Snapshots: Not-August 2010

I thought I had all this written down already, but either Blogger ate it or I am starting to dream about blogging. Either way it means that I'm re-writing it from memory, so 80% of this post is only 75% true. Guess what I re-read lately?

I am a note-writer and list-maker. Our house often looks like some Notepad Fairy came through and sprinkled every flat surface with oddly-sized and brightly-colored mini books of paper. I love to write things down...and then forget about them. This leads to finding weird notes I've written to myself, one or two tiny pages of an itty-bitty spiral-bound dollar-store notebook filled up with my huge scrawl. I always tell myself to just get basic ideas down, because I'm sure I'll remember the details later. When, weeks or months later, these forgotten works of genius re-emerge, I stare at "beans pumpkin onion ball glitter SAVE!" or "Forget try NPR birTHdy" and have no idea what it means.  The most baffling one I've found lately was in the kitchen, on a page torn from a mini-notebook with Sailor Moon on the cover. It said "wicked witch thought promo snatched away by fresh-faced no idea how works." I am completely clueless as to what I was talking about, but my writing is so frantic it must've seemed really important at the time. I spent 10 minutes yesterday staring at the note as I slurped down my morning coffee and wondered if I could turn it into a haiku.

Always with the questions these days. At bedtime yesterday: "Daddy? Do you think food makes my nose grow?" At lunch: "Mommy, do you think some strawberries could be purple?" Playing outside: "Do you think bugs could eat some dirt?" Any time of day: "Mommy, do you think we have three cats here in this house? Just three and not four?" "Mommy, do you think pumpkins are good to smell?" "Do you think the kitty's belly smells like food? Or does it smell like candy? Do you think cats like gum? Do you think Mei-Mei has gum in her belly?"

I am finally getting around to reading those Stieg Larsson books. If they're as good as everyone says, I expect to spend a lot of nights staying up way too late reading them. I do not understand why they feel the need to re-make the movies, though. I think I'll be skipping those.  I am still working on Consuming Kids, although since I find it too upsetting to read right before bed and that's when I get 99% of my reading done, it's been slow going. Very much enjoying the author's blog, though.

There has been a paper explosion at our house. I was doing a pretty good job of keeping the in/out flow of paper, junk mail, bills, and stuff at a steady pace, not allowing things to accumulate on flat surfaces and in piles around my desk. In the last month, either the rate of intake sped up or I slowed down. There are now piles and piles of paper on every flat surface in the house. I believe part of the blame rests with my mother-in-law, who not only brings a stack of not-that-useful papers, articles, magazines, and books every time she visits, but also sends thick packets of junk every month as well. Expired coupons, magazines totally unrelated to our lives, color-copied magazine articles, puffy foam glitter-shedding stickers, detailed instructions for craft projects we will never get around to doing. She sends it all and more, and we have to at least keep it and look through it all, because she will phone up and ask about each item. I am trying to repay her in kind by sending folder-fulls of Piper's artwork to her house, so that her floor can be covered in crusty flakes of dried tempera paint, stickers that never come off, and crayon-shavings the same way mine is. I take special pleasure in giving her the papers covered in glitter.

I keep subscribing and then un-subscribing to the Wardrobe Refashion RSS feed. Some days I'm all inspired and some days I'm like "aaahhhh too many posts oh the crazy embellishment helllp!"

Piper started preschool last week (which is why it's been so quiet on this blog), and so far she loves it.  This is a 100% improvement over the school we had her in last year, where she cried and begged us not to take her every morning. We are getting to know the other parents. It's awfully cliquey, since most people there have already had kids in for 1-2 years, and the 2-year-old class, where all the other newbies are, doesn't meet on the same days as Piper's class. It's a non-profit, so they rely heavily on parent volunteers. I decided to jump in and immediately signed up for 4 or 5 things. I'm hoping I haven't bitten off more than I can chew.

Life Lessons, Brought To You By Tragically Ordinary

I am miserably sick today with some sort of sinus thing, and since I haven't quite completed my latest knitting project (and therefore can't share it yet), all I have for you is a list of things I've learned. These are things I've been thinking about a lot lately, because we've had some discussions about our future plans for this little family (actually, at this stage, it's more like 'plans to have a plan to make plans') and for ourselves. Friday is my birthday, which I always dread, but I'm trying hard not to get too hung up on it this year. I'm trying to view all the hard knocks and missteps and bumbling that have occurred in my life so far as learning experiences, instead of a list of reasons why I shouldn't be allowed near people and should never be given power tools or a checkbook.

 What I've Learned So Far:

1. Wear an apron while cooking bacon. Do not cook anything while drunk or naked. Definitely do not cook anything while drunk and naked.

2. If you buy your significant other something awesome for their birthday, and the same year they buy you some unwanted, bewilderingly useless kitchen appliance for your birthday, it's time for a new relationship. This is particularly true of college relationships, and quadruply true if the other party doesn't understand why you're upset. If they can't comprehend that you make $7.50 an hour yet managed to buy them an amazing and perfectly-chosen $125 gift, and that their reciprocal $35 newspaper-wrapped breadmaker might be upsetting, especially given that you don't bake, they're probably not The One. If you've been together for two years and get a shrug and a "I didn't know what else to get you," they are definitely not The One.

3. You will  never be able to convince anyone else that their significant other is not The One. It's really something they need to realize on their own.

4. If your baby makes a gigantic mess every time she eats blueberry applesauce, either deal with it or stop giving her blueberry applesauce. Don't try and feed it to her while she's in the bathtub. It's going to make a bigger mess than you ever imagined.

5. If you're moving to another state, some place you know nothing about, RENT for a year.

6. Investigate strange smells promptly. This applies to any and all strange smells in any and all locations. 

7. All mothers are crazy. All mothers drive their daughters crazy. Most mothers-in-law are crazy, too. Everyone's definition of "crazy" is different, so it's all (HA!) relative.

8. Air conditioning, a working dishwasher, and a sense of humor are key components of a happy marriage.

9.Before you buy that extra t-shirt or stack of discount books or whatever trinket you're eying, consider how you feel about moving it back and forth across the country a few times. Doesn't sound like fun, does it?

10. Don't confuse "adventure" with "stupidity." Don't confuse "caution" or "responsibility" with "fear."

So what about you? What have you learned so far?

3!

Out for birthday pancakes this morning. 

Today's the day! My baby is three. THREE!

And just to make me weepy, here's a look at zero:

One:

And two:

We are crazy busy getting ready for my in-laws' visit. They are coming tomorrow and staying for five days. They are lovely people, but not always the easiest houseguests to host and entertain. I will be back as soon as I can with a show-and-tell of all the birthday crafts. Almost all of Piper's presents from us were handmade this year and whew! that was nuts. I can tell you that I DID make a quilt, which was like some sort of crafting Iditarod-style endurance test. She was thrilled with all her gifts and so far today has had a blast. Right now, I'm off to make a strawberry cake with lemon-cream cheese frosting!

NOT on Vacation.

Mmm, yes, about my recent slowdown in posting...my in-laws were here.

It was not a horrible visit, but sort of stressful, as always. My MIL is just so intense about things, particularly pertaining to Piper, it's sort of exhausting to be the referee between her and my daughter. MIL did much better this time at just hanging out and playing with her, and since Piper is old enough to say flat-out "Hey, let's go play puzzles" or "No, Granny, I don't want to paint right now," it goes much better than it has in the past. Usually MIL would show up with an agenda of stuff to do, and when Piper did not want to read this book at this time and then sit quietly on the couch listening to Granny's stories and then go fingerpaint before having a snack...well, MIL would be upset, and mad, and in a roundabout way, accuse us of influencing Piper to not like her. This time they pretty much hung around the house (and especially the playroom), with Piper choosing activities. MIL was sort of crazy about some things, like picking up every toy as soon as it hit the floor (look, I did just get the whole house neatened up and organized, but insisting on 100% organization/clean 100% of the time is just going to wear you out) or totally freaking out when Piper drank some of her bathwater.

Of course, the entire week before they came, I was involved in a grueling endurance test of cleaning and organization. We still hadn't recovered from the room-swap Ryan did while I was gone in November; nothing had quite gotten to its final resting place, resulting in a lot of chaos. So I put it all to rights. My husband, despite his assurances that he would "take care of it" and "pull his weight," either took extra shifts at work, played video games, or stood around waiting for me to hand him a list of things to do. But I persevered, and now there is only a single closet left un-organized. One closet in my entire house in need of attention. That's all that's left.

I also left him in charge of planning meals and activities this time, since I was tired of doing it. Every time they come, he takes a "Stop stressing out, it's fine!" attitude before they get here, and I'm the one frantic with cleaning and shopping and cooking and planning. Over and over he told me not to worry, he'd take care of it, I didn't have to do anything. So I didn't. His planning went something like this:

"What are you doing?"
"I'm making a list of stuff to do, days they'll be here and what restaurant to go to and things we can do that day."
"Ummm...you know Zack's isn't open on the weekends, right?"
"Oh, really? Huh." He scratched something out.
"Sunday is still the weekend."
"Oh. Right" Another cross-out.
"And they close at 6:30, so we can't go the day they get here, either."
"Oh." Scratch scratch scratch.

That is as far as his list ever got. Consequently, I found myself defrosting chicken in the microwave, reminding him that it was 12:30 and he should probably make a plan for lunch soon, suggesting restaurants when we were out, and, because his mom found a recipe in one of my books she wanted to have, buying $60 worth of groceries on Monday evening. My husband just basically asked me "So, what's for dinner?" and suggested frozen pizza every single time I told him that dinner was his problem. I then had to explain why he would serve frozen pizza to houseguests over my dead body.

He also failed to plan for the entertainment, and boy howdy do they like to be entertained. When not playing with Piper, they were constantly looking through our DVD collection, with FIL pooh-pooing pretty much everything because he refuses to watch any movie more than once. Not kidding. Then of course they insisted they couldn't learn to work our DVD player, even though all you do is press "open" and put the disc in, so someone had to be there to switch movies for them because they could not allow even twenty minutes of everyone hanging out and quietly doing their own thing.

I had suggested a couple activities to Ryan before they came, which he ignored or forgot about or which got pushed aside because they don't like to walk very much and, on Tuesday at least, FIL's main priority seemed to be getting someone to take him to the BMW dealership 35 minutes away so he could buy a t-shirt.

It wasn't even like we had lots of free babysitting time, because we don't let them babysit. They are not comfortable enough around Piper, neither one of them can get around as well as she can, and they drink too much for me to feel good about leaving them alone with her. We relented and went to hang out with some friends for a few hours on the last day of their visit, but we had to hurry home to finish the afore-mentioned recipe that MIL insisted on having. I tried to get her to pick something that didn't take six-plus hours to make, but she was quite insistent. She was also quite insistent that we have Merlot with the dinner, because Heaven forbid they eat a meal without alcohol.

A tiny, not very nice part of me is grudging about paying for dinner when we go out with them, because they cannot eat without a minimum of two beers apiece, and while they drink crap (Natural Light, Bud Light, Milwaukee's Best, and this horrible concoction) at home, in a restaurant they tend toward the $3-$6 a glass stuff, and their liquor tab often ends up costing as much as Ryan and I usually spend on an entire meal. Also, we ride in their car a lot, and although I know FIL's tolerance is pretty high, it makes me extremely uncomfortable to put my family in a car driven by a man in his 60's who has just had three glasses of microbrew.

They are nice enough, and polite enough, but they were here for five days and stayed with us the entire time, and it was just a bit much. MIL made me nuts either trying to pick up everything as soon as it hit the floor, or piling her stuff on my dining table (and in my fruit bowl). She kept circling the house picking things up and piling them on the table, the counters, wherever. She helpfully put away the stuff in the dishwasher one day, but a lot of it went in the wrong cupboards and the rest she left piled on the counter, so it was not that big a help.

Piper had fun playing with her grandparents, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a small relief to wave good-bye. Unlike when my parents, visit, however, it only took me a couple hours to put the house back to normal, which was nice. For some reason, when my parents visit, they completely destroy our house and it takes weeks to clean afterward. Something to look forward to, I guess, since my family is coming for a visit next month.

Mid-Visit Update.

You know that thing they say about guests and fish?

It's totally true.

In The Panic Room

My in-laws are coming to visit while Ryan is on Spring Break. They are coming for five days, and they are staying with us.

Yeeeeah.

I know I agreed to this, I know I said "oh, yeah, sure" somewhere during the round (or ten) of conversations that determined when they would be coming and how long they would stay and what season it would be and if it would be okay with us and is Piper excited her Granny is coming and I need to know exactly what to pack and how many hours exactly does the trip take and if we would be properly gratified that they graced us with their presence and where Jupiter would be in the sky at the time of their visit.

I know I said that it was okay if they took up residence in our guest bedroom for nigh on to a week. But really, what else could I say? Because I think "Um, actually, you people freak out my kid and make me so uncomfortable it is nearly physical and say inappropriate things and complain about everything and just generally drive me completely crazy, so if you could get a hotel, that would be great" would not play well.

But I was fine with it, until yesterday, when the following conversation took place:

Steph: Oh, look, a flyer for the volunteer fire department's fish fry. All you can eat flounder and shrimp. You've been hankering for fish and chips, I've been crazy for shrimp. We should go to this. It's on the 4th, next Saturday.
Ryan: Um, okay, I guess we could. But my parents will be here at some point.
Steph: No, your parents are coming weekend after next.
Ryan: No, they're coming the 4th. That's this upcoming weekend.
Steph: Yeah, but that's not Spring Break yet...they're coming while you're still in school?! I'm going to have to entertain them for FIVE DAYS while you're in school all day? What the hell?
Ryan: No, Steph, that's the start of my spring break.
Steph: No it's not. Your spring break starts the week after next week.
Ryan: No, it's the week after this week. This is my last week of class before spring break. It's the end of the month this week.
Steph: Yeah, but your spring break doesn't start until the sixthhh...OHGOD. Crap. OHGOD.
Ryan: You know, I thought you were being pretty nonchalant about their arrival-
Steph: (looking around at cluttered dining table, flour-covered kitchen counters, mountain of dirty dishes, guest room that can charitably be described as "a disaster") OH GOD. They're coming this weekend. Oh my God. What am I going to do? Oh God. OH GOD!
Ryan: -but there she is! There's my girl.
Steph: OHHH GOD oh God OH GOD oh GOD OH NO.

I am SO COLD.

It is supposed to be 18 degrees here overnight tonight, and while that is not cold for some places it's pretty cold for here, considering yesterday it was in the mid-50's and the day before the high was a warm, wet 68. I was outside in shirtsleeves this weekend, for crying out loud, and now I just want to put on 16 sweaters and crawl under my flannel sheets for about a week.

All this coldness has lit my knitting fire, however. I spent half of Piper's nap (which she actually took today, thank the Gods; I could not do another full day of Crabby Baby Whine Time) adding like 10 new knitting blogs to my Google Reader. I also spent some time browsing various online yarn shops and fantasizing about luscious skeins of handpainted yarn. And if I can keep slaughtering my to-do list, I might actually get to knit some time before Easter.

The Christmas cards are almost all out (email me if you want one, as long as you don't mind it being late), the checkbook is almost balanced, the presents are almost all wrapped. We still have to finish and ship my in-laws' gift (a series of photos in a frame), however. Since that was my husband's bright idea, I will let him take care of it. Okay, technically, the photos-in-frame was my idea first (and they are my photos, I took them this Spring), but I abandoned it due to impracticality (wrapping and shipping a huge picture frame did not sound like fun). He has clung to this as the perfect gift for them this year, despite my pleading to get them something that fits in a flat-rate shipping box, like maybe a book or a photo album. At what point am I absolved of responsibility for this? I know I started it, but I have tried very hard not to finish it. Does that mean I'm off the hook and he can take the heat for what is shaping up to be a VERY late present?

More Complaining

I just need to get it out, okay?

Here are a few more things about that in-law visit...I'm posting a lot today because a) Piper is taking a nap; b) It's 84 degrees in the house and our electric bill was so high last month it has made me afraid to ever turn the air on again, so it's too hot to fold a dryer-load of hot clothes right now; and c) I am procrastinating dealing with the massive piles of paperwork, bills, and assorted junk that fill my dining table and most of the kitchen counter. So here you go:

- I did apologize to Ryan because it's my fault he got bitched at about the visit. I was an interminable BRAT while they were here. Seriously. There were times when I wanted to smack myself, but the little voice inside that kept yelling "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?" at me was of no help. I was sick with a sinus issue that I was praying wouldn't turn into some raging sinus infection (since I still have no health insurance, natch) so I was not at my best to start with. Add in that Piper sleeps like total crap when my MIL has been anywhere near her (and that is saying A LOT, because she's a pretty crappy sleeper to start with), so I was teetering on the brink of pass-out-on-the-floor exhaustion for several days...and you have a near-perfect recipe for disaster. Which is what happened. I just didn't have the reserves to sit politely by smiling and nodding for three days while they trampled all over their son's feelings, freaked out my kid, and spouted bullshit. Ryan called me on it a few times, and I did try to be nicer, but I also told him that unless he wanted to watch the baby and entertain his parents at the same time so I could take a six-to-ten-hour nap, I didn't think there was much I could do.

- While that is not an excuse for rudeness by any means, it is a large part of why I was so grouchy. While I was sick and exhausted, I had to drag my ass around, listening to my mother-in-law's stream of chatter and responding like this:

"I'm sure that report you saw on Dateline was very informative, but I don't think it applies to Ryan's situation."

"Uh, I think we have enough dresses for now, we don't really need that neon green one with the pink gingham flounce, ruffle-butt bloomers, and matching hairbows."

"Yes, I'm aware that education can make all the difference in a child's life, but the child has to show up for that education and want to be there. They have to want to learn."

"Well, thank you very much! We can certainly find a use for another stack of education magazines, brochures on involved parenting, and Xeroxed articles about child development."

"I do agree that a job with more money doesn't mean total fulfillment, but there is a big difference between being dissatisfied on $25k per year and being dissatisfied on $150k per year."

"Thank you for the offer, but I think she's at least 6-12 months away from having enough hair for hairbows."

- It's not that they're bad. It's just that she tries so hard. She kept picking Piper up and hugging her and fussing with her clothes and patting her arms and squeezing her feet and rubbing her head and pulling up her dress to say "do you want your belly? You want that belly? Do you want your belly belly belly?" Piper did NOT want her belly, and kept tugging her dress back down, then running away. A couple of times in the car - she and I sat in the back with the baby in her car seat, Ryan and his dad sat in front - I wanted to smack her hands and scream "For the love of GOD, woman, stop touching my child!"

- I felt a little bad for MIL sometimes, because she's had hip surgery that didn't go well, and she can't do a lot of physical things. She had to take Piper to the couch whenever she wanted to read a book, for example, because MIL can't get down on the floor. Friday she wanted to take Piper for a walk and I said she was welcome to, but that I usually only get four houses down before I get tired of herding her out of other people's yards and chasing her back from the street. MIL said she probably shouldn't then, because she can't move fast enough to keep the baby from darting into the road. MIL asked for the stroller, and I would've let her attempt it (and wished her good luck while betting that they wouldn't get far before Piper started screaming to be let out), but it was in the back of our car, which Ryan had driven to a work meeting that morning. MIL couldn't get down on the floor to catch Piper at the end of the slide on her tiny-size jungle gym. She couldn't crouch down to count beads on the bead maze and help Piper pull toys out of the toy-box; she couldn't lay on the floor and wrestle. In short, she couldn't do most of the stuff that Piper spends her day doing.

- Then again, she doesn't make the effort, either. She brought a book of poems for us to read to her (some sort of Shel-Silverstein-like stuff that made me want to puncture my ocular cavities with a rusty nail after just one page) and seemed a little put-out when Piper wouldn’t sit still on the couch with her and read through it. This was even after I warned her that she’d have to be careful if she brought the baby up on the couch because as far as Piper is concerned, “let’s sit on the couch” means “neat, I can jump around, climb on the cushions, topple over the back, dive off the front, bounce off the wall, and generally make a good effort at giving myself a serious head injury.” MIL has a very specific agenda when it comes to her grandma-time and has little use for anything that doesn't fit into what she wants out of it. I have expressed concern to Ryan that this will only worsen as Piper gets older - she will be old enough to actually say "Thanks, Granny, but I don't want to make construction-paper Easter baskets" or "Can we read Harry Potter instead?" and I'm afraid MIL will turn it into a big deal about how Piper doesn't like her or we're not raising her with enough respect blah blah blah.

- We tried to find nice, interesting places to take them to eat, which failed miserably. We took them to The Counter, which does "custom-built burgers." They give you a little sheet and you check off what kind of burger you want - chicken, turkey, beef, veggie (their home-made veggie patties are deeee-licious but fall apart easily) and what kind of toppings (tomato? sprouts? carmelized onions?), cheese, sauce, and bun you'd like. We love to eat there (their roasted-garlic aioli is so good I want to drink it through a straw) and since FIL loves hamburgers we thought it'd be a hit. He took one look at the menu and whined, "But I just want a normal hamburger." Which, coming from him, means McDonald's. He eats McDonald's all the time and it grosses me out. In fact, I got into a somewhat heated discussion with him after he slurped down a hand-dipped milkshake from Cook-Out and declared that it wasn't very good because it wasn't very big and "McDonald's are better because you get a lot." I should have shut my mouth, but instead said that while these were smaller, yes, it was a quality issue not quantity, since the shakes at Cook-Out are actually made with real milk, ice cream, chocolate syrup and fresh fruit, unlike the God-knows-what (I didn't say "chilled soft-serve lard" out loud) in the machine at McDonald's. "Yeah, but a lot is better. McDonald's is still better," he asserted (with his mouth full).

- I totally UNLOADED on them after suffering 90 minutes of their views on the current state of education and health care in this country. It's sort of amusing when these discussions come up, actually, because they are in their 60's and more bleeding-heart-liberal/save-the-world than we are in our 20's (er, well, my 30's, now, but you get the picture). His parents think that the country will very soon have a national healthcare system for everyone, because "somebody has to do something, it can't go on this way." Even though we want to believe that's true, Ryan and I know damned well that nobody - especially politicians - ever has to do anything about anything. They also think Ryan should stay in education because "somebody has to save those kids!"; I want him out of it as fast as possible because I am sick of being broke, never seeing my husband, and having him constantly stressed-out, all for the benefit of little shits who think tests are an opportunity to practice making pictures with the bubbles on their their Scantron sheets (not kidding or exaggerating, by the way). I've told his parents time and time again that I don't want them trying to talk shop with Ryan during get-togethers; God knows his mother does enough of that during their weekly phone calls, there's no reason to spoil family and relaxation time with it, too. So I was pretty pissed when they started in with it, and after more than an hour, I was ready to tell them that if they wanted "those poor children" saved so badly, they should go back to school and do it their damned selves. Instead, I treated them to my diatribe on why I want Ryan to find a different job, whatever that entails, and how I will be glad when he or I are making enough that he can quit because the school system is a sinking ship with too many problems and too many people who want ten-minute, sound-bite-friendly solutions that will never work. They just stared at me open-mouthed for a minute, then they started in about how "things have to get better soon, because they can't go on the way they are" and that's when I brought the hammer down and said there would be no more work-talk, because this is Ryan's vacation and we have enough pleasant things to occupy us all, thankyouverymuch.

The Lowlights, AKA Open Letter to MIL

Here's just some of what happened during their now-infamous visit last month:

Dear MIL,

*sigh*

I'm sorry you "didn't feel welcome" during your visit last month and that you "felt like an imposition." But quite frankly, you were. You were supposed to visit in June, near Piper's birthday, but canceled on us at the last minute because you "had something else to do." I'm sure playing around with the boat your husband bought even though he doesn't know how to sail or clipping more education-related articles to clutter up my house with are very important pursuits, but are they really more important than your only grandchild's first birthday? Yes, I know we said we wanted it to be just us on the day-of, but we did tell you that the weekends before and after were free. My parents somehow managed to make it down here and celebrated just fine. Ryan had already taken a week off work so he could hang out with you...and then you canceled, and seemed miffed that we found this last-minute cancellation troublesome.

When you did get around to visiting, in July, it was only on your way to do something else. Forgive me if I'm not feeling like Piper is a priority for you. You bitch and moan at me to put more pictures up on the Internet, you call and ask relentlessly to hear "the stories, I have to hear all the stories," you expect Piper to perform her words or giggles or whatever on cue when you call (sorry, she's not a trained dog here to do tricks for you), you badger and pester me about how "we want to be involved in her life! We want to be part of her life!" Apparently it's only selected parts of her life you want to be a part of, at times and place you designate.

While I am discussing your visit, I'd like to add a few more things:

- You FREAK MY KID OUT. She actually hid behind me when you came into the house. You scared her. That has NEVER happened, not even when the drunk proselytizing guy at Jack-in-the-Box touched her her head to try and bless her with the Holy Spirit while I was waiting for my orange creamsicle milkshake. She sleeps like shit when you're around, she's crabby and irritable and unmanageable. Could you be a little less intense, please? I'm sick of dealing with a freaked-out baby for three days after you visit.

- Your husband sucks at babies. He let her run out in the street TWICE when he was supposed to be watching her, then had the gall to act offended when I ran past him to pull her out of the path of an oncoming car. He won't pick up toys she drops, even if the fall on his side of the table or, in some cases, ON his foot. He won't change diapers, instead preferring to come find me in the kitchen and say "We have a report - she either pooped or farted really loud, but it was definitely something, so you might want to check." He sat in my living room and read a book, totally ignoring her while she played. Also, I can't eat meals near him anymore because it makes me physically ill. His table manners are horrid (um, hell-o! if my kid talked with her mouth full like that I'd pop her one), and his constant chew-smack-snuffle-grunt-snort is like listening to someone throw cheeseburgers into a woodchipper.

- We don't drink much, and we don't drink at 10:30 in the morning. It's nice that you showed up at that hour with two bottles of champagne and two cases of beer, but don't get huffy if I don't want any until later in the day. Your excessive alcohol consumption is also part of the reason I haven't accepted your increasingly-more-insistent offers to babysit, BTW.

- I did warn you that Piper doesn't like to sit still, but because you wouldn't shut up about how much you wanted her to make you a finger-painting for your fridge, I agreed to let you try it. Don't blame me if she was screaming to get down after two minutes.

- I appreciate the thought, but that book of poems you brought makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a rusty nail. I know they're supposed to be for kids and all, but really they're just moronic. I don't care what parenting magazine recommended the author, he sucks.

- When I say "no more work-talk," I mean it. I know you like to think you're informed about Ryan's job, but you haven't got a clue. I'm sick of you ruining our family time and his vacations with your blathering.

"Ohana" means family,
Steph

Long-Winded But Not Long Enough

The problem with my infrequent posting is that it forces the stuff I do get around to posting to be novella-length. Like if I were to want to, say, vent about the fact that my MIL called today and whined to Ryan that they "didn't feel welcome" during their visit last month and she thinks "it felt like we were an imposition," I would have to tell you about how that visit went and why she's not far off. I just tried to write some of it out, but it turned into the world's biggest run-on sentence.

And now I have wasted a rare and precious morning nap writing and deleting things.

*sigh*

Not a Planner, But He Makes Good French Toast

One of my husband's more exasperating qualities is the way he hands out information. Whenver anything's going on, he either a) doesn't get all the necessary info, or b) doesn't give it to me. For example, he'll tell me his parents are talking about coming for a visit on Saturday, but he won't know what time and he thinks "maybe we're going to go eat lunch or something together." I don't find out until Friday night that they are coming the next day at two o'clock and not only are we going out to eat, they have a very specific place in mind and I need a nice-looking outfit to wear and they'll probably want to come back here afterwards so I need to make a dessert and stock the fridge with beer. It has taken YEARS of screaming and pleading and explaining and temper tantrums on my part to get him to correct this habit even a tiny bit. At least now he'll tell me up-front that he doesn't have any more information, and occasionally he'll remember to ask for it before he hangs up the phone with the person he has just made plans with.

I'll admit it, I am a control freak and I like to have as much information as possible beforehand. I like to be able to plan for every contingency. Some people would find it paranoid and weird that I would pick out three (sometimes more) possible outfits to wear to lunch with my in-laws, so that I have choices based on what the weather is like tomorrow, possible shoes I might feel like wearing, and whether or not I think his mom will wear a blue dress and do I want to run the risk that we might be dressed even a little bit alike. I am more inclined to call this facet of my personality the "they drive to weird-ass out-of-the-way places and I don't want to be scrunched into their Saturn for four hours of drive time wearing too-tight pants and a sweater that is hotter than a blacktop in July, and ok so sue me but I would be weirded out if my MIL and I both showed up in flowy blue dresses" factor. I will make said dessert and buy said beer for consumption post-meal at our house, but I will fret that maybe blueberry pie won't go with whatever we'll be eating, and perhaps I should buy both light and dark beer because you never know what people will be in the mood for.

My husband's refusal/inability to adhere to the Defense of Our Marriage Freedom of Information Act (i.e. Weetzie will freak the hell out when she does not know every tiny detail beforehand so if you are making plans you'd better get your facts straight, pal, and God help you if you don't tell her everything you know immediately) has forced me to be a little more Zen with my planning. Oh, sure, he's improved (he usually remembers to nail down time, date, and place now), but you are talking to a woman who will not wear red underwear beneath a purple skirt because those two colors don't match and it would bother me all day. I am so Zen now that he can say "my parents are coming on Saturday" and I will just shrug, pick out two possible outfits, and make an apple crisp. That's how Zen I am.

My Zen-master qualities will be sorely tested with this move. Er, possible move, since last night he said that he hadn't actually told them he full-on accepted the offer, and he thought maybe he'd go down there first and check it out. I spent the day combing websites and puzzling over neighborhood maps for a place we may or may not move. I haven't even gotten around to trying to price moving trucks or figuring out how we're going to live for months and months with no furniture because we got rid of it all and, horrifically enough, there is no Ikea in North Carolina.

I suppose I can't blame him for his caution. We went in blind and excited for our California move, and that did not turn out nearly as great as we thought it would. And a job is nice, but if it's going to be another terrible job in a place we can't really afford to live and would hate...well, that's why we left California.

I am pretty proud of myself, though, for not picking up something and beating him with it when I asked about things like the job salary, benefits, etc. and he said he didn't know. I just took a deep breath and told myself that I can't blame him for not researching the job all that well, since we thought it was a long shot and weren't sure how interested we were in another big move. It would just be nice to know these things, so I can work out a possible budget and maybe find a pediatrician or know if I'm going to have to auction a kidney on Ebay every time Piper gets an ear infection or someone keys our car.*

He's supposed to go down there for an orientation before the end of the month (two days right before the school lets out for Xmas break), and I think his plan is go down there solo and check it out - the school, the neighborhoods, the town in general. We want a reasonably nice neighborhood (our budget never allows for one that's super-trendy or super-safe) where we can survive with one car. I am going cross-eyed looking at apartment listings and trying to get familiar with a city I've never been to. When we moved to California, it was sheer dumb luck that got us an apartment three blocks from his school, which just happened to be on the safer end of town. We picked that complex because it was cheap and allowed pets. Somehow I don't think Fate will be that kind twice, and I don't want to end up livng next to a sewage treatment plant (does Charlotte have a DoWiSeTrePla?) or in a place where living with only one car is out of the question.

One thing that got me totally excited about this (possible, probable) move was when Max pulled up the weather forecasts for there...and then for here. It's supposed to be high-60's in Charlotte this weekend. Here? They're prediciting mid-30's and snow. I did not like the cold when I lived in Michigan before, and two years of wearing flip-flops 11.5 months of the year did not make me happy to come back to a place where I have to dress my wriggly, cranky child in 4 layers of clothing just to take her outside.




*Which happens a lot, actually. Twice in the first year we owned it - once in CA, and once two days after we arrived back in Michigan.

That is that

We think we have finally solved the last-name dilemma, at least: we're going to give her both. It will be a little unwieldy, but if it's a huge pain we can always change it later. And if she hates us for it, well, I'm sure that will be one of a long list of our parenting mistakes she can discuss with her highly-paid therapist some day.

We've also (pretty much) finalized our first-name list. We both do this thing where we run hot and cold on certain names - one of us will love love LOVE something for weeks or months, put it at the top of our personal list and think it's perfect...and then one day, wake up not liking it much anymore. "Oh," he or I will say. "I'm over that one now." Then we move on to something else, and probably will come back to loving this name later. We're apparently both quite fickle, but have forced ourselves to freeze our choices where they're at because we are out of time to play I Love It, No Wait, I Hate It. From a field of sixty-plus potential names, we've narrowed it down to a dozen or so. I'm sure there were a few things we left out, or some we haven't thought of, but the current incarnation of the list is a good length, with not too many weird or boring choices, so we're quitting while we're ahead.

My husband said using "Reid" as a middle name may head off any "potential bitching" from his family about the last name thing, since it was a family name when they gave it to him as his middle and there's been one in every generation or something like that. This, as you can imagine, raised my hackles a bit, as per usual.

"What, you think they're going to bitch about the fact that my name's in there, too? I carried the baby around all these months and got it out into the world and I don't even fucking deserve to have my last name included?!"
He sighed. "No, I'm not saying I think they will, but in case they do..."
"They'd better fucking not, you hear me? Because I will go apeshit, I think. I will tell anyone who whines to go suck it. Our last names are getting equal footing, so if anyone bitches about that they REALLY ARE saying my name doesn't matter."
"That's true. I don't think my parents are going to step up and say that."
"Anyone who does will have to deal with me, because it happens to be our business and none of anyone else's and I'm sick of trying to tiptoe around everyone's issues." I smacked my hand down on the table. "And that is fucking THAT."

Attack of the in-laws

Okay, so I've already written about how my mother-in-law has been calling it "our baby" not "the baby" or "my grandbaby" or "it" and has said that she will continue to call it whatever they want. Which raised my hackles a bit, as many things my MIL says usually do. His mother and I don't mesh well.

She has boundary issues. For a long time, Max encouraged her by telling his parents (and his sister, who at 15 years older than him, is like a second mother) every single thing that happened in his life. I would tear my hair out in frustration whenever he got on the phone with them (when we started dating it was three times a week, but that has gradually slowed to once a week or every couple weeks). He would chatter on about how he thought his boss was stupid and his boss knew that and was trying to get him fired or how we were going to put the $600 worth of transmission repairs that needed to be done on his already-carrying-a-huge-balance credit card or how there was a sound outside that was very probably gunshots. His parents would get in a tizzy and spend the next 2 hours lecturing him about responsibility, or financial sense, or authoritatively saying that we needed to move, of course you can afford some place else, anybody can afford to move to the good side of town if they want to bad enough. It took me a very long time (years) to finally convince him that these were not things his parents needed to know. Tell them work is good. Tell them you had a great sandwich for lunch yesterday. Tell them your Sociology professor thinks you're witty. DO NOT tell them every stupid, dangerous, or ill-advised thing you do, because they will continue to think of you as a five-year-old moron and treat you as such. Parents should at least make a pretense of treating you like an adult, but you have to give them something to work with. And honestly, they just don' t need to know about all the stupid or hard things that come up in our lives. Their time for safety lectures and kissing boo-boos ends at some point.

He always accused me of having an insane need for privacy and not wanting to tell anyone anything. It's mostly true. I am crazy about my privacy as far as my family is concerned. I am extremely guarded about what I tell them, because in the past they have taken my trust and used it cruelly. So now I limit what I say, and they don't fish for more. It helps that I can tell my parents I'm working overtime this week to pay for car repairs and they will not feel compelled to give me a lecture about fiscal responsibility and car maitenance; they know that transmissions imploding like a black hole are just a fact of adult life. Max's parents...not so much. They like to dispense advice, they like to meddle, they like to push and pry.

Before I even considered getting pregnant with the child Max wanted so badly, I questioned my ability to deal with his parents when kid was involved. I knew his mother was salivating like the Big Bad Wolf in anticiaption of a grandchild. I knew their insane need to have their stickly little fingers in every aspect of their son's life. They have gotten a little better about it, but not much. And although I thought at first they could be cool about this whole baby thing, I'm starting to doubt it.

Besides laying claim to the fetus, my MIL is convinced it's a boy. To the point where she refers to it as "he" in conversation. At first she'd correct herself:

"After he's born - well, you know, IF it's a boy-"

But now she doesn't even bother:

MIL: "And he's going to do [this and this] and he's going to be like [that], blah blah blah..."
Max: "Mom, you know, it could be a girl. The baby could well be a girl."
MIL: "Hmm? Oh, whatever. Now, where was I? Oh, yes, he's going to [blah blah blah]..."

Those brackets above would be filled in with actual content if I knew what she'd said. My husband claims not to pay that much attention to his mother's phone-call ramblings, but I have a sneaking suspicion that he just doesn't want to tell me what sort of crazy expectations his mother is placing on our unborn child.

She's probably expecting that the baby will look, act, and cry exactly like Max did when he was a baby. She and my sister-in-law keep insisting that I must be craving Peanut M & M's, since MIL ate them all the time when she was pregnant with Max. Seriously, they ask me about it every fricken time I talk to them and ask him about it when I'm not on the phone.

SIL: "So, what are you craving, anything...sweet?"
Me: "Nope, actually I'm rocking the Carb Train right now. Mashed potatoes and oatmeal all the way."
SIL: "You sure you're not craving some chocolate? Like M&M's?"
Me: "Nope, but I do get a pretzel every time we pass a stand at the mall."
SIL: "Really? You don't want sweet stuff? No chocolate?"
Me: "Nope. But if you have some granola bars, I'll take those."
SIL: "You sure you're not eating Peanut M&M's? My mom ate so many of those when she was pregnant with Max..."
Me: "I'm pretty sure. I don't even like chocolate anymore."

They still sent me some in a "care package" with a note that said "I ate so many of these when I was pregnant with Max, I thought you'd probably want some too."

My husband tries to defend them, says they're just excited. I told him I think they're nuts and his mother is convinced it's a boy because they want a male heir so badly. I'm quite sure they are pissing themselves with glee at the prospect of another Sacred Male Scion to carry on the family name and "traditions." They like things to be done the "traditional" way; they harassed me about not changing my name when I got married; there was a lot of talk about how their last name had "a thousand years of history behind it" (umm, if you say so) and much wailing and gnashing of teeth about who would "carry on the family name" were Max to change his last name to mine. I tried pointing out that his father and father's brother married a pair of sisters, so his cousins (who have eight kids between them) were practically exact genetic copies of Max and SIL and seem to be hellbent on re-populating the Midwest, which should solve that whole "family name" issue. I was told that that was not the same, and does not count.

Wait until they find out that the kid's probably not going to have his last name. That should be fun.

So it begins

I have already posted about my mother-in-law referring to the fetus I am toting around as "our baby." Not "the baby" or "my grandbaby." "Our baby." Which annoys me, since a) I don't recall her being around for the conception (*shudder*), b) I don't see her horking over a toilet once a day and unable to drink plain water for fear of puking it up, and c) I haven't noticed her in my living room when I'm up late at night, insomniac and worrying about losing my identity to motherhood.

I don't have the best relationship with my in-laws; though they were pretty sane about the wedding, the creeping, reaching, clutching "we want to discuss how you feel family fits into your marriage" talk they tried to ambush me with the week after the wedding did not sit well with me (not to mention all the shenanigans they pulled before we were legally married). Sometimes I feel as though my mother-in-law and I are dogs, circling and growling at each other, hackles raised as we bare fangs and try to nudge the other out of my husband's life.

My husband was also bothered by the "our baby" comment, which I took as a big step. We've been together three and a half years, and I've spent much of that time convincing him to let his parents know less about his life, not more. It caused a lot of trouble between us and I had to tell him that if he could not learn to put me first - put us first, our life together, not the life he had with his parents, not their needs or wants or opinions- that I would find it hard to build a life with him. He eventually got it, eventually realized that the less information he gave his mother, the less ammo she had. Now that we are about to have a child together - our child, created by us and not really something his parents can take credit for, lay claim to, or take away - I think he really does get it. This is something that is absolutely ours, and I think his hackles were raised a bit when he heard his mother trying to wedge her way in there.

He hinted to her this weekend that perhaps she should find a different moniker for the much-anticipated grandchild. Much along these lines: "I'm just surprised, is all...I thought you'd be calling it your grandbaby, you've been waiting for this for so long..." He tried several times to get her to bite, and she refused. She essentially replied that she was going to keep calling it whatever she wanted. "We're going to be there for that baby when it's born!" she said. "As soon as it's born, we'll be there!" He started trying to find a way to tell her that we'd prefer not to have a pack of relatives hanging around the hospital when the baby comes. She immediately got huffy and started in with the "well, if you don't want us to come" line. He had to backpedal and say no, it's not that they can't come at all, just that we're going to need some time. "Well, of course," she said. "I mean, of course you guys are going to want a couple of days..." Which she's said before, when we told her. Look, I know they're excited, but (as I told my husband when he said that maybe it wouldn't be so bad and they could help out and it might be nice to have them around blah blah blah, like we can't even take care of our own damned baby without their valuable help) I don't relish the thought of having a house full of people the day we come home from the damned hospital.

As I explained to my husband, his parents aren't exactly the type to entertain themselves, nor are they they type to go and find the coffee filters and figure out how to work the coffee pot when they want some. They'd hint they want some, but it would be up to me to make it. They'd feel it was impolite or something, I suppose, to dig through my cupboards for filters and mugs. Even though they have no problem passing judgement on everything their son does and inviting themselves for visits, I don't think they'll raid my cupboards for snacks. What this means is that, although they won't be sleeping here (at least I don't think they're planning on THAT), I will wind up being the one responsible for feeding and entertaining them every minute they're here. It's not like we can go out travelling the countryside with a newborn (germs! crowds! strangers touching my baby!) and how long can we possibly sit around our (stuffy, hot, and generally bad for entertaining) apartment gazing at the baby? "Look it's sleeping." "Yup, still sleeping." "Oh, there's the poop-face. Time for a diaper change."

And, truthfully, when I hear my mother-in-law saying that she will call it whatever she wants, and show up whenever she wants, I feel like raising my hackles and baring my fangs. Back off, bitch, this is my show. You have no jurisdiction here. At least I feel certain that my husband will back me up on that one.