Advanced Trolling
I am having to exert such self-control right now. I've been asked for my opinion, and I'm tempted to give it.
A few months ago I joined a recipe list on Yahoo. It's been a great resource so far, with wonderful recipes and good tips on using unfamiliar food items.
(You can see the "But" coming, can't you?)
The list owner is a complete tin pot dictator. I don't mind that the list is fully (and intensively) moderated. What's driving me nuts is the way she uses the list to massage her ego. Every couple of weeks she'll send a letter to the list complaining about how she's been getting nastygrams from unhappy list members. Within a few hours a flood of supportive letters will come through on the list, all telling her what a great job she's doing and what a wonderful person she is. She thanks everyone graciously, then repeats the cycle. Never, not once, have I seen a corresponding negative letter actually come through to the list.
This is a fully moderated list. Doesn't she realize how obvious her behavior is?
Her most recent round started with a plea for the list members to tell her why the group isn't more interactive. Are we unhappy with the way she's moderating? Please, please, let her know what we think.
I'd love to, I really would. I'm not ready to get kicked off the list, though.
I've seen this sort of thing happen before. I actually based the villain in my one completed novel on this guy I ran into online. He was more subtle about things than this woman, but had much the same motivations I think. He'd managed to hijack an entire list into being his groupies. Anyone who disagreed with him came under attack. If they responded to his flame he would retreat to an "oh so reasonable" stance, gently asking why they couldn't handle having their mistakes pointed out to them? He was just trying to help, after all. And, as with this woman, lots of letters would come through supporting the egotist.
I couldn't hit "Leave Group" fast enough.
Something similar almost happened early on in Momwriters. Some of you might remember Daryl? If Jerri and Nikki hadn't handled it as well as they did I'm not sure our little community would have survived.
Interesting what you run into online, isn't it?
(Yes, I'm blogging a lot today. Starting tomorrow the husband will be home full time and I won't have the freedom to blog on a whim, so I'm taking advantage of the opportunity while it lasts.)
Friday, January 30, 2004
I have an incredible ability to ignore noise, too.
The toddler desperately wants to help out and do grownup things. In quest of that she tried to fix the baby's diaper at some point in the last hour. I found out when the baby peed all over me. The diaper had been "fixed" just enough to make it completely useless but not enough to make it obvious it was disarranged. That's what I get for putting the baby in a onsie that's too big for her.
Last night the baby also spit up in my hair while I was unwisely holding her above me and playing airplane. At least I ducked in time to avoid getting hit in the face.
There's a British experiment going on about disgust. You can participate online - just look at some photos and let them know where they hit you on the disgust scale. Interestingly, my reactions were not as strong as they predicted. Golly, that can't possibly have anything to do with spending my days covered with other people's bodily fluids, could it?
On the front page, while asking demographic-type questions, they also ask if you have a child under 24 months. I'm so glad to see that they understand.
The toddler desperately wants to help out and do grownup things. In quest of that she tried to fix the baby's diaper at some point in the last hour. I found out when the baby peed all over me. The diaper had been "fixed" just enough to make it completely useless but not enough to make it obvious it was disarranged. That's what I get for putting the baby in a onsie that's too big for her.
Last night the baby also spit up in my hair while I was unwisely holding her above me and playing airplane. At least I ducked in time to avoid getting hit in the face.
There's a British experiment going on about disgust. You can participate online - just look at some photos and let them know where they hit you on the disgust scale. Interestingly, my reactions were not as strong as they predicted. Golly, that can't possibly have anything to do with spending my days covered with other people's bodily fluids, could it?
On the front page, while asking demographic-type questions, they also ask if you have a child under 24 months. I'm so glad to see that they understand.
Perfect Home
I've been thinking about what I would want in a new house, if we have to move. I need to get the husband to sit down and talk about it. If we do have to move, it would be best if we were in agreement beforehand, after all!
Most important to me is that there be a big yard for the kids to play in, preferably something with a fenced back yard that I can let them go play in and not have to hover over them. No swimming pools; they're too dangerous and scare the living daylights out of me. Lots of storage space. A basement would be nice, and so would an attic. At least three bedrooms and four would be very nice. A big kitchen, with an island. (I fantasize about having an island.) Trees in the yard. A good view of the back yard from inside the house. Space for a vegetable garden. Two bathrooms would be nice, but I think we can live with one. That's what I'm coming up with just off the top of my head.
What would you consider absolutely mandatory if you were looking for a new house?
I've been thinking about what I would want in a new house, if we have to move. I need to get the husband to sit down and talk about it. If we do have to move, it would be best if we were in agreement beforehand, after all!
Most important to me is that there be a big yard for the kids to play in, preferably something with a fenced back yard that I can let them go play in and not have to hover over them. No swimming pools; they're too dangerous and scare the living daylights out of me. Lots of storage space. A basement would be nice, and so would an attic. At least three bedrooms and four would be very nice. A big kitchen, with an island. (I fantasize about having an island.) Trees in the yard. A good view of the back yard from inside the house. Space for a vegetable garden. Two bathrooms would be nice, but I think we can live with one. That's what I'm coming up with just off the top of my head.
What would you consider absolutely mandatory if you were looking for a new house?
Thursday, January 29, 2004
Blowing Hot and Cold
There was a little girl and she had a little curl
right in the middle of her forehead
and when she was good, she was very, very good
and when she was bad, she was horrid.
This rhyme came up on Cate's blog a few days ago. Wow. The feelings and memories that brought up. I had to get up from the computer for a little bit to get my equilibrium back.
To me, that rhyme has always symbolized my father. He's bipolar, but we didn't know that until after I was grown up and had left home. No, to me that rhyme meant Daddy because he was so unpredictable. You never knew what to expect from him, except that it was probably going to be bad.
Men who are bipolar tend to manifest the illness differently from women who are bipolar. Woman, as I understand it, tend to show more of the classic signs of the illness, the mood swings, the manic behavior. Men, on the other hand, tend to be angry. Dad has definitely always been that.
My father is an amazingly intelligent man, a genius. He took the Mensa test on a whim one time and was invited to join. He turned down the invitation, but he's always been proud that he could have joined if he wanted to.
My father taught me to love the fine arts. He took me to concerts and ballets, kept our home full of classical music, did oil paintings and bought paintings from other artists to hang around our home. He taught me to love the outdoors. We'd go hiking and camping as a family all the time. We lived in Oregon when I was young and would hike up by Multnomah Falls every few weeks. He climbed Mt. Rainier and skied down it again. He and my mother honeymooned at Spirit Lake on Mt. St. Helens. He knew how to throw a knife and catch a fish. Everywhere we lived he'd plant trees all over the property. He was wonderful and I adored him. He was my hero.
That was the good daddy, the daddy that I wanted to hang around all the time. Usually, though, who we had to deal with was the bad daddy, the scary daddy. This daddy threw things and hit you when you weren't looking. He couldn't keep a job, so we didn't have insurance, and couldn't go to the doctor when we got sick. I learned from that daddy to be wary every time someone walks through the front door, trying to gauge their mood and danger level. I learned to keep my back to the wall, to be hypervigilant. I learned to be afraid. I left home 20 years ago, but I still get a tight ball of fear in my stomach when my father calls.
My greatest fear is turning into my father. Bipolar disorder is hereditary. Since two of my siblings are bipolar I watch myself compulsively for signs of mental illness. The older I get, the better I feel, the more I can relax. I'm overly concerned about it, I know. I'm not really safe from developing bipolar disorder for another 10 years, but it's unlikely at this point, anyway. My father and siblings were all bipolar from their childhood.
I learned recently that growing up with a mentally ill parent is considered to fall into its own category of problems. I ran across a group in Australia, the National Network of Adult and Adolescent Children who have a Mentally Ill Parent/s. Vic. Inc. Australia, but have never found anything similar in America. That's too bad. Having a mentally ill parent makes your entire childhood an alien planet. That's what I used to feel like in fact, an alien, watching humans to try to understand how I was supposed to act. It's hard to learn how to be normal from a mentally ill parent. It would have been nice to know that I wasn't alone in feeling that way.
There was a little girl and she had a little curl
right in the middle of her forehead
and when she was good, she was very, very good
and when she was bad, she was horrid.
This rhyme came up on Cate's blog a few days ago. Wow. The feelings and memories that brought up. I had to get up from the computer for a little bit to get my equilibrium back.
To me, that rhyme has always symbolized my father. He's bipolar, but we didn't know that until after I was grown up and had left home. No, to me that rhyme meant Daddy because he was so unpredictable. You never knew what to expect from him, except that it was probably going to be bad.
Men who are bipolar tend to manifest the illness differently from women who are bipolar. Woman, as I understand it, tend to show more of the classic signs of the illness, the mood swings, the manic behavior. Men, on the other hand, tend to be angry. Dad has definitely always been that.
My father is an amazingly intelligent man, a genius. He took the Mensa test on a whim one time and was invited to join. He turned down the invitation, but he's always been proud that he could have joined if he wanted to.
My father taught me to love the fine arts. He took me to concerts and ballets, kept our home full of classical music, did oil paintings and bought paintings from other artists to hang around our home. He taught me to love the outdoors. We'd go hiking and camping as a family all the time. We lived in Oregon when I was young and would hike up by Multnomah Falls every few weeks. He climbed Mt. Rainier and skied down it again. He and my mother honeymooned at Spirit Lake on Mt. St. Helens. He knew how to throw a knife and catch a fish. Everywhere we lived he'd plant trees all over the property. He was wonderful and I adored him. He was my hero.
That was the good daddy, the daddy that I wanted to hang around all the time. Usually, though, who we had to deal with was the bad daddy, the scary daddy. This daddy threw things and hit you when you weren't looking. He couldn't keep a job, so we didn't have insurance, and couldn't go to the doctor when we got sick. I learned from that daddy to be wary every time someone walks through the front door, trying to gauge their mood and danger level. I learned to keep my back to the wall, to be hypervigilant. I learned to be afraid. I left home 20 years ago, but I still get a tight ball of fear in my stomach when my father calls.
My greatest fear is turning into my father. Bipolar disorder is hereditary. Since two of my siblings are bipolar I watch myself compulsively for signs of mental illness. The older I get, the better I feel, the more I can relax. I'm overly concerned about it, I know. I'm not really safe from developing bipolar disorder for another 10 years, but it's unlikely at this point, anyway. My father and siblings were all bipolar from their childhood.
I learned recently that growing up with a mentally ill parent is considered to fall into its own category of problems. I ran across a group in Australia, the National Network of Adult and Adolescent Children who have a Mentally Ill Parent/s. Vic. Inc. Australia, but have never found anything similar in America. That's too bad. Having a mentally ill parent makes your entire childhood an alien planet. That's what I used to feel like in fact, an alien, watching humans to try to understand how I was supposed to act. It's hard to learn how to be normal from a mentally ill parent. It would have been nice to know that I wasn't alone in feeling that way.
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
Ah, Togetherness
Because of the storm, the husband wound up spending Monday and most of Tuesday at home. Not fun. I can understand how women with retired husbands get so frustrated.
It's not like he hasn't spent large amounts of time at home before. He was out of work for a whole year, after all. But that was when we had a new baby, and I was glad for the help as I figured out how to be a mother.
Now, though, I have a schedule and I stick to it pretty closely. The toddler tends to go to pieces I've found if the rhythm of her daily life is disrupted too much, whereas with a schedule she thrives. Having Daddy home, with the TV tuned to a news channel all day long as he naps on the couch, is a major disruption. More than a couple of days of having Daddy around can mean several days of fighting over naps, meals, and not jumping from high places.
We need to have a talk once he's home. I feel horrible saying this, but he's going to have to understand this isn't a vacation. He's going to have to cooperate with the existing schedule or we're going to have complete chaos and hysteria.
I don't deal well with ongoing hysteria.
Whine, whinge, moan and complain. At least he's a reasonable man. And I do love him.
Because of the storm, the husband wound up spending Monday and most of Tuesday at home. Not fun. I can understand how women with retired husbands get so frustrated.
It's not like he hasn't spent large amounts of time at home before. He was out of work for a whole year, after all. But that was when we had a new baby, and I was glad for the help as I figured out how to be a mother.
Now, though, I have a schedule and I stick to it pretty closely. The toddler tends to go to pieces I've found if the rhythm of her daily life is disrupted too much, whereas with a schedule she thrives. Having Daddy home, with the TV tuned to a news channel all day long as he naps on the couch, is a major disruption. More than a couple of days of having Daddy around can mean several days of fighting over naps, meals, and not jumping from high places.
We need to have a talk once he's home. I feel horrible saying this, but he's going to have to understand this isn't a vacation. He's going to have to cooperate with the existing schedule or we're going to have complete chaos and hysteria.
I don't deal well with ongoing hysteria.
Whine, whinge, moan and complain. At least he's a reasonable man. And I do love him.
Ohmmmm, Ohmmmm
Friday is creeping up on us and it's making it really hard to think of anything else. It's so frightening and I feel so helpless to do anything to keep us from falling into a financial pit.
We've been through this before. After the toddler was born we were out of work. I was an About guide, one of the 300 hundred they got rid of after 9/11. The husband lost his job at the same time. He was out of work for over a year. You can see why this terrifies me so much.
We had savings, unemployment, and little bits we brought in here and there. That got us by. But we haven't built back up our savings yet. And, of course, the pressure to bring something in through my writing is giving me writer's block. I'm having a hard time even writing here, and this has been the only place I've been able to write for weeks now.
Deep breaths. We will make it through this. We have to. The only other option is giving up and I've never been good at that.
Friday is creeping up on us and it's making it really hard to think of anything else. It's so frightening and I feel so helpless to do anything to keep us from falling into a financial pit.
We've been through this before. After the toddler was born we were out of work. I was an About guide, one of the 300 hundred they got rid of after 9/11. The husband lost his job at the same time. He was out of work for over a year. You can see why this terrifies me so much.
We had savings, unemployment, and little bits we brought in here and there. That got us by. But we haven't built back up our savings yet. And, of course, the pressure to bring something in through my writing is giving me writer's block. I'm having a hard time even writing here, and this has been the only place I've been able to write for weeks now.
Deep breaths. We will make it through this. We have to. The only other option is giving up and I've never been good at that.
Monday, January 26, 2004
To tired to do any real writing
Linda had this list of books, and since I'm tired I thought I'd take the easy way out and use this for my blog today. I ran across this sometime last week, too, and if I remember correctly, I think it's a list of the 100 best loved books in the UK. The bolded ones I have read.
1984, George Orwell
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Animal Farm, George Orwell
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
The BFG, Roald Dahl
Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
Bleak House, Charles Dickens
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
Catch 22, Joseph Heller
The Catcher In The Rye, JD Salinger
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
Crime And Punishment, Fyodor
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
Dune, Frank Herbert
Emma, Jane Austen
Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
The Godfather, Mario Puzo
Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell
Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
His Dark Materials trilogy, Philip Pullman
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Douglas Adams
The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
Holes, Louis Sachar
I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
Katherine, Anya Seton
The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, CS Lewis
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
The Lord Of The Rings, JRR Tolkien
Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blighton
Magician, Raymond E Feist
The Magus, John Fowles
Matilda, Roald Dahl
Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
Middlemarch, George Eliot
Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
Mort, Terry Pratchett
Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
On The Road, Jack Kerouac
One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Perfume, Patrick Suskind
Persuasion, Jane Austen
The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen
The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier
The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
The Stand, Stephen King
The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
Tess Of The D'urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee
A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
The Twits, Roald Dahl
Ulysses, James Joyce
Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
War And Peace, Leo Tolstoy
Watership Down, Richard Adams
The Wind In The Willows, Kenneth Grahame
Winnie-the-Pooh, AA Milne
The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
Linda had this list of books, and since I'm tired I thought I'd take the easy way out and use this for my blog today. I ran across this sometime last week, too, and if I remember correctly, I think it's a list of the 100 best loved books in the UK. The bolded ones I have read.
1984, George Orwell
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Animal Farm, George Orwell
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
The BFG, Roald Dahl
Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
Bleak House, Charles Dickens
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
Catch 22, Joseph Heller
The Catcher In The Rye, JD Salinger
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
Crime And Punishment, Fyodor
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
Dune, Frank Herbert
Emma, Jane Austen
Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
The Godfather, Mario Puzo
Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell
Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
His Dark Materials trilogy, Philip Pullman
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Douglas Adams
The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
Holes, Louis Sachar
I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
Katherine, Anya Seton
The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, CS Lewis
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
The Lord Of The Rings, JRR Tolkien
Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blighton
Magician, Raymond E Feist
The Magus, John Fowles
Matilda, Roald Dahl
Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
Middlemarch, George Eliot
Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
Mort, Terry Pratchett
Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
On The Road, Jack Kerouac
One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Perfume, Patrick Suskind
Persuasion, Jane Austen
The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen
The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier
The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
The Stand, Stephen King
The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
Tess Of The D'urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee
A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
The Twits, Roald Dahl
Ulysses, James Joyce
Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
War And Peace, Leo Tolstoy
Watership Down, Richard Adams
The Wind In The Willows, Kenneth Grahame
Winnie-the-Pooh, AA Milne
The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
Friday, January 23, 2004
A Short Break From a Long Day
There I am, taking a pile of towels down the hall to the linen closet, with the toddler running after me, yelling, "Mommy take a bath, Mommy take a bath!" Which leaves me wondering: If, in her little mind, Mommy carrying a towel automatically means Mommy taking a bath, am I showering too often? Or am I not showering enough?
I'm probably just letting the folded laundry languish too long on the couch...
There I am, taking a pile of towels down the hall to the linen closet, with the toddler running after me, yelling, "Mommy take a bath, Mommy take a bath!" Which leaves me wondering: If, in her little mind, Mommy carrying a towel automatically means Mommy taking a bath, am I showering too often? Or am I not showering enough?
I'm probably just letting the folded laundry languish too long on the couch...
Thursday, January 22, 2004
There's gotta be a math error somewhere in this, I know there is.
The husband is taking all the fun out of my midlife crisis. Since we have a few more years between us than the usual couple, he isn't at all impressed that I'm within frostbite distance of 40. He passed that a long time ago.
I don't feel this old. I just feel like me, which according to my internal mirror is somewhere in my late twenties. After all, wasn't I supposed to have it all figured out by now? Wasn't I supposed to be this serene earth mother/nature goddess type, patiently guiding my teenagers with humor and wisdom?
OK, so my younger dreams of the future weren't too realistic. As if yours were.
Humph. So there.
I saw a book in the store the other day, a guide to midlife crisis for the middle-aged woman. "A must-read for every woman over 35!" was splashed across the cover. My first glance just swept over the book, registering and dismissing it as something for an older woman.
And then it hit me. Over 35? Me? I was a member of their target market? Oh. My. Very bad. Very, very bad.
Me, middle-aged? Well, I guess. Technically. I mean, if you want to make something of it. After all, my high school reunion is coming up. 20 years.
Oh, my.
The husband has no sympathy and just laughs at me when I start to talk about it.
He's no fun at all.
The husband is taking all the fun out of my midlife crisis. Since we have a few more years between us than the usual couple, he isn't at all impressed that I'm within frostbite distance of 40. He passed that a long time ago.
I don't feel this old. I just feel like me, which according to my internal mirror is somewhere in my late twenties. After all, wasn't I supposed to have it all figured out by now? Wasn't I supposed to be this serene earth mother/nature goddess type, patiently guiding my teenagers with humor and wisdom?
OK, so my younger dreams of the future weren't too realistic. As if yours were.
Humph. So there.
I saw a book in the store the other day, a guide to midlife crisis for the middle-aged woman. "A must-read for every woman over 35!" was splashed across the cover. My first glance just swept over the book, registering and dismissing it as something for an older woman.
And then it hit me. Over 35? Me? I was a member of their target market? Oh. My. Very bad. Very, very bad.
Me, middle-aged? Well, I guess. Technically. I mean, if you want to make something of it. After all, my high school reunion is coming up. 20 years.
Oh, my.
The husband has no sympathy and just laughs at me when I start to talk about it.
He's no fun at all.
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Save the Ducks!
The situation with the tub toys has become critical. Some toys I can get rid of without notice, but the ducks ...the ducks... are a different matter entirely.
The toddler adores ducks. When she grows up her house will undoubtedly be full of everything flat-footed. We have five rubber duckies, gifts from friends. The oldest and best loved is a medium sized duckie with a green bib and a cheerful look to his eyes. A few months ago we also acquired a Mamma duck with three tiny little babies that ride on her back.
Each of them has an identity. The medium duck is always the toddler. The biggest duck is Daddy or Mommy, depending on the toddler's mood (i.e.: who said, "No," most recently.) The littlest ones are "baby duckies" (said whilst nodding vehemently) and get toted around the house like pets. None of the ducks lives in the bathroom. They live with the toddler, sleeping with her on occasion, banned from the dinner table, and constantly played with, loved on, and sought after. And always, always, always bathing with her.
The medium duck, though, is starting to show signs of maybe having mildew inside. This is incredibly bad. Imagine whatever tones of doom you care to at this point. It won't be foreboding enough. There is no way in the world one of these can disappear to that great trash can in the sky without the absence being noticed and greeted with never-ending hysteria.
So I started earnestly searching for anything that would save the ducks. It's amazing what a dearth of information there is out there on this subject. I did find two pages, though, that have tips on fighting off mildew and keeping tub toys sanitary. The advice boils down to this: wash them in the dishwasher every so often, and suck a mixture of one part 0.5% chlorine bleach to 15 parts water into their insides on a regular basis. (Rinse well afterward, of course.)
I found all this at Tub Toy Hygiene at Child.com and Children's Toys at HGTV. Have fun!
The situation with the tub toys has become critical. Some toys I can get rid of without notice, but the ducks ...the ducks... are a different matter entirely.
The toddler adores ducks. When she grows up her house will undoubtedly be full of everything flat-footed. We have five rubber duckies, gifts from friends. The oldest and best loved is a medium sized duckie with a green bib and a cheerful look to his eyes. A few months ago we also acquired a Mamma duck with three tiny little babies that ride on her back.
Each of them has an identity. The medium duck is always the toddler. The biggest duck is Daddy or Mommy, depending on the toddler's mood (i.e.: who said, "No," most recently.) The littlest ones are "baby duckies" (said whilst nodding vehemently) and get toted around the house like pets. None of the ducks lives in the bathroom. They live with the toddler, sleeping with her on occasion, banned from the dinner table, and constantly played with, loved on, and sought after. And always, always, always bathing with her.
The medium duck, though, is starting to show signs of maybe having mildew inside. This is incredibly bad. Imagine whatever tones of doom you care to at this point. It won't be foreboding enough. There is no way in the world one of these can disappear to that great trash can in the sky without the absence being noticed and greeted with never-ending hysteria.
So I started earnestly searching for anything that would save the ducks. It's amazing what a dearth of information there is out there on this subject. I did find two pages, though, that have tips on fighting off mildew and keeping tub toys sanitary. The advice boils down to this: wash them in the dishwasher every so often, and suck a mixture of one part 0.5% chlorine bleach to 15 parts water into their insides on a regular basis. (Rinse well afterward, of course.)
I found all this at Tub Toy Hygiene at Child.com and Children's Toys at HGTV. Have fun!
Random Ramblings or, Blogging while braindead: A true story
Some adult in this family, not me, has a problem with skinny toilet paper rolls. No sooner do we get about three quarters of the way through a roll than it gets replaced with a full one. The old roll winds up languishing about the bathroom counter until I take pity on it and either place it near its point of intended use or use it for nose blowing. Either way, the original miscreant will have nothing to do with the poor abandoned thing.
It's all very strange. I'm not sure whence this obsession with toilet paper comes from, but I'm sad that it doesn't extend to actually putting the rolls on the holder. No, fat or thin, they all just sit there on the counter above the holder unless I take action. You know what we need? Toilet paper holders that work like the paper towel holders that sit on the counter. Just remove the old roll and drop the new roll on. Maybe then it wouldn't get left up to just half of the responsible members of the family to get things situated so that the toilet paper isn't getting knocked off the counter into the toilet on a regular basis.
In other news, the toddler inspected the cat's water dish this morning and found it lacking. She insisted that it be changed immediately. Mommy (perhaps foolishly) complied with her orders, giving the cat some food at the same time. The toddler then crouched by the water dish calling urgently, "'gheera! Watti! 'gheeraaaaa!" The cat declined to come, choosing instead to hide under the couch, something she doesn't usually have the good sense to do.
Speaking of the toddler, she is now officially wearing clothing from size 18 months to 4TXL. Yeah, right. Like I really believe those labels. Meanwhile, the baby is scorching her way through the 3-6 month outfits. A disconcerting number are no longer fitting. She also turned over from her tummy to back for the first time yesterday! For some strange reason though, she figured out back to tummy several weeks ago. The toddler was the same way. I used to worry myself sick about SIDS with her, because she just would not stay on her back to sleep. Fortunately, this one is more than content to sleep on her back. If she sleeps. But that's a topic for another day, when I've gotten to sleep earlier than 4 a.m. Bleagh.
Some adult in this family, not me, has a problem with skinny toilet paper rolls. No sooner do we get about three quarters of the way through a roll than it gets replaced with a full one. The old roll winds up languishing about the bathroom counter until I take pity on it and either place it near its point of intended use or use it for nose blowing. Either way, the original miscreant will have nothing to do with the poor abandoned thing.
It's all very strange. I'm not sure whence this obsession with toilet paper comes from, but I'm sad that it doesn't extend to actually putting the rolls on the holder. No, fat or thin, they all just sit there on the counter above the holder unless I take action. You know what we need? Toilet paper holders that work like the paper towel holders that sit on the counter. Just remove the old roll and drop the new roll on. Maybe then it wouldn't get left up to just half of the responsible members of the family to get things situated so that the toilet paper isn't getting knocked off the counter into the toilet on a regular basis.
In other news, the toddler inspected the cat's water dish this morning and found it lacking. She insisted that it be changed immediately. Mommy (perhaps foolishly) complied with her orders, giving the cat some food at the same time. The toddler then crouched by the water dish calling urgently, "'gheera! Watti! 'gheeraaaaa!" The cat declined to come, choosing instead to hide under the couch, something she doesn't usually have the good sense to do.
Speaking of the toddler, she is now officially wearing clothing from size 18 months to 4TXL. Yeah, right. Like I really believe those labels. Meanwhile, the baby is scorching her way through the 3-6 month outfits. A disconcerting number are no longer fitting. She also turned over from her tummy to back for the first time yesterday! For some strange reason though, she figured out back to tummy several weeks ago. The toddler was the same way. I used to worry myself sick about SIDS with her, because she just would not stay on her back to sleep. Fortunately, this one is more than content to sleep on her back. If she sleeps. But that's a topic for another day, when I've gotten to sleep earlier than 4 a.m. Bleagh.
Monday, January 19, 2004
The Accidental Stalker
Years ago, while browsing in the library, I picked up a book with an intriguing title and read a few pages. I was hooked right away. I checked out both of the books on the shelves by that author and read them as soon as I got home.
This woman was gifted! She was so funny, but thought-provoking at the same time. Her characters were people I could relate to and wanted to know. The stories were riveting, keeping me reading just so that I could find out what happened next. I had to read more of her work.
I went back to the library and checked to see how many books of hers they had, then put myself on the waiting list for every one that was checked out. Since they didn't have all of her books, I also started haunting used book stores to find the out of print titles.
That was almost 20 years ago, and I still grab every old title of hers that I run into. It doesn't happen too often, unfortunately, which has left my collection with some gaps. She's not a big name and probably hasn't sold too many copies of any one title, but she sells enough to keep getting published, and I make sure I do all I can to help keep that going by buying anything new as soon as I know it's out.
There are a couple of her books that I really love and have read again and again. Every time I do, I find myself wanting to write to her and tell her how much I enjoy her writing. I've even fantasized about maybe running into her, at a writer's conference or something. Maybe she'd join Momwriters and I'd get to be her secret friend! Wouldn't that be just great?
Every so often I've done a casual search on the internet to try to find if she has a website. Unfortunately she doesn't, but I did find various bookstores that sell her work, and some of those listed pen names that were new to me. (She's fond of pen names.) I bought those books and also did a quick search on each of those names for a website. Again, no luck.
A few months ago I found out something. All the names I had for her were pen names, including the one I thought was her real name. One bookseller, a tiny little place I'd never run into before, gave her real name, which she had never written under.
How cool! I did a quick search on that name, and got a handful of hits. I checked them out quickly. There was a (very) short biography of her, a list of short stories she'd written (new to me - I bookmarked that one), someone's genealogy ... huh?
I backed up and looked at the page again. Sure enough, there she was, in a family tree submitted by her daughter to a family history site. The birth year corresponded to that short bio I'd just found, and to back it up, many of her pen names ran in the family. It was the daughter's name that caught my attention, though.
I stared at it, puzzled, trying to think where I knew this name from. Someone I'd met online, not in real life, I thought. I did a quick search through my email archives and found it. And suddenly I knew who my favorite author really was.
No, I'd never met her, but I did know her daughter. We'd been on the same e-mail group for awhile. She'd helped me through a personal crisis. I'd heard her vent about her family, especially her mother with whom she had plenty of reason to be unhappy.
Her mother the writer.
Suddenly I felt a little sick. All I'd wanted was to find a website, maybe find out about current projects, definitely write a letter expressing my appreciation, and then just keep buying her books. I might have fantasized about meeting her, but I always imagined that happening more by accident than design. If I'd found the writer's website I was looking for I wouldn't even have written her more than once. Anything else would be, well, stalking.
Except now I knew all sorts of things about her, some of them incredibly intimate. I knew how she'd left her first husband because he was beating her, and how her second husband molested her daughters. I knew about her unsupportive reaction to her daughter's infertility, her fights with her sons, the church she had recently joined. I even knew the town she was living in. I felt so dirty, so guilty. I'd egregiously violated her privacy. It wasn't intentional, but so what? If she knew that she'd been so exposed, the fact that the intrusion was inadvertent wouldn't make her feel any better.
I closed the window, erased all my bookmarks from previous searches, even went through and deleted most of the emails I'd ever gotten from her daughter. I felt so bad I couldn't even read her books until just the other day.
It's astonishing how small the Web has made the world. We intrude on each others lives without even meaning to. Was I in the wrong to keep looking around after a few unsuccessful searches? Is there more stalker in me than I realize? I'd like to think the fact that I was so horrified about what I'd stumbled across speaks well of me, but I wonder.
And what about me? If I succeed in my goals, and get published someday, what will someone find out about me when they do a search?
I hope they'll be horrified, too.
Years ago, while browsing in the library, I picked up a book with an intriguing title and read a few pages. I was hooked right away. I checked out both of the books on the shelves by that author and read them as soon as I got home.
This woman was gifted! She was so funny, but thought-provoking at the same time. Her characters were people I could relate to and wanted to know. The stories were riveting, keeping me reading just so that I could find out what happened next. I had to read more of her work.
I went back to the library and checked to see how many books of hers they had, then put myself on the waiting list for every one that was checked out. Since they didn't have all of her books, I also started haunting used book stores to find the out of print titles.
That was almost 20 years ago, and I still grab every old title of hers that I run into. It doesn't happen too often, unfortunately, which has left my collection with some gaps. She's not a big name and probably hasn't sold too many copies of any one title, but she sells enough to keep getting published, and I make sure I do all I can to help keep that going by buying anything new as soon as I know it's out.
There are a couple of her books that I really love and have read again and again. Every time I do, I find myself wanting to write to her and tell her how much I enjoy her writing. I've even fantasized about maybe running into her, at a writer's conference or something. Maybe she'd join Momwriters and I'd get to be her secret friend! Wouldn't that be just great?
Every so often I've done a casual search on the internet to try to find if she has a website. Unfortunately she doesn't, but I did find various bookstores that sell her work, and some of those listed pen names that were new to me. (She's fond of pen names.) I bought those books and also did a quick search on each of those names for a website. Again, no luck.
A few months ago I found out something. All the names I had for her were pen names, including the one I thought was her real name. One bookseller, a tiny little place I'd never run into before, gave her real name, which she had never written under.
How cool! I did a quick search on that name, and got a handful of hits. I checked them out quickly. There was a (very) short biography of her, a list of short stories she'd written (new to me - I bookmarked that one), someone's genealogy ... huh?
I backed up and looked at the page again. Sure enough, there she was, in a family tree submitted by her daughter to a family history site. The birth year corresponded to that short bio I'd just found, and to back it up, many of her pen names ran in the family. It was the daughter's name that caught my attention, though.
I stared at it, puzzled, trying to think where I knew this name from. Someone I'd met online, not in real life, I thought. I did a quick search through my email archives and found it. And suddenly I knew who my favorite author really was.
No, I'd never met her, but I did know her daughter. We'd been on the same e-mail group for awhile. She'd helped me through a personal crisis. I'd heard her vent about her family, especially her mother with whom she had plenty of reason to be unhappy.
Her mother the writer.
Suddenly I felt a little sick. All I'd wanted was to find a website, maybe find out about current projects, definitely write a letter expressing my appreciation, and then just keep buying her books. I might have fantasized about meeting her, but I always imagined that happening more by accident than design. If I'd found the writer's website I was looking for I wouldn't even have written her more than once. Anything else would be, well, stalking.
Except now I knew all sorts of things about her, some of them incredibly intimate. I knew how she'd left her first husband because he was beating her, and how her second husband molested her daughters. I knew about her unsupportive reaction to her daughter's infertility, her fights with her sons, the church she had recently joined. I even knew the town she was living in. I felt so dirty, so guilty. I'd egregiously violated her privacy. It wasn't intentional, but so what? If she knew that she'd been so exposed, the fact that the intrusion was inadvertent wouldn't make her feel any better.
I closed the window, erased all my bookmarks from previous searches, even went through and deleted most of the emails I'd ever gotten from her daughter. I felt so bad I couldn't even read her books until just the other day.
It's astonishing how small the Web has made the world. We intrude on each others lives without even meaning to. Was I in the wrong to keep looking around after a few unsuccessful searches? Is there more stalker in me than I realize? I'd like to think the fact that I was so horrified about what I'd stumbled across speaks well of me, but I wonder.
And what about me? If I succeed in my goals, and get published someday, what will someone find out about me when they do a search?
I hope they'll be horrified, too.
Friday, January 16, 2004
Trying Not to Hyperventilate
The dryer is broken.
Only two weeks of employment left, no job in sight, and the dryer breaks. Lovely, just lovely. The lights go on, the drum revolves, but nothing heats. Probably the element.
I did a couple of loads of laundry yesterday. Threw the last one in the dryer, went off to start dinner, forgot about it until just before bedtime. Ran out to grab the clothes out of the dryer, and found them still soaking wet. Felt foolish. Apologized to husband, because he was going to have to get his shirt for tomorrow out of the dryer in the morning and (since it was going to be there overnight) dewrinkle it. Husband laughed it off. (He's an intelligent man who doesn't want to have to start doing his own laundry.) Everything was taken care of.
This morning, though ...
I fell asleep on the couch last night while nursing the baby, so I woke up stiff and cold and miserable, with the baby clutched next to me, warm and happy to be sleeping next to Mommy.
What woke me was the sound of the kitchen door being closed just a little too forcefully. I don't know what it's like in the rest of the South, but here in our little corner of it, most houses are built so that the laundry room is outside, separate from the rest of the house. The husband had just come back in from finding out that his favorite shirt was still soaking wet.
Of course, the cooktop chose just now to start breaking, too. I only have one element there that works.
We're looking at a couple of hundred at least to get everything fixed. The husband got paid today, so I was looking over the budget, paying a bill or two. We're fine right now, but I'm so scared about next month. Unemployment is only half of what you make. I suppose that's to motivate you to get off your rear and start looking. But we've been looking for three months, and haven't gotten so much as an interview.
It could always be worse, right? Which is, of course, exactly what I'm afraid of.
The dryer is broken.
Only two weeks of employment left, no job in sight, and the dryer breaks. Lovely, just lovely. The lights go on, the drum revolves, but nothing heats. Probably the element.
I did a couple of loads of laundry yesterday. Threw the last one in the dryer, went off to start dinner, forgot about it until just before bedtime. Ran out to grab the clothes out of the dryer, and found them still soaking wet. Felt foolish. Apologized to husband, because he was going to have to get his shirt for tomorrow out of the dryer in the morning and (since it was going to be there overnight) dewrinkle it. Husband laughed it off. (He's an intelligent man who doesn't want to have to start doing his own laundry.) Everything was taken care of.
This morning, though ...
I fell asleep on the couch last night while nursing the baby, so I woke up stiff and cold and miserable, with the baby clutched next to me, warm and happy to be sleeping next to Mommy.
What woke me was the sound of the kitchen door being closed just a little too forcefully. I don't know what it's like in the rest of the South, but here in our little corner of it, most houses are built so that the laundry room is outside, separate from the rest of the house. The husband had just come back in from finding out that his favorite shirt was still soaking wet.
Of course, the cooktop chose just now to start breaking, too. I only have one element there that works.
We're looking at a couple of hundred at least to get everything fixed. The husband got paid today, so I was looking over the budget, paying a bill or two. We're fine right now, but I'm so scared about next month. Unemployment is only half of what you make. I suppose that's to motivate you to get off your rear and start looking. But we've been looking for three months, and haven't gotten so much as an interview.
It could always be worse, right? Which is, of course, exactly what I'm afraid of.
Thursday, January 15, 2004
Negotiating From a Position of Strength
The husband got an ultimatum yesterday. If he wanted anything to wear to work Friday, he needed to haul his dirty clothes out of the bedroom and get them in the hall for me so that I could get them washed today.
Flylady is a wonderful program, but it only goes so far if you're not getting any cooperation from the people you're living with.
I rather frequently have to use ultimatums with him. I hate doing it, but he will procrastinate past the point of any degree of sanity if I don't. There are some things he just hates doing and will go to the most ridiculous extremes to avoid. For instance, when we first got married he had two pair of pants, both pretty worn. Eventually, one pair wore out completely, leaving him with only one pair.
Now, one of the things this man hates is shopping and stores. I told him that, while I was willing to help him out by doing at least some shopping for him, he was going to have to go with me the first time, so that I could get his sizes. He didn't want to do this. So, there we were, one pair of pants to his name, needing to be washed every night so that he'd have something to wear to work the next day.
Have I mentioned how stubborn he is?
Of course, since we were newlyweds and I was still trying to prove my housewifely abilities, I was the one doing all the laundry. It didn't take me long to lose patience with the new status quo. One night I lost my temper, completely. I let him know, in tones not unlike a car alarm, that he was doing his own laundry from then on, unless he wanted to go shopping.
We went out the next night. He bought me dinner, too.
Have I mentioned he's pretty easy to get along with, given the right incentives?
The husband got an ultimatum yesterday. If he wanted anything to wear to work Friday, he needed to haul his dirty clothes out of the bedroom and get them in the hall for me so that I could get them washed today.
Flylady is a wonderful program, but it only goes so far if you're not getting any cooperation from the people you're living with.
I rather frequently have to use ultimatums with him. I hate doing it, but he will procrastinate past the point of any degree of sanity if I don't. There are some things he just hates doing and will go to the most ridiculous extremes to avoid. For instance, when we first got married he had two pair of pants, both pretty worn. Eventually, one pair wore out completely, leaving him with only one pair.
Now, one of the things this man hates is shopping and stores. I told him that, while I was willing to help him out by doing at least some shopping for him, he was going to have to go with me the first time, so that I could get his sizes. He didn't want to do this. So, there we were, one pair of pants to his name, needing to be washed every night so that he'd have something to wear to work the next day.
Have I mentioned how stubborn he is?
Of course, since we were newlyweds and I was still trying to prove my housewifely abilities, I was the one doing all the laundry. It didn't take me long to lose patience with the new status quo. One night I lost my temper, completely. I let him know, in tones not unlike a car alarm, that he was doing his own laundry from then on, unless he wanted to go shopping.
We went out the next night. He bought me dinner, too.
Have I mentioned he's pretty easy to get along with, given the right incentives?
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Well, I have comments back, but like AGK, I'm going to leave the BlogSpeak code in, in case it comes back. I'm thinking this one might be better in some ways than BlogSpeak though, so maybe this isn't all bad.
Now to haul out my soapbox.
My husband likes to watch Everybody Loves Raymond reruns. He says their family is so messed up that it makes him appreciate how good we have it. Yes, dear. That's nice. I'll be in the next room.
The other night was an episode about Debra (the wife) wanting to write a children's book. Ray (in case you're not familiar with the show) is a sportswriter and columnist. Since she'd never written before she asked him for help. He didn't want to.
At this point I knew exactly what was going to happen. Debra would try to write the book anyway and she would fail. Now humbled, the episode would end with her acknowledging her total incompetence and hubris at having dared try to do anything like this.
And that's pretty much exactly how it went.
Every time they have an episode where Debra (a stay at home mom) tries to move outside her assigned sphere of homemaker it's the exact same pattern. Failure, followed by humiliation and the not at all subtle overtone that she was wrong to have even tried.
I don't usually pay too much attention to the show (I find it kind of irritating), so this was the first time I really paid attention to that particular pattern. It caught my attention, of course, because I kept thinking of all the great Momwriters I know and how they would have handled the various obstacles Debra kept running into.
It left me wondering, though. This pattern the show's writers have developed for Debra - is this just sitcom cliche writing, just another case of setting up a conflict that doesn't actually go anywhere and never was by next week's episode? Or (as my paranoid feminist side suspects) is this an unwitting reflection of a bias against stay at home moms?
I know. I'm probably reading way too much into it, but this is one of those things that really gets me going. I am a stay at home mom because I choose to be. This isn't something I'm doing because I'm avoiding the scary outside world, or because I'm incompetent, or dumb, or lazy or any of the other stereotypes I see in the media. In fact, making the decision to put my career on hold was a wrenching one. I'm not so sure I'll be able to go back to it later on. I chose to stay home anyway. There is nothing more important that I could be doing right now than this.
There is plenty of time in life to accomplish all manner of things. Raising children is only going to take a couple of decades, not even a third of my anticipated life expectancy. I had years before they came along, and I'll have many more years after they're on their own. And if (as someone once postulated to me) I die young, then I've done what mattered most to me first. What more could I ask?
Now to haul out my soapbox.
My husband likes to watch Everybody Loves Raymond reruns. He says their family is so messed up that it makes him appreciate how good we have it. Yes, dear. That's nice. I'll be in the next room.
The other night was an episode about Debra (the wife) wanting to write a children's book. Ray (in case you're not familiar with the show) is a sportswriter and columnist. Since she'd never written before she asked him for help. He didn't want to.
At this point I knew exactly what was going to happen. Debra would try to write the book anyway and she would fail. Now humbled, the episode would end with her acknowledging her total incompetence and hubris at having dared try to do anything like this.
And that's pretty much exactly how it went.
Every time they have an episode where Debra (a stay at home mom) tries to move outside her assigned sphere of homemaker it's the exact same pattern. Failure, followed by humiliation and the not at all subtle overtone that she was wrong to have even tried.
I don't usually pay too much attention to the show (I find it kind of irritating), so this was the first time I really paid attention to that particular pattern. It caught my attention, of course, because I kept thinking of all the great Momwriters I know and how they would have handled the various obstacles Debra kept running into.
It left me wondering, though. This pattern the show's writers have developed for Debra - is this just sitcom cliche writing, just another case of setting up a conflict that doesn't actually go anywhere and never was by next week's episode? Or (as my paranoid feminist side suspects) is this an unwitting reflection of a bias against stay at home moms?
I know. I'm probably reading way too much into it, but this is one of those things that really gets me going. I am a stay at home mom because I choose to be. This isn't something I'm doing because I'm avoiding the scary outside world, or because I'm incompetent, or dumb, or lazy or any of the other stereotypes I see in the media. In fact, making the decision to put my career on hold was a wrenching one. I'm not so sure I'll be able to go back to it later on. I chose to stay home anyway. There is nothing more important that I could be doing right now than this.
There is plenty of time in life to accomplish all manner of things. Raising children is only going to take a couple of decades, not even a third of my anticipated life expectancy. I had years before they came along, and I'll have many more years after they're on their own. And if (as someone once postulated to me) I die young, then I've done what mattered most to me first. What more could I ask?
Monday, January 12, 2004
I am so sorry about worrying anyone. I've been so tired that I just haven't had the energy to blog. But I do apologize. I should have realized that posting an entry like the last one and then disappearing would worry people!
The toddler is doing much better. She was feverish off and on through the night and the next morning, but back to herself the next afternoon. It's a huge relief to have that over with and hopefully nothing similar will happen anytime soon. I just wish I knew what happened. I guess I'd better get used to this sort of thing, though. Just a part of childhood.
The baby has been cranky and not sleeping well for the last several days, so I'm not sure if she's a little sick, too, or not. No fever, just irritability and restlessness, so whatever it is probably isn't that big a deal.
I'll blog more tomorrow, cross my heart.
The toddler is doing much better. She was feverish off and on through the night and the next morning, but back to herself the next afternoon. It's a huge relief to have that over with and hopefully nothing similar will happen anytime soon. I just wish I knew what happened. I guess I'd better get used to this sort of thing, though. Just a part of childhood.
The baby has been cranky and not sleeping well for the last several days, so I'm not sure if she's a little sick, too, or not. No fever, just irritability and restlessness, so whatever it is probably isn't that big a deal.
I'll blog more tomorrow, cross my heart.
Wednesday, January 07, 2004
Signs of Life
It's funny that extreme fear would effect me like this, but I have two slow motion memories of my toddler.
The first happened when she was still too young to walk. We'd been making some repairs on the house and there was some excess wood lying in the driveway. It forced me to park at the end of the drive. I was carrying her hugged up against my chest, left hand behind her head, right hand on her back when I tripped.
All I could see was that fragile little skull, heading directly for the pavement, the full weight of her mommy following. I kept desperately trying to pull her up, away from the concrete, but nothing was happening. She just kept getting closer and closer to that aged concrete slab.
That's all that stuck in my head. I don't remember anything after that until I was sitting at the side of the driveway, clutching my baby and crying. My ankle was killing me, I was bruised and bleeding from assorted scrapes, but she was completely unharmed. Frightened and crying, but safe.
Today, a little after 2 p.m., I sat at her side, watching the numbers ticking over on a digital thermometer, and pleading under my breath, "Please stop, please stop."
When it did, it read 104.7.
Three-tenths of a point away from the danger zone of 105.
She woke up early from her nap, sobbing pathetically in a way I've never heard her do before. When I went in to check on her I found she was burning up, and though awake and aware, utterly limp. I checked her temperature, called my husband to come home from work so we could take her to the hospital, then started running a lukewarm tub. I had to climb in with her so I could hold her up. She hadn't stopped sobbing the whole time, and just slumped forward into the water every time I let go of her. We sat there, my arms wrapped around her torso, hugging her to my chest as if she was still tiny, trying not to cry as I kept talking to her, trying to get her to respond to me.
The bath got her temperature down to around 103. It wavered there for 3 1/2 hours before finally returning to normal.
I suppose, to a more experienced mommy, this would be an unhappy, but not panic-inducing experience. I have to tell you though, watching that temperature keep clicking closer to 105 is right up there in my list of most frightening memories. I didn't know where it would stop, how long it had been that high, or what damage might have been done. There've been so many flu deaths in our state, so many little children lost. She's had the flu shot, but some of those children did too. And she was so limp.
She's fast asleep now. I keep checking her for another fever. Then I watch her breathe for a while, just because.
It's funny that extreme fear would effect me like this, but I have two slow motion memories of my toddler.
The first happened when she was still too young to walk. We'd been making some repairs on the house and there was some excess wood lying in the driveway. It forced me to park at the end of the drive. I was carrying her hugged up against my chest, left hand behind her head, right hand on her back when I tripped.
All I could see was that fragile little skull, heading directly for the pavement, the full weight of her mommy following. I kept desperately trying to pull her up, away from the concrete, but nothing was happening. She just kept getting closer and closer to that aged concrete slab.
That's all that stuck in my head. I don't remember anything after that until I was sitting at the side of the driveway, clutching my baby and crying. My ankle was killing me, I was bruised and bleeding from assorted scrapes, but she was completely unharmed. Frightened and crying, but safe.
Today, a little after 2 p.m., I sat at her side, watching the numbers ticking over on a digital thermometer, and pleading under my breath, "Please stop, please stop."
When it did, it read 104.7.
Three-tenths of a point away from the danger zone of 105.
She woke up early from her nap, sobbing pathetically in a way I've never heard her do before. When I went in to check on her I found she was burning up, and though awake and aware, utterly limp. I checked her temperature, called my husband to come home from work so we could take her to the hospital, then started running a lukewarm tub. I had to climb in with her so I could hold her up. She hadn't stopped sobbing the whole time, and just slumped forward into the water every time I let go of her. We sat there, my arms wrapped around her torso, hugging her to my chest as if she was still tiny, trying not to cry as I kept talking to her, trying to get her to respond to me.
The bath got her temperature down to around 103. It wavered there for 3 1/2 hours before finally returning to normal.
I suppose, to a more experienced mommy, this would be an unhappy, but not panic-inducing experience. I have to tell you though, watching that temperature keep clicking closer to 105 is right up there in my list of most frightening memories. I didn't know where it would stop, how long it had been that high, or what damage might have been done. There've been so many flu deaths in our state, so many little children lost. She's had the flu shot, but some of those children did too. And she was so limp.
She's fast asleep now. I keep checking her for another fever. Then I watch her breathe for a while, just because.
Tuesday, January 06, 2004
Deep Thoughts On Tub Toys
When I was a kid I thought plastic rotted. After all, all my tub toys had black flakes coming off them all the time. That must be the rotting plastic, right? So, OK then. Plastic rotted. Euww.
For some reason I lost interest in tub toys not long after that.
Having learned about mold since those days, I'm very careful with the toddler's toys. I've got her trained to hand them to me at the end of every bath. I squeeze the water out of them as best I can and deposit them in a mesh bag hanging on the shower wall. It's not working though. The outsides are mold free, but I noticed the other day that one of her favorites has got black mold growing all inside it. I'm inclined to throw it away, but only because I can't figure out how to clean it.
Is this simply the way of tub toys? Do they inevitably attract gross black stuff? Has science failed us, leaving no way to save them from this awful fate?
When I was a kid I thought plastic rotted. After all, all my tub toys had black flakes coming off them all the time. That must be the rotting plastic, right? So, OK then. Plastic rotted. Euww.
For some reason I lost interest in tub toys not long after that.
Having learned about mold since those days, I'm very careful with the toddler's toys. I've got her trained to hand them to me at the end of every bath. I squeeze the water out of them as best I can and deposit them in a mesh bag hanging on the shower wall. It's not working though. The outsides are mold free, but I noticed the other day that one of her favorites has got black mold growing all inside it. I'm inclined to throw it away, but only because I can't figure out how to clean it.
Is this simply the way of tub toys? Do they inevitably attract gross black stuff? Has science failed us, leaving no way to save them from this awful fate?
Every day in every way, they're getting bigger and bigger
I put away all the tiny baby clothing last week.
Oh wow. Ouch. How did she get so big so fast?
Watching my children grow up is such a complex thing. I love seeing them change, seeing them learn and grow. It's so wonderful to watch them learn to exercise more control over themselves and the world around them, and I rejoice with them with every step they take.
Mmmmm, but I so miss the stages past. I remember sitting up all night long my first night as a mother, stroking the hair of my oldest, amazed at how soft she was. I have never felt anything so soft in my life. I held her and cuddled her against my chest all through those dark hours, in love and happier than I've ever been.
With this baby, I remember sitting in my hospital bed a few hours after she was born. I was going over some paperwork they'd given me, the baby lying beside me, fast asleep, snugged up all warm against my leg. I was exhausted still, but very happy and loving her with all my heart. The sun was bright and the sky was clear. It was a perfect first day for her.
Now my once little Slumpy can't sit still for five minutes at a time, and wakes up if you so much as walk past her room. She loves to play and to meet new people. Her vocabulary is taking some enormous strides lately. She begs for stories constantly, climbs like a mountaineer, and loves with all of her little heart.
The baby is growing out of being our little Snork. Her constant congestion, and the snorting that accompanied it, is finally going away. She laughed for the first time yesterday, and has barely stopped laughing since. She especially loves being sung to, rewarding the singer with smiles and dimples and loving looks. Her eyelashes have darkened to black, like her big sister's, and her eyes have turned a darker blue to match her siblings and Daddy.
... and as I've been getting rhapsodical, the toddler has been sticking Play-Doh to the television screen. Gotta run!
I put away all the tiny baby clothing last week.
Oh wow. Ouch. How did she get so big so fast?
Watching my children grow up is such a complex thing. I love seeing them change, seeing them learn and grow. It's so wonderful to watch them learn to exercise more control over themselves and the world around them, and I rejoice with them with every step they take.
Mmmmm, but I so miss the stages past. I remember sitting up all night long my first night as a mother, stroking the hair of my oldest, amazed at how soft she was. I have never felt anything so soft in my life. I held her and cuddled her against my chest all through those dark hours, in love and happier than I've ever been.
With this baby, I remember sitting in my hospital bed a few hours after she was born. I was going over some paperwork they'd given me, the baby lying beside me, fast asleep, snugged up all warm against my leg. I was exhausted still, but very happy and loving her with all my heart. The sun was bright and the sky was clear. It was a perfect first day for her.
Now my once little Slumpy can't sit still for five minutes at a time, and wakes up if you so much as walk past her room. She loves to play and to meet new people. Her vocabulary is taking some enormous strides lately. She begs for stories constantly, climbs like a mountaineer, and loves with all of her little heart.
The baby is growing out of being our little Snork. Her constant congestion, and the snorting that accompanied it, is finally going away. She laughed for the first time yesterday, and has barely stopped laughing since. She especially loves being sung to, rewarding the singer with smiles and dimples and loving looks. Her eyelashes have darkened to black, like her big sister's, and her eyes have turned a darker blue to match her siblings and Daddy.
... and as I've been getting rhapsodical, the toddler has been sticking Play-Doh to the television screen. Gotta run!
Monday, January 05, 2004
The Outsider
This is my first marriage (and if all goes according to plan, only.) The husband has been married before. The teenager, as I've mentioned, is my stepson.
It's complicated, living in a blended family. I didn't really understand what I was getting into when I got married. Not that I'd do anything differently. I can't imagine finding a better fit than the two of us have. It's just that sometimes, even now, things happen that knock me off my feet for a little bit.
Recently I cleaned some green marker off a wall. I told the teenager about it a couple of days into Christmas visitation.
Big mistake. I was expecting an, "Oh, cool!" type of reaction (he really is just the nicest kid.) What I got was a funny look, and an, "Oh." Then he walked away.
Later, my husband said to me that he thought the teen was disappointed that I'd cleaned that off. Evidently it had been rather special to our big guy, a memento of times he couldn't remember.
I was feeling badly enough, when my husband said, "To be honest, I was kind of disappointed, too, when you told me you'd cleaned it up."
I about cried. I felt like I'd stepped in and ruined something important to them. There was this special memory for the two of them, and I, the outsider, had come along and stupidly wrecked that.
I knew when I got married that I was marrying into a family. I wasn't starting my own family, I was joining an established unit and I was the one who was going to have to fit in. And I've been very fortunate in that my stepson has bent over backward to welcome me into his family. (Have I mentioned what a great kid he is?) But I really didn't grasp back then just what marrying into an established family meant. I didn't really understand that, even though they're divorced, my husband and his ex are still family to each other and always will be. I didn't understand how often I'd wind up shut out of their family.
It's not the times of crisis that do it, it's the memories. It's all the time that the three of them were together before I came along. My husband and his ex might have been miserable and hating each other at the end, but it wasn't always that way. And sometimes things happen that trigger those happy memories: when she called to tell them their dog had died of old age, when he ran into an old friend he last saw 20 years ago in California, when his mother gave us a bunch of the teenager's old baby pictures that she found in storage.
Or when I clean up the green marker at toddler height in the hallway.
This is my first marriage (and if all goes according to plan, only.) The husband has been married before. The teenager, as I've mentioned, is my stepson.
It's complicated, living in a blended family. I didn't really understand what I was getting into when I got married. Not that I'd do anything differently. I can't imagine finding a better fit than the two of us have. It's just that sometimes, even now, things happen that knock me off my feet for a little bit.
Recently I cleaned some green marker off a wall. I told the teenager about it a couple of days into Christmas visitation.
Big mistake. I was expecting an, "Oh, cool!" type of reaction (he really is just the nicest kid.) What I got was a funny look, and an, "Oh." Then he walked away.
Later, my husband said to me that he thought the teen was disappointed that I'd cleaned that off. Evidently it had been rather special to our big guy, a memento of times he couldn't remember.
I was feeling badly enough, when my husband said, "To be honest, I was kind of disappointed, too, when you told me you'd cleaned it up."
I about cried. I felt like I'd stepped in and ruined something important to them. There was this special memory for the two of them, and I, the outsider, had come along and stupidly wrecked that.
I knew when I got married that I was marrying into a family. I wasn't starting my own family, I was joining an established unit and I was the one who was going to have to fit in. And I've been very fortunate in that my stepson has bent over backward to welcome me into his family. (Have I mentioned what a great kid he is?) But I really didn't grasp back then just what marrying into an established family meant. I didn't really understand that, even though they're divorced, my husband and his ex are still family to each other and always will be. I didn't understand how often I'd wind up shut out of their family.
It's not the times of crisis that do it, it's the memories. It's all the time that the three of them were together before I came along. My husband and his ex might have been miserable and hating each other at the end, but it wasn't always that way. And sometimes things happen that trigger those happy memories: when she called to tell them their dog had died of old age, when he ran into an old friend he last saw 20 years ago in California, when his mother gave us a bunch of the teenager's old baby pictures that she found in storage.
Or when I clean up the green marker at toddler height in the hallway.
Thursday, January 01, 2004
Sleepless in Toddler Land
It is 10:30 at night and the toddler is STILL awake. She’s standing at the door to her room, sobbing, only the gate that I put up keeping her in, convinced her parents are the most hardhearted people in the world. Meanwhile, her sobs are ripping my heart out, something she’ll never believe until she has children of her own, I’ll bet. Having children has certainly given me a new perspective on certain past experiences with my own parents, at any rate.
The problem tonight is that she’s figured out how to reach the light switch. If she stands on her bed and reaches over a little, there it is! All the light for staying up and playing that any little girl could wish for. So Mommy keeps going down the hall and turning it off, and the toddler keeps bouncing out of bed after Mommy’s gone back into the living room and turns it on and it’s become a huge endurance match.
I can’t believe she’s still awake. 8 pm is her normal bedtime. We are rapidly approaching MY normal bedtime. Not that I expect to make it tonight, even if she suddenly falls asleep, because the baby has been having a hard day. She’s been up and down all day like her big sister’s been over the last 2 1/2 hours, and is showing every indication of keeping it up all night.
Have I ever mentioned how glad I am to be a stay at home mom and not have to go to work exhausted tomorrow? I just have to try not to fall asleep until the toddler has her nap, which is going to be hard enough. Maybe I’ll be able to get her to sleep early tomorrow, though.
*banging my head gently against the wall right now*
It is 10:30 at night and the toddler is STILL awake. She’s standing at the door to her room, sobbing, only the gate that I put up keeping her in, convinced her parents are the most hardhearted people in the world. Meanwhile, her sobs are ripping my heart out, something she’ll never believe until she has children of her own, I’ll bet. Having children has certainly given me a new perspective on certain past experiences with my own parents, at any rate.
The problem tonight is that she’s figured out how to reach the light switch. If she stands on her bed and reaches over a little, there it is! All the light for staying up and playing that any little girl could wish for. So Mommy keeps going down the hall and turning it off, and the toddler keeps bouncing out of bed after Mommy’s gone back into the living room and turns it on and it’s become a huge endurance match.
I can’t believe she’s still awake. 8 pm is her normal bedtime. We are rapidly approaching MY normal bedtime. Not that I expect to make it tonight, even if she suddenly falls asleep, because the baby has been having a hard day. She’s been up and down all day like her big sister’s been over the last 2 1/2 hours, and is showing every indication of keeping it up all night.
Have I ever mentioned how glad I am to be a stay at home mom and not have to go to work exhausted tomorrow? I just have to try not to fall asleep until the toddler has her nap, which is going to be hard enough. Maybe I’ll be able to get her to sleep early tomorrow, though.
*banging my head gently against the wall right now*
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