glitches

The 25% Mom

I was just sitting on the couch nursing the baby when the phone rang.  I knew it was my mom, since she’s the only person who ever calls me at home, and I considered not answering it.  The baby was just about asleep and I was enjoying the quiet time, but I knew that ignoring the call would only lead to trouble.  My mom has this sixth sense about ignored calls and will torment me if she thinks I am not responding to her calls.  (“why are you so mad at me?” is a common refrain.)

I answered the phone.  It was her. 

“I just wanted to apologize for dumping all my stuff on you.”

Backtrack.  Set the stage.  A year ago this group approached me and asked if I would speak at their conference.  A conference for Native American women with breast cancer.  Since this is my target demographic for my research, it was a total no-brainer.  I agreed.

About two months ago sweets and his high school friends started to make plans for a guy’s weekend.  Sweets made arrangements with my mom to come and help me with the kids during the planned weekend, then made his travel arrangements.  A week later the people from the conference got in touch with me to tell me that they had to change the date of the conference, now it was going to happen at the same time as the guy’s weekend.  Since it was such a perfect place for me to build visibility, I agreed to speak, even though there was an obvious childcare issue.  Before I agreed to speak, I made sure my mom was still committed to helping out with the kids, like she had already said she would do.  I explained to her that I had to speak at this conference, and I really needed her to watch the boys during the conference.  She was delighted- she says that she really likes to spend time with them and always talks about how she wishes she could spend more time with them.  It seemed like a win-win for everyone.

The conference was on the 17^th.  On the 11^th, I called my mom to confirm that she was going to be with us for the whole day on Saturday during the conference. 

“I’m so glad you called!  I am still going to be able to help out overnight on Saturday and stay with you guys on Sunday, but I’m going to be speaking at a conference on Saturday and I’ll join you guys after that.”

What?  I was totally confused.  I am the one with the conference, not her.  What fucking conference is this?  Wait? Wait!  I reminded her that she had already agreed to watch the boys so I could talk at my conference.  She started backpedaling.  All of a sudden, this very wishy washy story emerged about how she was hoping to get a promotion in July and that they had signed her up to talk at this conference and that she had no choice and she really needed to do this and….

More backstory:  my mom is constantly telling me about how much they love her at her job but she doesn’t make enough money and times are really tight and she needs to find another job and they’re always, always, always just about to promote her.

So there I am, totally fucked.  I’m committed to speaking at a pretty important conference, but I have no babysitting.  The peanut is at that yucky developmental place where he is totally sensitive and only wants to be with mom.  We have a great babysitter, but she’s a fairly devout Jew and the conference is on Saturday.  I actually had the nerve to ask her if she would watch the baby, and we actually spent time trying to figure out a way to make it seem like she wasn’t working for us on that day.  I can’t believe I did that, and I felt so, so awful afterwards.  I asked some people who we’d had a playdate with the week before if they could watch the lentil and they were so friendly and agreeable, I’m entirely in their debt.  Forever.  So the lentil is taken care of, but I’m still worried about what to do with the peanut.  I’m actually envisioning myself trying to present at the conference with the baby hanging from my body in some crazy baby carrier.  Total hippy moment.  Unfortunately, my audience isn’t a bunch of hippies.

And to make things worse, the other person on the panel is a very important person who could easily make my career work and I need, desperately need to impress her.

So eventually my mom finds a way to watch the baby while I’m speaking, but I’m still left with lugging the child around for the rest of the conference, which made it very difficult to recruit subjects for my study.  All the brochures I’d had printed up (almost $100.00!) basically go to waste, and I leave the conference with just one subject recruited.  My talk goes fairly well and I make a very good connection with the co-presenter on the panel.  She discusses possible career options with me, which is very, very good, and we talk about setting up a more formal meeting soon.  The conference pays me well, which was a pleasant surprise.  And the baby behaved himself.  And afterwards, my mom tells me that she wasn’t “speaking” at a conference, she was there to co-facilitate an anger management session with a group of veterans and their spouses.  Important work, to be sure.  But the co- part of the co-facilitating is the bit that got me.  She didn’t have to be there.  She chose to be there.  Once again, my mom chose against being helpful to me for her own gain.  She didn’t even get paid to be there.  And nobody is a last-minute ringer at an anger management workshop.

But this story is less about the conference and more about my mom.  Her behavior over the past week has been a total trigger for me.  It made me realize that my mom is only 25% there for me, and has always been that way.  I’ve recognized for a long time that she’s pretty self-centered, but this weekend was the final puzzle piece that brought it all together with frightening clarity.

When I was 12, my mom left our family to live with her new boyfriend in Australia.  When I was 13 she returned, divorced my dad, and took me to California.  When I was 16, I woke up one morning to see my mom sitting on some strange man’s lap.  They asked me what I was doing that day and I said “playing soccer.”  Then they said “We’re going ring shopping!  We’re getting married!”  I think I may have thrown up, but I’m not sure.  It was a blur.  Closely following that conversation was the “and you’re going to have a new step-sister!” conversation where I learned about the strange man’s 12-year-old daughter.

For much of my life, my mom has found ways to justify the fact that I’m not a priority for her.  I’ve never really been able to pin-point this until this weekend.  It’s always bugged me that she has other things happening when I need her, but I never identified what those other things were and why it bugged me until now.  When I was 17, I was playing in an honor band performance about 150 miles from where we were living.  My mom swore she’d be there for my performance.  She didn’t show up.  When I got home, she explained that my brother was arrested that weekend and she had been forced to stay home and deal with his problems.  (Looking back, it seems totally obvious to me that my brother should have spent a little more time in jail when he was younger to try to avoid the chronic alcoholism we’re all living with now.)

That’s a perfect example of how these things work.  It’s always just out of her control.  She can’t come to my soccer games because her alcoholic husband needed something.  She can’t go to my concerts because she has to stay home and bail out my brother.  She can’t help me with my kids because she has to deal with some half-fabricated work problem.  She really wants to, she’s really sorry she’s not there, but she just can’t do it because it’s out of her hands.

Now that I’m a parent, I am starting to see through this bullshit.  I am realizing that sometimes you have to make decisions that might hurt because you have to be there for your kids.

In the doctoral program, I have a classmate who has three kids.  The doctoral students used to try to get together now and then for social events and she could never do it.  One kid was having a game or a recital or just needed some mom time and she always chose her kids over anything else.  She was a great roll-model for me, showing me how one makes their kids a priority.  She showed me that no matter what, you always have to choose your children over anything else.  Even if that means you won’t have fun with your friends or you might miss out on something exciting.

My mom doesn’t do that.  She will always choose the excitement.

But at the same time, she tries.  She makes promises, and she usually comes through by about 25%.  This conference weekend is a great example- she was able to watch one boy while I spoke, but I still had to spend a week trying to find another alternative, which took away from me preparing for my presentation.  She wasn’t there for us over the weekend when we needed her- at bedtimes, because she was too busy with her own life.  Even though we’d asked her months in advance to commit to our family, she still found a way to get out of the commitment.  We couldn’t rely on her to actually help.  She did come and spend time with the lentil, but it wasn’t what I needed.  She always tries, because after all, these things that get in the way are never her fault.  But she never follows through completely.

I realized this weekend that I just cannot rely on my mother to ever help us out in the way she says she will.  She just can’t do it.  She will make all sorts of promises, but they’re empty.  I love my mom.  She tries hard.  But she just doesn’t do that mom thing that I want- the mom thing where she’s there for me when I need her, where she helps me and soothes me and makes me feel like maybe the world is going to be okay.  I never realized how much this bugs me until this weekend, when her preoccupation with her own life became crystal clear.  I know this may come off as me whining, but I think maybe I just need to whine a little.  I wanted a mom who would follow through with promises and be there for me when I needed her most.  I got a mom who really wants to be there but only follows through at about 25% of need.  It’s a constant psych-out because I never know when she might actually follow through.

She offered to throw me a birthday party.  This morning, during our phone call where she apologized for laying her crap on me, she was really calling to tell me that she couldn’t throw me a birthday party after all because she has no money.  Good thing we already started planning the party without her.  Instead of throwing us a party, she’s making us potato salad.  But don’t worry- she’s going to make two kinds of potato salad, in case people don’t want the kind with mayonnaise.  Because she’s going the extra mile for her kids.

fatigue

We're not at home.  We're in Rhode Island right now, visiting with sweets' family.  We've been here since the 23rd.  It was a hellish airplane day on the 23rd, and our luggage took another few days to collect.  All I'm saying is traveling with two kids is a lot harder than traveling with one.  Especially since we didn't bring the dualie stroller and I was the person carrying the baby for much of the day.  We didn't miss any flights, but it was still hard, made worse by the fact that the kids didn't sleep much during the travel day and then their sleep patterns were turned upside-down by the change in routine.

Now sweets, the peanut and I sleep in the attic bedroom, in a bed half the size of our normal bed.  The peanut doesn't have his cradleboard, which makes him wonky.  He has been waking up every two hours all night, and nursing nonstop all day.  The baby, who in other ways is an absolute dream, is not adapting well to the changes.  As a result, my body aches from trying to soothe him at night and my boobs ache from nursing constantly.  I tried to pump yesterday and made mincemeat of the poor self, and I only got two ounces for my trouble.  Two ounces is not enough milk to guarantee me time away from the baby, so I'm actually worse off than I was before pumping.

The night before we left sweets and I had a very open conversation about how difficult this trip was going to be.  My in-laws don't have any comfortable chairs, opting for antique awful instead.  We ended up bringing the boppy, but it doesn't seem to matter since I can't find a good chair to sit in.  At home I have TiVo and all sorts of interesting entertainment to get me through the incessant nursing, and here I have a very uncomfortable heirloom couch and a few books.  It's hard to read books when you're exhausted and dropping off to sleep on the backbreaker couch, trying not to drop the baby, and wincing in pain from the needles being shoved in your nipples.  I warned sweets that this was going to be the case.  I don't know why I thought he needed to know- I'd been mentally preparing myself for the torture for weeks prior to that night.  I guess I couldn't take it anymore, knowing I was going to be uncomfortable for as long as we would be away.  I was dreading the trip, and I didn't want to explode all over sweets (or my mother-in-law) at the first sign of trouble.  As it happened, having that discussion was the best thing I could have done.  Sweets immediately picked up my dread and has gone to enormous lengths to try to make things more comfortable for me. 

At this point, I'm completely exhausted.  In fact, last night I went to bed at 8:00.  I hadn't planned on it, and forced myself to wake up at 9:00 so I could put on my pyjamas.  Sweets had a guest over, and I didn't even make it downstairs to say hello.  I like to be social, so that was pretty unusual for me.

Today we went to visit one of my old friends from New Haven.  She lives in a lovely home in the Boston area.  The lentil and her daughter had a ball all morning, playing good kid games.  I was in heaven, simply because they have an enormous, comfortable, spacious couch.  A couch where I could sit and nurse the baby without trying to prop pillows under every limb the entire time.  It was such a treat.  I couldn't even express how relieved I was to have somewhere comfortable to sit for a few hours and nurse the baby.  Antiques may look nice to some people, but they're shit for practical.

Anyway, I should be grateful for all that we have.  A true bounty for christmas of desired and coveted items.  Grandparents who dote on the kids.  Caring and happy family, with no personal tiffs in the bunch.  It could be worse.  I just wish I wasn't so damn uncomfortable, so fucking tired of waking up and nursing this baby.  I had hoped we would get a chance to go on a date or two, go see a movie.  Instead, it's all about nursing the baby and wishing I was home. 

And now?  I get to go nurse the baby.  until tomorrow, my friends.

Christmas

We made it.  Christmas 2007 has been a pretty wonderful success.  The two boys have been amazingly well behaved, despite changes to their rigid schedules, and sweets and I are happy.  My biggest compliant?  I didn't get the iPod I wanted.  Which means I can now go and sulk with all the other twelve-year-old girls in the Santa-didn't-bring-me-what-I-wanted department.  I guess I'll just have to pony up the cash myself.  I should complain, right?

I don't have a lot to report tonight.  I had a little champagne, and it gave me a headache.  surprise.  My Amazon wishlist has been wiped clean for another year.  I have enough fun reading to last me through the next month.  The baby isn't sleeping much these days.  I would eat more chocolate if I could get my hands on it.  The lentil loves his granny more than life itself.  He loves his granny, and wonder woman.  And little einsteins.  good thing Santa knows all about it and followed through.

In other words, we're surviving quite nicely. 

butter

My mom and I have an interesting relationship in the kitchen.  She gets very bossy and authoritative, yet she doesn't really have much to back it up on the way of actual culinary skills.  She never really did the whole mom-teaching-the-daughter-the-ways-of-the-kitchen thing, since she was caught up in her divorce then second marriage when I was in my formative kitchen years.  I have to admit, it's probably a good thing that teaching didn't happen, because we'd be stuck eating tuna casserole and squishy, watery pasta for the rest of time.

I don't have the kinds of experience that a lot of people have in the kitchen, but I love to read and watch anything having to do with cooking.  As a result, I am pretty well schooled on the theories of cooking, and can put together a reasonably presentable meal given enough time to plan.  I am pretty good at certain things, and I certainly feel competent in the kitchen.

So last night when I was at my mom's house, we had an interesting interaction.  We had a little early Christmas celebration since we won't be seeing my mom on the actual day.  I brought some pumpkin bread and whipping cream, with the idea that I'd whip up the cream just before dessert and we'd all gorge ourselves on delicious bread and cream.  It's my latest easy dessert.  (you should try it!  yum!)  So I asked my mom if she had a suitable whipping device.  Yes!  She gave me an immersion blender and a teeny bowl for the task.  I informed her that I had never used an immersion blender for making whipped cream, but I was pretty sure that I would need a bigger bowl.  Whatever, she gave me a bigger bowl and kind of rolled her eyes at me.  I set to work.  Right away I could tell that the immersion blender was very different than the electric mixer I usually use.  It was doing something because the cream was getting really thick, but it wasn't getting fluffy like I usualy expect.  It just kept getting thicker, but never got to the point of whipped cream like I like it.  I asked my mom if she'd ever used the immersion blender for whipped cream before and she said yes.  lots of times.  I asked her if this was normal and she said it was.  I told her I was worried I was going to turn the cream to butter and she laughed at me.  "You can't turn whipped cream to butter anymore.  It's pasteurized.  Or homogenized.  Whatever.  Anyway, you can't do that anymore."  I felt a little burned, but who am I to say?  I've never turned whipped cream to butter before, so what do I know?

A minute later, still no whipped cream.  The baby was fussing, so I handed the whipping over to my mom to finish.  She got out her electric mixer and attacked the bowl of cream with vigor.  Moments later she announces that she has indeed turned the whipped cream to butter.  I was totally vindicated.  It was a victory of epic proportions.  We sat down to dessert, some people even politely tried the butter on their bread, but it just wasn't the same.  My grandmother, laughed as she pointed out that this was the sort of story we'd be telling forever- "remember the year Grandma Sally made butter out of the whipped cream?"  It still makes me laugh. 

quilting, auntie

I just finished my first quilt.  It's late, or I'd take a photo of it.  But, um, the lighting is all wrong right now.  Maybe tomorrow.  I definitely want to take a photo, but not right now.  I need to let it sit for awhile, because I have a theory that quilts, like soup, are better the day after you make them.

My sister-in-law is having a baby in May, and I thought I'd do something nice and try to make a quilt for her.  I'd been toying with the idea of stepping into the quilting pond for a change of crafting pace, and this was the perfect opportunity to give it a shot.  I've been thinking a lot about color combinations and vivid contrasts in quilting, and I thought maybe this would be a good start.  It's a log cabin quilt, with a starburst sort of theme.  It looks pretty good.  It's not perfect, but it's passable.  Especially for a first quilt.

I don't really know where I stand with this sister-in-law.  She's sweets' younger sister, and she and I are very different people.  She's an outdoorsy person, someone who goes out of her way to be outside hiking, working, skiing, rock climbing, and generally kicking outdoor ass.  She spent half a year at a science station on Antarctica, because that's the sort of kicking ass she likes to do.  She's smart, she's fit, and she's a pretty nice person.  She and I just don't really click.  I don't like being cold, she prefers it.  I don't really care for bottom of the barrel bargain shopping, that's the only shopping she'll do.  I like to dry my towels in the dryer with dryer sheets for added softness, she prefers line drying for the added exfoliation.  It we're not careful, we end up snipping at each other because our differencecs extend into how we interact with the world.

I thought I'd make her a quilt for the new baby because I thought it would be a nice gesture.  When we were expecting the lentil we got a million blankets, but only a few special people went out of their way to make us one.  Those home-made gifts are especially precious to us.  Of course, knowing my sister-in-law, she probably is surrounded by all sorts of crafty quilting experts and she'll be swimming in homemade gifts with this baby.  But now she'll be swimming in one more soft and vibrant log cabin quilt as well.

Because I have such mixed feelings for my sister-in-law, I had a hard time motivating to finish the quilt.  I knew I had to get it done, and I gave myself the limit of no other crafts until the quilt was complete.  That's a tough limit when christmas is so close, and it helped get me off my butt and quilting.  There were definitely times when I didn't want to finish it because I don't think she'll appreciate the damn thing very much.  But the other day, when I was getting ready to sew on the binding, I realized that the quilt isn't really for my sister-in-law.  It's for her baby.  And get this- her baby is going to be my niece or nephew.  My own relative, of sorts.

This really struck me.  I already have one niece, who was born a few weeks ago (and who got a less complicated blanket, sewn by me, in the mail last week).  But we don't see those parents all that often, so it hadn't really hit home that the newborn was actually related to me.  All of a sudden, my family is growing in such amazing ways.  Since my brother is closeted gay/antisocial and my little sister is only 12, I had come to terms with never having any nieces or nephews, or at least not for a long while.  I don't know why, but I never really considered the fact that sweets has a perfectly healthy family with three siblings to work with, niece/nephew-wise.  So when I realized that this new baby was going to be special to me in a way that only an aunt can be, I got kind of misty.  How cool is it that I'm a freaking aunt!

So then I got busy pouring love and attention into the quilt.  And I finished it.  It feels good to finish something.  Especially for someone I love so much.  Maybe my sister-in-law and I don't see eye to eye on a lot of things, but I sure am glad she's going to have a baby.  Things don't get much more wonderful than that.  And now at least we'll have something in common! 

Saying no.

I've recently come to realize that my entire family shares the same unpleasant trait.  Everyone is completely self-centered.  Narcissism runs in my family like other families have chocolate-colored eyes or the same nose.  Each person is focused only on how any action will affect them.  I will never wonder why my parents felt it would be a good idea to marry- they are remarkably similar in their self-absorbtion.  They must have both been attracted to the other's total self-focus, since it reflected their own self-focus.  It's no mystery why my dad is the only one of five sons to have had married and had children.  He's a total push-over for a pretty girl, thus myself, my sister and my brother are here.  The rest of my uncles are so self-focused they could never fall in love with another person as much as they love themselves.

This trait is one that I see in myself but want to avoid like the plague.  I don't think narcissism is the healthiest personality trait to cultivate, and I really don't think it makes for a particularly good parent.  I know that I have times when I'm just desperate to tune out the lentil but I always feel guilty when I do.  Because I want to be present and tuned in to my children, I think I can sometimes swing too far onto the other end of the pendulum- I can't say no to people.  While my dad is a pushover to a beautiful woman, I'm a pushover to everyone else in the universe.  If someone asks me to do them a favor, I have an impossible time saying no.

Case in point- today my mom had an open house at her work.  She sent me an invitation, and on that invitation it was pretty clear that this event was not child-appropriate.  There were speakers and a blessing by a medicine man, and a ribbon-cutting.  It was all adults, standing around talking about health care for veterans.  It was held in the reception room of a health-care clinic.  It was an hour's drive from my house.  Nothing about that is at all enjoyable for a child.  For a three-year-old, this would be akin to torture- being forced to sit in a car for an hour, then forced to be quiet and well-mannered in a room full of adults, then forced to smile and act like a normal human being while the middle-aged women all look at you like you're a plate full of chocolate and they just want to drag you into a corner and gobble you up.  Then you would have to return to the car for another hour's drive back home.

Of course, my mom really wanted me to come.  Not just me- she wanted me to bring the whole family.  She seemed to think that it would be a great idea to bring my resentful husband, my very active child, and my car-seat hating infant.  I don't know where she gets this idea.  Oh, wait.  She thought it would be a great idea because she wanted to show off her grandchildren to all her new co-workers.  She wasn't thinking about the pure torture it would be for my entire family, how it was timed such that it would disturb the sacred naptimes, how it would require us to take the lentil out of school early, how it would mean the peanut would spend the whole damn afternoon in his carseat.  She wanted to show off, and of course there wasn't any reason that we wouldn't want to oblige.

I need to stop thinking that other people have best interests in mind when they come up with these hair-brained schemes.  Especially my mother.

Thankfully, sweets had a meeting that he couldn't reschedule and I refused to take the lentil out of school early, so they both got off without going.  But since I'm just a lowly stay at home mom/student, of course I couldn't just say no.  Especially since she pressured me so much I ran out of excuses.  I wish I had thought more about it when she first suggested we attend, because I would have realized just what a bad idea it was.  It didn't really sink in until I was 30 minutes into the drive there and the peanut was still crying.  In my fantasy plan, the peanut would settle nicely into his carseat and sleep all the way there, arrive refreshed and ready for socializing, then nap the whole way home.  In reality, the peanut hates his carseat and only naps when he's run out of other options.  The primary alternative to napping is of course, screaming.  He took full advantage of plan B and only fell asleep when he just couldn't take it anymore.  When we arrived, he was hungry.  Instead of watching the ribbon cutting and blessing ceremony and other important ho-has, I was whisked off to a back office to nurse the baby.  I drove a fucking hour with a crying baby so I could sit in a boring office watching the paint dry while nursing the baby in an uncomfortable office chair.  Then I got to parade him around with a bunch of strangers while my mom tried to get me to eat gross candies while introducing us both to everyone in her office.  I hadn't showered this morning (because I had to get up to take my grandmother to get bloodwork- the kind of help I actually like to give), and I was wearing the frumpiest outfit I own.  I felt horrible the whole time.

Then I looked at the clock and told my mom I had to go.  Of course, that's when she decided to give me a tour of the building.  Because my mom doesn't hear "thanks but not thanks," she hears "I love being tortured.  Please ma'am, may I have some more?"  see?  self-centered much?  When we finally got back on the road we'd been there way too long and the peanut was hungry again.  I'd forgotten to feed him before we got into the car, and I was still hoping he'd nap. nope- scream-fest the whole way home.  He even screamed through the period during which I tried to make amends and nurse him on the side of the fucking freeway.  By the time we got home I was in tears and he was hyperventilating.  It was awful.

I need to learn to say no and I need to figure out how to make myself feel better for taking care of myself.  I need to learn the difference between being totally self-absorbed and simply taking care of my family.  I need to stop feeling guilty when I tell people no for pressuring me into stupid things.  I can't believe I got myself into that, and even though I'm really mad at my mom, I know that I'm to blame for it.   

Ack! No time to post!

Well, the baby is almost 11 weeks old and I'm completely exhausted.  He's a good sleeper, everyone's happy, and the lentil seems to have made the transition well, but we're all totally beat.  It would be utter insanity to think of having a third child.  I've been telling everyone we won't have a third because that would require us to buy a mini-van and a larger house, but in truth I couldn't have a third child because it would drive me absolutely insane.  (note to self: re-read this post in two years when you have raging baby fever again!)

But I did get a chance to use that little thing called youtube.

I'm hoping that will work.  okay. it didn't work.  but I will find a way to get that link to work.  I swear.

I was trying to get him to laugh, but that wasn't working in the twenty seconds i had to work with.  I think I need more memory for my dinky little kodak.  dear santa....

patience

This morning during my morning mauling/meditation (the lentil climbs into bed with us and fidgets for about 10 minutes waiting for us to wake up.  every morning.  It's sweet/irritating and I try to just be zen about it, except when he jams his hands down my shirt.  It's hard to be zen about that.  But I'm learning that disassociation is a helpful tool when parenting a three-year-old.) I came to the hard realization that it may very well be weeks before the baby comes.

At the beginning of this week there were a couple of days where I was having some pretty serious contractions.  They were steady and would last for a few hours at a stretch.  On Monday I was actually practicing my yoga breathing through a set of them as they came while I was laying on the acupuncture table getting a treatment.  The contractions helped fool me into smugly thinking this baby was going to come early, although I tried desperately not to get into that mindset.  When I was pregnant with the lentil I came up with a million reasons for him to come early, then wedded myself to the conviction that he was coming early.  When my due date came and went, I was terribly depressed.  This time I really want to avoid that internal pressure because it just doesn't serve me in any way.  Even so, having lost some mucous and having contractions makes it hard not to get excited.  But ever since Tuesday it's been pretty quiet in the old uterus and I'm thinking that the early labor stuff was just a fluke.

This realization means I have to stop thinking about how today may be the day the baby comes.  I need to stop expecting my water to break at any time.  And I need to continue on with my life, and stop thinking I can put off doing important tasks because I wouldn't be able to finish them in time. 

It's hard to be completely ready to have a baby, but to still have to wait weeks for the actual day to come.  At this point I've purchased or procured everything the midwives require- this includes wierd herbs, a hot pad, a pile of towels, ear of newt and eye of newborn calf, and several thousand sterile gloves.  I'm in the process at this very moment of sterilizing the last of the linens in the oven (did you know you could sterilize towels in those oven bags?  who knew?)- a process that has been a bitch because you have to be careful not to melt the bag AND we have a smallish oven AND we're in the middle of a heat wave.  It's taken us 3 days to sterilize these damn linens, grumble grumble.  The crib is set up, the baby's room is relatively clean, and the house has been cleaner than usual all week.  I'm not sure how long we can maintain this level of clean, to be honest.

Sweets finally got his ass in gear and installed the car seat, assembled the random items that needed assembly, and bought me flowers.  We're ready for the baby.  The lentil is all set to go to his friend's house when we go into labor.  The preschool has been notified of our plans for his pick-up.  The bags are packed, and I even packed a bag for the hospital in case I have to be transferred.  I can't think of a single thing to do with myself to prepare for the baby.  Maybe I should actually finish that manuscript I've been futzing with for the past three months...

So yeah, it could be two weeks, it could be tomorrow.  Either way, I'll let you know.  And here's a photo of the belly at 37 weeks. 

Oh- and i just wanted to add a link to the lentil's birth story, just for reference's sake.  I don't want to lose this to the internet, so here it is.  Keep in mind, this isn't the peanut, so don't get too excited.  But if you're into reading birth stories, this is a good, happy, intervention-free one. 

mish mash

So my brother had a mystery night on Sunday and hasn't told anyone what happened to him.  If he remembers.  My mom called the hospital and the police station on Monday morning at 9:30 and he was nowhere to be found, so we assume he either spent the night in the drunk tank and was release early or the police left him at home.  On Wednesday he surfaced to ask my grandmother for money and he went to work that afternoon.  At this point nobody knows what's going to happen with him, but it's all so frustrating I hate to think about it.  I spent an hour with my grandmother yesterday telling her that she either needed to stop giving him any money or she needed to foot the bill to put him in a serious rehab.  She was resistant to paying for him to go to rehab, but at the same time she seems to have no problem handing out money whenever he asks.  It's so frustrating.  We've been having this conversation with my grandmother for 20 years now, so I doubt it's going to go anywhere.

We had a family dinner last night- totally bizarre.  My grandmother went to Wendy's and bought 10 chicken sandwiches and 10 side salads.  Then she went to Red Lobster and bought an order of their boiled in butter shrimp.  She got cocktail sauce for dipping, in hopes that the heavy layer of butter wouldn't cause the sauce to slip off the shrimpies immediately upon dipping.  We brought "pop" and ice cream.  My 400+ pound uncle and my alcoholic uncle sat in the living room for the first half of the meal watching Ozzy and Harriet.  My 95-year-old grandmother scooted around the house alternately complaining about her sore hip and bringing out wierd side dishes.  (shrimp.  little pieces of brie with ritz crackers. a bowl full of lemon slices.)  Eventually my huge uncle came out and squeezed himself into a chair and ate the entire plate of brie and ritz, complaining the entire time that he didn't normally eat the fungus on the cheese.  My brother came and got into a fight with my uncle about the nutritional value of salad.  My dad came with his little girlfriend and my sister and they hid the entire time at the second table.  My alcoholic uncle sat and fed my dog crackers under the table.  When the meal was over I started to clean (throw away all the wrappers) and the big uncle repeatedly said "I can't believe you're doing all the cleaning up."  "I can't believe nobody is helping you."  He said it enough times that I could hear each person repeat in their heads "well then, get up, fatass" but nobody actually said anything.  He also had another gem:  "I would like to have another shrimp, but they're all the way on the other side of the table."  (table being only 3 feet across, and with other uncle on the other side, perfectly capable of passing plates if he wasn't so busy gorging my dog.)

It was a crazy, wierd, frustrating meal.  I can only bite my tongue for so long and it's a good thing I'm not drinking these days or I would have just lost it.  I'm at the end of my rope with these people and their total incompetence and inability to take responsibility.  I've tried to hold my overweight uncle in a compassionate light for so long, but after years of constant abuse I'm at the end of my rope.  He's got schizophrenia, but it's moderately well managed with medications.  He's been able to hold a job for the past 10 years and has never been hospitalized for his mental illness, so he's actually doing pretty well.  But his mental illness isn't enough to cover the fact that he's a total asshole.  So frustrating.  We try not to spend any time with him unless we have to because he's so unpleasant.  I feel like I need to protect my son from his negativity, but at the same time this is the family I got and I have to live with them.

Speaking of the lentil...

He's really into fairies these days.  Lately he's been blaming everything unexplainable on fairies:  the closet doors are open?  fairies did it.  The breakfast is on the table?  fairies.  His fort in the living room has pillows inside?  fairies had a party.  It's very cute. 

I guess I'm not in a mood for constructing a real entry today.  live with the mish mash.

I hate this part

I'm almost 7 weeks pregnant, and I swear, this is the worst part.  This, and the weeks just before birth.  But then you look pregnant and people don't stare at you and accuse you of being constantly hung over.  at least they shouldn't.

I'm nauseous all the time, I only want to sleep, and I can't help but argue with my husband.  It just flies out of my mouth like little bitter angry bugs.  This morning I was thinking about how we're in it for the long haul and I had the other upsetting symptom of this part of the pregnancy- the regret.  I know it's not nice to talk about regret with pregnancy, but I've found it to be so with both now.  There's this part of me that is asking "what have I done???!!!" as I reel through day after day of nausea and fatigue.  Now that I've been through it once, I know it's not just about getting through the next nine months.  It's about getting through the next two and a half years, about getting through the night wakings and constant nursing and teaching about basic social skills.  What have I done?  Of course, there's no going back, nor do we want to.  But at this point, when we're not telling most people because we don't want to have to process a miscarriage with every human in New Mexico, I'm feeling more than a little isolated.  I just need to get through the next few weeks and it will all start to look up again.

In the midst of the regret is the fear.  So while I'm busy thinking, "holy shit!  I'm crazy!"  I'm also thinking about how sad I would be were something to go wrong.  I was reading people's miscarriage stories earlier today, but I had to turn away.  Not because I don't feel so much sorrow for these other families, but because I just don't want to start thinking about those horrible things.  I want to be prepared for the worst, but there are some things we just can't prepare for.  We just don't want to prepare for.  I won't feel completely secure until we're safely out of the first trimester, until I hear a heartbeat, until I see a bean shape in my uterus. 

I hate this part of pregnancy.  I'm not glowing, unless that green radiance I try to stuff away with saltine crackers and jolly ranchers comes across as glowing.  I'm scared, I'm worried, and I'm exhausted.  Pregnancy?  Not so much my favorite thing.  but new baby?  yes, indeed.  sign me up.