A Tale of Two Flies

It's hard getting the girls to remember to close the door when they come inside. Specifically, it's hard getting Arielle to remember, when she runs inside to use the facilities, to close the door behind her. Which has left us with this little fly problem. Which is driving the husband absolutely crazy. It turns out he's not exactly rational about flies. The things you still learn about each other, even after years of marriage!

So, tonight, there we were at the dinner table, trying to eat while the husband flailed away at two flies. In complete frustration, completely unable to eat for thought of where those flies had been before dive bombing his dinner, the husband rolled up a newspaper section and started laying about him like the brave little tailor.

Arielle freaked. "Daddy, don't hurt the fly!"

The husband's body language immediately changed from ire to nervous shame. "I wasn't trying to hurt the fly, sweetie," he protested. "I was just scaring it."

"Don't scare it, Daddy! It's my friend!"

"But, honey," his voice tapered off. He tried again. "See, sweetie, this is why you need to close the door when you come in. The flies come in when the door's open."

"Yes," Arielle agreed. "They're hot outside, and birds want to eat them!"

I've never seen the man so disconcerted. I, meanwhile, was practically rolling on the floor, I was laughing so hard.

He finally gave up and settled for carefully waving the flies away for the rest of the meal. Arielle spent the rest of the meal regaling all of us with stories about how funny the flies were and what good friends to her they were.

I think the husband may never be the same again.

The melody of my daughter's voice.

I heard some geese fly past today, honking. For a moment I thought it was Gabrielle, calling out, "Booots! Booots!"*

I never realized how much my youngest daughter sounds like a goose.

*As in Dora the Explorer's friend. I really need to find a Boots doll for her birthday. She loves, loves, loves that monkey.

Lost Boys

Rachie shared a comment in response to my last post that reminded me of an incident that happened with my brother (the one in Iraq) when we were both very little.

It was Christmas. I don't remember how old we were, but it must have been when we were 3/4 and 5/6. Mom and Dad had taken us to the mall to do our Christmas shopping. Dad had gone to another store to get something for Mom. I remember walking along with Mom, stopping every so often to look into windows. She told the two of us to stay close by her, but after looking in one window, when we turned around, my brother was gone.

Of course, I wasn't frightened, just annoyed that my stupid little brother was being naughty. I was also feeling rather smug that I had obeyed and was the good child. Mom must have been terrified. There was an awareness of child abduction even back then, though not like it is now.

We looked for my brother, with no luck. Before long Mom was talking with a security guard. At some point we headed for the store Dad was in, to let him know what was going on.

By the time we got to Dad, though, the whole thing was cleared up. Dad had my brother! It turned out my brother hadn't noticed when Mom stopped to look at the last store display. He'd just kept going. I don't know if he even noticed he was alone, before he hit the last store in the direction he was going. But when he reached that big anchor store, he realized his mother wasn't there. He started crying.

Some kind person took him up to store security and they announced over the loudspeaker that they had a lost child. Now, remember, Dad had no reason to think this might be his son. But, he got a funny feeling when he heard that announcement and decided he needed to check it out. My brother was probably never more happy in his life to see our father.

So there you go. One of those family stories that will haunt my brother the rest of his life as it gets retold every Christmas.

And then there's the time I got lost. But that's a story for another day.

This is why my gray hairs are steadily increasing.

Gabrielle has progressed yet further into the Terrible Twos. Her favorite word now is, "Mine!" We are having temper tantrums at a steadily increasing pace. When she gets too frustrated over the difficulties the world is presenting she hits Mommy. And today ...

Oh, I do hate taking the girls shopping. Gabrielle hates, hates, hates to ride in the cart anymore. Arielle likes to ride in the cart sometimes, but only for short periods. Given her way she'd pop in and out of the seat like a prairie dog.

When Gabrielle is out of the shopping cart seat she runs around wildly at odd tangents, forcing me to chase her down. Arielle loves to touch everything, and will occasionally take a running leap to ride on the side of the cart for awhile. (Yes, she has fallen, doing this. No, it did not diminish her enthusiasm for the game. They get this from their father. It's his fault. How could I have known that being an adrenaline junkie was hereditary? It's not a trait that runs in my family!)

I usually wind up being forced to put Gabrielle in the cart to keep her out of trouble, which leads to incredible screaming fits. That little girl has the lung capacity of King Kong, with a higher pitch. She can bring an entire shopping center to a complete stop as everyone looks for the child that is being kidnapped by a crazed orangutan.

I try to let her stay out of the cart as long as I can.

Today, well, today we had to go shopping. I needed chicken for dinner tonight and I just couldn't put it off anymore. Everything went reasonably well, though, and I started to drop my guard. That's when Gabrielle took off.

At first I didn't realize the trouble I was in. She was running down the aisle ahead of me, looking back and laughing at her silly mommy. I followed her, Arielle leading the way. The problem was, Arielle kept stopping to look back at me and proclaim, "She's getting away, Mommy!" I had to stop the cart, or run Arielle down, which meant I kept losing ground to Gabrielle.

When Gabrielle got to the end of the aisle, she turned the corner. I could hear her laughing on the other side of the shelving. I hustled, as much as Arielle would let me, who was becoming increasingly dramatic as her sister got further away, and got around the corner as Gabrielle hit midway. No problem. I'd catch up with her soon, I was sure.

By the time I was midway to the end, though, Gabrielle was around another corner. This time I turned the corner in time to see her rounding a corner also. I turned the cart around, calling to Arielle to follow me, and hurried to the next aisle.

She wasn't there.

Hmm. OK, next aisle.

Not there either.

This is when Mommy started panicking. I dumped the cart and started running up and down the front of the store looking down every aisle and calling my baby.

Nothing.

And here's where I admit, that yes, I am a bad mother. Because while I was afraid for her, I was also thinking, in the back of my mind, "How am I going to explain that I lost my daughter in the grocery store? I'm going to look terrible."

I hadn't figured out a good excuse yet, when Gabrielle appeared from the direction of the produce department, running toward me with great pride at having been able to defeat Mommy so easily.

Yes, there was much screaming for the rest of our shopping trip. She really hates being in the cart.

That strength and honor may clothe her

Arielle runs into the living room this afternoon.

"Mommy, I lost my glass slipper!"

I'm distracted by cleaning. "Oh that's OK, sweetie," I tell her. "The prince will find it."

She pauses to think for a moment.

"No," she tells me. "I'll find it."

She runs off to retrieve the shoe that is standing in for a glass slipper. I sit back on my heels and think about what she said.

I hope she keeps that attitude.

What goes around ...

I have a slice of memory from when I was very small. Mom is standing in front of the dryer of the rickety old house we were renting at that time. She is holding a pair of my pants out, showing them to me. There are black streaks all over them, as well as over several other items I can see that are still in the dryer.

It seems I left a crayon in my pocket. It's melted all over my clothes. Mom is so not happy with me.

I do remember that she forgave me (in fact, I got off pretty easily.) I don't remember what happened to the pants or the other clothes, if the dryer was in bad shape, or what she did to try to clean everything up.

But I will never forget the moment of standing there, staring at my crayon coated pocket.

Yesterday, as I went to get a load of laundry out of the dryer, I noticed red splotches everywhere. You got it. A red crayon somehow got into the laundry.

Luckily, nothing really important was in there. I did have a load of the husband's work clothes in the washer, needing to be dried, but the load that was ruined was mostly small girl pajamas, towels and a tablecloth I don't like anyway.

The real problem was the dryer, which was fairly evenly coated with red. I did some frantic searching online (I love the internet, yes I do, it is the best encyclopedia ever invented) and found that WD-40 is a great way to clean up the inside of your dryer in such a situation. It's also good for cleaning up the clothes.

What I wound up doing with the clothes is rewashing them in hot water, with three scoops of Oxiclean (love that stuff, too) and rather more detergent than I normally would. I let it agitate for a while, then stopped the cycle and waited until the water had cooled somewhat. It got most of the red out. I'm going to do it again today and see how it goes.

The dryer is still faintly pink inside, but I wetted down two white towels and threw them in for a cycle. They came out still dry, so I felt safe finishing the husband's clothes.

And my mother is avenged for the crayon.

The sky is blue, the sun is shining, my eyes won't stay open.

NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!

My monitor is acting weird. I DO NOT NEED THIS!

If I suddenly disappear for a long period of time, it's because the monitor broke and we can't afford to get a new one.

Michael's last day of work is tonight. I'm relieved, I have to admit. He's been working closing, which means he hasn't been getting off until 2 or 3 a.m. Naturally, I'm the parent who stays up to go get him, since the husband has been on a day shift this month, which means he's been getting up at 3:30 a.m. every morning. You can see the scheduling conflict, I'm sure!

Unfortunately, it all means I've been having way too many 4 hour nights, since the girls tend to wake up bright and early.

Enough complaining. What's fun and interesting to write about?

How's this? Summer may be winding down, but the gift-giving season is just getting started in our house. In addition to Christmas, we have four birthdays coming up. In fact, Michael is the only member of the family who does not have a fall or winter birthday. (He was a spring baby.) There will much merriment and celebration over the few months, starting in September. And this Christmas we should have enough money to actually celebrate it! Whee!

Now I have to go beat back the fungal growths in my kitchen. They have taken over the counters and are planning to stage an attack on the fridge. They don't know I know, but I have my spies. (Insert hollow, mocking laughter from me, here.) Oh, yes, I have my spies!

Don't blame me. It's the lack of sleep talking.

Something kind of fun and cool.

Google is the source of such fun little toys! I ran across this one this morning and thought I'd share it.

Map my visitors.

If you're the first person to visit after I've posted this entry, try back again later. It's supposed to take an hour to show up.

Of course, now I'm exposing my soft pink underbelly. Yes (sob), I don't have all that many hits every day.

Oh well!

I do love toys like this.

Memorable moments in the Mommydom.

There we are, in the bathroom at Walmart, waiting for Arielle to use the facilities, when someone walks into the stall next to ours. (We were in the handicapped stall. I know I shouldn't, but there just isn't room for the three of us in any of the other stalls.) Gabrielle is curious, so she goes down on her hands and knees and sticks her head under the partition to see who's there.

So bad, in so many ways. At least they have good sinks and soap dispensers in that bathroom.

***************************

Another bathroom story: I forget to lock the door and while I am engaged Arielle runs in, wearing her blue Cinderella dress.

"Mommy, I'm late for the ball!" She pulls back her sleeve and shows me her slender (bare) wrist. "See? I'm late!"

She runs out, chanting like the White Rabbit, "I'm late, I'm late. I'm late, I'm late."

Naturally, she leaves the door open.

***************************

Gabrielle has gotten hold of a purple ribbon that came wrapped around a present of some kind. It's satin on the edges and mesh in the middle. She keeps pushing it at me, with accompanying gestures, until I understand that she wants it tied around her head, covering her eyes like a mask.

Is she already playing superhero?

***************************

Michael collapses into the front seat when I pick him up from work. He had to scrub the floors, on his hands and knees, no less. He doesn't say why.

It's hard enough to get him to mop up his dog's puddles. I can't imagine asking him to scrub the kitchen floor on hands and knees.

***************************

I leave a late afternoon playdate for the girls and head straight home to pick up Michael, so he can get to work on time. On the way I call the husband and let him know we won't be home until after him. Dinner is in the crockpot; could he just put on some water to boil and start the egg noodles before I get home?

I pull back into our driveway with tired and whiny children, who don't want Mommy's dinner. They want hamburgers. And toys. (After all, what's more important, food or fun? And if you can't answer that, you don't remember what it's like to be that small.) Inside, I find the husband standing over a pot of boiling water, ready to put the noodles in. Just one slight problem. He's trying to cook a pound of egg noodles in a one quart sauce pan.

Ah, well. I didn't marry him for his cooking skills.

Kinda Mildly Obsessed

Every so often I'll get interested in something that turns into an obsession. I don't want to do anything else and I can't wait to spend time working on whatever is my new project. This was much easier to do when I was still childless. The girls have a way of really insisting on such unreasonable things as being fed. They even demand to play with me. Can you imagine anything so unreasonable?

Needless to say, with all the time I've been spending on genealogy this week, the house is chaos. I've managed to keep up with the kitchen, but the living room looks like small children stood in the middle of the room and spewed toys everywhere. Oh, wait, they did.

On the other hand, I've been finding information everywhere I look about the lines I'm following up on. It's fascinating to see how surnames move together around the country. I've been working a lot on one family who spent several generations in one Kentucky county. All the families of that county intermarried like crazy, to the point that they had to have been marrying cousins. In fact, I did find one pair of first cousins who married each other. And then, all of a sudden, it was like they all picked up and moved to Illinois. Not just the name I'm looking for, either. Almost every family had one or two members move up north. I wonder why? Was it just a matter of one couple moving north and then relatives started following relatives until half the county was there, or had something changed, like jobs shifting from one area to another?

Who would have thought that genealogy would lead to an interest in economic history and migration patterns?

I had a dream last night that I was moving surnames around on a giant sheet of white paper, trying to make them fit together like a crossword puzzle. I'm not sure if that means I've been spending too much time doing this or just the right amount of time. It is like the best puzzle I've ever gotten to do, though.

Third Cousin, Four Times Removed

I have always been interested in family history. I come from a family where we tell stories about our great-grandparents as much as about each other. The husband, on the other hand, comes from a family where he is pretty much the only person left on one side of his family and no-one is really interested on the other side of the family.

We have a few names, and we've done a little bit of genealogy here and there. Lately, though, the bug has really bitten me. Luckily, the husband is not jealous of his family; he is happy that I'm so interested in finding out about them. After all, he pointed out to me, they're my family now, too.

One of the names we have is very unusual, and when I plugged it into a search engine this weekend I came up with loads of stuff. Evidently there's been a lot of research done on this particular family. I've spent hours getting all the information into our genealogy program and I'm still nowhere near done.

One of the interesting things I ran across was a will, by an early family member, who was evidently seriously ticked off at his oldest son. He divided his estate pretty equally amongst all his children, except that son. The poor guy only got one shilling from his father. Yowch. I wonder what happened to make Dad so upset?

I love family history. It's so fun!

If you don't see me updating regularly for a little while, it'll be because I'm all obsessed with genealogy. Bear with me. I'll get back to reality eventually, I'm sure. Or at least run out of what information is out there on the internet.

UPDATE:
I think I found out why the father mentioned earlier cut off his son. Evidently the son had gotten divorced three years before the will was written. I'm inclined to think that might have been the source of the problem. The sad thing is, it doesn't look like they ever made up.

Busy, busy

I wish I could think of something clever and witty to say, but I'm a trifle brain-dead right now. I'll be so glad when school starts again! Why is it so much busier now, at the end of summer, than it was at the beginning of summer? I want to put my feet up, but now I have to go make cookies for a church youth activity tomorrow night. Then I have to pick up Michael from work. Then, and only then, do I get to go to bed.

I used to fantasize about virile men, great adventures, space travel, success, fame, wealth, all the sorts of things people are supposed to dream about. Now I fantasize about 24 hours, alone, in a motel room, where I can sleep as much as I want with no-one to wake me up.

Waiting for Michael

I am writing this whilst waiting for Michael to call me to come and get him from work. Which will, unfortunately, not be until way too late for me. I have tried sleeping while waiting for the call, but then I wind up driving to get him in this half-asleep, punch-drunk state, which didn't exactly feel very safe. There's just something about driving off the side of the road and into buildings which neither I nor my insurance company cares for, you know?

Anyway, I thought I would use my time productively instead of just sitting here watching Iron Chef America. Multi-tasking, yes! I am woman, watch me multi-task.

I think I'm a little too tired.

Not as tired as Grrl, over at Chez Miscarriage, who just posted about the joys of poo-shooting babies who never sleep. If you want to read it, get over there fast and read it now! Because, while she is only blogging every so often now as she learns to cope with her newborn, when she decides to post again this entry will be gone forever. She doesn't archive anymore, due to a problem with being plagiarized. Even without sleep (you parents out there might remember when your little ones were two weeks old) she is funny, funny, funny.

How quickly we forget the difficulties of tiny babies, though! Just tonight the husband and I had a long talk about my menstrual cycle and the distinct possibility that I am now fertile. It is Time to make Decisions about our reproductive future. Which is alternately funny and annoying, considering our reproductive past. I can't believe I am in the position of having to consider birth control!

I started the conversation because I got wistful about not being able to look forward to being pregnant again and experience swollen feet. Yes, I know, I'm crazy. But the fact is, aside from the depression this last time around, I really enjoyed being pregnant. I like having a baby inside me and watching the changes to my body. My first pregnancy I even laughed over the times I'd break into completely causeless tears. I didn't care for the nine months of morning sickness, but I didn't really mind, either. (Which, incidentally, is why having Arielle throw up on me yesterday didn't bother me at all. I used to be vomit-phobic, but with both pregnancies I started morning sickness one month into my first trimester and didn't stop puking until the baby was a month old. I became amazingly casual about it after a while.)

Of course, if I do get pregnant again, though, I would be in serious danger of coming down with PPD again. With my family history (all my bipolar relatives) I'm higher risk for PPP. I keep thinking about Andrea Yates, how her doctors told her not to get pregnant again.

I can't risk that. The more I think about it, the more I ponder it, the more I am deeply convinced that another pregnancy would be an incredibly bad idea.

But it makes me wistful. I wish I could have another baby. I wish I could have the fun of walking around with a big ol' tummy again. I wish I could sleep at night curled up around my baby, hands on my abdomen, feeling her move inside me, feeling protective and loving toward this fragile little being.

Does this longing ever really go away? Will I feel wistful about pregnancy and newborns when I'm 80 years old?

I need to go reread Chez Miscarriage and remind myself that I get to sleep through the night now. When I'm not picking Michael up from work, that is.

Out of this world

Arielle: Mommy, are we in the world?

Mommy: Are we in what?

Arielle: Are we in the world?

Mommy: Umm ... yes, dear, yes we are.

As opposed to being say, on Mars, or Trialpha 67.

I have three sick and upchucking members of the family today. Michael isn't showing any symptoms yet and I'm fervently hoping I stay well, too.

Off to buy clear and fizzing liquids for my miserable sweeties!

Not a train, but is it truly the end of the tunnel?

Well, it's that time of the month again, and I'm not depressed! I've been so good, so me the last week or so and although I'm feeling kind of lackluster and scatter-brained, I'm not suicidal at all. Which is huge, considering how I felt at these times the last few months.

I've mentioned before that I have PCOS. One of the things that it does is mess up your menstrual cycle. For me that meant going years at a time without a period. Which is why the doctor who diagnosed me didn't think I'd be able to conceive.

However. Since weaning Gabrielle I've started cycling again. Every month. I have never been this regular in my life. The problem is, I've been having the lowest points of my depression during my PMS and the week of my period. Horrible, horrible, can hardly keep from hurting myself because everything is so hopeless and the only solution I can see is to end it all, depression. So, realizing I was cycling, I warned the husband to keep an eye on me and braced myself to deal with the chemical hurricane.

But this month, it isn't happening! At least not yet. So far, all is well. And I kind of think it's going to stay that way for the rest of the week, too. It's so nice to feel good! I hope this means I've turned the corner on this depression, finally.

A girl from church is pregnant. She's barely 17. Very smart and talented. Beautiful. A year ahead of her peers in school, going into her senior year when the other kids her age are all juniors. A cheerleader. Until a month ago the world was at her feet.

Now she's restricted to four options. Adoption, abortion, raising the child herself as a single mother, or marrying the baby's father.

I remember how I felt my senior year of high school. I was so excited. I was graduating a year early too (not because I was smart, but because I started first grade a year early - long story.) I felt beautiful, I felt smart, I felt daring and strong and bold. The world was right there, for the taking. All I had to do was decide what I wanted, then reach out and take it. I knew I could have whatever I wanted, because I was up to the challenge, whatever it was. I was so confident it was nearly arrogance.

There were seven pregnant girls in my graduating class. I didn't date, (too shy) so it wasn't like I'd had any opportunity to get pregnant, but it was still frightening to think about them. Even then I could see how drastically their lives had changed, how all their opportunities had been stripped from them. Oh, sure, some were still open, but they had a bottleneck to get through first and some things were going to be gone forever, no matter how hard they worked.

Whatever this girl decides, her life is going to be a lot more complicated from here on out. Nor is she the only one. The baby's father's life is changed too, whether he steps up to his responsibilities or not. The baby is also going to be affected. This was the sort of situation my husband was born into. Believe me, even now, it has an impact on his life.

The baby is due in March. She's going to be working to graduate before then. She's going to have to give up being a cheerleader, her mother told me. I don't know if that's school policy, or just a matter of her health. (Considering how pregnancy throws off your balance, I can't see her doing many leaps and flips, so I'd guess it was about health.) She'll need a lot of support from the school, from us at church, from her family and from the baby's father. Whatever she decides, I hope it works out well for all of them.

If anyone out there is dealing with this kind of situation, I would highly recommend AGK's One Young Parent site. She had her first baby when she was 14 (I think? Correct me if I'm wrong, AGK) so she understands what it's like. Her site is jam packed full of great articles and resources.

Fantasizing at o'dark hundred.

For some reason Arielle has started getting up at 5:45 every morning. Gabrielle, on the other hand, has started staying awake for long hours every night, seldom falling asleep before 9:00 and all too often staying up until 10 or 11.

I'm tired.

I'd rather have them both getting up early, than staying up late, honestly. I don't care for getting up before the sun is fully up, but I can live with it. And it bodes well for when Arielle starts school! Gabrielle's behavior is going to have to undergo a fundamental change, though. She's getting to a point where she's about ready to give up naps, so I'm thinking I'll just cut her nap back to an hour, until we get her a toddler bed to replace her crib. Then there'll be no keeping her down anyway, so we'll just let naptime go.

Oh, how sad I am! No more naptime. No more peaceful island in the middle of the day where I have at least one child down.

Here's my fantasy: They go to bed at 7 every night, fall asleep quickly, and don't wake up until 7 the next morning. Then they play all day nicely and happily with each other, without screaming (our latest game is "how loudly can I scream while my sister is chasing me?" Which sends Michael absolutely over the edge. He really hates noise. Unless he's the one making it.)

Yes, well, I can dream, can't I?

It's alive!

I've been busy the last few days deep cleaning the house. I've had some extra energy for once and I wanted to make sure I took advantage of it before it went away again. So the house is looking great, much better than it has been.

That's one of the frustrating things about the depression. It effects even basic things. Normally energy is not a problem for me. I don't care for housework; I think it's boring (not that I'm unique in that!) But the depression saps all my energy. I'll spend all day sitting on the couch, not because I want to but because I can't even focus my thoughts enough to realize that I need to get up.

So I'm enjoying all this being able to function! Now I just need to translate it into writing.

Reruns

I commented on Chez Miscarriage this morning and I've noticed I'm getting a lot of visits from there, so I thought I'd link to a series of posts I wrote last year about my infertility, for the benefit of those visitors. And, unless you've been reading my blog awhile you won't have read those posts, so they'll be new to a lot of you regulars, too.

• The 90/10 Rule - My journey toward a diagnosis of my infertility. This was the easy part.
• Skulking in the Shadows - If I'm glad to be a mother, why do I miss being infertile?
• Alice - An experience with an infertile friend.
• I know, I know, life isn't fair. - But it's hard to remember that when someone abandons a baby.
  
• Doesn't play well with others. - My conflicted relationship with the idea of adoption.
• Happy endings, one day at a time. - Struggling to conceive; the day I found out I was pregnant.
• Last Thoughts: What to Say - Coping with an infertile loved one? This is how I would have wanted my friends and family to respond.