couldn't she put both legs into one pantleg? Because clearly her mother wishes to suck all the joy and creativity from her life, that's why.

Now, Maggie is usually a very pleasant kid, bouts of Two notwithstanding. She's also a morning glory (how the hell this happened I do not know) so when this crankitude descended I thought one thing: ear infection. We called the pediatrician and they worked us in, so I began prepping her as best I could.

Seee, this is neccessary because while most two year olds seem to hate the doctor, Maggie's full-out petrified. Right before Christmas, she suddenly spiked a fever of 103 and was very lethargic (at least for Energy Girl). So we brought her to a local hospital's pediatric urgent care. We've gone once before and were in and out in 30 minutes. Not so this time. They suspected a bladder infection or a bacterial infection, so they had to take blood and urine. Which meant holding down our screaming toddler while nice but not very quick nurses put a catheter in and drew blood from her impossibly tiny veins. She was beyond anything I have ever seen, screaming and yelling and finally escalating to this awful howling sound I hope never to have to hear again. I had to leave the room and cry out of her sight, it was so awful. She did have some sort of infection, so they gave her two huge shots of antibiotic right in her thighs, which didn't do a lot for her opinion of the proceedings.

We had to bring her back the next day to her regular doctor, where they took more blood and gave her another shot. As we were pulling into the lot, she cried "NO!" sadly from her carseat, and that was the quietest reaction she had all visit.

So today, I tried to get her ready. She loves an interactive story about Elmo going to the doctor on the Sesame Workshop web site, so we read that together and explained the doctor would be listening to her heart and peeking in her ears just like Elmo. We brought in her Elmo doll to reinforce the connection. She was happy and playing in the waiting room, reading books and fulfilling her Official Greeter role by saying hello and goodbye to everyone that came through. I felt optimistic.

Then the nurse came in.

Oy.

Screaming. Yelling. No. No shirt off. All done. ALLLL DONE, Mama! See, here's the sign so you know I mean it. All done doctor. No. (Pointing toward door) THIS way! Sobbing, in a way that let me know she was terrified, not just mad or thwarted.

Sheesh. (She just has a bad cold, no ear infection and no strep).
When you know the pediatrician and his entire office staff are giving you the Bad Mother stink eye, it's not a good day. Any advice, internet? I'd just like to be able to go to the doctor's offcie without wishing they had a) a bar or b) samples of Valium stashed somewhere for the parents.

Hide and Seek

2007-02-14T22:04:00.000-05:00

Two-year-olds really suck at hide and seek. Which is why it's beyond awesome to play it with them.

I taught Maggie how to play it a few months ago, but just recently it's become her favorite. When all three of us play, it's resembles the standard version except with teams, with her joining whichever adult is doing the seeking.

When it's just her and one of her parents, here's how she plays: Run like a maniac every time to the exact same place in the dining room, which is probably the most open and least hide-able wall in the house. Alternate version for her bedroom: Hide under the crib. Put hands over eyes and count even if you are the person who is supposed to be hiding. Then wait until the other player says "ready or not, here I come" and scream at the top of your lungs as you run towards them. The other player must say "I found you!!" and hug you. When you're playing in your room, stay under the crib until you can stand it no longer, annd then pop your head out and giggle when you're found.

As frustrating as I can find the two year old phase (the holidays often found me saying "Two years old is KICKING my ASS") good Lord I love this kid. Three years ago right about now, we were being told this would likely never happen for us. I think about that sometimes, think about being that woman who walked around with her heart so broken, who would give anything for a child. I wish I could reach back, give her a hug, let her know it's going to be more than okay. I don't know that I would have believed it, or rejected it as more false hope. But to have come out the other side is such a miracle. I bitch sometimes--this very evening I informed Paul the only reason he didn't come home to find me mixing myself a martini was that we didn't have any gin in the house--but I never, ever take this for granted.

Ridiculously embarrassed

2007-02-13T12:53:00.000-05:00

I need some Bee-Bop-A-Ree-Bop Rhubarb Pie.

For those who aren't dorkier-than their-own-parents middle-aged-acting NPR listeners, let me elaborate. Bee-Bop-A-Ree-Bop Rhubarb Pie is one of the fake sponsors of Garrision Keillior's A Prarie Home Companion

(along with the Ketchup Council and Powdermilk Biscuits, which give shy people the strength to get up ad do what needs to be done). The pie, allegedly, "takes the taste of shame and humiliation out off your mouth."

Here's why.

I have been applying for a job working an an assistant to a program in the department where Paul works at our alma mater (me undergrad, him MSW). We'd be less than 100 feet away from each other, and it's a part-time gig so I could keep freelancing. Everybody there seems remarkably family-friendly for an academic environment. If I were going to go back to a nine-to-five while Maggie is little, it's ideal.

But guess what? I FAILED THE TYPING TEST.

A motherf-ing typing test. Want to know my IQ? 131, people. And guess what I do for a living? And have for more than 10 years? A job that requires lots of, you guessed it, TYPING. Fast typing. But because I couldn't clear the bar of 40 wpm, I am out of the running here, I think. Yes. 40. Words. A. Minute. A monkey could type that fast. Apparently it's possible to be an award-winning reporter and reasonably successful freelancer without being able to type.

Making this more embarassing, the person to whom I would report is someone I have known since I was like 14. She's a good friend of my mom's. So I have to email her and say yes, it did sound like I'd be a good fit for this job but guess what? I am too HOPELESSY LAME to pass the typing test (I should add there was a clerical test too, which I rocked).

It is a blessing in disguise, I guess; I've been really leery about putting Maggie in that much daycare (nothing wrong with daycare, mind you, I take no side in the Mommy Wars but it just doesn't feel right TO ME). She's in a super-clingy phase right now and wouldn't go to sleep Saturday until Paul and I got home from a night out with friends. And even then it was me she wanted, because I'd barely been home all day and she missed me. I've also been nervous about a "real" job --- it's been almost five years since I have been out on my own. I don't know how my friends who work full-time do it all, and I worry about my capabilities to do the same. Last time I worked an outside-the-house job, I was newly married and lived in an apartment with Paul and two cats; now I have a house (with attendant yard), a dog, and a child to consider. I also feel like I have exactly no time now; trying to maintain my freelance clients and add 20 working hours a week would be a strain.

I wasn't sure if I was going to take the job if I even got it, but to be out of the running for something so lame is just embarassing. Pie, anyone?

The most brilliant thing I have ever seen on television ever

2007-02-05T01:39:00.000-05:00

Animal Planet. The Puppy Bowl. Three hours of puppies cavorting in a fake stadium, opposite the Super Bowl.

There's even a golden retriever puppy, which as a type are beyond cute. Insanely cute. My brother's dog was so cute when he was a puppy (big black eyes, fuzzy blond fur, giant paws) it suckered us in to this annoying beagle we have now. I still remember Paul cradling their dog in his arms, saying "he even has that great puppy SMELL!" and thinking "I am SO screwed."

Oh, but it gets better. I am currently viewing the kitten halftime show, in which they wheel in a truly wondrous "stage" and let about a dozen kittens cavort. Adding to the awesome, every now and then a feather toy will shake in from out of frame. I want that person's job.

Oh, and yet now more awesome--the finale. Which involves confetti falling from the ceiling and a bunch of confused-looking kittens. I can't be the only person who gets great pleasure out of baffling my cat, right?

Love. This. Whoever thought of this, may your career in television be long and fruitful.

PS: Just saw the sad Pedigree commercial about shelter dogs. Our dog was one, and as much as I bitch about her she's a sweet, gentle little dog and so happy to be part of a family it just breaks your heart. If you're thinking of getting a dog, maybe don't be the asshole who spends hundreds of dollars on a purebred, and look on Petfinder.com for your new family member. There are so many great dogs (and cats!) out there looking for someone to love them and deserve so much better than they've gotten so far. Improve your karma--get a shelter pet! On Petfinder you can find purebreds, mixes of any sort, and annoying, smelly, chewing, sad-eyed beagles to love.

I used to be smart.

2007-01-31T14:19:00.000-05:00

Seriously, I was. I read voraciously, stayed on top of issues, researched things I was interested in and was pretty culturally literate. I even had a subscription to the New Yorker. And actually read it.

Now? Eeesh. Perhaps it's really that I now have more than one friend with an actual PhD, so I feel stupider in comparison, but I am beginning to think that by the time I am 60 I'll be watching Lifetime movies and listening to Michael Bolton and actually voting Republican, if this trend continues.

And I know exactly what to blame: CABLE TELEVISION.

When Paul moved in with me, I was living in an upper flat in Detroit, owned by an old family friend who lived in the lower flat. My landlord had a little itsy TV, that he used to watch the news. I had a bigger one, but made a big snobby deal out of how I never really watched televison and think it's stupid. Paul has cable at his apartment, but I refused to consider it. We should talk to each other if we're going to be living together, I said, and plus, I am not aksing Bob to tear up his house just so we can get good tv. Paul acquiesed, with the compromise that we would get cable when we bought a house.

That took another couple years, what with getting married and changing jobs. Plus, this place was a sweet deal -huge, beautiful and the best neigbors I have ever had. Finally, though, we moved in here and I do believe the cable guy came the same day as the moving truck.

I tried to resist, really I did. But cooking shows! Travel shows! Movies! Queer Eye! It was hopeless, before too long I had something I watched every night of the week. We even got TiVo (side story:A very pregnant and past due me set up and activated the TiVo service, and then went to bed at like 1 am. At 2 am, my water broke and off to the hospital we went. Fellow TiVo fans ask me "Didn't it change your LIFE??" I love saing "Yes my life changed dramaticallly ater I got TiVo, but it had nothing to do with TiVo).

This summer, Paul decided he wanted to try life without cable, annd I agreed. There was something we didn't bank on, though.. For some reason, maybe all the trees around here, we're in a dead zone for TV reception. Can't get anything. We mmuddled along for awhile, but with winter looming and a Elmo-addicted two year old in the house, we decided to bite the bullet and get satellite.

I must say, ashamedly, that I LOVE IT. The reception is beautiful, we have music channels and Noggin and all kinds of great stuff. I have seen some really good movies I wouldn't have caught otherwise ("Kinsey"--good!). But here's why I think I have gotten stupid:

I finally caved to reality TV.

I hate reality television. I think it's designed to show off the worst of us as a society and as a species. When the reality TV trend was really hot, it felt like a race to the bottom. HATE.

That said, I am all excited for the finale of Top Chef tonight. (Shaaaame!!!)

I have a couple deadlines to hit and a meeting to attend tonight, but I am making Paul DVR it for me and wait until I can watch, even if it's late at night. I've only watched the last few episodes, but GO Marcel!! Do it for the honor of all of us who've been bullied and risen above it. Cook, Foam Boy, cook!!

Okay, I'm going to turn in my (imaginary) Mensa card now.

Late to the party

2007-01-29T15:43:00.000-05:00

As usual.

I've been reading with great fascination the discussion about "mommies who drink" which maybe came to a head (please?) with the appearance/railroading of Melissa of Suburban Bliss on the Today Show this past Friday.
I've been lucky to meet Melissa a few times, and she's been nice enough to pimp my blog. I think she's a really good writer and much friendlier than she gives herself credit for. But this isn't about that.

It's about this:

Melissa said, at some point during the interview, "I take care of children, but I am not a child."

Whoo-hooo!! Becaue what this puts the lie to is the infantilization of mothers.

It's been one of the more difficult things for me to balance in my mothering career--the fact that I love my daughter, enjoy hanging out with her, and want to do the best I can for her and expose her to lots of great stuff. At the same time, having to look happy while I sing "The Wheels on The Bus" for her at Movement and Music Class makes me want to DIE. It would be one thing if every other adult in class was rolling their eyes or cringing, but no, we're Mommies and somehow are supposed to think this shit is fun. It IS fun, because I get a kick out of watching Maggie dance and carry on, not because I love the "open and shut" part like I love the opening guitar line of "London Calling."

But we're supposed to, that's the message we get. We're supposed to only eat places that have children's menus, and listen to music that is child-focused, and be really like kids ourseves and not in the good "sense of wonder" way.

When did this happen? I don't remember my own parents putting on my Sesame Street records for all of us to listen to, or eschewing all alcohol, or participating in classes I took when I was a small child. It's like we have to be living our kid's lives right along with them to get the Mommy stamp of approval. I don't think I ever remember my parents watching TV with me, except maybe for the occasional Christmas special.

I love Sesame Street and Jack's Big Music Show, but I want something more challenging when she's in bed. We rock out together to the Candy Band and Dan Zanes, but Laurie Berkner is only for TV and Raffi's ouvre isn't coming within 50 feet of my house. And in my social life, I am having a beer or glass of wine when I want one. Paul and I look forward enormously to our Friday night bottle of wine after Maggie's in bed, and we often have wine with snacks while we watch a DVD on Sunday nights. When we get together with friends and their families, I don't want everything we do to be limited to child focused activities. Adults are allowed to have alcohol if they so choose, and I grew up in a family where it was a normal part of adult life. I'm not having a glass of wine at lunch, or even usually with dinner, and no one's getting hammered or driving when we shouldn't. I don't think people have to be drinking to be my kind of people, but I at least don't want horrified looks when I crack a beer at my friend's house when we're all there with children.

I think enjoying alcohol responsibly is okay, just as I think listening to NPR or my own music in the car with Maggie is okay, or having an adult conversation with Paul while she's in the room is too. I became a mother, and I'll never be the same. But I'll never stop being the person i was before, either, and showing Maggie how to integrate all of that into my identity is one of the best lessons I can give her.

According to Brett

2007-01-22T11:22:00.000-05:00

...I need to update my blog. I feel like I have nothing interesting to write about (And this is different from normal HOW, you say?).

My two bestest college friends recently posted what the top songs are on their MP3 players. I was somewhat relectant to do this, given that Paul and I share an IPod. Paul and I both have pretty good taste in music for the most part, although I have more of a love for corny folk songs and he has more of a love, for, well, cheese. And not ironically or by association. Unlike me, he has no claim to musical snobbery. I worked in a record store in high school (did you see "High Fidelity"? It was like a damn documentary to me) and have always had kind of nonmainstream tastes. So, because of this, he has no qualms about having things on the IPod that I am ashamed to admit I even know, much less own.

My brithday gift to him was an ITunes gift card, and not merely the gift card but the promise I could not mock whatever he chose. Here, presented in a totally judgement-free unsnarky manner, are some of his selections:

"Little Suzi"--Tesla
"Fly to the Angels" --Slaughter
"All She Wants Is" --Duran Duran

and, as I discovered this weekend while cleaning the house and listening to the IPod on shuffle:

"Ain't No Other Man"--Christina Aguliera

I think he's trying to break me.

Oh yes, and here is our most played, based on ITunes' Top 25:

Love and Peace or Else--U2
Blue Orchid--The White Stripes
E-Pro--Beck
Hero Takes a Fall--The Bangles
Little Sack O' Sugar--Taj Mahal (This song reminds me of Maggie)
Are You Gonna Be My Girl--Jet
Alone Again Or--Calexico
She Sells Sanctuary--The Cult
Vertigo--U2
Dead Leaves and The Dirty Ground--The White Stripes

Not bleeding edge hip, but not as embarrassing as it could be. Anybody out there have suggestions for stuff I might like?

A fun game!

2006-12-30T22:40:00.000-05:00

Make a post out of the first sentence in the first post of each month. Here's mine!

I normally hate this time of year.

My uncle, my mother’s youngest brother, has been battling cancer for the last couple years. He died this morning.

So, Selkie Jamie has a fabulous post the other day about the ethics of family size.

Sleep, my child, and peace attend thee…Or, you know, not, as has been the case around here lately.

I have been hesitating to write this, because I know people who know me in real life read this blog and I don’t want to seem like a big drama queen.

I am considering copying my darling daughter’s fashion sense and stealing this outfit for this meeting I have Wednesday, for which a client told me in a snotty tone I had to look “pulled together.”

Sorry, all three of you who read this bad boy.

Why? Why do I read the news and thus just piss myself off?

Here’s what I have been contending with in just the past month.

Go Get ‘Em TIGERS!!!!

So I just found out about this: National Blog Posting Month, or some Godawful acronym like NaBloPoMo.

Maggie:

Happy Holidays to All!

2006-12-24T11:57:00.000-05:00

"War on Christmas" my ass. Doesn't detract from the spiritual or secular enjoyment of my Christmas at all to wish people hapiness at this time of year, whether they celebrate Hanukah, Christmas, Eid or nothing at all.

Us: Church tonight, featuring Maggie in a pretty dress and her first ever hairdo if I can get her to sit still for me to do it. She's finally got enough hair to do funny little pigtails (yes, shes TWO) and I can't get over how much older she looks with her hair done. Then off to my parents' house for lots of food and socializing, and then home to put Maggs to bed and open stocking stuffers. Tomorrow off to my inlaws, where we'll have rare visit with his brothers in addition to seeing his folks. I am in no way dreading this or wondering why the hell I spoke the words "let's stay overnight!" a few months ago, why do you ask? Paul does so much with and for my family that I can't begrudge him this, though.

And with that, let me wish you a holiday that is merry and bright, and that those you love the most are gathered around you. If there's an empty chair at your table, I wish you comfort in memories and joy unexpected today, and if the material aspects of the holiday are more sparse than you'd hope, I wish that abundance in love makes up for it. And my hope for everyone is that on this night when a baby brought hope to the world, that this seson of joy makes the world a little warmer and kinder for everyone.

What I have been doing

2006-12-14T10:29:00.000-05:00

What I have been up to instead of posting:

We finallly painted the living room. Let us not speak of the many tantrums I had to throw to FINALLY get my husband to finish the never-ending plaster repair project that preceded it. Let us also not speak of the challenges of painting a room, one of two most-used ones in your house, when you have a toddler running around and you work a night job. Maggie could only play in like a 2-foot by 4-foot space in the dining room, kind of like a veal calf. Back in pre-kids days, painting was kind of fun--we'd clear a weekend, get a lot of beer and start Friday night with the washing and taping and priming, get color coats up on Saturday, and do touch-ups and so on on Sunday and get the room back together.

This took like ten days, from the wall-washing and spackling to taping to doing as much as we could after Maggie went to bed and I got home from work. I know people who've redone entire bathrooms in less time.

It looks great, though. I told Paul we could become itinerant housepainters if no other jobs worked out. He is fabulously anal about trim work, while I am Queen of the Wall Coats. I have had friends pay pros to do their painting and must say thanks to Paul's careful taping, this looks just as good. We will probably never do a room this complicated again. The picture molding is one color, the coving in the ceiling another, and the middle piece still another, in addition to the walls. Annd they have lotsd of tricky angles thanks to the fireplace.

Like the piano, by the way? It's a genuine antique, like 100 years old, and free to a good home.

I know painting a room is not a big deal to most people, but we're a little home improvement challenged. It's to our shame--my mom teaches handywoman classes, for the love of God, and Paul's dad can fix or build just about anything. Somehow that gene skipped us--or maybe the "hey let's take Maggie to this fun thing and wow there's a great movie on TV tonight and I know we were going to paint this weekend but this friend we havent seen in a long time invited us over and I just got this great book I want to finish" gene is much more strongly expressed.

Tonight, the "mantel" (cheap-ass floating shelf we're buying at IKEA--why a 78-year-old house doesn't have a mantel I don't know) goes up, as does this candleholder we bought like a year ago, and the rest of the Christmas decorations. And we will be DONE. I plan to spend most of Christmas curled up in my big chair, reading and drinking wine and admiring our handiwork.