39

It seems that I've taken a little unintentional break from blogging while I paused to turn the ripe old age of 39 on Saturday.  Like many folks I joke that this will be the first of several 39th birthdays, but the fact of the matter is that it doesn't really bother me.  Although there have been some pretty rough spots, I've enjoyed my thirties, certainly much more than my twenties.

For my 39th birthday, G. and I actually left the house to stay a night in a hotel less than 30 minutes away.  It turned out to be a brilliant decision.  My parents had come up to help us out for a few days during the nanny's summer vacation and volunteered to take the babies for the night.  Although it was the perfect night for us, I think that they were a little disappointed that we didn't go out on the town.  Instead, we had a nice meal and went promptly to bed.

We slept for eight delicious hours, woke up, and then turned over to sleep some more.

It was perfect, beautiful, sleep.  We actually talked, too, which I don't think that we've done for some time and not all of our discussions revolved around the babies.  Most of it concerned if we were going to move and where, whether we could afford a real vacation next year, work, and other things that people talk about when they're not running after a toddler hellbent on destruction. 

When G. and I returned from our 24 hour vacation, we all headed out to the park together:

Hen-bug climbs....

Ty-Baby hikes...with stacking cups and ball.

Uber Geek

Just recently, I was standing in line to get a band to come back later to get my Harry Potter book.

However, I had brought my computer with me.  While in line, I used my Blackberry broadban connection to get into Second Life, a sort of virtual reality, and attend a Harry Potter party.

And now, here I am, blogging about it.

Maybe G has a point when he says I spend too much time on the computer.

Car Conundrum

G’s car had the good sense to expire about 200 feet from our driveway. 

At first, I didn’t quite know what to think when I saw the nanny walking down the street with both boys, five minutes after she left for the library.  The nanny looked a little concerned, but the boys, who count walking in the middle of the road as among their favorite things, seemed perfectly content.

We still don’t know what happened to the car as AAA came to haul it off the garage and nobody there has any answers yet.

This isn’t quite a bit a deal as it might seem because we’re a three-car family, by accident rather than by design.  I have the Miata; G. has his car, a SUV; and we both drive the new Honda mini-van.   Although the nanny doesn’t drive the mini-van, our decision to get it had everything to do her.

When choosing a nanny, I knew that I was looking for someone who would feel comfortable driving the boys to the pool, playgroup, and the library.  I paid careful attention to the types of cars driven by the applicants and pulled all their driving records. 

Our favorite applicant, in a rather slim field, it must be said, came up mediocre on both counts.  Not only did she have an accident within the last year, she drove a car that I considered “borderline.”  However, she didn’t have any children with her at the time and the car had a fairly decent safety rating according to Consumer Reports.

You could have blown me over with a feather when she showed up for her first day of work in a car different from that listed on her application.   I can’t really describe the car other than to say it just didn’t look safe to me.  But, if you recall, we were in a bind when we looking for another nanny and this woman addressed every single question with flying colors.

Since I wanted to keep her, I persuaded G. into giving her his car to drive during the day.  However, this solution left G. without a car as my husband, who is on the large side, has long detested the Miata, refusing to learn how to drive stick-shift in mute protest of its very existence in our garage.  So, we gave the nanny G’s car and bought the mini-van for G. to drive during the day. 

For the last two months, everyone has been happy with the possible exception of the nanny who would probably prefer to drive the mini-van.

However, the collapse of G’s car, almost in the driveway, draws the entire equation into question again and, this time, I’m afraid that there’s not any easy compromise.  I refuse to let the twins ride in the nanny’s car.  G refuses to let the nanny drive the new mini-van (“Duh,” says my husband who has never owned a new car, ever. “It’s a new car!”)  We could get another new car, but this really isn’t much of a solution as any car procured on our slim budget won’t be much better than what the nanny’s driving.

The only real solution is to get G’s car fixed.  Besides crossing my fingers that it is, indeed, fixable, I’m thinking of teaching the twins how to hitch-hike.

Itchy Head

My head itches, right near the nape of my neck.

I've been itching it all day, so much so that G. has started sneaking up behind me and whispering "bugggs...bugggs" and "you've got cooties."

I don't believe for an instant that I have cooties.

What I actually think is that I have poison ivy.  On my head.

How does that even happen?

What I Need

Now and again, I'll write a despondent post, like the one on Saturday.  As I tend not to be terribly original in my worries, they tend to go along the same lines:  "I want time for myself.  I'm not a good mother. I can't seem to find time for myself.  I'm not a good mother."

Lather, rinse, repeat.

I am limitless in my capacity to beat myself up.

What I failed to realize on Saturday is that time spent working is not time for myself.  Granted, I am alone during most of my working day.  However, the key word is working.  Sure, I'm home, at my desk, but I'm also anxious, concentrated, and busy.  I'm performing, not relaxing. 

I used to think of this time spent away from the twins as time for myself.  I couldn't be more mistaken.  I don't know if working makes me a better mother, but I do know that a little time for myself makes me a much better parent.  And that time is not the time when I'm working.

Like most realizations, though, I came at this one backwards. 

On Saturday, I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep, so retreated to the spare bedroom with a book.  A fast reader, I snuggled in with the book and read it cover to cover, immersing myself in the world of the protagonist and her problems while time snuck away.  I think that I went to sleep at some time around 4:30am, only to be woken up by the twins at 6:00am, which left me with only four hours of sleep.  However, I felt completely refreshed.

On Sunday, we pulled some weeds and went to the children's museum.  I hung out with the twins all day and had no worries, no concerns.  It was perfect.

On Monday, I decided that the lesson was too good to go to waste, so I called my local bookstore and put one of the new Harry Potter book on hold.  I had very little intention of attending the midnight party this time.  It's very hard to find time to read, if not impossible.  Granted, I never had much problem getting the books at midnight before, but Book Six, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, came out before I had the twins.  Book Five, came out right before I married George.  I was single when I got into my car for the midnight releases of Books Four and Three.  Although sleep is much more hard to come by these days, so is time to myself, but even more precious for that reason.

But it's not like, as I read late into the night on Friday, that I'll be at all alone.

Babies need books, too!

Disconnect

I've used reading as a retreat pretty much since I could read.  While my parents landscaped or cleaned or argued, as all parents do, I would have my head in a book, seeking some sort of escape not so much from them as the ceaseless sound of my own internal chatter.  A champion worrier, ever since childhood, I've found it essential to stop the flow of my own thoughts and books have always obliged. 

I read less, now, and find it more difficult to get into books when I do pick them up.  This might be because my reasons for reading suits fantasy literature so well and so much of what is good in this genre is written for children or "young adults."  I feel a little odd buying these books, picking up the most recent Lemony Snickett or standing in line for Harry Potter, alone, but the fact of the matter is that I find it difficult to find books that I can get lost in and just don't read as much as I used to, other than blogs, of course.

What I do, instead, is work.

Besides the 45 hours or so consumed by my "day job," I also teach online.  To be honest, I enjoy this work.  My first career involved teaching and I've found it hard to leave this career completely behind.  Thanks to the internets, I haven't had to do so.  Usually, when I work and, especially, when I write, I find it almost impossible to think about anything else.   Working, writing, and grading papers gives me satisfaction similar to that I once found so often in reading.  Plus, these activities result in money and I like money,more so than my graduate school days when I really didn't have much use for it.

The twins introduce a certain complexity into this entire framework.  While I try to spend as much time with them as possible, time spent with them only makes it easier to think and to worry and to worry and to think.  As I chase them around, give them bottles, or lie on the floor putting coins into their plastic piggy bank, it's almost impossible not to let my thoughts race forward and backward, pondering all the things that I have to do, politics at work, what school they'll eventually attend, and the impossibility of getting the boys to stop hitting each other.

I struggle, and fail, to stay in the moment, each and every time.

Where my husband relaxes by doing nothing, I relax by doing everything. 

I'm hoping that I'll find it easier to disconnect from work and life when I'm with them, as they become more verbal and increasingly interactive.  I'm hoping that I'll eventually be able to push things to the side, partition a little more, and enjoy my time with them, absolutely, without regrets, the way I feel that I should.  It could be that I'm expecting too much of myself here, that much of this is completely natural; however, it's also important that I do set high standards, because, after all, each moment only happens once.

   

Been a Long Time...

We're back from vacation all in one piece....and, we learned an important lesson.

We're not ever doing this again.

By "this," I mean flying to my in-law's small beach house and hanging out with the babies for ten days.  It's not that we had a bad time, it's that we're completely, totally, and absolutely exhausted.  Needing desperately to catch up on sleep is not a good way to start a Thursday.

Honestly, I think that the vacation will be fun in a few years when the boys are old enough to enjoy splashing in and out of the water, mini-golf, and the occasional lobster roll.  At 16 months, however, most of these activities were lost on them.  What they really wanted to do was to play with their toys, which were about 700 miles to the south.

Poor babies.

However, it wasn't a complete loss as the babies did enjoy amusing themselves with nature's toys, otherwise known as rocks and sand. Seeing all the fun they had rubbing two rocks together had me regretting the profusion of plastic that has long since taken over our living room. 

The twins also loved seeing their older cousins, especially the three-year old, who saw fit to inform the them, often at the top of his voice, that "YOU ARE NO LONGER BABIES!"   This might have had something to do with being constantly informed not to yell at, trammel, or pull the twins because they were little.  Seeing this as an obstacle to his play, he just decided to grow them up.

They also got a glimpse of the next Indiana Jones movie when we took a ride on the Essex railroad, only to learn that Harrison Ford was due one day after we left - hence the spiffy yellow paint on the station house.

But it wasn't only the twins who had a certain amount of fun.  George and I did take a day off to drive into Boston and catch my very first Red Sox game from the best seats ever.

Well, maybe not ever, I mean, it's not like we were rubbing elbows with Ben Affleck or anything, but we were pretty darn close.  And, although I did enjoy hanging out with the twins, we did decide to take a break from the family vacation and doing something different next year.

I'm thinking Italy.