sueeeus

So today it’s a reprise of the now-and-then marital whinge theme.  Go away, this will be long, boring, and self-indulgent.

The other day, Gadget commented that I should go back on Zoloft.  Because I’m such a grouch. 

Darling, I’m just acting the way you usually act.  See how nice it is to live with someone like that?

He doesn’t see it.  He thinks he’s perfectly amiable, and I’m the one who is out of sorts.  Granted, I am out of sorts; my tether is short, and I’m much more sensitive to tones of voice and what is conveyed with expressions than what is actually said with words.  Zoloft certainly helped buffer me from all this.

Still, it would be nice if he’d acknowledge that he’s not always the most pleasant person on the face of  the planet.

Perhaps I have a future with a long-term Zoloft relationship.  Or marital counseling.  Or both.  Perhaps second trimester hormones are amplifying things for the time being.  Or not.

One thing is apparent.  Spending a morning in the land of extreme-pissed-offed-ness does no favors to one’s blood sugar, and therefore overall health.  By the time I remembered to check, it was 110.  Fasting.  Not good.  So it’s obviously bad for my health to stew, yet I just didn’t have the wherewithall to pull myself out of that funk, and took the low road, allowing myself to fume all morning.

It’s indulgent, I know.  But good grief!  I feel as though I don’t expect much, so if what little expectations I have aren’t met, I am immediately and thoroughly disappointed.

And how I don’t like disappointment.

Feeling a bit out of sorts over the fact that today is garbage AND recycle day, and a certain life partner was too lazy to put it out last night.  I want it out on the evening prior to collection day.  Always.  Without fail.  Rain or shine, wind or sleet, in sickness or in health.  End. Of. Story.  No exceptions.  I’m very hard-nosed that way.

I noticed he wasn’t in bed around 4:30 a.m.  Oh good, he’s up early to take out the trash.  He climbed back into bed around 5:30 a.m.  I inquired whether he was calling in sick today.  Yes.  Fine, I don’t mind.  I hope you feel better soon.  As long as you took the trash out.  Back to sleep for me, for another 20 precious minutes.  Upon arising, I notice the master bathroom trash is still full.  Well, so he missed one.  I can let that slide.  Oh.  The bedroom bin is also full.  Starting to get annoyed.  Downstairs, peeking out the window, the absense of bins on the curb sets me spinning into the depths of pissed-offed-ness.  Yes, I could choose not to be angry, but I don’t.  Instead, I fume.  And stomp about gathering up all the various recycle and non-recycle bins.  It’s not like I don’t have a morning routine in which I have a set amount of time to dress myself, dress the child, pack breakfast for the boy, pack breakfast and lunch for myself, load the car, take him to daycare, and drag myself to work, invariably a few minutes late.  I don’t really have time to deal with the trash.  And I don’t care that he’s feeling sick.  I do all the rest of the household tasks, whether I’m sick or not.  The laundry gets done.  The cooking gets done.  The dishes get done.  The pantry gets stocked.  The fridge gets stocked.  Granted, I actually like to do these homemaker tasks, so generally, I’m FINE with the gross imbalance.  But the shirking of the one regular task that I see as his responsibility sends me postal. 

Yin: All American boys at an All American game.

Yang: Chili-cheese goop on a certain youngster’s shoe. Now how did he manage that?

Yin: Garlic fries at the baseball game. Don’t tell the carbohydrates police.

Yang: Finding a sweaty piece of minced garlic lodged beneath my left boob, having survived the game, a night of sleep, and half the morning. Ewwwww.

Yin: A sandbox for a cyclone boy. He loves that thing!

Yang: The new neighbors have a cat. Apparently. In spite of our fully fenced yard, said cat has discovered the nirvana of litter boxes. Hello toxoplasmosis. Now Gadget has to dispose of ALL the sand, douse the box with scalding water (bleach and chemicals supposedly don’t work), build an ingenious lid mechanism, and refill the box. Meanwhile, we have to keep Cyclone away from it, and sanitize all the toys. Oh joy.

Yin: A double strength latte, first thing on a Sunday morning, made with fully caffeinated beans and half&half cream. Divine decadence.

Yang: The espresso factory requires no trivial amount of cleanup, what with loose grounds sprinkling the counter (bench, as the Aussie’s say), milk froth stuck to the steaming wand, and a hot puck of compacted espresso grounds in need of a good home. Still, totally worth it.

Yin: Spring in all its glory.

Yang: Allergies. Weeds.

I’m working through an emotion. It’s difficult to express. It’s a sort of grieving. Gadget doesn’t understand it, and has no patience for it.

I might not feel this if I were a younger woman, and if I didn’t have the fertility challenges with which I’ve been faced. But I’m no spring chicken, and the road traveled has not been without its bumps and bruises. In all likelihood, there will be no more children. So this is the day in which I acknowledge that I am a mother of sons. And I love, love, love that I am a mother at all, and I am grateful beyond any human expression that I will be the mother of two. Two healthy boys. It’s beyond words. Yet there is a part of me, albeit a selfish part, that wanted a daughter – a girl to raise and nurture and fill with a sense of belonging in this world. I wanted to give her all that I lacked in my own upbringing. I dreamed we would be the best of friends.

There’s just something about a girl.

I suppose it truly boils down to ultimate selfishness. Perhaps it was a do-over, in the largest sense. I wanted to raise her with all the love in the world, so she knew she was wanted and of value. Something I never felt. I wanted to raise her to love herself and be comfortable in her body, to embrace who she was, to know that she is fully accepted, without condition. Again, something which I never felt. Yes, it does seem to be mainly a selfish wish for a do-over, to project myself forth. A dangerous undertaking with potential for much folly. It would be so much better to simply come to terms with who I am and embrace my own self as someone of inestimable worth in this world. And now that I’m in my forties, I can say that I am much more comfortable with who I am than I have ever been before. It’s a shame that it took this long, but a blessing that it happened at all.

I know that all is and will be well. What would I have done if she’d been a Barbie fanatic or a girly-girl to the most extreme? Dolls have always creeped me out. I was second of nine, so there was no need for dolls. I had real babies to play with. I liked to play with dirt and Lincoln logs. What would I have done to help her come to terms with things, if she’d ended up with the tweaked out reproductive system of her aunts? How would I have managed seeing her through the cliques and stages and social pressures that girls go through? In many ways, girls may be much more difficult to raise than boys.

I wonder if this one will be Bert to my Ernie, or Felix to my Oscar. Not that big brother is Ernie or Oscar, but he’s certainly not Bert or Felix. Another Bam-Bam. If fetal movement is any indication, he may well be Ernie to the extreme. He is so much more active than his big brother was. And big brother was extremely active. And still is.

I see a future with more monster trucks, ballgames, dirt, and Transformers. But I love all these things. I love boys. I hope that little brother doesn’t grow up daunted in the shadow of big brother. I will do all that I can to teach big brother to encourage and bolster little brother, rather than taunt, torment, and dominate him. I think, with vigilant parenting, the latter can be avoided. Certainly I witnessed sibling torment in my own childhood household, but our parenting was far from vigilant. I want my boys to grow up to be the closest of friends, each strong and confident in his own abilities. I want them to bring out the best of each other.

My traditional family name, the one that first daughters have been given for generations and generations, my middle name, my mother’s middle name, my grandmother’s middle name, my great grandmother’s middle name, and so on and so forth, and with it the heirloom paisley shawl, pristine and well over a hundred years old, will have to wait, either for my sister, should she be blessed with a daughter and choose to follow the tradition, or for another generation yet to come. It was a first daughter’s tradition, and I find this a little sad. But it’s only a tradition, and traditions are only as much value as we allow them to be.

The thing about counting chickens before they hatch is…  …things may not turn out as expected…

Today is officially 20 weeks.  Half there!  Now we have to start through the boy names lists.

Even though there’s a giant new bed in the household, the resident cyclone child, once he weasels his way in, has a manner of emulating the expandable gas theory, in which he manages to consume all available space.

Sure, he looks small enough in this picture, but looks can be deceiving. This sprawler’s feet manage to make contact with both parents’ faces, at least once during a night, and I still find myself perched at the uttermost edge.

There’s a new rule in town. Cyclone children who wet their pullups don’t get to sleep in the big bed. I suspect he’s being lazy when it comes to that. At least in the day time. He’s pretty much all good when it comes to number two, so I’m very thankful there, and when he returns from daycare, he seems dry and sometimes I can tell he’s had the same pullup on all day. However. Once home, the next thing I know, there’s a cyclone child running amok, wearing a wet pullup. And I’m constantly asking him if he needs to go. I think perhaps I’ll just stop letting him wear pullups at all in the day, and see if he finds it unpleasant to wet himself. Hopefully.

As far as the bed goes, it’s a flimsy Ikea frame, which I like in style, but hate on all other counts. And much as I abhor the phrase, “you get what you pay for,” in this case, it applies. I don’t like how it didn’t come in one set. The slats and support beam, both of which are critical to the unit, had to be purchased separately. And once constructed, the slats have very little to hold them in place, and the headboard feels like styrofoam. Very bad feng shui, for me. I was willing to put up with it, but Gadget dislodged the slats the other night while lifting the cyclone child out of the bed to put him in his own bed. Not good, and likely repeatable. So that was a happy evening, what with a sleepy and irritated spouse trying to put the flimsy ass bed back together in the late of the night. So this weekend, we’re taking it all apart, and returning it to Ikea. I hope they give us a full refund. It’s a piece of junk.

We’ll be sleeping in close proximity to the floor for a while, which will also irritate Gadget, but since I ordered a new frame that meets with his manly approval, I think he might actually suppress the expression of his displeasure. One can hope.

I’ve read a book.  Seriously.  I know I mentioned it somewhere before, but much as I love books and reading, I don’t read, generally, because I am an obsessive reader and I just can’t stop once I’ve started.  So my whole life runs amok, because I’m not so good with that sort of self-discipline, and I just don’t read fast enough to devour a novel in an evening.  And I work and parent and and and…
The book is called Possession.  A gift from a friend.  Who thought I’d like it.  And she was right.  I stayed up as late as I could before my body gave out, then used the 3 a.m. potty wakeup as an opportunity to read some more.  And I couldn’t stop.  I sobbed all through the last few chapters.  Sobbed. And when I closed the book, I sobbed some more, just to let it out.  Then returned to bed at 6:30 a.m., only to rise at 9, no longer able to ignore the resident three year old who was quite ready to get up.  So what did I do?  I went back to the beginning and re-read many things I’d stumbled over at the start.  It was a slow start for me, and maybe just a bit too erudite, but I’m glad I stayed with it.

Maybe it’s the second trimester thing.  Maybe it’s the parent/child thing.  Whatever it was, I sobbed and sobbed.  But not in a tragic way.  Mostly in a good way.

Having had the recent pleasure of spending some very high quality time in the House of Soup, I came away with some yearnings and inspirations. That wondrous home is often filled with the intoxicating aroma of freshly baked bread. And by often, I mean several times a week. Seriously!

It’s heaven.

Not the best temptation for a diabetic, however. I didn’t exercise any nearly enough self-restraint, and gobbled slice after delicious slice of that fabulous bread.

And so it was that I pined to fill my own home with such delicious smells. As luck would have it, I discovered a handful of low-carb bread recipes on the web. Armed with these, I justified the acquisition of this beauty. It’s a Zojirushi, and it bakes a horizontal loaf. A full-fledged, horizontal loaf!

Unfortunately, my first two attempts have been less than admirable. The very first loaf was a recipe for a 1lb loaf, and this is a 2lb machine. Not that I know the ramifications of either, but it did seem that the liquids at the bottom of the pan were not well covered with the dry ingredients, and possibly the yeast came in contact too early. Possibly. Also, the paddles stuck terribly in that loaf. It was exciting to have home-baked bread, though, and at only 3gm carb/slice!

I bravely tried again. This time with a 2lb recipe. The liquids were better covered, but the loaf came out quite lopsided. I don’t know if this has anything to do with me peeking at it during the second and third rise cycles. Even so, it’s exciting to have fresh, very low carb bread! The paddles came right out with this loaf.  Now I’m drooling over the thoughts of french toast, panini, and all manner of bready delights.

The texture of this bread is somewhat rubbery. It’s made with vital wheat gluten and soy flour. I think traditional flours would produce traditional textures. But I can grow accustomed to the texture. Especially since it means I can indulge in toast with a spot of jam. Imagine it! Jam! Or marmalade! How I love marmalade!

I am pleased.

I’m feeling excited about the prospect of a snuggly little tiny baby to add to my family. I’m not even half-way there yet (but close!) and I find myself fast-forwarding my life. I spent far too much time looking at baby wrap styles again. I even ordered 10 yards of bamboo french terry material today. It’s supposed to be great for diapers, but I’m thinking of making towels and wraps. We’re not quite cut out for the cloth diapering experience.

As Two of Nine, I’ve cleaned many a nasty diaper in years gone by. I can hardly fathom Gadget sharing in such a task. It’s a stretch to get him to show enthusiasm for diaper patrol at all. So we will be doing our share of adding to the local landfill. Again.

Now, I don’t need any wraps! I made MANY in BamBam’s early days. I will be getting them back from my sister, soon. I might make one native type pouch. I made a couple for my sister, but they might not fit me, so we’ll see. It’s just… …I’m so easily addicted to making baby things!

The house rearranging is coming along. The sleeping room now sports a king sized bed. HUGE! The queen consumes most of the guest room. We had two queen memory foam toppers. I left one on the guest bed, and cut the other into a twin and added it to BamBam’s bed. As if he’ll ever sleep in it. It’s comfy, though. I’m thinking of using the extra foam to make some specialty pillows, or perhaps a small comfy sleeping mat for BamBam to use in our room. He’s using a toddler mattress now, and it’s heavy and hard. Considering how often I have to dissemble and launder the bedding, the sleeping mat might be a good thing.

I boxed up the entire VHS video collection to donate somewhere, except my 4-minute wedding video and my 4-d ultrasound. I don’t even know if our VCR is hooked up or works. I think it does, but it’s been so long. I need to move the old taped stuff to DVD. Future project. Tedious. It can wait.

I sure would like to paint and get some fresh new colors going on in here, but will have to wait until Baby is several months old, and by then, will probably be far too exhausted to consider anything on the lines of home improvement. Maybe I can tackle one or two rooms, when we can open up the windows and get plenty of ventilation. Of course, ventilation is only part of the equation. I need to enlist the efforts of one Mister Gadget, and that is the more daunting task, I’m afraid.

Once I have things settled and arranged on the home front, I think I will start into a little sewing. It’s been a long time! I have a gorgeous felt dragon kit that I brought home from Winterwood. I also copied several of Suse’s fabulous felt animal patterns, and hope to make some of them too.

I find corporate buzzspeak so wearisome.  What does it actually mean?  Drives me nuts.  So, enough of that.

Today I woke up feeling happy.  Not that I don’t usually wake up happy, because I tend to be a morning person, but today I awoke in better spirits than usual.  Which is quite nice.  And to add to an already pleasant morning, BamBam (I’m thinking that I will begin referring to them as Pebbles and BamBam, assuming the peanut really is a girl!) actually woke up on his own.  Which meant that we didn’t have the normal get dressed and ready and out the door struggle. 

I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that, for the first time in I can’t remember when, I didn’t have to get up in the middle of the night to attend to a child or my own bladder that can no longer be ignored.  Or, perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I actually exercised yesterday.  Yes, stop the presses.  We joined a gym, and I’m loving the aqua aerobics.  Especially because the pool is full of real people with real shapes and sizes, and not super models and beach bunnies.  I feel so much more comfortable in this gym environment than I’ve ever felt in the past.  I think it’s part of why I’ve hated gyms for so many years.  The gyms I belonged to in years past tended to be filled with vain and superficial people for which the external appearance was paramount to anything.  Not my scene.  And I even looked good back then! 

Now, I don’t usually do this, but I feel compelled to share a link to an amazing talk given by an amazing woman.  My sister has written a book (and I hope she publishes it soon, because I just know it’s incredible, and want to buy a bazillion copies to send to all my friends –okay, several copies, because I don’t actually have a bazillion friends) and found this link, which she says describes some of the characters in her book.  It’s really great, because it’s science that corroborates her art.  It thrills me!  I listened to it at work — multi-tasking, of course — and ended up needing tissue to dab away tears.  It was that good.

Now, to take some of that insight and do something with it.  Translation:  I really, really, really need to tap into my right hemisphere more.  The question is, how?

It all began with a gift. My sister bought a new dining set, and graciously gave me her old dining table, which is actually quite new. It’s a beautiful table, dark and chunky, with carvings on the sides. It didn’t match anything in my dining area. For as big as my house is, it’s not got the greatest of floor plans with which to work.

I always get a boost when I rearrange things. A fresh new look does much for my frame of mind. So, with enthusiasm and energy, I went about making the rearrangement plans. Now, I will have to say that Mister Gadget is not a fan of change, and sees little to no sense in the rearranging of furniture that is perfectly fine where it is, thank you very much. In order to minimize the unpleasantries that are certain to take place when the actual moving of furniture commences, my plans include as much prep work that I can possibly complete without his help.

So. We have a living room that has been, for the most part, useless, as we tend to convene in the family room. There is a large armoire with display cabinets that was roughly centered along one wall. It needed to move a few feet towards the front of the room. Oh, the ire this request caused! A necessary sacrifice, because once moved, it allowed me to better balance the rest of the room, so now I am much happier with the room, and even happier to say that we have actually used it since. The old table has a home in the front room as well, so now we have a friendly little corner spot where we can play games or work on puzzles. A sofa is opposite the armoire, and the armoire hides a TV, a stereo, the wii, and the PS3. Needless to say, with the PS3 there, the room gets used. I’m delighted that my sweet little boy has taken a fancy to snuggling on this couch with me, while we read about Transformers (his favorite book at the moment), so all members of the family now enjoy this room, albeit at different times.

The treadmill has been banished to the garage where it can continue to collect dust, and the house plants now live in a sitting area on the far wall. All in all, it’s become a worthy room to spend time in. Yes, the massage chair is uglier than sin, but hello? It’s a massage chair! It’s forever welcome in my home.

There was another armoire with display shelves in the dining room, but with the new table, the room was far too congested. They found a new home in the spare room. It was to be the baby’s room, but who am I kidding? We have a family sleeping room, and of course the baby will also sleep there. Just like big brother. Big brother’s room is little more than a toy room, and I’m leaning toward the idea of making it the official toy room, for both of them, rather than his room. One day there may be Tinkerbell posters alongside of Spiderman and Optimus Prime. So the master bedroom is where sleeping takes place. Someday I might make a post about my theory of the family sleeping room as a means of birth control. Not today though. Currently, the room has two beds, and soon will have the baby hammock. So, the spare room can be a comfortable place for guests to stay. It will have a queen bed along with the armoire set, so it will be quite crowded. Crowded, but comfortable. And the family sleeping room will soon have a king bed! The wild child has a way of making an appearance some time in the early hours of morning, and invariably I find a foot or a leg in my face. He’s smart, too. Rather than climb over us, he goes to the foot of the bed and stealthily climbs between us. Maybe we should invest in a bed with a footboard, rather than a bigger bed. I’d like the extra sleeping area though. If little mister busy body manages to climb into the bed, at least I will have a little more room to achieve some semblance of comfort, and hopefully avoid flailing appendages.

With all the furniture moved, we made a trip to IKEA, where we purchased some shelves that better match the new table. Chez Bec inspired me in several ways. She has a shelving unit along one wall that holds dishes, and is very open and family friendly. I like the idea of not having to reach on tippy toes to retrieve a bowl, and not having to move a stack of dishes in order to reach the stack behind. I like a place for everything and everything in its place. Ideally, things would have nice drawers (like Suse’s kitchen) or cabinets in which to live, but my kitchen has shallow drawers and short shelves in the cabinets. So a handsome, open shelving unit is just the ticket. Said idea caused no small amount of chagrin, whilst in IKEA, of course. I like to have my meltdowns in public places. But we have come through the storm and the shelves are up and full of dishes. Easy to get to dishes.

Chez Bec also boasts a beautiful menu board, displayed prominently on a kitchen wall. Brilliant! My version is not nearly so fine, but it’s functional. Perhaps some day I’ll step it up and make it a thing of beauty. Function over form, for now.

Oh how I love a clean, sparkly house! I graciously invited my niece to clean my house, in exchange for a nice wage. My illustrious and industrious 11 year old niece and her best friend have a grand plan to earn money to purchase laptops, so they’ve created a babysitting (and other odd jobs) business, complete with their own web site. Very impressive for eleven year olds. I love that they’re willing to work! I’m happy to help them in their endeavor of fulfilling their dreams, and I love having anybody but me clean the toilets.

So, for this weekend’s accomplishments, I’ve got a squeaky clean house, a new dining room, and fresh looks all around. It may be a bit of early nesting. Whatever it is, it pleases me much. Now, if only I could tame the three year old cyclone (and the forty year old, for that matter) so that my home could stay this way.