Been Stewing

Here I am, days later, and still stewing about M's lying crap. You're probably sick of hearing about it. DH officially got sick of it at about 4 o'clock yesterday. But it's still on my mind, and here I type.

Part of my residual stewiness is because I found out later that M actually pulled C and B aside in Seattle late Friday night to ask them if I was mad at her. (Yes, welcome back to 8th grade, folks. I brought my Aqua Net.)

Which made shy, retiring B wonder if I was also mad at her, too. Thankfully, C told M that if M perceived that I was mad at her then she should talk about it with me directly, and reassured B that I probably wasn't mad at her, but again the person to talk to about it would be me. Instead of talking about it with me, M apologized to me first thing on Saturday am - if her "chaotic life and sudden change of plans had in any way bothered me." I note that M also chose to apologize to me in front of C, instead of alone. I accepted her apology but chose not to drill down on exactly what M thought she was apologizing for. It was awkward having C right there, and B in the bathroom - like M planned it that way so I would go easy on her. And at that point I hadn't decided if I wanted to confront M about the lying.

The whole "is hush mad at me?" gossip to C and in front of B but then not actually talking about it with me, just apologizing in a general, public way - that is yet another something about M's character that I can't abide. Makes me think M is just basically unable to even admit to herself that she lied - over $75.

I know I just need to accept M for wherever she is on her journey, and Have Better Boundaries. It sucks that she is in her mid-40s and hasn't figured this shit out yet. As in, um, friends don't like to be lied to? Um, nobody likes a well-off cheapskate? Um, when you gossip about someone else in front of 3 other women it makes people think you can't be trusted?

Deep down I'm just pissed at myself for ever having stupidly believed M was an honest, loyal friend instead of first looking for like Actual Evidence of those traits in her. The perceived limited number of available friends in Podunkville makes me spend more time on people who initially seem like good possibilities. Then I tend to over-embellish people's good traits - I reeeeally want them to be friend material. Been there, done that with my now-ex-Podunkville-friend J, too.

When will I ever learn?

I'm still tossing around C's idea of confronting M in private and letting her know how her behavior affected me. Easy advice to give, effing hard advice to actually take. I feel like that's the so-called "right" thing to do. But even C admitted there were times in her life and friendships when she should have taken her own advice but did not - there are just some people you can't reach; they're in too much denial.

I dunno... I'm just really hung up on having good, local friends. Perhaps I need to just stop trying so hard. Let other people make the plans. Accept people for who they really are, not who I wish they'd be.

True Blood recap - S4, E2

It's starting to get gooooood! And by that I of course mean we saw even more Eric!! I was initially bummed that Episode 2 did not pick up in Sookie's room, right where Episode 1 left off, but they got back to the Stackhouse residence soon enough. Loved the scene in the kitchen, "there are 2 Sookie Stackhouses...." and Eric's offer to make home improvements. And Eric has built himself a cubby (or "hidey hole" as the books call it) at Sookie's... almost as though Eric is anticipating spending some time there very soon (fake amnesia?... cough, cough.)

SPOILERS... duh, again.

The scene with the ritual in the coven! Oh my! That was scary and good. Tara's presence there seemed a bit of a non sequitur though - they really wanted to show her getting roughed up by a vamp against her will yet again... wonder where that will take us? Tara, Vampire Slayer? All that cage fighting in New Orleans might be the prep work. Lafayette apparently does have the magic in him - I heart him so very much. After searching a bit online, it seems the gist of what Marnie chanted in Latin to Eric was "Saves Question Omni Strepeto" or "I strip from you all that you know." Yikes. She also seemed to have stripped off half of his clothes. No complaints here.

Just a thought - perhaps unlike in the books, Eric is actually faking this bout of witch-induced amnesia?? I dunno, I just cannot see Eric being out-strategized by Beel and Nan Flanagan long term. Something tells me Eric is biding his time, and may be faking all of this to secure his place in Sookie's life, among other things.

DH made an interesting observation - slowly but surely, very few of the characters on the show are merely human anymore. In addition to all of the fairies, supposed demons, vamps, shifters, and weres, now Lafayette is a witch; Tara is still being trailed by demons/evil fae (what was up with that quick, freaky impression of evil Queen Mab Sookie saw hovering around Tara for a moment when Tara showed up at Sookie's house?); Rene and Arlene's baby Michael probably has "666" etched somewhere on his little head (I loved the scene where Arlene's eye goes wack - nice mix of funny and creepy); Jason's about to go panther (and can I just say again how much I'm hating the Hot Shot storyline)... It is starting to look a lot like Hoyt, his mama, and the Bellefleurs are the last untouched humans. Hmm....

Pam, as usual, has all the best lines. String pulling - LOL! Eric can pull my string anydamntime.

Beel, it was fun seeing you in 1982 London with That Hair. It broke my heart just a tiny little bit to watch you banging your redheaded coven spy in the bed that you and Sookie once called your own, but I get it: you were just effin' some other lady so you could protect the true identity of the woman you really love from evil Nan Flanagan! Riiiight.

Upon Hearing An Odd, Obvious Lie

I'm off to a 4th of July weekend getaway in Seattle with 3 local girlfriends, C, B, and M. This trip has been on the books for quite awhile - I made our hotel and dinner reservations back in mid-May, with the help of DH who, by the way, is awesome.

Then, yesterday, Other Peoples' Drama suddenly struck. (And I am NOT down with "O.P.D." However, "O.P.P." may be something I can get down with on rare occasions.)

If you've been reading me awhile, M is the wife in this shitty relationship.

I saw M on Monday night, and she said she was really looking forward to this weekend, and that she could leave early on Friday morning because her DH would be taking the day off to watch their 4 daughters. But yesterday, she suddenly informs us she can't leave until 2:30pm - DH screwed her over by not taking the day off after all.

Then B texts me to say she had just finally started looking for childcare on Thursday for all day Friday, and has (not-shockingly) been unsuccessful, and oh gosh oh gee, she didn't know her DH was working that afternoon, so now she couldn't leave until like 5:30pm. To be fair, she just moved into a new house 2 weeks ago, has 3 kids, 2 still in diapers, and is a generally disorganized person who waits until the last minute and hates calling people on the phone... whatever.

However. WTF?? We'd been planning this trip for HOW LONG?? Can't you find sitters in advance, and pin down your effin' husbands to handle their own friggin' children once in a blue moon?!

We make time for the things that are important to us. We may SAY something matters, but it's what we DO that tells you what we really prioritize. And clearly, this trip did not make the top of everyone's list.

But that's not what I'm bitching about.

Yesterday morning (the day before the trip) C calls me and says that B and M just told her they are going to take the Saturday morning train to Seattle instead of driving on Friday after their husbands get home, because M's DH thinks there are a lot of deer on the highways, and is worried about M driving the small car and hitting a deer, and they need the bigger car to remain at home to haul around their passel of children, but even though there are a ton of deer such that B and M can't drive M's car on Friday they nevertheless want to ride home in C's car on Sunday which is ridiculously inconsistent, blah, blah, bullshit, bullshit, etc.... C is concerned because M never mentioned what she planned to do about our shared hotel room on Friday, and C is on tight budget, whereas M is well-off. I told C I would ask them directly and clarify the sharing hotel expenses for Friday that we had agreed to via email weeks before.

M calls me back to let me know that M and B are coming to Seattle on Saturday, "my DH just didn't communicate with me" and after a minute more of explaining herself, she starts to let me go, "ok, bye." ... Then I say "Hold on, M. What about our hotel reservation for Friday night? There is no way I can cancel or change it on less than 24 hours notice. So what do you and B plan to do about that - it's approximately $75 per person for each of the 2 nights we're booked?"

"What hotel reservation?"

"At Hotel, where we are staying." (Silence.) "M, did you think we were all going to sleep out on the streets of Seattle tomorrow night? Where do you think we're all planning to stay?"

"You never told me anything about that."

"M, I sent everyone an email with the booking confirmation on 5/17. I'm re-sending that email to you now."

"I can't remember the name of the hotel... I never got any email. I don't know what you're talking about."

"M, you need to call B and figure this out right now. You and B are going to have to be responsible for your portion of the hotel bill for Friday night whether or not you show up until Saturday. Let me know when we can expect you." (End call).

A few minutes later, M replies to my re-sent email (the email chain soooo clearly showing M saying 'Yes, definitely book that hotel.') "hush, I did get that original email but I couldn't open the attachment to see the booking - I just opened it now on my phone. Looks like B and I are just going to take the train on Friday, so no worries! See you then -M."

I was livid. M lied so shamelessly and so effin' ODDLY. On something that an email record so OBVIOUSLY proves she's lying!

Why?

DH and C think M's odd lie to me over the phone was the startled reaction of a person in a bad relationship, who was surprised by the sudden (but foreseeable) realization that she'd be on the hook for the hotel bill for Friday, even though she couldn't enjoy it, and she was so upset with her DH that she let greed/selfishness/misplaced anger get the best of her, and in the moment delivered an unpremeditated lie, and one that was painfully obvious because she'd had no time to think it through, and she was reacting from a place of pain and you should really feel bad for her because deep down she knows what she did was wrong....

C and DH were kind enough to let me vent yesterday, so I'm largely over it and can enjoy the weekend no matter what weirdness M brings to the party. Whether or not M actually acknowledges her lie and how wrong that was to do to a friend, I've pretty much written her off and have silently demoted M from friend to acquaintance. Her loss, I think.

I just can't stomach lying liars who lie... and over stupid shizz.

Three-Year-Old Making Babysitter Cry

Even though I have a shitload of work-related things going on right now, I need to take a break from it to blog about the following situation I'm finding myself in. I just got back from a lunch meeting where I was asked to start taking on a new business opportunity that I'm really excited/scared-in-a-good-way about. Of course it will require me to make sure I have adequately backed-up childcare, because unlike some of my other work, I can't rely upon being able to do most of it from home. I'm also pretty sure our regular babysitter is at the end of her rope when it comes to our charming 3.5-year-old DS.

Isn't that how life works? You get a great professional opportunity, and the very same day your babysitter tells you how unhappy some little one is all of the sudden making her. "I was crying in bed last night and my husband asked me what was wrong...." Noooooo!!!

Sitter approached me just a few minutes ago with tears in her eyes telling me she believes that DS really does not like her at all. The last 3 times she's watched him he has been a holy terror towards her because he misses his mama. I've had to leave my house with DS kicking and screaming. (Side note: I'm guessing at least a part of this is a developmentally-normal 3.5 year-old thing, because a lot of friends with same-aged kids have reported the same fits of Erratic, Sudden-Onset Clinginess). We've been down this road before with Sitter whenever DS has been in one of his phases. Talking through it with him has sometimes helped. Today she insinuated that she thinks DS would be happier without her - I had to ask if she was quitting. She said "No way." Whew.

DH feels that Sitter needs to develop a thicker skin and stop taking a 3-year-old's pissed-off protestations that he "hates you" because his mama just left for work as Gospel truth. I tend to agree. Sitter takes what DS says to her very, very personally. On the one hand she says she understands it, "He's only 3, I know that's how 3-year-olds are, but the way he talks it is like talking to a grown-up. He's just different than all of my 3 daughters and DD." Yeah, he's one special snowflake alright.

I asked her "so what do you want me and DH to do about it" - three times.

"I don't know."

"Do you want us to keep talking to him and letting him know what our expectations are?"

"Yes."

"What else do you think would help?"

"I really don't know."

"Does he need more discipline?'

"No, I just think he hates me, and I'm sad..."

Ugh....

True Blood recap - Season 4 Premiere

True Blood is finally back on the air. And I've got that old Xmas song, "It's the most wonnn-der-fullll tiiii-me of the year!" in my head.

Allow me to share some of my thoughts on the very first episode of 'The Season of the Witch' as A-Ball calls it. He must be a Hitchcock fan because he seems to enjoy both the macabre and directly addressing the audience on camera - he gave a brief introduction to the new season right before it premiered. Which personally made me wonder, does A-Ball ever actually blink while talking? Isn't non-blinking supposed to be a sign of deep honesty? Anyway...

Obviously: SPOILER ALERT. (Duh.)

It started with a bunch of Fairyland shizz. Sorry, not really a fan of this part of the storyline, neither in the show, nor in the books. It all got way too weird for me, though pleasantly reminded me of some of the tropes of the original Star Trek series where the protagonists are suddenly running from hideous creatures, across the landscape of some forbidden planet. And then a proverbial red shirt guy maybe gets killed.

Moving on...

Then Sookie is back home again after time-travelling for a year (well, sort of), only to find out someone has pulled an Extreme Makeover: Home Edition on the Stackhouse property, and it looks like Jason is selling the home out from under her. I like what they've done with her place. Martha Stewart would definitely approve. Though nothing will ever beat Pam's delicious line about Sookie's post-Maryanne disaster of a home last season: "Now, why'd you have to go kill that Maenad? She was a terrific decorator."

Both Beel and Eric suddenly arrive on Sookie's porch again. I liked how we saw their immediate awareness of Sookie's return while they slept during the day and their eyes popped open - excellent 'showing' instead of 'telling.' I also loved the subtle way we initially find out about Beel's new job when Eric immediately follows Beel's suggestion to go back to Fangtasia only a few moments after reuniting with Sookie. Eric tells her he's the only one who believed in her. Hmm...

Sookie isn't the only one in Bon Temps to get a swanky home remodel - the Compton estate has gotten a serious facelift. I'm really loving that circular wallpaper with dark background in Beel's office. It is odd to see Beel on top of the food chain finally, no longer having to kiss anyone's ass anymore. I'm dying to see how that supposed Queen Sophie-Anne ass-whuppin went down. Maybe that's why he needed to remodel his whole house - their fight must have ripped the shit out of the place completely. That, or Hoyt's mama inadvertently took Sophie-Anne out - she was gunning for Jessica, another redheaded female vamp, and expected to find her at Beel's house. That's my guess anyway.

We also finally met Ms. Portia Bellefleur, Esq. I seriously, seriously hope the show does not follow the books' storyline with regard to Portia and a certain male relative (I don't think they will...) Her brother, police officer Andy Bellefleur, is hooked on V, as was alluded to last season. Jason is his enabler - they have an interesting, effed up friendship. Together they infringe upon the civil liberties of the African-American residents of Bon Temps and it goes completely unpunished. That scene with Lafayette in the kitchen at Merlotte's was really hard for me to watch. Spot-on critique of typical white male law enforcement macho bullshit there, A-Ball.

I'm skipping over the stuff that doesn't really grab me - stuff I don't really mind watching, but that I tend to think of as filler: (Tara has a new identity and is dating a very hot woman, Sam is in anger management and has made some shifter friends, Lafayette is still dating a hot nurse/presumable witch, Jessica and Hoyt are playing house and having issues, etc.) But I LOVE me some Arlene Fowler and some Terry Bellefleur. That scene with Arlene's reaction to baby Michael taking the heads off all of the barbie dolls was such a classic. Todd Lowe and Carrie Fowler are just pitch perfect character actors in these roles, and are so fun to watch.

Now for the scene I had been waiting months for... and that would be pretty much anything involving Eric and Sookie looking like they just might get it on.

What I generally always fast-forward to on the DVR, after having watched an episode once, are any and all sexy scenes involving Sheriff Eric Northman. Yum. While I don't usually like blonde pretty boys (I know, that sounds like saying you don't like chocolate), I find Eric so delicious in certain scenarios. Like the final scene in Sookie's bedroom. I especially liked how the 'Sookie is dreaming of Eric' music was playing - neat trick. Not a dream. Please let the next episode pick up right where this one left off!

One more thought. Am I the only one who thinks some of these actors are looking a little too gaunt these days? Eric, Beel, and Pam are all looking much skinnier than last season, and I think the weight loss is making their faces look slightly older. Nice for a change that it's not only the female actors who are too damn skinny.

2 to Read, 2 to See

I've always wished I were a better writer. I'm a decent talker though, and I think in my professional life that has made up for my less-than-stellar writing skillz. Anyway, I read a couple of extremely well-written and thought-provoking blog posts this week that I would like you and all your amazing, talented friends to go ahead and read, too:

To the woman unconvinced TRIGGER WARNING: RAPE/SEXUAL ABUSE over on blue milk

and

Friendly Fire over on Got it, Ma!

Those are my "2 to read," now I give you "2 to see." So I've been to the movies a lot lately - that's what happens when work appointments cancel and I'm in a random city in the middle of the day with time to kill before another meeting. I head off to a matinee. The result is that for the first time in a loooong time, I have seen most of the movies that are currently playing in mainstream American movie theaters right now. Here are my 2 favorites:

Bridesmaids. Fucking hilarious. "The Hangover"/a female-driven Judd Apatow-esque comedy for women. Jon Hamm is even in it. Now go see that shit.

Super 8. Like "The Goonies," meets "Independence Day," meets a bunch of kids who like "Night of the Living Dead." I wasn't prepared for the range of emotions this movie would bring out in me. It also did a great job of very, very subtly and deftly upending gender and racial stereotypes.

Happy weekend!

Underage Drinking

My 3.5-year-old son recently participated in a weeklong Soccer Camp. We were just extremely thrilled that after having handed over our hard-earned money, our kid actually participated in the camp, instead of sulking and tantruming on the sidelines as he has done during other organized sport activities in the past. Though he still wouldn't wear the shinguards we bought for the occasion, he proudly wore the camp soccer jersey. The pictures are seriously too cute for words. There is something so hilarious and precious about a preschooler in a soccer uniform. I think of the little kid Max from "Old School" who is wearing an orange jersey in every scene of the movie.

During a break after one of the activities, the coach asked the kids if they wanted to drink. DS replied loudly enough for everyone and their parents to hear: "I want a beer." Priceless.

In DD news, after 2 weeks, she is daytime potty-trained for urination - that is, as long as she is naked underneath her dress or long shirt. Yes, I put my daughter in dresses, though in general I try not to be a sexist. What can I say, the dresses make the nudity required for potty-training a bit more socially-acceptable. No need to quickly put a diaper on her when the repairperson comes over.

In other news, I ran my ass off the last 4 days. Something finally clicked. Maybe it was the fact that I had all of the workout clothes and shoes I needed sitting right by my bed when my alarm woke me up early to exercise. How have your runs and workouts been going?

One more thing.... TRUE BLOOD returns this Sunday. And to me, that feels like Xmastime. I thoroughly enjoyed the delicious HBO series "Game of Thrones" Season 1 that just ended, though that genre usually never appeals to me, this one did.

Divorce Always Shocks Me (plus running check-in)

First, running check-in: The truth is, I didn't run at all last week. I have no good excuses except I genuinely hate running. (Please lawd let me find some motivation, and soon.) Did you run last week? What motivated you? I need the recipe for that secret sauce, so please share it!

And now for something completely different. Divorce.

I know something like 50% of all marriages end in divorce. Maybe more. Odds are higher if you marry younger. The addition of kids can really eff things up, too, if you're not careful. So why does the news that someone I know is divorcing still manage to shock me?? I've had a handful of close friends, and too many relative to count, go through divorces. Given the stats, the news shouldn't really come as a surprise. But when I heard that our old friends, A and J have separated, I was really shocked. They have kids who are slightly younger than ours. Ugh.

It was also kind of sad how we initially found out. A keeps a blog and suddenly the title changed to something like "A's journey thru motherhood," and we noticed there were no recent pictures of J, and then there was a post about "J dropped stuff off for me and the kids," and then a few more posts about things that just A and the kids were doing for dinner, etc. Then we finally heard the actual news. Gah - divorce with kids involved just sucks. Hopefully they can keep it amicable. (Funny, I don't think I've ever heard the word "amicable" used in a non-divorce context.)

One more thing, completely unrelated to any of the above... I read this insightful article by Michelle Goldberg today called "The Return of Back-Alley Abortions," about the success of the anti-choice movement at the state level, and how right now, in the good old U.S.A., there are women facing jail time for self-inducing an abortion. Highly recommended, very depressing reading. Why this kind of horrifying news doesn't get people fired up about the next election cycle is totally beyond me.

Professional Pictures

One thing I try to be proactive about is taking lots of pictures of the family. Including some photos where I'm actually in the picture, too. Mothers don't seem to make it into a lot of kid pictures these days, which is a shame. (Yes, I can understand the most likely reasons.) But, as DH and I both wish we had more photos of our mothers and grandmothers in their prime, I make sure we often put ourselves in the picture... and hold our chins up, and then photoshop out our acne and eye crinkles.

When I was pregnant with my first child, we bought one of those fancy-schmancy SLR digital cameras. It pretty much does all the work for us, and I love it. As long as we have it on one of the correct automatic settings for the given light conditions (i.e. set on the mountain or flower icon when we're outdoors, etc) it takes great pictures.

My stumbling block is how to stay on top of organizing all of these fantastic family photos. (BTW, this is one chore DH definitely ain't doing, and I can't say I blame him. He does all the grocery shopping and cooking, so I don't feel any major inequity.) Anyway, I know we need to print hard copies of the photos we want to save lest a computer malfunction cause us to lose everything - so I do that, and now have a crapload of 4x6's that probably need to go into books.

I'm also a big fan of occasionally getting professional photographs taken. "Natural light photography" and "photojournalistic-style photography" describes the style that I really like. The pictures have a timeless quality. However, I've noticed that members of the older generations in our family definitely prefer the traditional, posed photographs taken in a studio with the subjects sitting in front of a solid-color muslin panel or plain white background. And, if you head to a big box store, they are much cheaper to come by. So we do both. The photos hanging in frames at our house and in our offices are all the photojournalistic-style ones, and the photos hanging in frames at my parents' house and in their offices are all the traditional, posed ones. Go figure.

How are you photographing your family these days? Do you have a handle on saving photographs for posterity?

Hysteria's Roots

From what I've been hearing about it, Asti Hustvedt's new book, Medical Muses, totally intrigues me. She studies the issue of hysteria, the now-defunct disease, and links it to "being a woman in an era that strictly limited female roles:"

"I set out to write a nonhysterical book about hysteria, to ground my work in something real. At first I found it unfathomable that these women really were suffering from the spectacular forms of illness recorded by their doctors, an illness that no longer exists. But now I believe that Blanche, Augustine, and Genevieve were indeed ill. They suffered from chronic debilitating symptoms. To what degree their disease was socially determined and to what degree it was physically determined is impossible to say. If they showed up at a hospital today, suffering from the same symptoms, they would probably be diagnosed with schizophrenia or conversion disorder or bipolar disorder. They would undoubtedly be diagnosed with eating disorders because they had bouts of willful starving and vomiting. However, if these women were alive today, they might not have become ill to begin with and no doubt would suffer from other symptoms."

Interesting. I also note that Hustvedt's book has been roundly criticized by the chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) community for asserting that CFS, along with anorexia, bulimia, self-mutilation, and multiple-personality disorder, is among a "crop of bizarre new illnesses" that, like hysteria, "stubbornly resist biological explanation."

Her stance reminds me of a brilliant former women's studies and biology professor of mine who was adamant that there's no such thing as "premenstrual syndrome," and that PMS is a patriarchal social construct. She'd say: "They should call it menstrual syndrome, it would be a lot more accurate."

Such assertions are no doubt threatening, and hard to swallow, if you're pretty damn positive your own lived experiences of things like PMS, CFS, and fibromyalgia are real, painful, and debilitating.

So I Ran, and Little Updates

It's Friday, and I'm feeling a little down this morning. Not sure why. It could have something to do with the fact that Yelly Mama already made one appearance at 7:30am as we waited for Sweet Lifesaving Babysitter to arrive. Some days, I just can't seem to manage the kind of consistent parenting behaviors to which I aspire. I need a better action plan for the next time my 20- month-old (today!) daughter starts beating the ever living shit out of her 3.5 year-old big brother. When they fight physically, I tend to yell and try pulling them apart. Ugh. Probably not the best response. Suggestions welcome. Honestly, I wasn't expecting these fights to start happening until they were older; and I certainly wasn't expecting my daughter to be attacking my son physically at least once a day. Is it effed up that I'm kind of proud of her for being so powerful and so tough? Wait, don't answer that.

On a related note, I'm really proud of the emotional restraint and the budding logic that DS has shown lately when dealing with DD's and other kids' tantrum-y aggressions. "Use your words!" and "Hands are not for hitting" are two of the gems he's recited recently when his sister crossed boundaries on him. His friend, A, is a girl a few months older who he played with this weekend. There came a point on the playground when I was about to intervene as I saw and heard A hit DS in the face with a plastic jumprope - but before I could, he totally regulated: "Say you're sorry and give me that jump rope NOW!!" -- and she acquiesced! "Hey, A, we don't hit people with jump ropes."... "Ok, I'm really glad you said sorry. Let's shake hands, and go play." Voila! Problem solved without any adult intervention. Go, DS!

Yesterday, DD was particularly vehement about not wearing her disposable diapers (per her lifetime hatred of diaper changes). We also have a bunch of all-in-one cotton and plastic training pants that we used to potty train DS at age 2.5 (because in our experience, pull-ups are expensive, are seen by the kid as identical to diapers, and don't allow the child to feel actual wetness - so we only used pull-ups at night). She has been wearing the all-in-one training pants during the day lately - but yesterday she didn't want to wear those either. So we let her run around half naked, and made the extra effort to take her to the bathroom with us and showed her how we use it. We've had potty chairs that convert to kid step stools in each bathroom of the house since before her birth, so she's been sitting on them from time to time. Until yesterday it had never been her own idea.

Finally, for the very first time, DD went into the bathroom all by herself, grabbed one square of toilet paper, sat on the potty, and urinated. Then she yelled "PEE!!!" and called one of us in to show us. Then she did it again 2 more times that day. Pretty cool that she is showing such a keen interest before age 2. (Suck on that, Brazelton.)

I've already mentioned my favorite potty book that I recommend to everyone and their mother who asks what method we used, but it bears mentioning again: "Diaper Free Before 3" by Jill M. Lekovic. Worth its weight in gold, although it may not be as valuable to you if you are grappling with a 3.5+ year old's power struggles. I love it because it is not one of those silly, ubiquitous guides about "how to train a kid in 48 hours by giving them craploads of sugar!" (N.B. I know of one kid IRL who 'trained in one day' and he was almost 4, and there were no candy or presents involved; only a calm, 'Start Using The Potty Today, or We're Leaving You At An Orphanage'-type of heartfelt, parent-child discussion.)

Lekovic's method involves getting started with "potty learning" when the kid is 1, by having a potty chair in the house, suggesting they sit on it occasionally, reading books while they sit on it, plus using nudity, cloth underpants and training pants to let them feel wetness, etc. It worked well for us, and we were particularly in awe of it because it doesn't involve bribery with gifts, and/or using food as a reward or punishment - tools that I personally never want to include as part of my parenting.

Ok, RUNNING UPDATE. Let's hear how you ran this week. I'll go first.

Goal: run 3 miles each day, 3 mornings this week. Actual: ran 5 miles, only 1 day this week. What effed me up: Overslept one day, and had a work project I needed to spend extra time on one of the other days, and it cut into my running time. Now you go.

Hypothetical: Does Aggressive = Winner?

Hypothetical question du jour : In general, do you believe aggressive, in-your-face, lawsuit-threatening, "win" at all cost-ers really get what they want more often than people blessed with more calm, reasonable, and empathetic personalities?

Hypothetical Scenario (actually, a quasi-real life example involving an acquaintance of mine) - Father begins process of divorcing Mother, then quickly shacks up with Mother's 6-year-old son's public school Teacher. The Child starts having problems at school (natch) regarding his Teacher, who is well-intentioned when she makes it clear she wants to be his new Mommy. Father wants Child to have Teacher for every grade of his elementary schooling (as is the practice at this particular public school), so Father basically threatens the Principal to make sure he maintains the status quo and doesn't reassign the Child to a different teacher. When Mother meets with Principal, he dismisses her concerns that the current arrangement is harming Child emotionally and causing Child to act out, and he refuses her request to have Child reassigned to another teacher. Principal tells Mother she "had better not make any scenes at the school or disrespect Child's teacher in any way, or Mother would have to be banned from school property."

Mother tells hush the following: "I just feel so disrespected, I mean, I have volunteered countless hours at the school and I'm the friggin' PTA President! I've never threatened anybody in my whole life! Where does Principal get off talking to me that way, making it seem like I'm the problem?! It's like he's scared of my Ex and feels like he can just walk all over me, and he shows no concern for my son's well-being."

Is there a moral to this story? Don't make babies with an aggressive dick? Don't volunteer so selflessly for the PTA, lest the Principal consider you "the help" and refuse to take you seriously when push comes to shove? Don't meet with the Principal without a more powerful ally/recording device/written record of the conversation present? Know the school district's actual policies backwards and forwards before you meet?

Please to discuss.

Prehypertension, plus my menstruation surprise

The writing is on the wall: I'm a 34.5-year-old who has prehypertension. So did like everybody in my family and their mother (literally), beginning in their 30's; eventually leading to hypertension, heart disease, stroke, and an unfortunate, and not to mention hard-to-clothe tendency to accumulate fat in the middle and upper body while having narrow hips and scrawny legs for life. Shitty gene pool, what can I say. Oh, and I have high triglycerides, too, probably because I drink too much soda.

Anyway, I need to force myself to start running (all over again, like I did in my youth) so that I can shed a few pounds in order to bring these numbers down and hopefully live awhile longer. We'll see about quitting the soda - it's been a lifelong struggle to quit entirely. My plan is to set my alarm for 5:30am and get four 3-mile runs in per week for the next month, then see if my blood pressure has dropped. Ugh.

I really hate exercise. I hate even having to worry about my weight and my health statistics. That sounds childish, and it is.

In other personal health news, I started taking a generic form of 0rth0-try-cyclin' minus the placebo pill weeks, in the hopes that I could be period-free for months at a time. Let's just say it hasn't exactly gone according to plan. Two days ago, my uterus decided it wanted to shed a crapload of lining in the middle of my damn cycle. This shit hurts, and it brought me back to my junior high days of staining white pants unexpectedly. Fuckity fuck fuck.

When Your Married Friends Argue Publicly

DH and I went to a party recently with a bunch of married couples. Among them were I and M, who are a married couple with 4 daughters. I and M have been married for about 14 years and now have an Obviously Dysfunctional Relationship. Not the kind of dysfunction involving anything one might ever feel the need to report to the authorities or anything, just enough passive aggressive tension and spite to fill an entire episode of Dr. Phil (and to take that cloying shine right off his scary white teeth, too). Let me give you a flavor.

At the party, I goes over to DH and one of my girlfriends, C, and starts in about his wife M's incessant nagging of him; how M is a bon-bon-eating SAHM who is constantly out with the girls while he busts his ass working (sorry, I, not true - M is constantly doing Kid Stuff, like schlepping her passel of kids around to way, way too many activities, but I digress)... and his little diatribe goes on to the point where it all gets reeaaallly uncomfortable for DH and C, as they eventually realize I is 1) not at all joking, not even a little bit, and 2) has NO IDEA how socially-inappropriate he is being, and how everyone feels about it. (Granted, I'm not the world's most socially-appropriate human being ever, but well, it takes one to know one I suppose.)

Then I heads over to another group, including M (!!!), and repeats the same conversation/diatribe to a new group of innocent bystanders, including yours truly. M handles it as gracefully as possible, kind of disses him playfully, and ignores I for the rest of the night. Later I ask M if she's ok, and she denies that anything is amiss or bothering her (which I don't believe for a nanosecond.)

A few days later C calls me up and eventually gets around to her main reason for calling: after what went down at the party, she was trying to figure out if I is a total dick or if she's taking crazy pills. I assure her that I is a total dick - and we bond over that for a minute. I've always thought one of the best beginnings of a friendship is disliking the same people and things.

Then when DH and I finally have a date night to ourselves, DH brings up I's party commentary, and says he feels like he needs to say something to I about it. He rehearses a few things with me, and we come up with something like a bottom line: "Dude, at that party you chose to make your marital problems public, and you talked shit about your wife in front of her friends who happen to like her a lot, and it was totally awkward, and we're worried about you guys...WTF, man?" (My guyspeak is not very fluent, but that's the gist of it.)

Then DH said, "you know, I really think therapy would be good for them. It turned things around for us." Amen, honey! We learned how to put the fun back in dysFUNctional.

And then DH says, "M needs to hang around with you a little more so she can learn to be bitchy in a good way, because there is no fucking way you would have ever let me get away with disrespecting you like that in public. You would have been like, 'Excuse us everyone, we need to leave now,' and you would have dragged my ass out of there, and I would have dreaded the ride home..." Um, thank you, DH? But he's right - that does sound exactly like me though - all sweetness and light. ;)

Then we talked a bit about maintaining boundaries around friends' issues - such as how do you draw the line between giving unsolicited ass-vice that will 9 times out of 10 be disregarded anyway, and making an observation that might actually open the door to a welcome conversation. Like in this example, "Dude, I, it seemed like M was really on your last nerve at that party...." and see where that statement takes the conversation?

What would you do?

So is it Rapture yet where you are, or what?

It is nearly 5pm local time on 5/21 - Rapture Day according to some of the local X-ian fundies and their learned radio demigods. Um, nope, no Rapture yet here in Podunkville.

One of the best bumper stickers ever = "After the Rapture, Can I Have Your Car?" Not a lot of people around here think that's funny.

I loved "The Week" Magazine's reporting of Rapture Day, under "Good week for: The human race, after the world did not end of May 21, as Christian radio broadcaster Harold Camping had predicted. [Editor's note: We filed this item several days early, but will print a correction if it's wrong.]" Brilliant.

I think I'll spend the rest of Rapture Day playing with my kids. Could be my last few hours on Earth - I suppose that's a true statement regardless of anyone's crazy apocalyptic predictions. May as well be doing stuff everyone in the family will enjoy at least a little bit. Lately, the kids have really been enjoying watching The Ladybugs' Picnic - some wonderful, old school "Sesame Street" fare.

Happy Rapture Day, y'all!

"My Kid Is So SMART!!!"

So, I think it is safe to say that just about everyone's kid is a little super-genius... sometimes, and in some way. Maybe even all the time. I'm sure we all have moments when our kid says or does something outrageously precocious - and hey, feel free to share those moments in the comments.

What do you do when you have acquaintances who makes statements like: "OMG, your kid just READ that?!" "He just wrote his own name?!" "He's way more advanced than my neighbor's little boy who is a year older than him." But in your heart of hearts you think it's all just average behavior. Nothing too special. Just the types of kind of things you'd expect from a kid born to a mother who was over age 30, and living in a home with a lot of books. (Gratuitous "Freakonomics" reference.)

Is the proper response, "Thank you." ??

Probably.

Or do you dare venture into Keeping It Realdom, where you completely disabuse them of their inflated notions of your child's super-extra-specialness? Sometimes I totally want to. But sometimes, just as I'm about to open my mouth, DS makes a crazy horrible impression the very next minute, and suddenly they go back to seeing him for the wonderfully average 3.5-year-old he truly is.

It cracks me up that this exact same child has on the one hand had people sincerely recommend we take him in for a developmental evaluation because he wasn't talking to them, which made them conclude he couldn't talk at all (my son told me later "she was not a nice lady," that's why he wasn't talking to her); and then on the other hand, we've had some total strangers (who don't have kids/have adult kids I might add) tell us they're just blown away by his perceived amazing intelligence.

My conclusion? Context matters.

We can't all be super-geniuses all the time. But we can have moments of brilliance. Followed by moments of crushing defeat.

SES stuff matters. (understatement of the year, that one.)

I really don't think intelligence at age 3 equals intelligence permanently for life, but it sure seems like society does.

Your thoughts?

Next, Trump will probably ask him for a Death Certificate

Travel Sans Kids

On Tuesday, we all leave for my parents' home 2 times zones away from Podunkville. Two days later, DH and I will fly off to Vegas for our first trip together without either one of our kids in tow since becoming parents 3.5 years ago! It will be three days of blissful sleeping in, doing the deed, and eating and drinking to excess. And spending some quality time with 2 other temporarily child-free couples meeting up with us there. Hooray!!

Honestly, I am much more worried about my parents actually surviving the 3 days alone with our kids than I am about how our kids are going to manage the separation. I know the kids will be fine - they adore Grammy and Papa, and ignore us completely whenever they're around (which we LOVE!).

DH also just got Skype set up on his mobile, so we should be able to keep in touch the way the kids most enjoy keeping in touch.

I just found and filled out a "Temporary Delegation of Parental Powers" form on the internets, that is valid in the state they'll be visiting, which basically empowers my folks to stand in our official parental shoes should anything go wrong. Scary thought - but hopefully now that we've planned for that eventuality, in reverse Murphy's Law fashion, it now won't happen.

On May 3rd, I plan to pick up "Dead Reckoning," the new Sookie Stakhouse novel by Charlaine Harris. Should be an ideal vacation read, and will whet my appetite for the upcoming Season 4 premiere of HBO's "True Blood" in June.

See you back here in a week or so!

When friends drift apart (for the best)

We've lived in Podunkville now for almost 3 years, which is so hard for me to wrap my brain around! Shortly after we moved here, I remember meeting this woman at a party, and she told me that whomever I was friends with at that time, I probably would not be very close friends with a few years from now. My friends would completely change. And she was 100% right.

There is something about moving to a place like Podunkville, especially when you are coming from a bigger city, that makes you seem like fresh blood to the locals. (It also makes you a target for invitations to in-home parties where people try to sell you makeup, jewelry, and candles - ugh! See me in hell!) Anyway, there were 2 couples we socialized with pretty regularly during the first 9 months we lived here. Then one of the couples got divorced, and their social scene obviously changed as they returned to singledom and the bar scene. But the other couple, well, I just think they're a bit off, but they're cool people. Just not our BFF's.

The woman, J, is someone who makes a very good first impression when you meet her. Very gregarious, funny. Then you spend a little more time together and start to wonder why someone with such an awesome personality like hers doesn't have any close friends around here, despite having lived here for basically her entire life. I finally figured it out: she is the classic example of that old adage "the friend to everyone is a friend to no one." She doesn't like to get too close to any one particular person. She is more comfortable keeping people at arm's length. The handful of times I had real, intimate conversations with her where I felt I was seeing the real her, were followed by months of unreturned phone calls, cancelled plans, "my kids are sick again," etc.... until she needed a favor, then she would suddenly show up in my in-box again.

So I had basically written her off as a flake. And I finally made some real friends who have stood the test of time. For awhile I had mostly forgotten about J. Then DH ran into her at work the other day and she gave him this whole song and dance about "Hey! Miss you! We used to see you all the time, what happened?" DH said "Yeah, I don't know, we've been busy I guess," while secretly thinking something like, "I'm pretty sure hush is still waiting for you to call her back from February, when you asked to stay overnight at our place before your trip to Mexico that you sneakily disinvited us from ("oops, my FIL could only get us a 1 bedroom condo, sorry!") so you could then surprise us at 9pm with a request to leave your car at our place and have us drive you to the airport at 5am on a Sat am so that you could save $ by not parking at the airport. And then when you get back a week later, you finally inform us your daughter contracted lice before your trip, and we should probably wash and sterilize everything in the room she stayed in..."

I fully realize I may at times seem extremely bitchy on this blog, but believe it or not, in real life I make it a point never ever to be openly rude or mean to people. I blog in part to vent the things my upbringing will not allow me to say. So I always return J's calls and messages, even though half the time I don't expect her to return them, and I keep my expectations extremely low.

It is weird though.

Remember when "birther" used to mean something else?

In 2007, when I was pregnant with DS, I remember coming across the word "birther" for the first time. The basic meaning at the time was "a well-to-do, urban parent" and it was used in the counterculture to rail against people who lived, conspicuously, with children in a gentrifying urban American setting, and did obnoxious things like takeover an entire city sidewalk with a ginormous $700 Danish stroller, while yelling at everyone else to get out of their way. (While I've been guilty of many things, that's one offense nobody has ever accused me of. Kid never liked the stroller. And I'm too cheap to spend more than $50 on one.)

The old meaning of "birther" has now been completely overshadowed and lost (which in theory isn't such a bad thing, now I hear they call them "breeders,") and "birther" means something entirely different today. See here for a synopsis of right-wing birtherism directed at President Obama. There are also some birther conspiracy theories of a different stripe directed at former VP candidate/former Alaka governor Sarah Palin, surrounding the circumstances of her 5th child's birth, outlined and debunked here.

And I ask you: what is wrong with people?

Seriously.

My take on it? Life is too much like junior high. Back in junior high, there were a lot of silly rumors that went around about other kids, about certain members of boy bands getting their stomachs pumped, about certain celebrities and their penchant for gerbils, etc. Somehow these stories started taking on lives of their own. I didn't get it then, and I don't get it now.

Anyone got any good explanations?

Creepy Bunnies and Sleep

This made me almost pee my pants. I've always thought giant bunnies (and of course, clowns) were scary. (Thank you, Andrew Sullivan and your fantastic blog.)

And, I give you, the ONLY children's sleep book you & yours actually ever really need. (Thank you, Stephany Aulenback, and your supercool blog.)

Yeah, you're welcome. ;)

Toddler Tantrums

One of the downsides to having kids less than 2 years apart is that just when you think you have outgrown the tantrums with your older kid, suddenly the younger one starts throwing them, too - and with a whole lot more pizazz!

My 18-month-old DD can throw one hell of a rage-tastic tantrum. When she doesn't get to have something she wants right NOW, which is more often than not something totally dangerous, like say, a butcher knife she sees DH wielding, or an old battery leaking acid she noticed up on the highest shelf of the garage, she just might go crazy on our asses. She's been known to fling herself on the floor, bang her head repeatedly, pull at the carpeting, hit her parents when they try to pick her up, and even pinch our skin between her little fingers.

Now, I know from talking to my friends that their kids did the exact thing at this age, too. I think all we can do is remain calm and try to make it so she doesn't try to slam her head into anything that could hurt her. Maybe offer her a pillow? Sometimes redirecting her has worked, too: "Ooh, is that a birdie outside?!!"

I just hope she starts talking more. She doesn't talk as fluently as DS did at this age, but I think he was a bit of an abberation, and he didn't have the second language exposure she is getting. But I guess it also makes me question some of the old gendered assumptions about "talkative girls" and "physical boys." For the moment, we seem to have just the opposite on our hands.

Another thing we're grappling with all of the sudden is both kids wanting to be held at the same time, and getting royally pissed that the other kid is in mama or daddy's arms, too. It really is sad/maddening/a total no-win that makes us want to run screaming from the house.

That's not to say it's all bad. The kids are both at such CUTE ages now. Everyday they say or do something totally wacky and hilarious. Honestly, about 99% of the time we love how they interact now. They can finally go run and play together outside in the yard and orchards, and we don't feel like we have to be watching them every single second. So that's been oddly freeing.

I also can't tell you how many parents of older kids have told us lately how much they would love to be able to re-live another week with their kids when they were at ages 18-months and 3 years old. I think this is another one of those wistful, 'Grass is always greener" sentiments, but hey, we'll take the reminder to enjoy our kids for the ages they're at now.

When A Parent Retires

My dad is planning to retire at the end of the year - he'll be 66. Mom is a bit younger and plans to work several more years. I'm no expert, but my parents often ask me for financial advice. (I think they ask me because I'm their only child and they want to keep me in the loop.) They're in really good financial shape, have done everything the conventional wisdom suggests, and are good at saving and living beneath their means - so I should feel good about this. Yay for being proactive and all. But the prospect of dad's retirement - and thoughts of his mortality - make me sad. I'm uncharacteristically up at 1:30am now pondering the changes that are coming. He's loved his job, but says he wants to stay home and write. I hope that will make him happy.

He's asked for some input from me about rolling over his 401k into an IRA. I had to do some research, and I think it is a good decision. A Roth IRA would be ideal. From my research Roths are truly incredible devices that can allow a person to transfer tax free $ to their heirs - IF they play the IRS rules right. Anyway, he scared me a bit when he emailed me the name of this investment company I had never heard of - and I keep hammering him to stick with a trusted name that's well-known and fully insured. Which reminds me that he is also vulnerable. Really we all are, but it feels like folks his age facing these choices are especially so. I guess part of me thinks he is susceptible to being duped, even though to my knowledge he's never made any imprudent decisions - except one recent decision. He read something in AARP or some such publication that convinced him to apply for Medicare a few months before this certain milestone birthday... or else he might not get full benefits. WTF? So he applied and the govt sent him a bill! I think he sorted it out, and maybe that was a lesson not to believe everything you read, and to make sure you apply the general principles to the particulars of your own situation. Navigating this shit seems like a bit of a minefield. Hopefully I can be helpful and not worry and lose sleep for no good reason.

In other news, last week I was sure I had a blood clot in my right leg due to the birth control pills I started taking in January. Turns out I'm just a hypopchondriac who probably needs better neurochemicals. (I kid. But not really.) I had these weird pains in my legs that were a lot like the first day of my period was back in my pre-synthetic-hormone-poppin' days. It was the first cycle where I skipped the placebo pills and started taking the next pack of active pills so that I would not have a period for a few months. I think my odd, slightly-painful leg reaction, accompanied by one pimple and a whole lot of moodiness, was just my body getting used to the excellent idea that I'll only have 4 periods a year. Hooray for that.

Turning Your Own Kid in For Bullying?

There was a NYT article online recently about bullying, which linked to this intriguing news story out of Queensland, Australia about a father who reported his 17-year-old son and his 15-year-old daughter to the police when he caught them battering a 13-year-old boy.

I was really struck by comment #17 to the NYT article, from KS in San Diego, California, who wrote:

"This is going to sound totally off the wall, but I think that every parent should HOPE that their child does something completely stupid at a fairly young age (ie, before that act can cause much damage) just so the child can face the consequences and see that their parents are serious about what they're teaching them."

"As a small child (8 or so?) I threw a rock at another kid and hit her in the head--she needed stitches. I didn't even know her, just found a rock and decided to throw it. But I can tell you that my parents came down on me like avenging furies, and I never did anything even remotely similar again."

"My own kids once stole eggs from a neighbor's chicken and used them to egg a local (not their own) school. I'm pretty sure the fallout there was something neither of them will ever forget--nor should they. I'm just glad it happened while they were young enough that I didn't feel the need to involve police."

Your thoughts?

An Egg Hunt Already

This week is Spring Break for all of the schoolkids of Podunkville, so I invited some of DS's preschool classmates and their older siblings to join us at the park for an Egg Hunt this morning. It was actually a lot of fun, but I had been dreading it. The invite consisted of an email from me with the instruction to "bring 10 eggs for each child you're bringing." Turns out that was not clear enough, apparently, because I got several emails and calls asking questions like:

"What kind of eggs do I bring? Hard-boiled and dyed, right?" (A: Any colorful round thing we could hide somewhere outdoors and a little kid could find would be acceptable.)

"Do we put candy in them? Or are we trying to avoid sugar." (A: Feel free to put candy, or anything, or nothing at all in them.)

"Is there going to be any chocolate? Because my kid can't have dairy! And by the way I'm not even sure we can make it, but I definitely know we can't come if people will be bringing chocolate." (If you've been reading my blog long enough, this particular parent ought to sound a little familiar... A: I asked people not to include chocolate, and no one did. And then the anti-cow protein lady's kid got sick last night so they couldn't even make it today anyway.)

"Are you worried about salmonella poisoning if the kids eat real eggs that have been sitting out for so long?" (A: Um, not really. But if you are, maybe, don't let your kid pick up any real eggs? Just an idea.)

I showed all of the emails to DH, and he wrote a really funny set of "Egg Hunt F.A.Q.'s" that I loved, but ultimately did not send. It included snarky gems like the definitions of the words "egg" and "hunt," along with a description of the way the Easter season is currently celebrated in the U.S. including "chocolate rabbits and eggs, etc." Too bad I didn't send it, but I don't think they would have gotten the joke.

But you know, what this all really boils down to is that I am actually the problem. I really, truly feel that in this context, I totally am. So I chose to take all of those emails as constructive feedback about me and my relationship with the people of my little community. The emails in my inbox were trying to tell me that I tend to make way too many assumptions about the tendencies of the people of Podunkville to want to do something crazy like use their best judgment, or do their own parenting. People here are very, very literal. Yes, a few of them love to feel like people are catering to their "specialness" but most of them seem to like to be told exactly what to do, in the form of brightline rules about things as seemingly obvious as a children's egg hunt in the park. So I just need to accept it. That is how things are in Podunkville. I just need to get better at taking life as it comes, and accepting people for who they are - not some fairytale version of the "reasonable people" I sometimes wish they'd be.

However, I also realized there were several people who didn't email me with any odd questions and passive-aggressive, unnecessary requests. People who simply read the email, showed up, helped me hide eggs, and contributed to the fun. Those are the people I need to focus on in the future and ask on playdates (hate that term.)

Interestingly, like the local egg hunt DS was invited to last year, the real eggs one of the moms brought were the big hit of the morning - all of the older siblings were trying to get them. Luckily, the younger ones, like my DS, were more than happy to trade their real ones with a bigger kid for a "Soy Glory 3" egg containing "fun dough." That totally made DS's day.

In other news, my kids are growing up too fast. DD is 18 months old, is about to get her first salon haircut (BTW, we always go to the beauty school, where it's cheap, the students are young and hip, and they won't give you a mullet); and is finally saying a lot of words that people in the outside world can usually also understand. DD says "hold me" and raises her arms toward the nearest adult (in case "hold me" wasn't clear enough). She is finally sitting through an entire board book and also demanding them to be read to her over and over. Last night she kept saying "Brown Bear Brown Bear" as clear as a bell, leaving no doubt as to which nighttime story she wanted. Coincidentally, the books in that series were also big time favorites of DS's at the same age - something about the catchy colors and the rhythm of the words, maybe?

DS finally started learning the alphabet and has been writing his first name - in all caps - and always asks to borrow my pen anytime he sees me writing something. Behaviorally, DS is in a really good place right now. He's been using words a lot more instead of screeching, and we've been reacting a lot less. And for that we sincerely thank thee, Sharon Silver. Oddly enough, since purchasing one of those popular handheld portable devices that allow you to download books, DH has actually read 2 other parenting books and has even been giving me some tips! I'm really enjoying the parenting conversations DH and I have been having, now that he actually knows what is going on with the research. I'd better pinch myself.

Of Magic Erasers and To-Do Lists

I once read a time management book which made the suggestion that "if something can be done in only 2 minutes, then do it now!" So I put that pithy little gem to use and knocked out several items on my to-do list. Like change the HVAC filter. Water the plants. Email the photographer who took pictures of my kids back in November and still hasn't given me my order. Wipe all the little handprints and boogers off the front of the refrigerator. Icky stuff, etc etc.

Speaking of cleaning, I have to give a big shout out to one cleaning product I was introduced to that totally blew my fucking mind. (And BTW, I'm not one to advertise or even mention products by their real names, but I'm about to break my own rule here.) So DS recently decided to draw some crayon pictures all over the beige wall of our living room, and once we found his crayon-art masterpiece, we figured we'd just have to re-paint over it. Then someone told me about the Magic Eraser. Holy fucking shit! It is amazeballs. I paid $3.50 for a pack of 4 sponges that you just wet and wipe... and every bit of the fucking crayon comes right off the wall without any effort or elbow grease whatsoever. It also works on random marks and scuffs that have been there forever. I have no idea what sort of alien technology they have going on in there to make it work so well, but what can I say, the shit just works. Your grandkids may turn out like monkeys, but your walls will be clean, so there's a trade-off.

One of my other brief to-do's was to check the status on my online complaint with my state insurance commissioner's office against the insurer of the woman who totaled DH's car 3 months ago. Long story short, the shady adjuster for her co made a written promise to reimburse our rental car expenses back in Feb and still has not done so. But instead of actually doing his job, he sent some hilarious emails in which he quoted old case law and tried his best to sound like a lawyer... and that I forwarded around to a bunch of people who also got a kick out of them.. Today his supervisor finally emailed me and cc'd him to bascially encourage him to stop emailing and start talking on the phone, presumably because his emails were only helping my case... No, I won't be taking their calls. "Email is forever" - and much much better for documenting what they actually say. I kind of enjoy the game of it - luckily the amount they owe us is not earth-shattering. And most importantly of all, all parties involved walked away from the accident without a scratch. We also learned that our own insurer handles claims properly and professionally, so that's good to know.

I love it when I actually have my paperwork and facts together so no one can trip me up. That happens maybe once a decade, so let me revel in it.

Meme Whilst I Avoid Focusing on Sad World Events

Slow news day around here. Actually, that's not true. I could talk about the events unfolding in Japan, but it is too close and too ouchy for me. I used to live in rural Kyushu when I worked on the JET Programme. The people were so generous and lovely. Others have said everything I wanted to say much more eloquently than I could have.

Well, I should say Happy St. Pat's to my fellow partial or 100% Micks out there in the world. Good news is that DD finally seems to be feeling better: the unflavored, clear pediatric electrolyte fluid we put in her nighttime bottle (which is usually filled with plain water) seems to have helped her to feel better. DS has been watching the new "Star Trek" movie this morning - in Spanish with English subtitles, thanks to NK's excellent suggestion in my comments section awhile back, for getting kids to want to speak in a different language. DS has been speaking a lot more Spanish since we started doing that, so thanks again, NK! (She writes a very impressive home reno/style/design blog, and inspires awe in me by posting frequently and with cool pictures!)

One of the things I see bloggers do when they're having trouble coming up with a post topic and/or are avoiding world news is to do one of those memes (is that the right word?) - like the "ABC's of me" meme I've seen around lately.

Age: 34.

Bra size: 39.5 DD+. Yes, I'm afraid I have National Geographic boobs that are not a standard size. They look much better secured in a correctly-fitted, albeit Granny-style, uber-supportive bra. I'm proactive about getting new ones at least 3 times a year with the help of kind, department store salespeople.
Chore you hate: All of them! Especially folding and putting away laundry, and dusting.
Dogs: Three. I am a "crazy dog lady" who thinks of them as her quasi-children, but who happen to actually hear what I have to say. We even let our oldest dog sleep in our bed.
Etiquette Rule you always obey: Handwritten thank-you notes, promptly mailed.
Favorite color: Turquoise and Kelly Green. And occasionally Reddish Orange and Fuschia. I'm known locally for my colorful dressing.
Gold or silver: Silver.
Height: 5' 8".
Instruments that you can play: The skin flute...
Just one item you'd grab from burning house: Old family photos. I should really look into scanning them and backing them up electronically.
Kids: A 3-year-old son, and a 17-month old daughter. (And the dogs.)
Live: A small town in the rural, inland Pacific Northwest US
Movie last seen in theater: "The Adjustment Bureau" - great movie, loved John Slattery from 'Mad Men,' makes me want to read some Philip K. Dick. Although I wish the ending had been a little darker, and more European cinema instead of Hollywood-ish.

Novel you're reading: "The Lacuna" by Barbara Kingsolver, for book club - not far enough into it to have formed an impression yet.
Overnight hospital stays: One - unnecessary, but mandatory after the birth of my first child if I wanted my insurance to cover the bill. With my second child I went home by choice on the same day a few hours later.
Pet peeve: Using a handheld mobile phone to talk or text while driving - you people are crazy! "All Snake" claims adjusters who don't respond to emails and phone calls.
Quote from a movie: Anything from "My Blue Heaven" which DH and I quote pretty frequently and can relate to our own lives as big city people living in Podunkille, like "You could melt all of this stuff." - Vinny as Todd Wilkinson
Regret: Not sticking up for myself better when I was once accused of stealing someone's gym bag.
Simple pleasure: Clean bedsheets fresh out of the dryer (that someone else washed for me.)
Time you wake up: 7:15am if I'm lucky - that's life as a mother of 2 small children!
Underrated TV show: "Justified" on FX starring Timothy Olyphant. Extremely violent, but excellent.
Vegetables you dislike: Cauliflower.
What makes you run late: My son tantruming/refusing to keep his carseat buckled properly.
X-rays: I had one when I lost the very tip of one of my fingers under the hood of a car in 1991 - it was actually a painless experience, and unless I keep my fingernail too short, the injury is not at all visible today.
Yummy food you love: Chicago-style pizza, New York-style pizza, Korean BBQ, all Indian food, Sabra hummus from the grocery store... I could go on and on.
Zodiac sign: Scorpio (and the description fits me perfectly, unfortunately!)

You're all tagged if you want to be - to answer any or all of these for yourself - feel free to leave it in the comments

Sick Days

I always knew it was going to happen eventually, and finally it did: both of my children, DH and I have been disgustingly sick with some very strange, no good very bad virus for the past 48 hours... all of us have had some form of lower GI issues. I'll spare you the details, but let's just say someone in my family was very, very confused when he sat on the toilet to defecate and it came out sounding like urination.

DD seems to have the worst of it and is still not out of the woods yet. I just got back from a 9pm trip to the store to pick up some pediatric electrolytes and BRAT diet items (BRAT = bananas, rice, applesauce, toast for the uninitiated). My illness was over in a matter of hours but involved me sprawled out in the tub crying for mercy for the better part of the evening. DH hardly had anything at all - DS got over his bout quickly, and decided he doesn't like vomiting.

I'm so tired of scrubbing toilets, and doing laundry, and wiping the floors, and wondering if my house smells as bad as I think it does. I've missed work, and then our poor babysitter also contracted it, so I've been alone with the kids all day. Yelly Mama made a brief appearance, but DS quickly put me in my place with this direct quote: "Mama, be nice or Daddy won't want to marry you or kiss you." I know, I know, everyone thinks their kid is a little genius in some way shape or form - and we're all correct!

"PC Load Letter!!!???!!!"

Why can't we ever manage to find a basic, bare-bones inexpensive home printer that actually works? As in one that like actually prints documents and doesn't get an "out of paper" or "paper jam" message every 5 minutes? I don't need one that can fax or print photos. Scanner and basic printing capabilities will do.

Here's what I'd like to tell all the home printers I've purchased and hated before.

To our newest shitty printer purchase, the H-Pee AWFUL-ice-jet 4500, I say: Go eff yourself! Unfortunately, we have to live with your broke ass a little longer.

To its shitty predecessor, El Ep-Sun Style-less See-Ex 4450, I say: We had you for like a month because you were included for free with some other equipment we got. (The fact we paid nothing for you should have been our first clue.) Eff you very much!

To the O.G. printer we got back in like 2004, the H-Pee All in one 6210: Thank you for some shits and giggles. We got to talk to some guys in India about your issues on two occasions. Eff off!

Tomorrow I take 2 useless printers to the recycling place; the other I must keep until a better replacement can be found at a reasonable price point. Oy.

The good news is DH and I have date night tomorrow, and we get to see an actual movie in the theater. Maybe it will be at the same theater where I went into labor with DD 17+ months ago while watching "Zombieland." Good times!

Taxes Schmaxes

I hate tax season. Especially for this year. Our returns are taking forever in part because our files were a bit of a disaster. But I've learned a few little tips to keep us organized for next year, like the shockingly brilliant idea of actually filing papers in correctly labeled files. Like duh! Fingers crossed that all adult members of my family (ahem) will actually comply with ideas like these stemming from basic common sense.

We had 2 regular babysitters in 2010 for whom we are legally (and I also feel, ethically) obligated to file payroll taxes because they worked in our home, were over age 18, we paid them at least $1000 in any calendar quarter of the year and/or over $1700 that year. Simple enough parameters, so time to pay Uncle Sam, right? That way, should they ever need to make an unemployment claim, they'll get all the funds to which they're entitled, and it hopefully someday they'll have a little more money to put to use in retirement (that is of course assuming Social Security is still around when today's 20- and 30-somethings retire). So allow me to share our tale of two babysitters with two vastly different views on taxation. But before I do, can I just take a moment to say how much easier it would be if there were actually good daycare in Podunkville? Then at least we'd have no real tax issues to have to concern ourselves with.

Sitter One was a 20-year-old white chick born and raised in Podunkville. When I had her complete an I-9 Form when we hired her, she didn't list her social security number, as she did not know it. She worked for us for about 7 months, was sick a lot, and was late a lot, then once day she told us she was getting married at age 19 and needed to find a job with health insurance & benefits. Fair enough - so we agreed upon an end date 2 months hence. Two weeks later she informs us she needs to quit a little sooner, like on the following Monday. I then have to reschedule a bunch of meetings and work shit. Apparently, she's never heard of the professional courtesy of 2 weeks' notice. I actually wasn't too pissed about it; as I had become quite used to her flakiness.

After the Great Summer 2010 Sitter Hunt of Podunkville that lasted 2 frenetic weeks, enter Sitter Two who starting taking care of our kids in June. She is one of the best things that has ever happened to my family. We have given her raises, and all of the bonuses and perks we can reasonably afford (which isn't much...). She just makes everyone's life so much better. She happens to be a Mexican-American immigrant who may or may not be here legally - I honestly can't tell, nor will I be asking too many questions about her immigration status. We have fulfilled every legal requirement though, just like with Sitter One: she filled out a I-9 form, we examined the documents from the I-9 list, made a copy of her social security card, and we still keep them on file, along with the I-9 form we still have on file or Sitter One. Legally that's all we need to do. We need NOT do the work of the friggin Border Patrol or act like we live in Arizona.

In early January, Sitter Two double checks with me and asks me to please file taxes for her if I can - I said "Of course I will." Last month we put together the 2010 W-2's for both sitters. I had to text Sitter One to get her SS# - asking her to please call me with it. No response after 2 days, I ask again. She said "oh yeah sorry I forgot" and texted me back with it instead of calling me. Texting one's SS# = probably not the smartest move ever. Both W-2's went out in the mail by the January 31st mailing deadline, then we filed them with the SSA. (Sorry to bore you with these details, I promise I'm getting to the point soon.)

A few weeks later, Sitter One texts me "I wish you would of [sic] told me you were gonna make me pay taxes, cuz nobody i ever nannied for has, then i could of [sic] had time to prepare."

I was actually disappointed to get that text. I told DH, who in his no-nonsense way basically said, "She really isn't very bright, is she?" I had to resist every temptation to get into a texting war with this silly little womanchild. As if I enjoy paying taxes on someone who honestly wasn't that good, and as if we really have a choice? Aren't the only certainties in life death and taxes? But I digress. After pondering several different retorts and explanations, I simply texted back: "That's the law. Call me if you have any questions." Haven't heard anything back from her about it and I don't expect to. But bizarrely enough she did list DH as an employment reference and the prospective employer actually called... more proof that she isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. Lucky for her, DH is way too nice of a guy to throw her under the bus even though she sucks in all of the areas one generally needs to be a decent employee. But around people we know really, really well DH is pretty candid. DH wishes he could tell this story to the Tea Partiers who think that "real Americans" like Sitter One are losing ground in this country to "all of the illegals who don't pay taxes." There you have it.

In other news, I realize the Oscars have come and gone, and I recall blogging about them last year... so that means my blogaversary has come and gone without even a mention. What can I say, I guess I'm still at it. Glad someone out there is still reading.

He's Over 3-Years-Old Now, and We Finally Finished His Room

Working on My Marriage

I haven't posted about my marriage in ages. Which naturally means things are going swimmingly because I have zero to bitch about at this time! I attribute this in large part to the fact that 1) neither of our kids is under the age of 12 months anymore, and 2) we have figured out how to communicate much, much more effectively.

I've beaten this one to death, but just want to reiterate that "Getting the Love You Want" by Harville Hendrix was a book both DH and I found very, very helpful and illuminating.

I also came across this very interesting little blog about working on marriage last week written by this earnest, adorable young married couple without kids (who BTW are VERY into Christianity though DH and I clearly are not, but no matter... whatever you believe, I suppose you just gotta be on the same page as your spouse with it, right?). They have these "Tuesday Night Questions" they ask each other that I think are absolutely ingenious:

1. How did you feel loved this past week?

2. What does your upcoming week look like?

3. How would you feel most loved & encouraged in the days ahead?

4. How would you feel best pursued in sex/intimacy this week?

Damn good questions, no?

These adorable young people get it. Harville Hendrix gets it. John Gottman and the myriad people he's co-authored relationship books with also get it.

I hope that someone out there on the internets, like me and DH, who is looking for answers to the problems in their relationships (problems that they know in their hearts to be solveable ones, NOT one of the 4 A's: addiction, abuse, adultery, abandonment) can get their hands on information like this. It literally saved my marriage. All those hard times not so long ago seem like distant memories. Believe it when people say there is an end to Survival Mode with a new baby.

Anyway, I'm off to a little date night with DH now. Wishing you and yours lots of romance, or even just a good lay this Valentine's Day weekend...