Ramblings of a pseudo intellectual

We had one of those All-American sort of Sundays.  We slept in a bit, Frank napped on the couch, I vacuumed and washed the floors.  (And color me surprised that Murphy’s Oil Soap has gotten the tile floor in my kitchen more clean than any other cleaner I’ve used on it since we’ve lived here.)  Then we went to a local park and had a BBQ/picnic for dinner, I walked a nature trail with the kids while Frank did some studying, we all played on the playground for a bit, then when we got home I decided to make Rice Krispies treat with Lane to top it all off.

It was all going great until an errant Rice Krispie fell onto the stovetop and Lane tried to pick it up… burning two of her fingers in the process.  :(  I realized what she was doing and grabbed and pulled her hand away before it could have been much worse, thankfully.  But I’m still disappointed that I let it happen at all.  :(  I was right there!  Oh well.  It could have been much worse, and it wasn’t.

They’re not bad.  Her index finger has a blister just a bit bigger than the size of a pencil eraser, and her middle finger has one a bit smaller than a pencil eraser.  Oh man, did she cry.  She’s not exactly a child of reasonably-scaled reactions to things (to call her intense is unjust to the word “intense”) so this smallish boo-boo sent her off the deep end.  The wailing went on for at least 20 minutes, followed by sniffling and recurring bouts of tears for 20 minutes after that.  It wasn’t for at least an hour that I managed to get a smile out of her.  We did all the requisite first aid for a second degree burn — cold running water for as long as I could get her to keep her fingers in the bathroom sink, then sitting on the couch watching a baseball game with her fingers in a cup of cold water after that.  (See, baseball!  Even an All-American distraction for my little girl!)

So now she’s in bed, fingers intact.  My heart has mostly recovered.  And hopefully our upstairs neighbor hasn’t called Child & Family Services on us.

We’re on about day ten of stickiness.  Even though it hasn’t been super hot, the humidity just will not go away, and the forecast doesn’t bode well for me not sweating all over myself.  Oh well, life could be worse.

We went to see Wall-E today.  Two big thumbs up from me, and the rest of the family really liked it too.  I loved the storyline — it was really thought-provoking in terms of conservation & consumerism, and delivered a sobering message without being preachy.  It definitely reframed some of my thoughts around what I might “need”.  I’d been ruminating on that as it is, as Lane has started noticing advertising and marketing gimmicks and I’m trying to show her them for what they are.  Does she want that tube of toothpaste because she thinks it will make her teeth really clean, or because it will taste good, or is it just because it has Diego on it?  Yes, the Aqua Globes on the infomercial are cool, and yes we do have plants, but our watering can works just fine, we don’t need hand-blown glass globes to automatically deliver the perfect amount of water for up to two weeks!

In trying to help Lane see through this mental clutter, I’ve started to realize how much of it I have, and how I sometimes fail to see around the obstacles that the media has planted in my mental path.  I’ve spent a long time really digging Burberry plaid.  Why?  I do find the pattern visually appealing… but do I like it more because of the illusion of status it might convey?  Probably.  I drive a Honda Odyssey right now.  We bought it with the intention that we would take care of it and it would be driven until it simply could not be driven any more.  It boggles the mind how many times people have called that into question — do I really want to drive a car into the ground?  What if it lasts another ten years?  Do I want to be driving a 15-year-old vehicle?  Part of me does cringe at that… ugh.  But why do I cringe?  Is there anything fundamentally flawed about loyalty to a vehicle that continues to serve its purpose, that being to get me and my family and my stuff (some of which I probably don’t need anyway) from Point A to Point B and back again?  Why should any part of my brain worry about the impression someone might get because I don’t have the latest model?

We are in the process of buying a house.  This whole foray brings up a related set of values and perceptions.  Frank and I were contemplating buying a 3 bedroom ranch, and my in-laws (people who are not generally the keep-up-with-the-Joneses type) were convinced it simply could not be big enough for our family.   First of all, it was more than big enough for us.  Maybe not for all our ’stuff’ too — but that could be rectified via a garage sale, Craigslist and Freecycle.  Regardless, my brother and I grew up in a 3 bedroom ranch that wasn’t any bigger than the house Frank and I were considering, and my childhood house was probably smaller.  Before we bought the 3 bedroom ranch, my family and I were in a 3 bedroom cape cod, which was DEFINITELY smaller than the ranch we bought when I was 13… and while it may have lacked for space (especially in the closet department) we survived.  The house we are now under contract on is definitely bigger, a 4 bedroom raised ranch with a living room and family room and roomy master suite with two closets, and a dining room and huge deck and big backyard.  We decided to buy it not because it was “more house” but mainly because it was very close to my in-laws’ house.  That it is bigger and more updated is simply a bonus (until I start thinking about the bigger mortgage that comes with it.)  Yet a part of me still feels a big oodgy when I mentally compare it to other people’s houses.  How does it compare, and how will others compare their house to mine?

This rat race, it is a hard habit to break.  And it seems so fundamentally pervasive in our culture.  It must tie somehow to some mental process, some functioning of the human psyche that served us well for survival when we all were hunting and gathering and trying to avoid saber-toothed tigers lest we become an entree.  Perhaps it helped to ensure our survival, if we always strove to collect more berries than the people in the next cave.  But it’s time to draw the proverbial line in the sand.  I’ve collected enough berries.

I spent most of the day researching mortgage rates, filling out forms online, talking to various ‘mortgage specialists’ and getting most of an application done with the company I think we’ll end up getting our loan with.  Within there I also completed and mailed out Mother’s Day cards for my grandmas (I hope they get there on time!) and went to Costco, primarily for milk.  Imagine my dismay when they were out of organic milk.  Well, they weren’t out.  But they have apparently arranged their refrigerated stock such that when they’ve run out of organic milk by 2:30 in the afternoon, they have no way to replenish the stock until the store closes.  Nice.  Oh, Lane and I also planted some flower seeds in the ‘garden’ here, just to see if we can get them to grow into the lush little flowers promised on the outside of the seed packet.  I am skeptical.

I have shifted into parenting survival mode.  This mortgage application stuff is not my cuppa tea.

Luckily I had the forethought to buy a couple slices of pizza at Costco before we left.  Lane and I shared one for lunch when we got home (yeah, lunch at 3:30… but we had a late breakfast and a snack around 1:00).  Then I just shared the second one, cold, with the kids.  And not even cut up nicely… I ripped off a piece for Jake and he walked around noshing on it, and Lane got the remains of the piece after I was done eating off of it.  I’m such an awesome mom some days.

Hopefully after a little while of not thinking about rates and points and origination fees and title searches and bank statements I can regain my brain.  Fingers crossed!

We go to Target a lot. Today our main purpose was to buy ’safe’ sandals for Lane - ones where her toes are covered, to keep her feet a little safer for things like playgrounds and playdates. We left without sandals (they had a suitable style but not in Lane’s size) but we did leave with pop and a box thing for our TV remotes and a nunchuk for our Wii and some clearance baby food and other assorted things.

We’ve sort of fallen into a tradition of sorts at this Target. I’m not sure how it happened. We park really far away from the door, ostensibly so I can get a few more steps into my day. Then, on the way back to the car, Lane sits in the main compartment of the shopping cart, and as safety allows, I run. I go fast, and take turns nearly sharp enough that it feels to Lane like we might tip over (of course, it’s not really THAT fast and THAT sharp… she gets thrills when we go downhill in the car, after all). If I can get a good straightaway, I run really hard, then step up on the back of the cart and ride myself for a few yards. And it’s fun! Lane loves it, I get a kick out of it, and Jake’s even starting to enjoy it.

It’s really amazing how having kids around gives you a pass to act all goofy like that. I find I take advantage of it more and more. When you have a kid around you can do things like:

• Run for the sheer joy of it — not to burn calories or train for a race or get in shape — rather, simply, for the feel of the wind on your face and the thrill of hearing your heart beat in your ears
• Twirl around for absolutely no reason, other than because it feels funny to get dizzy
• Blow bubbles
• Touch a worm - or even better, pick a worm off the driveway after a rain and put him back on the grass, and talk to him while you do it
• Dance like a complete insane person
• Sing songs in the middle of anywhere like “I caught a little baby bumblebee…”
• Watch ants walk around and work

It’s sort of weird how you get to your teenage years, and we all go through this period of conformity (well, I guess some people don’t). You work extra hard to appear in charge, in control. It’s good training for adulthood, I suppose, a territory where you’re not supposed to ever appear TOO happy or TOO joyful or TOO elated. Kids give you such a great excuse to break those barriers, to abandon that conformist adult behavior, even if only for the length of time it takes you to get to your car at Target.

Well, Lane and Frank have left for the in-laws’.   They will sleep there tonight, get up in the middle of the night, and attempt to get to the airport by 4:00 a.m. for a six-o’clock-ish flight to Aruba.

I got in about a dozen big hugs, and I only welled up a couple times, and cried for about five seconds after I closed the door behind them.  The crying was a surprise, I’m not a big crier.

Lane knows that flying to Aruba requires two different plane flights and that it will be really hot and sunny down there and that she has to listen to grandma and grandpa and stay really close to them all the time and to wear a hat when grandma tells her to.  She also knows she won’t see me for three going-to-beds (goings-to-bed?) and seems totally at ease about it.  She was cheery and chipper but couldn’t say good-bye enough as she was walking away from the door and getting strapped into her car seat, and threw in an “I love you, Mommy!” or two for good measure.

Then Jake and I waved good-bye from the window as they drove off.  Jake’s really big into saying “By-eee” lately so he totally enjoyed it.

She’s such a handful and I admit, I am excited to have a little time with just my little buddy for the next couple days.  But I already miss her.

I have to say, my body and nature get along well.

As in, my body tends to just be generally healthy and predictable and well.  I have regular periods, when I have them.  When I try to get pregnant, I get pregnant.   I try to breastfeed my kids, and they breastfeed.  And breastfeed and breastfeed.

And so it goes with my postpartum period as well, it seems.  Right now, as nature surely intends, such that I can continue focusing my parenting energy on my youngest nursling, I have not yet experienced the return of my period.

Chalk that up as another benefit of breastfeeding — the cheapest birth control imaginable.

However, what comes with that is a libido to match.  That being, none.   Chalk that up as one of the breastfeeding minuses.

Granted, neither of these are automatics with breastfeeding.  Some women see their periods return after a few months no matter how much they are breastfeeding, and I’m sure some also are veritable hornballs through their time lactating.  However… not me.

After Lane was born, I had an IUD inserted six weeks postpartum.  Seems now that that was a rather redundant action.  At least it bought me peace of mind.  This time, I skipped such formalities with the inclination that they wouldn’t really be necessary.

This is not a bad thing.  Even if we wanted to conceive again, I don’t see how we’d manage.  Sure, we could slip in the occasional lovemaking, but really, I’m just looking at our current reality and laughing at the idea.  Right now, Lane and Jake are running circles around the ottoman in our living room.  Jake is giggling, and Lane is singing “Please Bring Honor To Us All” from Mulan, only it seems she doesn’t know any of the actual lyrics and is thus substituting gibberish.  Frank is looking feverishly for the remote that I managed to misplace during the day.  I know I used it… but I don’t know where it went after that.  Unfortunately our two crazy, mobile, mischievous children present the possibility that neither of us adults could know where it ended up.  If I were due to ovulate and this was the prime time for conception, I just don’t see how we’d make that window without giving the kids sedatives.

But that is totally OK, because I really have no inclination in the world to add another body to the mayhem at present.  I have friends getting pregnant (a big shout-out and congrats to Amanda and Dave, Amanda of BFF notoriety, who will be greeting a baby around Labor Day… so apropos.  Oh and if you ever get the chance, ask Amanda how to pronounce “apropos”.) and having babies (congrats Kim!) and trying to have babies and I honestly and absolutely have no desire whatsoever to join their ranks again right now.

Anyway, I should go help Frank find the remote.  I think he’s getting D.T.s from missing the hockey game I know he wants to watch.

(Preface: right now in our temp apartment, we are all sharing a bedroom. Lane’s bed, our bed, and Jake’s crib are all resident in one bedroom.  It’s not ideal, but it’s working well enough, and it’s slightly pertinent to this post to I wanted to make sure you knew.)

I’m sick.  Not like at-death’s-door sick, but death-sent-me-an-email sick.  A bit of nausea (and a lot of revisiting the slice of pizza I had for lunch) and chilly like crazy.  Our thermostat is at 69 and I’m still sitting here in fuzzy pants and slippers and the coziest biggest thickest sweater I own, plus I have a down blanket wrapped around me.  Digestively, something is… happening.  I’m not sure what but my imagination is running rampant and I will spare you the details of that.

I always do Jake’s bedtime.  Always.  The boy is a boob fanatic, and has always nursed to sleep.  Lately though, there’s been a willingness on his part to lay in his crib after nursing and not (constantly) scream his head off.  We have a very flat pillow in there, and I’ve found that rubbing the pillow seems to settle him and convince him it’s a great thing to put his head on.  And, in the absence of most other noise he’ll drift off to sleep.

So, ‘upgrading’ my illness to death-called-and-we-chatted-awhile, I laid a bit of a guilt trip on Frank and he mostly took care of parenting this evening.  He gave Lane a bath after she had a poop accident (because watching Sleeping Beauty with a small interruption is worse than poop in your pants?  I don’t get that) and then I nursed Jake while Lane got her bedtime stories, put him in his crib, and promptly told Frank to take over.

And lo and behold, sleep was achieved… by all of them.  Frank included.