Full-on ramble

- I can't seem to find a quarter of the things on my list when I go to a store lately. Not just food shopping, but places like Target or the craft store. I'm not looking for hard-to-find items. Has the recession made stores stop carrying stuff? I guess we'll know when people start fighting over the last package of toilet paper (er, "bathroom tissue" if you're fancy).

- My health insurance company asked me to enroll in a healthy-pregnancy program that would give me access to a nurse on the phone around the clock. It sounded good until they kept calling and leaving messages, and then when I would return the calls and be on hold for three minutes, I'd hang up. And the process would start over again. When I actually got to talk to someone to find out what they wanted, it was a guy asking me questions about very private parts, and I told him I wanted out of the program. Two weeks later, they sent me a $50 gift card and a guidebook to pregnancy. I hurried and spent the money before they realized what had happened . . . .

- Related to that, I am running out of patience lately. Or at least, I don't seem to have a great tolerance for Fly's shenanigans. The past few days of terrible-two behavior have had me greatly stressing. And I had myself a little meltdown yesterday. JP was there for me. He came home early and told me to get out of the house for a little while. I love him. Marriage definitely has its perks. He didn't even blink when I told him I'd send him a postcard.

- By the way, does anyone know how to get a two-and-a-half-year-old to listen and do what he's told?

- Specifically, not to run away from me and make me chase him and then carry him bodily back to where he needs to be? My pregnant body just isn't up for that anymore. This is how fast I have to run to catch up to him:



- And because today is Take Your Child to Work Day, I think it would be a splendid idea for JP to do just that.

- A friend told me crushed Cap'n Crunch cereal was good to coat chicken with before you bake it. Another friend said wheat germ was good too. So I bought both. Guess which one I've already had two bowls full of?

- Speaking of Cap'n Crunch, have you looked at the box lately? Doesn't it seem as though the company has "Sponge Bob-ized" the look of all the characters? Everyone looks stark raving mad.

- I am thinking about getting my hair cut. As in, seriously shortened. I've had short hair three times in my life. See my blog header? My hair isn't that long. But it has been. However, I just don't have time for it. Or patience. (See above.) And when the baby comes, it will probably look like a rat's nest unless I cut it to a length I can maintain because it is inhumanely thick (I get it thinned once or twice a year) and curly (but not in a good way). I just do not want to turn my hair into a hobby.

- So what's a good style for a hexagon-shaped face?

- We were going to go away this weekend to use tickets to a water theme park we bought before the Junebug came into being. Now we have about a month to use the tickets before they expire, and I am forbidden from going down any water slides while pregnant even though it is one of the most fun things to do in the world. (Yes, I am 11 years old.) Our plan was to drive there Friday night, play in the water on Saturday and come home Sunday. But we had to buy a new water heater unexpectedly. And a car-repair bill cost about 40% more than estimated. Now our dishwasher is broken. And we have to pay the doula. So two nights at a hotel would be financially irresponsible. If I could just talk JP into driving there and back on the same day, then we wouldn't need a hotel . . . .

- Actually, it might be easier to talk myself out of thinking it would be fun to heft my big, lazy body around a place where a bunch of skinny people were walking around and having a great time on the water slides. ("That should be me . . . sob!") Yeah, maybe not the best way to spend a Saturday.

Hurt and gratitude

A new life coming into the world. A beautiful baby to celebrate. (Aren't all babies beautiful, really?) You would think any time a person says, "I am having a baby!" that you would congratulate the mother or father. It's the polite and reasonable thing to do -- even if you are a stranger who doesn't know the person.

We rejoice with those who rejoice.

Except for JP's sister.

When JP told his sister the news that we are expecting another baby, she made a rude and untrue comment to him. Then she sarcastically said, "Congratulations," and cut off the conversation.

That was one of perhaps five times I've known my husband to cry.

Not every family is perfect, and relationships can be fragile. Something, somewhere, went wrong with our relationship with JP's sister. We don't know what that is. But I certainly never expected her to make her brother cry when she should have been sharing in his happiness.

As disturbing as this is, I am overwhelmed by your comments and good wishes -- overwhelmed and grateful.

Thank you.

The state of things

I'm sitting here on a Friday night with my whole head smelling like olive oil, my husband alternately coughing, moaning and winking at me (likely a fresh case of conjunctivitis, if you ask Dr. Damselfly, along with a cold) and wondering where my day has gone. Where my week has gone. Where my mind has gone.

First, the olive oil: You know the economy. The one that almost doesn't really exist? I decided to sacrifice my salon highlighting habit in the name of the family budget. This meant a trip to my (former) favorite stylist to, as I said, "reverse my highlights." When it was all done, he declared me, as he said, "a raven-haired beauty." Oh, hee hee. It wasn't until I got home and looked at myself in good lighting (why shouldn't a salon, of all places, have decent lighting?) that I realized he was right. I now look like a contestant in the Miss Goth Universe pageant. My hair is pretty much black.

I should note my hair has never naturally been this dark.

So I consulted my next-favorite stylist, Google, and learned I could strip away some of the color by putting Prell shampoo on my dry hair for 45 minutes. (This required a trip to the store. I don't keep Prell around at home.) Then wash it out, watch the dye go down the drain, and apply hot oil.

I may have just ruined three towels with hair dye stains. And nearly burned my scalp.

But my hair still looks black.

Can I say it? Lather, rinse, repeat as needed. Tomorrow morning.

Now, the husband: He is clearly sick. Two nights ago, he came home, slumped over dinner, went to bed without saying a word and fell asleep. Leaving me to entertain and take care of Fly for the rest of the night. JP finally woke up ... just as I was putting Fly to bed.

Today, he went to the doctor, who told him he doesn't have a cold -- he has a respiratory infection. I asked him what the difference was. He said he didn't know. Back to Google again, and voila! Apparently a cold is a respiratory infection. But I think the "respiratory infection" proclamation just gives him a good reason to shuffle around the house and go to bed early. I know you're not supposed to hold grudges, but I clearly remember having mastitis once with little sympathy from JP, and another time I had a bad cold (couldn't take anything because I was nursing) and JP left me with Fly all day to go to a car show.

I've heard it said before, but it's true: When it comes to being sick, men are just big babies.

And now that I pointed out to him his left eye has been red for hours and it's oozing goo, having a possible case of pinkeye will just give him an additional reason to get out of doing things. Anything. All he needs now is to stub his toe really good, because then he clearly couldn't be expected to walk.

I'm not really trying to come down hard on JP (you know how much I appreciate my husband).

But this is all plenty to make a mama grumpy. Between a sick husband, my hair crisis, preparation for Thanksgiving and then a weeklong vacation, and being so behind in my to-do list that a birthday gift I started making for Fly (who turned two in September) will now be a Christmas gift if I'm lucky -- and assorted unraveled nerves as of late -- I need to take a blogging break. I need time away from the computer to slow down and yet catch up on real life. To make my hair brown again. I hope to pop in now and then, but I won't be around much until some time in December. I'd love to blog through my vacation, but I've heard Internet access rates there are crazy.

So, I will miss you and you and you, and I hope you have a great Thanksgiving. Don't mind my olive-oil-infused tears ... maybe they will make the wrinkles around my eyes go away.

Lord have mercy

It's 10 pm and the end of a very long day.

It was one escapade after another with Fly. The worst was him getting drenched in cough syrup and then playing in the cat litter box so that little excrement-infested pebbles were stuck to his body. Not the least was me getting head-butted and bitten. The diaper came off twice, and the potty wasn't good enough for him -- he had to poop on my pants (which I'm still wearing, actually). I spent an hour cooking dinner, and all he ate was a handful of corn. And? He's still awake in his crib.

I remember reading another blogger putting it this way once: Age Two is totally kicking my butt.

I think I might cry myself to sleep....

Apolitical

For better or for worse, I have been blessed (or cursed) with the ability to see all sides of an issue. That doesn't necessarily mean I agree with all sides -- but I do agree most of the time that each side has a valid point. (A professor indicated this would help make me a good journalist.)

This can make it hard for me to make a decision or take sides.

When it comes to elections, this is especially difficult because voting is a hard-earned right and is so important. There is a lot riding on each person's individual vote.

The thing is, with the upcoming presidential election, I don't feel either of the two major candidates deserves my vote. There are things I really don't like about both. I have reservations about either of them leading my country.

For most of my voting lifetime, I have felt I was choosing between the lesser of the two evils when it came to voting for a president. I wonder why I can't have additional choices. Other countries have more than two main political parties. I know the United States has parties other than Democrat and Republican, but those parties are in the minority and seldom discussed, other than perhaps the Libertarians.

Discussing some issues that I actually take a side with, you might think I am a Republican. But on other issues, you'd swear I was a Democrat. There is no in-between. I'm not conservative enough for Republicans, and I'm not liberal enough for Democrats, so neither really cares what I think, anyway.

And that's what literally turns my stomach: the bipartisanship. The Democrats are going to negate anything the Republicans say. The Republicans are going to wave away whatever Democrats say -- and it's just a big power struggle to see whose team can win. It's as though America has divided itself in two and is just looking for an opportunity to prove the other side wrong.

How does this division really help us as a nation? Certainly, a healthy debate has its benefits. But the "I'm sticking with whatever my party says" attitude prevails anyway -- a Democrat isn't going to change a Republican's mind or get that person to see things in a different light, and vice versa.

This ridiculous two-party push and pull completely turns me off politics, and I refrain from talking about politics with people unless I can make a lighthearted joke about something that is being said.

My problem now, though, is I have a child. I am a woman who needs to vote for the sake of her child's future. But in all good conscientiousness, I am not sure I can.

I can't possibly be the only mother who has these beliefs. I'm not asking for a show of hands -- I just wonder when the country will wake up and realize there are more than two flavors.

Race and rumors in Disturbia

It's been a disturbing week in Neverland. There are some people close to me who are facing tough issues. One bright ray has been Fly, who although he isn't sleeping well lately, turned 19 months on Monday.

The main disturbit, though, was that a person who worked in the nursery at the church we go to was found carrying a gun. While working in the nursery. And apparently, a child saw it.

The nursery worker wasn't fired because the church didn't have a policy against weapons; the church didn't think it needed such a policy. (The church has a policy against weapons now, because of this situation.)

The church also decided it didn't need to share this information with the parents, and that's where the Fly family household became even more disturbed.

Word leaked out about the gun, and a handful of parents found out. They told other parents, of course, and the story got embellished.

The gun discovery happened six weeks ago, and yesterday was the first time someone from the church sat down and talked with parents about it. The discussion was polite, but we moms didn't pull any punches. Mostly what bothers us about this issue is that the church didn't tell the parents, and that the nursery worker wasn't fired.

During the discussion, I suggested that if the church had let parents know right after the nursery worker was found with the gun, there wouldn't have been so many rumors going around. But instead, the church kept it quiet while the few parents in the know (not me) spent weeks getting upset and wondering what really happened and spreading stories around the church. Some families even left the church. This all could have been avoided if the church would have been up front with everyone. Now the church is doing some damage control.

The nursery worker decided to resign over the gun issue (and over another unrelated situation). Many parents feel the threat is gone because the person isn't working in the nursery anymore, but some of us are still wondering why the church didn't act more quickly and why it tried to keep things quiet (leading to rumors).

But there is a twist in this story.

To some people in the church, it was a unique situation because the nursery worker is a man. And he is black. In a nursery full of white grandma-type workers.

The minister who spoke with parents yesterday said an organization advised the church not to fire the nursery worker because he is black -- that he might take it the wrong way and sue the church. This of course caused some parents to claim the church was more interested in not getting sued than it was in protecting the children.

Now, the church I go to, I'll say it's mostly white. But there are a good number of black people, including many from the Caribbean (some for whom English isn't their first language), lots of Hispanics and a few Asians. There are also more mixed-race couples in this church than any other place I've been to (the ex-nursery worker is married to a white woman, and they have a son about Fly's age), so I didn't think race was an issue in this church. But apparently, it is.


Fly is colorblind

All of this makes me so unhappy on so many levels.

Fly wasn't there when the gun was discovered, but at the meeting with the minister yesterday, I pointed out that even if the ex-nursery worker had a concealed-weapons permit (which he does), the permit doesn't allow him to take it into a school. I don't know if a church nursery would be considered a school, but the church also has a preschool in session during the week, and the man could have been carrying his gun with him when the nursery was open at the same time school was in session -- a misdemeanor, perhaps. I pointed out that he might have brought his gun every time he came to work in the nursery. The minister then dismissed my comment by saying, "Well, now you're just shooting arrows in the dark," which hurt me because I don't think that's true (the man could very well have carried his gun more than that one time, including when he was watching Fly) and because it seemed as though the minister was trying to discount what I was saying: do you want someone who has such poor judgment in bringing a gun to a nursery looking after babies and toddlers? To me, that is the bottom line. Not that the church didn't have a policy against weapons. And certainly not that the ex-nursery worker is black. It's just, who is looking after our children?

I understand the church was thinking about its liabilities. And the minister pointed out the church wanted to show this man compassion, that he had finally found a church home where he was loved and accepted, and that the church didn't want to leave him with a bad taste in his mouth about church, so to speak. I think that compassion is admirable. It concerns me, though, because the appearance is that the children and parents were lowest on the priority list.

If you can't feel your child is safe in a church nursery, though, you can't feel he is safe anywhere. That is just a truth to wake up to.

Attitude problem

It was almost 12 years after JP and I were married before Fly was born.

Twelve years.

Most people don't wait that long.

Many people assumed we couldn't have children or had been trying, and some people even pointedly asked me what fertility method we used to "get pregnant" when I was expecting Fly.

But, nope.

It was just a combination of us having a good time enjoying being a couple -- and trying to get careers in place.

JP and I had counted on one of us (ahem, moi) staying home with any child(ren) we would have. His mother stayed home when he was a kid, and mine mostly stayed home (or my grandmother took care of me), and that was what we knew. I had hoped to work toward a point in my career that would allow me to work part-time from home, or to be able to set my own hours -- that kind of thing. JP had worked toward building a business that would, we hoped, cover our expenses, including a child's. That took time.

Now that we have Fly and I am able to stay home with him as we had hoped and dreamed, I feel blessed. And yet, sometimes I feel staying home with Fly is a burden. I don't know how I can feel both ways at the same time....

Today, JP has taken the day off work to go to a car race. He's taking off tomorrow, too, and there are events on Saturday and Sunday. Cars are a big obsession with JP.

But it still pisses me off that he can do these things -- which are just a hobby -- while I couldn't attend a writing conference last year that was important for my book -- my career.

This past weekend, I wanted to go camping, which has been our tradition every Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. I need time outdoors, or I go nuts.

But we didn't go, basically, because JP didn't want to.

And so here I am, living the dream ... but sometimes quite grumpily.

Don't fear the fetishists! Oh, the outrage!

eBay is really working hard at being ridiculous and at making me mad!

I tried to sell some of Fly's very well-cared-for cloth diapers, and eBay removed my listings, saying:

"Due to hygiene concerns, eBay does not permit the sale of used underwear. This includes, but is not limited to:

- Boxer shorts
- Panties
- Briefs
- Athletic supporters
- Cloth diapers"

Huh?

Does eBay really think a mom is going to come crying to them when she finds out she has just purchased a cloth diaper that another child has used -- Gasp! -- when the auction clearly says it's a used diaper? Any mom who is looking to save money by buying used cloth diapers knows exactly what she's doing -- it's a great way to save money. How is buying and using a used cloth diaper any different from dressing your kid in used swim trunks, is what I'd like to know. (And why are used panties verboten, but used bras are A-OK?) (EWWW!)

Besides all that, commercial diaper services take your dirty diapers, wash them, and bring back clean, used diapers that were likely on another child's butt. So the idea of using pre-owned cloth diapers -- especially the really nice, expensive ones, like all-in-ones or pocket diapers -- isn't new.

Hygiene concerns. As if.

I went poking around online and found a huge outrage against eBay's anti-used-cloth-diaper policy. There's even an online petition to get eBay to change its policy.

But this mom may have figured out eBay's real reason for not allowing used cloth diapers -- it's pretty creepy, but it's to cut down on fetishists. (Um. I don't even want to know what a grown person would do with a little diaper that barely covers your hand.) Still, she says, "why punish a community that aids in reducing, reusing, and recycling?" Amen, sister!

Fortunately, in my indignant searching, I found a couple places online where you can buy/sell/trade cloth diapers (including used ones! eBay!), at MyUsedDiapers.com and DiaperSwappers.com.

The funniest thing is I was still able to sell some of Fly's diapers that eBay didn't catch.

Take that, eBay!




{We now return to our regularly mild-mannered blog topics....}

Magazines should come with warning labels

I subscribe to this



and this



(The fact this cover shows a shirtless man is just coincidence.)

Magazines are like their own little subculture. Have you noticed? Martha Stewart Living? Real Simple? People?

JP and I look forward to our Adventure and Outside. However....

When we were discussing for the 457th time where we've dreamed about going where we should go where we could go where Fly would allow us to go, months and months of adventure-travel destinations piled up in our heads came spilling out -- and right into the trash.

There will be no rock climbing in the Ozarks. (Try that with a sling.)

There will be no sea kayaking in Puget Sound. (Too long of a flight from where we live.)

No exploring amazing places on our wish list. (Ditto.)

No exploring new puffin territory in Maine. (You can't sneak up on a bird with a toddler who squeals.)

And we can forget about rafting through the Grand Canyon. (Not suitable for toddlers.)

We tell ourselves someday, someday....

Dern those magazines!

Something worse

It's universal that at one point, many women in their 20s or 30s fear (or at least worry) they'll turn into their mother.

{Cue scary screechy violin music}

That hit me at 16.

But now that I'm getting older and have lived with a year and a half of sleep deprivation, I have found something worse to fear: turning into my father!

There goes a potential Nobel Peace Prize winner

I've been feeling kind of funny for a couple of days. Been extra hungry and yet lethargic. And sporting three red whoppers on my chin that popped up out of nowhere.

I rummaged through the under-the-bathroom sink area. I seem to remember I had a spare one of these:

And decided I should use it.

I started imagining the possibilities. Fly and a little sibling. They'd be about 19 or 20 months apart. With JP's eyes this time. Fly would be a fiercely protective older brother. I imagined another little baby for me to cuddle and to nurse, to take pictures of and to pick the perfect name for. There'd be a new little person for me to learn. A baby would make us a family of four (my favorite number). This baby would be so blessed to join us, and we'd be blessed by him or her.

I'm not getting any younger, so if there is going to be another baby, I don't want to wait a long time. I had to know as soon as I could.

But then the answer came....

It's not a baby....

It's my first @#%$^&*! cycle in almost two years!