Thirty

So I turned 30 yesterday.  Yikes.  If you'll notice, I changed just a few small things on the front page of my blog, including the brief description under the blog title.  When I started this blog I was still sort of a young mom; 23 is young these days in terms of having kids.  But now most of my old school friends are having kids and so 30 is not really such a young age to have kids.  I'm still a mom of young kids, but not so much new at it anymore.

Also, maybe some of you noticed that I stopped posting my daily pictures a couple weeks back?  Or most likely no one really noticed.  I didn't mean to stop so abruptly like that, I meant to make it official and sort of announce it, but one day I got caught up deciding which picture to post and I never got around to narrowing it down to one.  Then I realized that summer was actually over (that was the original challenge - one photo per day all summer long) so I was off the hook.

I really enjoyed putting myself to the test of posting every day like that, and I plan to continue - just needed a little break.  As I was explaining to someone the other day, though, the challenge for me was not in coming up with a photo to post every single day, the hard part for me was narrowing it down to just one picture.  In that way I think I've really condensed our experience of living through this summer and revisiting that time period by going back to old posts will be a much more easier thing to do.  I feel like I've boxed up our memories, the things that were most important, and I'm so happy for having done so.

So I will continue with my project for the fall of 2010.  I wanted to start fresh on the first day of October, but I was too occupied with becoming old turning 30 and whatnot.

day 53: This Little Piggy Got a Fracture

Zach's been doing This Little Piggy with Sabine a lot lately. It's cute, he has his own little twist on it, appropriate to our family, one of the piggies has a veggie burger instead of roast beef. Two nights ago Sabine was laying on Zach in bed with her feet up by his face and he was running through all the piggies and it's one of the cutest things to see. So the next day when Sabine was 'nursing' Baby Honey (see Day 50) I looked over to see she was also humming (because she doesn't talk yet) the tune of the piggy ditty while pinching Baby Honey's little tootsies.

I thought it was the cutest thing I have ever seen and that I might die of heart palpitations, and so I was rushing to get downstairs to grab a phone when I, ironically, injured my little piggy. I had to climb over the baby gate at the top of the stairs, which is not a problem, but since I had just cleaned the upstairs bathroom the day prior with a fine tooth comb (actually, it was q-tips) the hamper was still in the hallway and as my foot came down from it's arch over the baby gate, it slammed into the hamper.

I sat there on that top step yelping and whatnot for a good five minutes, and then got up and hobbled off to call Zach. I assumed it was like all the other time and I just had to buck up, but as the day went on my foot got more and more painful and kept turning a deeper shade of purple. Everyone agrees that means it's broken, but that there's really nothing you can do about it. Which is better really, because I don't have the time to make another appointment!

Anyway, the picture really doesn't do it justice, and I swear I'm not trying to be over dramatic, the only reason I put an arrow on my toe is because I couldn't get the damn camera to auto-focus on my toe so I think it needed a precise point upon which to focus. Today it is much darker and spread out, and it's the under side of my foot that is really gross looking.

And that is just one of the many job hazards of being a mother.

Day 51: Art Therapy

Drafting this post in my head earlier today, it felt like I could make it short and brief, but who am I kidding to think that brevity has any rightful place in my life? So buckle up, or hold on, because the description that goes with this photo may contain boringness and you may fall asleep and bang your head on the desk if you're not careful.

Today my therapist asked me if I could journal it. And I was already forming this idea in my head of what I wanted to do, so I told her I didn't think I could, I didn't want to put that kind of negativity into a book that I carry around with me every day. And now that I'm home, typing this, (I have yet to take the photo that I've got in mind, the right characters aren't available at the moment) I sort of understand why I've been experiencing a craving to take this picture. I'm feeling caught between different emotions, going back and forth between being really, really angry and then realizing in the scope of things, it's not that big of a deal.

So I asked the therapist if I should just try to forget about it since no resolution is likely to come of things. On the drive home it occurred to me that forgetting about it or wrestling with the anger aren't the only two options. I need to put it into some concrete form so I can wrap my hands around the experience and shove it into place. I just need to get a hold of it, find it a good home in my psyche and get on with things; things that I'm supposed to be doing, like packing for the beach vacation, mowing the lawn, cleaning all the dog beds and anything else that might have fleas on it.

So here is my attempt at Art Therapy. This is Zach in the Civic, asleep, with Sabine on his lap, grabbing the wheel, at a pretend rest area.

This is why we were at the rest area: We went to visit long, lost friends for a few hours in NYC on Sunday. We took every wrong turn that was possible getting out of the city and that is why at 1am Monday we were still traveling and not yet cozy in bed.

This is why I needed to take this photo: Because someone else at that rest area decided it looked funny and took a picture of this scene while I was inside getting coffee. Except I was already on my way out and was right behind her when the flash went off. She saw me, my brain registered what just happened, her brain registered that those funny people belonged to me, and she went running inside.

This is what happened next: I took a split second to look back at Zach and see what she'd been taking a picture of, then turned back around and yelled, "Hey! Did you just take a photo?" If the bitch would have stopped running I could have just said, "Would you mind deleting that, please?"

My yelling that to her woke Zach, who opened the door for me and I shoved the hot coffees into his hands. I grabbed Sabine because he didn't have any hands left, and yes, someone just took a picture of my baby so my protective instinct made me hold her to my heart. Zach asked what happened and I said, "She just took a picture of you!" When I said that out loud I realized what I had to do. Not because I am particularly brave, or because I have a tendency to stand up for myself, I am neither of those. But because I am damn stubborn and will be heard, but the bitch kept running, so she left me no choice. I still had Sabine in my arms so in I walked with her.

My sister doesn't think that I should have confronted someone with my child in tow (an actual CPS worker), but I seriously had no idea it would become a confrontation. The silly little girl was embarrassed and so she ran, once I met up with her I assumed she would delete the photo at my request. Also though, I was not going to leave Sabine in the car with Zach, who was just coming to.

I waited for her little black flip flopped feet to emerge from under the stall for a good five minutes. When she came out I politely said, "Excuse me, can I ask you a question?" When she ignored me I moved a little closer and started again, "Excuse me, did you just take a photo of my family?" But this time she didn't let me finish, she starting yelling at me very loudly, so that everyone would hear. "Did I take a picture of your baby?! Of course I did! You left your child alone in the car!" She started walking away from me, and I yelled back that I did not and that she was well aware of the fact that I didn't leave my child alone because she saw my husband in the car with her and that's why she took a picture. We were in the lobby by now and everyone was watching us because she was yelling louder.

At this point her 'male companion' (who I like to think of as Ass Hole Boyfriend) came along. A lot of this is a blur in my mind now because I was having such heightened emotions. But she kept yelling the same thing over and over again, and I was not backing down. I think she wanted to embarrass me, and normally I am VERY concerned with how I look to others, but I honestly didn't care because my outrage was so great. And I think that she was proceeding with such indignity, that other people could tell she was the antagonist in the situation. Things went on like this as we moved toward the door (because she wouldn't stand still and face it like a decent human), and that's when she thought up the idea to declare she works for CPS.

Not for a second did I actually believe she worked for Child Protective Services because that's just a stupid thing to say. But also, um, no, if your livelihood is based on caring about endangered children, then no, you don't take a photo and run away. You call the police. You wait for the police to get there, you proceed with the situation calmy. And even if you don't work for CPS and you are just a concerned human being, then you still call the police and alert them that a child is left alone in an automobile. And then, when that mother you're screaming at asks what county you work for, and to see your identification, you hand it over, as policy dictates. You don't let your Ass Hole Boyfriend then get into the mother's face (the mother who is holding a 20 lb toddler) and scream at her. In her face. 2 inches away from her baby's face.

And that's what really bothers me. You don't act like that in front of a child. Me - that's one thing. You don't do that around someone's baby. And I definitely hope you never, ever procreate because God help those children. And it also really bothers me that she couldn't just delete the photo. Seriously, that is all I wanted. Not because there's anything 'incriminating' in it or because I thought Zach's skin was a little off color, or maybe I thought she could have gotten a better angle. But my child was in that photo. I seriously can't get myself enough into her shoes to figure why she couldn't just be a normal human, why she had to react so offensively.

And I know it's not that big a deal that she took a photo of my kid. It's not. But it's her reaction to my request and the way they harassed me that is what makes me feel so violated. It's everything after the photo, not just the photo itself.

I realize there are far worse things that happen to people, like actual crimes that are committed, and I'm not trying to put myself on the level of that kind of violation. That's why I'm writing this, so that I can get it out of my system and get on it with it.

And so getting back to the part where I attempt to make light of the situation, infuse it with humor and make it concrete so that I can grab a hold of it and put it away: You may have taken the photo Stupid Bitch, but I stole it from you in the end. And when you look at the photo and post it to your facebook account, you''ll probably have to look at your ugly face lit up in my car window's reflection.

You peeled away with your Ass Hold Boyfriend, but I got your license plate number:

BWF-8673

Day 49: Grasshopper on my watering can

This guy here hopped onto my watering can while I was watering the flower boxes the other day. He wasn't there, and then all of a sudden, he was right there on the tip of the spout, less than a foot away from my hand. Creepy. One would think I'd be happy to have a beautiful creature such as this to grace the day with is presence, but I screamed and nearly dropped the pail. I am fascinated with insects and their tiny, intricate details, but that doesn't mean I like them. On the contrary, they freak me out. After I get in close like this to take a picture, my skin starts crawling and the next hour I keep thinking bugs are crawling on me. But I am always drawn to taking their pictures as detailed as I can. Is this normal? Does anybody find themselves fascinated, yet freaked out, by bugs like this?

Day 27: Cousin Party

This has been a great, busy summer! The one thing that stands out the most, is that we've been hanging out with a lot of people who we don't normally see, or who we don't get to see very often. After the recent death of an aunt, some of the cousins declared that we needed to get together more often. They say that every time, but this time it took. Six of the 22 (and most of our offspring) of us gathered at my sister's last week. We took this photo just before everyone started leaving for the night. I just realized the 6th cousin didn't make it into the photo, he has to leave before we took this. The guy in the back is Kim's boyfriend/fiance(?) You'll recognize me by the white, white skin that so contrasts the rest of them.

A New Man In My Life

For a couple weeks now I've been cheating. His name is Reggie. He is sweet, gorgeous (but that's not why I love him), and I can tell by the way he responds to my petting, that he is needy. When we first saw each other, it was love at first sight. Well, I can't speak for him, I guess, and he's sort of a quiet guy, so there's really no telling what exactly is going on in his mind. I feel very guilty that I'm going behind Zach's back, but I can't stop loving Reggie. Zach has no idea yet, but Reggie is coming to live with us. It's just a question of when and how it's going to go down.

You see, I met Reggie at the pet store when I was in there looking for litter box pellets. I didn't even have in mind that I might meet someone, but all of a sudden there he was across the room. Even though I was a good ten feet away and didn't have my glasses on, I knew it. I approached him with my children in hand, squatted down to his level and looked around to make sure no one else could see us and I cracked open his cage to give some much-needed attention.

You have guessed by now that Reggie is of the non-human variety. He's a rabbit. I have a sweet spot for rabbits - always have. We used to have four, now we're down to three. They are 7, 7 and 6 years old, and they can live to 11 or 12 years. I think Zach is sort of waiting for the rabbit thing to run it's course, but even so, over the years we've seen other rabbits that have caught our attention and we've wanted to give them a home. We've always come to our senses, but this time is different. Of the rabbits who live with us now, none of them were planned. We brought them home one-by-one as we found them in the shelter or living in someone's basement under a milk crate with potato peels for food.

Reggie is at the pet store because his owner, who was an employee at the pet store, passed away. When I was there that first day, a girl who works there saw me so I started asking her questions about Reggie. That's when I learned his name, age (6) and circumstances. When I was checking out at the counter I casually mentioned to the girl checking me out that Reggie was really sweet, and that the first employee had told me he was going to live at the pet store as sort of a 'house bunny', but to please take my name down incase he ever needed a home.

I have rendezvoused with Reggie three times since then, always going back to the pet store with some lame excuse. On the third time I was there, an employee who knows me well (Em) came over while I was visiting with Reggie. She had heard I was in love with him and I explained how I'd sort of given them my name, but that I was in no position to actually take Reggie home, and that Zach would kill me if he knew I was even considering it. But then next time I came back, the Em came over and told me how she was 'working on it' to have the pet store peeps let me take him home. I got all, "No, noooo, I can't do that!" But then felt the call to duty. Em said she could tell Reggie was depressed and that he needed a new home. She didn't agree with the majority, and added that I'm the only person she would consider sending him home with.

So before I knew it, and without me even planning it, I am in the works to become Reggie's new number 1 human. Uh-oh. I don't care. It's fate. How else can you explain the way I was drawn to him from across the room? Or felt his presence in my heart before I even saw him with my eyes? Some people feel this way about having a baby, or meeting their soulmate. Well Reggie is one of my soulmates. I don't believe in one actual soulmate for a person, but rather that there are many soulmates for each of us, human or non-human, who we are destined to meet and have our paths cross for a while.

While Zach still has no idea about any of this, I'm already busy making plans in my head, and preparing the other rabbits for an expanded family. I've been making another attempt to get them all to get along. In our rabbit family it's the first two against the last one, and they tear each other apart if they ever are out of their cages together. But this time I am determined to get them to get along so we can have one big, happy rabbit family.

Twenty Years

Here is what I remember: I was in the kitchen, scooping white sugar out of the blue plastic container. I was nine. The container was on the stool next to the short counter. We were making pie for Thanksgiving. My mother had just been in the room with me but all of a sudden she was screaming from upstairs. It was the worst scream I had ever heard, the kind you only think happens in movies. I dropped the sugar and it landed all over the floor, white powder spewed everywhere.

I was in the bathroom upstairs, trying to put on my sneakers and tie them with shaking hands. My mother was there.

We couldn't find my brother, he was in his freshman year of college. He was at a local college, but lived away from home. Then he was home with a plastic bag from the movie store where he'd been renting movies.

I was on someone's lap in the back of a police car, my sister, my brother, my mother were all there and we were stopped at a red light. I think of that moment every time I pass under that traffic light, I still do twenty years later. My mother asked if we could just go through the red light. The police officer put on his lights and went through the red signal. He wasn't very compassionate.

I remember being in the hospital. It was too late. He'd died immediately. I didn't go in the room. At nine I knew I wanted to remember him alive. I don't remember who I stayed with then.

We were back at home. Lots of people where there. I was somewhere alone with my mother and I asked her what we were going to do. All she could say was that we'd take it one day at a time.

I didn't want to be around the people.

Later that night I crawled into bed with my sister. It was the only time I ever remember feeling loved, feeling comforted by her. She said something to me, of which I can't remember. It must have been the right thing to say because twenty years later I remember the feeling that it gave me. It made me feel like perhaps we were connected after all. Maybe she told me she loved me.

My aunt and uncle stayed with us for a long time. Several days, I seem to remember it being.

The next day was Thanksgiving. My aunt, uncle and two cousins on the other side of my family came home from out of town to be with us. We had a somber Thanksgiving dinner. I was sitting on the same stool the sugar had been on the day before.

Then I remember being at the wake. I stayed mostly in the back with my cousins, playing cards and doing kid things. I think of green velvet when I remember this experience. Maybe that's what I was wearing.

It was time to say goodbye to my father. I touched his hand. It was cold and hard. I recoiled; had not expected that. I should have left well enough alone.

Back at home I felt suffocated. School was out for Thanksgiving break. I couldn't wait to go back to school, to get away from all the grieving people. I would do the grieving in my own time, several years later, on my own, in college.

On Sunday it will be twenty years and these are the images that play through my mind like it was yesterday. These images make up more than all of my memories of my father when he was alive, combined. I can't hear his voice in my head. He used to visit me in my dreams a lot, but that doesn't happen anymore.

It's Facebook's Fault

I miss my little blog and I'm constantly telling myself that today will be the day I catch up. There's just so many things I want to post about, I don't know where to start, and it feels hopeless anyway because there's never enough time. I don't entirely know how it happened that I've been so inattentive to blogging, but I do know that Facebook is mostly responsible.

I've been on Facebook for a couple years, with waxing and waning interest, but I guess our relationship (mine and Facebook's) turned serious when Jacob and I started playing Farmville. I thought it would be a cute game for us to play together, because farming is his thing and maybe it would teach him problem solving skills and some other life concepts, numbers and spelling and whatnot, motivate him to learn to read, etc. It did do all that, and it might sound cheesey, but since I was sitting down with him to play and we were talking about it together I think he was learning things. I don't think it's so much what kind of tools you use to teach your kids, as much as it is you sit down with them and spend that time together talking it over.

I also used Farmville as a bribe to get Jacob to get dressed in the morning, get ready for bed, help me with certain tasks, but then he just memorized how to log on himself and started playing without me at times. He'd always get caught and warned not to do that again, etc, etc, but he'd always do it again. The weeks went by and it became an obsession. So I've phased out our crops and weaned us off this week. We're going to be taking a break from it for a while. It's feels liberating. I'm going to have to start hiding the computer from him though.

Anyway, being on Farmville meant I was logged onto Facebook at least a couple times a day, and so naturally I started posting more and more on facebook. It's like an abbreviated form of blog posts and is an outlet for me when time is sparse and I don't have time to blog. A lot of the things I would have ended up blogging just ended up as a status post on Facebook, and helped alleviate whatever stress was building up from not being able to get my thoughts out - but not all of it. And there's far more people I'm in contact with on Facebook than will ever read my blog. It's just a better way to keep up.

In no particular order, here is some stuff that happened over the last couple months in status posts copied from Facebook:

is teaching Jacob how to play Uno. Oh my God for the 80th time, no, you can't put a that RED 5 on that BLUE 8. I seriously underestimated the difficulty a five year would have with this concept!!! Holy crap, nooooo that Draw 2 can't go on that GREEN 6!!!!!!!

Ran the half marathon this morning. 1:56:30's. I'm happy with that and I don't think I ever want to do it again....

Just got home from the movies...Saw The Time Traveler's Wife. You definitely have to have read the book to follow the movie.

BIG DAY today. Zach met the president, shook his hand, told him his name and got his picture taken with him! AND I was on national television breastfeeding!

To mark the official start of homeschooling, Jacob and I just made frosting (science and math), but with nothing to eat it on, we're just having it spread on bread!

Sabine took two 10 minute naps today. That's it.

I am celebrating the last birthday of my 20's in my home, alone, cleaning like a madwoman. Believe it or not, this is an often sought-after fantasy of mine!

is trying to get Zach to sit still and look at people of walmart. I can't get enough of this!!!

ran the 5k today and Jacob ran his first kids' run. He also won the Wii they had up for raffle! It seems luck follows wherever he goes.

This one is a post from Zach: Happy 5th Anniversary...We are still alive...and so are the kids! Looking forward to today and the weekend...

Just finished reading Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. Very interesting book.

Jacob and I couldn't stop watching the puke scene today from The Office wedding episode....hilarious!

Well there you have it, Facebook. Now that our relationship is out in the open, I have to break it off. Well, not completely, but I think we need to see other people and I need to visit other internet playgrounds for a while. Get some perspective. Some 'me' time. Don't worry, I'll still be visiting. Just a lot less. Well, at least a little less. I still care about you, but it's just that my blog is more of a long-term relationship, and we're a little more serious than you and I can ever be.

17 ounces

133 to go.

I'm donating breastmilk to this milk bank that reformulates it into HMF, a product that is given to premature infants in the NICU. When I first read about this particular milk bank, part of the deal was that they provide you with a dual electric pump so you can provide them with the much-needed milk. You send the milk, in stock piles of at least 150 ounces, via Fed Ex.

Now that I'm mostly through the screening process, I went back to read up more about it and I couldn't find the part where they talk about the free pump they send you. When I questioned the woman on the phone the next day she told me that they'd actually just changed the rule on that. You must now first send 150 ounces of milk to them as a show of good faith and then they'll send you a pump. The woman explained that they had too many experiences with people applying to the bank, then getting the free pump and never being heard from again - a combination of that and the current economy, forced the new rule.

So that means I'm stuck pumping with the rinky dink hand-held that I purchases for $40 5 1/2 years ago in an emergency when Jacob was 4 days old. Do you know how long that might take a person?

Anyway, I'm going to do it anyway, because once I get a thought in my head, it's hard to get rid of it. So unless I luck out and find a used electric pump to borrow, my goal is to pump the 150 ounces by the end of April. This goal was established back on Tuesday. I think I figured if I could get 10 ounces a day with the little pump then that would make 150 by then end of the month. We'll see.

But that's why I'm posting here...It's my little challenge.

What it's like being me

You know that get-to-know-you game that you played at birthday parties and summer camp as a kid? The one where you go around the circle as each person says their name and an adjective beginning with the same letter as their name that also happens to describe them? Mine is easy, Sensitive Stacey. That is, hands down, the one word that describes me best. It encompasses the fact that I am attuned to other peoples' needs (external sensitivity), as well as my own internal sensitivity - most of my neuroses can be explained by attributing them to one or another of my sensitivities.

For the last year or so I've had a little bit of a break from myself in this 'sensitive' regard. I was taking Zoloft for depression and anxiety. I had thought I could make it through my pregnancy without it, but by the time February rolled around I was a mess. I can recall the moment on the kitchen floor - when I was having trouble getting up because the emotional energy that required was more than I could muster - that I decided what I really just needed was to be medicated. So I just stayed and cried in the little patch of sun that was shining on my resting place up against the cupboards and reconciled myself to the idea that the risks of taking antidepressants during pregnancy was nothing compared to the stress my little fetus probably felt living inside a cocoon of depression.

I've been on and off anti-depressants since I was 18. The off and on-ness of it is because there've been tougher times and not-as-tough times. And in my mind not being on drugs is a more natural, organic state of being, which is the way I aim to live my life. I sort of always felt like it was a contradiction to my being to live in a medicated state of mind. But this time around I think I finally found a way to rationalize it to myself: In a perfect world no one would need anti-depressants because us humans would be living the way our biological systems intended us to be living. We'd be eating wild game, living off of the land, and we wouldn't be in constant contact with pollutants and all the electrical devices (which I think have effected us on an energetic level).

We're not living in a perfect world, therefore, our brains and bodies are failing us. We have to make adjustments (that, unfortunately, are unnatural) to our lifestyles so we can live optimally. And as long as I understand this, and understand the why's and how's of my biological failings, then I think I can accept being medicated without feeling like a hypocrite. Thanks to on-and-off therapy since I was nine years old, and many friends who like to play therapy with me, I do understand myself.

With that said, I stopped taking Zoloft ten days ago. And the forthcoming reason will be completely random to some of you: I have this crazy desire to donate breastmilk. It was something I wanted to do when Jacob was younger and I was nursing him. There wasn't a place around here that it could be done, so I think I never looked further for information. A few months ago I read about a national milk bank in California that can accept milk from anywhere in the country. I do not know why I want so badly to donate breastmilk, but I very much so want to, and it's enough of a desire that I've been taking six weeks to carefully wean myself off of Zoloft (also going slowly for Sabine's safety, so that she doesn't experience withdrawal).

My plan is to continue to donate breastmilk for as long as I can tolerate not being on Zoloft. I definitely plan to go back on Zoloft (which is safe for breastfeeding mothers, but not safe enough for the milk bank because the human formula that is made from donated milk is very concentrated and is given to tube-fed preemies). And when I am done nursing Sabine I will consider switching back to Paxil - which is what I was taking just before I got pregnant with her.

Anyway, now that it has been almost two weeks without Zoloft, I finally remember the reasons why I was on it to begin with. In my most natural state I am a very scared person. I have a very thin skin. Actually, quite literally - I have sensitive skin; just got a sun burn last week (in March!), my knuckles and finger tips have been all chapped and bloody from the cold winter air, I have eczema, light-sensitive eyes, etc, etc, etc. I cry a lot. I obsess about things.

Basically the difference between un-medicated and medicated me is like this: More vs. Less. When I am not on an anti-depressant I am more emotional, scared, clingy, fearful, more sleepless, compulsive. I had a better analogy that I thought of earlier, which I can't recall at the moment. When I am medicated I just feel so much more comfortable in my own skin.

Coming off of medication is a whole different way of being, but I hope it's temporary. For the first week I was incredibly dizzy, vertigo levels of dizzy, as well as nausea with headaches. Now I'm just incredibly irritable and flustered. My brain is foggy and I don't feel like myself. Up until a couple weeks ago, I can say that I had never left anything on the roof of the car and driven off. Well, since I've stopped the Zoloft, I've done that three times. Three times I've set something on the top of the car (three different places) and told myself not to forget it, knew that would be so cliche to actually forget it, yet all three times I drove away only to watch the dish/glass bottle/cup of coffee slide off the car and shatter in the road. My short-term memory is shot, but of course that could just be from the kids.

I'm not the kind of depressed that requires medication to ensure your own safety or the safety of those under your care, I'm the kind that gets so scared driving over a bridge for fear of it collapsing under me that I might possibly drive over the edge because I'm clutching the steering wheel so tightly, thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. And this is what I saw, in my mind, happening coming home from gymnastics two weeks ago.

It started when I saw one of those big trucks, like a delivery truck, with all white panels and a beautiful picture on the side as that company's logo. It was a picture of the Earth from space, with a beautiful pink, orange and yellow sunrise coming up over the side of the Earth. My eyes shifted to the front of the truck to read the company's name. I can't remember what the name was (so I'll guess), it was what was underneath that which made me shudder. Haskell Brothers: Casket Division. I passed the truck as I was turning onto the entrance ramp for the highway.

Not more than half a mile down the road I had to swerve to avoid an object laying in the middle of my lane. Just as I was about to pass the object the words on it came into focus. Funeral. It was one of those little signs that goes on the lead car in a funeral procession. It had fallen off and was laying directly in my path. I'm the kind of person who believes in signs, as in signs from the universe, so what the hell did that mean?! I wanted to get on the phone and at least tell someone, speak the words aloud so it didn't feel so much like I'd just drawn the death card. I thought better of it because I decided that would be just my luck to get on the phone for moral support, only to cause a car crash by being on the phone. Which would that be, a self-fulfilling or self-defeating prophecy? (Kevin, you will tell me, right?)

But there's more to the story: This past week, coming home from gymnastics, on that very same stretch of road, I came up to a car going slowly with its flashers on. I passed it. And don't you know there was a car in front of that one doing the very same thing (flashers on, driving slowly), and then another, and another, until there were 25 of them stretched in a row with a big black car in front, two little purple flags atop it. Um...

Maybe the hearse was back on that same road looking for the funeral sign it dropped last week? Either that or someone is trying to tell me something. What is going on? I don't know, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. I'm kind of nervous to go back to gymnastics next week. Frankly, I'm kind of nervous all the time now. And this is the thing I can't let go of.

I dropped Jacob off with Jamie this morning so that I could finish packing for the weekend (we are going to visit Danielle and Co. - woohoo!). I was in a hurry so I quickly said goodbye and I ushered him inside then I jetted back out to the car where Sabine was waiting. As I was backing out, Jacob was back at the door to say goodbye again. I rolled down my window, blew him a kiss, said I love you. I rolled Sabine's window down so he could yell goodbye to her. And all the while I'm looking at him, taking it all in as if it might be the last time I see him. I'm giving him the perfect goodbye, incase that's the last one he ever gets from me. I want a smile to be on my face in that last image of me he carries around with him for the rest of his life. Because where he is standing is the very spot where I last saw my father alive; I watched him from the house, saw him going down the steps though blurred shades and that was it.

Life changes that quickly and I walk through my days anticipating, almost expecting, something bad to happen. I'm sure of it. The part I'm not sure about it when or how it's going to happen. And so what does an overactive imagination have to do with that knowledge but constantly make up death scenarios?

I continued to drive home with our perfect goodbye in my mind and tears in my eyes - but then thought, wouldn't it be ironic if the thing I'm fearing is the exact opposite. Like the book we just read for book club, My Sister's Keeper (spoiler alert). The whole book is a battle to save one sister from dying because she needs a kidney. Everyone is afraid of that certainty, but don't you know, in the very end, it's the other sister, the healthy one, who's killed in a car accident. So should I really be worrying about Jacob losing me, or me losing Jacob? How cryptic it is to have those thoughts at the forefront of your mind all day long.

And that's what the drugs do - they push back the fear so it's a more normal, rational kind of fear. The fear is still there protecting me from feeling immortal. I'm still me with all the same thoughts as before. The thoughts just don't take over. I have the same feelings, they just aren't as crippling. And my skin gets the benefit of one more layer of protection. I'm me, but a little less.

The Bug

One week and a day ago Beckie was over with the boys. We were making English Muffin pizzas for their lunch and I was chopping up some garlic. I told her I was trying to get used to eating raw garlic, that I'd read about people eating whole cloves of it to prevent sickness and thought I was going to make it my new sickness prevention. She questioned whether or not eating garlic raw could really keep you from getting sick. I told her that I figured it couldn't hurt and that for a person like me who rarely gets sick, it could make the difference between getting a cold and not getting a cold. Then I went and did it, I bragged - "Besides Jacob's strep throat, none of us has been really sick this year."

That exact moment is probably when the stomach bug germs started attacking my system. It took them only about three hours...and then I puked. I puked so bad there was no holding it back like I normally would. I hate puking, I hate it with a vengeance. I spent the next six hours dry-heaving air, and I'm pretty sure at least one lung. I am such a chicken about throwing up, and since I've never really had the stomach bug like that before, I really thought it might never end. I actually called my mom at 12:30am in an absolute delirium and begged her to take me to the emergency room.

Because it was so bad and there was no one around to help me (I'll get to that) I had nothing to do but stare at the clock and pray that no more puking happened. Because of this I remember the exact time of the last puking. It was 1:20am. I laid on the bathroom floor for a few minutes gathering the strength to (literally) craw back to bed, and then got back into bed just in time to hear Jacob hurl downstairs. That was 1:28am. I didn't throw up after that.

I took me a few days to recover enough from the puking to even get out of bed. So in the aftermath I learned Zach's side of the story. He was basically no where to be found when I was puking, chicken that he was going to get sick from me if he got too close. Basically what he did for me was keep the kids out of the way. The first three times I threw up was when I started to nurse Sabine. Isn't that funny, other people have said that too, that nursing would trigger the puking...must be something hormonal.

Anyway, I digress. So I'm upstairs puking and Zach was on the couch with the Sabine, who'd finally fallen asleep and Jacob, who stayed awake well past Zach, and helped himself to all kinds of things in the fridge, which he later puked up. When I was upstairs throwing up, Zach was down there hearing me but not really caring. Later, when it got really bad, I actually tried calling him a few times because I needed things I couldn't get, on account of the fact that I couldn't walk and couldn't move my head around lest if launched itself right off of my neck. The problem with calling him was that if I tried to yell downstairs it made my throat muscles move too much and that led to more puking. So he couldn't hear me calling him. The one time he did hear me, both kids were asleep on top of him and his response was, "I can't get up, both kids are asleep on me." Big f-ing deal, welcome to my friggin life. So that's how I got to calling my mom past midnight, because no one in this house even cared to check on me.

So it turns out that before Jacob had fallen asleep he (Jacob, not Zach) came upstairs to check on me and found me laying on the bathroom floor. He came downstairs and told Zach where I was and that he couldn't wake me. Zach said, "Yeah Jacob, Mommy probably wants to stay close to the toilet right now." And that's it. Now I don't remember Jacob coming upstairs like that so chances are I probably was passed out, which I think was highly likely in the minutes following a good puking. I made it through and I'm fine now, but here's the thing: You five year old tells you that his mother is laying on the floor, unresponsive, and you say 'that's ok', you don't GO CHECK ON HER?

Husbands.

Anyway, I'm just a little bitter. I've been spending the rest of the week in this pit of resentment because I'm the mother and EVERYTHING is my job. And if I get help from the father of my children it's because he's doing me a FAVOR. I've just been wanting a little time to myself so I could sit down and type out some of my thoughts and apparently that's too much to ask. Just now, in fact, I had to get up and go take care of Jacob because Zach is holding the baby. It's not like I ever do anything else while I'm holding the baby. Even though it's now past midnight, I'm still not off duty. We actually already went to bed, and I got up so that I could have some alone time, but that doesn't even work. There's no alone time in this house anymore. The baby does not sleep. She's always awake and if she's awake that means I have to be in her direct line of vision. That's if she's in a good mood. If she's in a bad mood then I have to be holding her. And it has to be me, there are no substitutes. I'm tired and cranky and I need a break.

Lent

I saw Emmay yesterday and she was telling us all about her funny Ash Wednesday story. This reminded me that it was now Lent and I had forgotten to give something up. Having been two days past the start of it, there was basically nothing left which would be worth giving up that I hadn't already consumed. I was thinking, and then it occurred to me that I have an obsession with Target and that would be what I give up. Right then and there I declared I will not go to Target or buy anything from there until Easter.

And as per my comment in Emmay's blog, I will try to make this brief! I also have a problem with blog writing. I try to make it perfect. I spend too much time thinking about how to write things in the best way possible, go back and fix errors, aim for perfect spelling and grammar. I've been trying lately to just type things out, hit publish, and let it go at that. I wouldn't be so backed up with the blogging all the time if I could just stick to this brevity thing.

Anyway, back to Target - I like the simple living, feel poisoned by clutter, am constantly getting rid of things, and I am appauled by over-consumption. So what is it that happens to me when I enter a Target? I get sucked in and caught up in it. The clearance sections are the worst. I can't help it. Everything looks so pretty and nice, and has a way of making you feel like your life will be better if you fill your home with the colorful junk from their aisles.

My mantras have become: When in doubt, do without; where are you going to keep it when you bring it home?; and what am I going to get rid of for this new item to take the place of?

So here's to brief blogging (thanks Emmay for the catchy term, and I'll try not to picture you in your underwear when I am typing away) and a hope of mild withdrawal symptoms from not shopping at Target.

The Heating Pad

I don't seem to have good luck with electric heating pads. I've posted about this before just incase you don't believe what I'm about to say. Read the seventh paragraph, the one that starts, "after waking up this morning..." Notice how casually I mention the exploding heating pads, like it's something that happens to me all the time.

The other night I was on the couch nursing Sabine when I saw a red light blinking on the heating pad. It wasn't even on or anything, just plugged in and sitting next to me. I picked it up and tried to get the light to stop flashing at me. In hindsight, I'm now seeing this as a warning from the heating pad that I (being the klutz that I am) was too close to it. If there was a voice to go along with the pulsating red light it would have been repeating in a robotic voice Warning, warning, please step away! Self-destruct mode initiated.

Then it exploded on me, less than a foot from Sabine's face. There was a big flash, pop and shriek. The lights went out and Zach yelled, "Jesus Christ!! No more heating pads! You're not allowed to use them anymore!" I had totally blown a circuit. He went downstairs to reset the circuit (or however you would describe such an action) and the lights came back on revealing black char all over my one hand.

Why do I have such bad luck with electrical devices? It's like all heating pads have been warned about me and they blacklisted me or something...

Moment of Truth

We've been going through huge amounts of laundry in this house. When I make it through the day without being spit up on or peed on, I consider that to be pretty good and I always try to squeeze and extra day out of that particular outfit to reduce the washload.

Today I picked up this dark blue v-neck hoodie for my top layer....I had worn it the other day. When I pulled it over one arm I saw brown smudge on it. Then, remembering back to the blowout Sabine had earlier in the week, I realized it was poop. I thought for a minute; contemplated the alternatives. After a moment's hesitation I grabbed a baby wipe, applying it to the sleeve of the shirt, after which I continued to pull the shirt over my head and called it a morning.

Id vs. Ego

Here I am on the couch, after having not given Sabine a bath. She's asleep now, on my lap. I should be getting up to put her in the co-sleeper so she and I can both get used to it. I'm having a revelation of sorts. It turns out that self-discipline isn't something you can get better at. It doesn't become a habit. I am never going to get the hang of bedtime. I am never going to naturally be a routine kind of person.

These things will happen on any given night based on my amount of self-discipline on that night, not by how many days in a row we have successfully made it into the bed at a reasonable hour. It's like a person who is dieting. I don't think they ever get used to a strict diet, I think every meeting with a piece of cake is just as difficult as it was on the first day of the diet.

Even though Jacob might be getting used to going up to bed at a decent hour, getting into the pajamas, brushing the teeth, etc, he's not going to do it of his own accord. I have to be the one to tell him to do it (because Zach is already asleep on the couch). And if I'm downstairs folding laundry and he's there with me, folding alongside me and telling me how much he loves me, there isn't much to gain by sending him up to bed. So I have to decide what I think is more important: The short-term bliss of being together, or the long-term ability to read one's own sleep signals. Because when I'm letting him stay up with me, I'm giving him fond memories to look back on, but I'm also teaching him to ignore his body's way of saying, "Hey kid, this is tired. Get thee to bed!"

When I'm old, looking back to the time my kids were young, will I take more pleasure in knowing that I gave my children a good, solid foundation of sleep hygiene, or that I spent every moment possible cherishing the beautiful beings that they are? Afterall, I am obviously a sleep-challenged person and I don't really mind it that much. I consider myself well-adjusted in most other regards. Will it be so bad if my kids turn out to be bad sleepers? Is it selfish to want to take the easy way out? I mean, they clearly prefer to be with us, rather than away from us.

There's days that I'm in the mood for rules and I'm chipping away at the to-do list with a vengeance. I don't want to be slowed down by sleepy children. I'd prefer to be on my feet, and I'm sure the way to thrive is to keep a rigid schedule. Then there's the days when my heart takes over and we all fall asleep with limbs tangled together, teeth unbrushed and satisfied grins on our faces. Both kinds of days have their advantages. I just wish I could pick one already.

And so each night is a new challenge to work up enough strength to pull myself away. Here I am, still on the couch and I'm looking at her sweet, round face, the contrast of light flesh and dark hair swept this way and that. Tonight it's more than I can take. The weight of her in my arms feels too good to trade for the freedom of having two hands with which to type. I surrender to the inevitability that on this night I will not be letting her go.

Dear Jenn

What makes you think I took pictures of my hair? Do you think I'm vain like you? ;-)

All in a day's work

Today I got so much done I felt like superwoman. I got up and worked out before the kids woke up because I'm a morning person now (she said with disdain). Got everyone bathed, dressed, and partially fed and arrived only 30 minutes late to Playschool!

After Playschool I had to rush to my dentist appointment. It was my first big appointment like this with two kids in tow. Sabine was asleep so I brought the carseat inside. She stayed asleep until the just before the hygienist came in. Then when the chair tilled back and my head disappeared from her view (which to a baby means you're completely gone) she freaked out. I spent the rest of the exam with her on my lap.

I've nursed my kids in a lotta places, and I figure the most notable place I nursed Jacob was at my own wedding reception. As of today, the most notable nursing experience I've had with Sabine is breastfeeding her through half my dental exam.

Next we came home and in I was so jazzed up from a successful appointment with both kids that I cleaned and straightened up like mad. I got more done in thirty minutes than I sometimes do in a whole day. Then my mom called and encouraged me go get my hair cut because she knew it'd been on my list for a good, long while.

The baby came with me for the haircut because of the thing where I can't leave her sight nowadays. She arrived fully awake so there was no chance of her staying in the carseat but I brought it in anyway because if she got to be a problem while I was getting my hair cut at least no one would think to themselves why didn't she bring something to put that baby in. And don't you know when I tilted my head back in the sink, effectively vanishing from her sight, she let out one long screech that lasted until I pulled her out mid-shampoo. Then she spent the rest of the haircut happy as a clam perched up on my lap looking around at all the shiny things.

So the hairdresser (Emily) and I, we got to talking. She looked about my age. Then I found out that she went to the same high school as me. Suddenly Emily starts looking familiar to me and I'm thinking haha, isn't that funny how I'm always running into people I went to high school with...I ask Emily what year she graduated. '06. Swell. Turns out she's not my age. Not a huge age difference, but enough of a difference to make a 28 year old who still thinks of herself as a 'young mom', feel Old.

For a while she's cutting my hair and we're taking turns naming people we know that the other of us might have gone to school with. Funny how people are always trying to make connections like that. It's not like you're going to go call up your friend from high school with exciting news that the girl who cut your hair went to school with their cousin. I guess it just makes us feel a little less distant from one another in a world that's becoming increasingly disconnected.

Anyway, none of the name-dropping is ringing a bell with either of us and it's starting to get a little awkward until I name a kid I used to change the diapers of. Her face lights up. Oh yeah, she remembers him from school. Double swell.

Then Emily names her gym teacher, calling her Miss instead of the name I know her by, and wrinkles her nose. I graduated with the gym teacher and to picture her like that, as a teacher who provokes a nose wrinkle, makes me think of a mean, old teacher. Not young and nice, but old and mean. Then I realize quite a few of the people I graduated with are now teachers at my old school. I start rattling off names and the ball is really rolling now.

Back at home I couldn't stop looking at my hair in the mirror. Emily used a super-ultra-mega flat iron that got so hot it could give you third degree burns. It's never been straighter and longer in my life. Now I'm usually the type who obsesses over her weight, but never have I really considered that my body might be aging. All the looking in the mirror finally brought my attention to my face. I don't look so young anymore; I discovered these little wrinkles.

No longer do people question me when they find out I have kids. I used to always be mistaken for a younger age. I never minded because I'd say, "When I get old I'll be glad to have people misjudge my age." But I was always mature for my age, responsible and wise, acted older than I was, I looked young though.

I'm used to the hairdressers and dental hygienists being older than me, having children my age. Maybe it's the fact that I'm the baby of the family and used to always being the youngest, or maybe it's just that I'm a young-at-heart kind of person, but for some reason I can't wrap my head around the idea that I'm actually acting my age.

1+1=4

Dear Jacob and Sabine,

Today one of you turns five months old, the other is five years old, and it has been exactly nineteen years since my father died. I've lived over two thirds of my life without him. Something I think about is the fact that I only have a handful of good, solid memories of my dad, but I can hardly remember a time when I wasn't your mother. I'm terrified something will happen to me; that even though I've poured my heart into loving the both of you, and your world spins under the umbrella of my existence in the here and now, one day I could become a fraction of memory to you. These precious days, months and years could fade into a fleeting wisp of your past.

For now our lives are full of each other, full of more happiness and love than I've ever had before or can expect to have again. So full, in fact, that I haven't had time to record our days with the urgency I'd like to. Oh I started posts for each of you, and the time to finish them came and went. And then some more time went by. And as I started to think about picking back up where I left off, I was so sad for the details that'd gone by unwritten about. It sort of reminds me of that poem, Footprints in the Sand...the man is walking on the beach and at his most troubled times it appears God is not with him, etc, you know the story. On paper it might appear that our lives were empty during these recent weeks, but the truth is that life was so full, no time was left for putting it into words.

Then I have the problem of which details to put into which child's blog. Your little lives, Jacob and Sabine, have become so intertwined that it's impossible to say who gets to claim ownership over which memories. It's like the way I try to take a photograph of just one of you, but the other of you somehow always creeps into the photo. Each of you alone no longer makes sense. You are two halves of my heart. Yes, that's what it's like to be your mother. You're each like a chunk of my heart, and you're walking around outside my body and it is scary. I am constantly feeling the pull of my heart in two different directions. I don't expect that will ever change. The mothers who've experienced this phenomenom will tell you so. They also tell you that having a second child doesn't double your work, it quadruples it. And I am finding this to be true, that 1+1=4.

What's inevitable is that someday your world will outgrow my world. No matter how hard I say my silent wish, "Stay small, stay small, stay small." But for now, you are my babies, and the best I can hope for is that you will always know in your hearts where you came from.

Permission

Zach brought me coffee in bed one day recently. It was nice. The next day I requested coffee in bed. The next day it was, "Wake me when the coffee is ready." That has quickly morphed into, "Wake me with coffee." Just like the good ole Folgers commercials. It can't be a good sign that I can't wake up without coffee in front of my face. I can see my future: I'll be a millionaire because I've successfully marketed the first 'caffeine drip/alarm clock all-in-one'. Sure to be a hit. Just pour in the grounds, add some water, set the timer/alarm, and plug yourself in with the IV attachment. You get the idea.

The wise old mothers say that going from one kid to two quadruples the amount of work, that it's exponential. I never doubted them, it's just hard to internalize that when you're not yet in the situation. But now that I am in that situation, I have to say that's not my experience. My experience of mothering more than one child is a kind of insanity that is immeasurable. It used to be that I felt all haughty with people who don't have kids because, they just don't understand. But now it's a different story...now I'm all, psshaw lightweight, you've only got one.

I'm so tired I can't think straight. I can't remember simple words, or the reason why I walked into the adjoining room. The exhaustion comes in waves, at times it's a familiar sort of gnawing at my soul. Other times it feels like I might actually die from being so tired and so busy. There are people who have many, many more kids. These people scare me. I think they are super-heroes. I think if I only had to be a mother and do housework, I might be able to handle it, but it's all the other things I take on. All the other obligations I have because I can't say no and because I'm a 'if you want something done right, do it yourself' sort of person. And then I can't let go of those things when they become too much.

My point is, that's what life has become here. Something they have not yet created the words for. And something that has been really weighing on me is my little monthly blogs for Jacob and Sabine. I'm a week behind with Beanie's and about to be behind with Jacob's. And tomorrow is his birthday. I stress over this so much if I don't have them done because I feel like their childhoods are slipping away with the passing time, memories are going unrecorded and I might forget. So for now I am giving myself permission to hold it on those posts. I will get to them when I get to them because what kind of a mother would I be if I spent more energy writing about our memories than I do making those memories? So there. I just had to say that publicly and now I think I can 'let go' of that obligation for now. It doesn't mean I'm giving it up, it just means I'm loosening my grip on the strict deadline I give myself.

Definitely not the highlight of my day

I was at the library today renewing something. Standing in line I had the baby on one hip and Jacob was off to the side looking at some books. When it was my turn the librarian smiled at me holding Sabine and said, "You're going to have two very close together." I didn't understand so I turned to Jacob and then back at her.

"Oh, you mean these two?" I asked, gesturing toward Jacob and Sabine.

"No, you're going (emphasis hers) to have two close together."

And then she pointed at my stomach.