Pumpkin Patch

I love and always have loved Halloween.  When little, I’d spend months planning my costume, struggling to optimize my one sanctioned chance to step physically into my fantasies, becoming a ballerina, fairy princess, the one-eyed, one horned-flying purple people eater or whatever else came to mind.

I also liked the candy.

As an adult, I relish the turn from our hot southern summers and chance to see some of our neighbors.  Because G. and I don’t really hang out at the neighborhood pool, we only see the people who live around us as they speed down our road or walk their dogs around the little circle in front of our house.  I love the illusion of community, or is it community itself, created by streams of costumed children on our front porch as trusting parents wait patiently in the driveway.

So, we went to the pumpkin patch this morning.  I had never been to the pumpkin patch, but I knew that the nanny went there last year.  I tend to repeat things on the weekend that the nanny does with the twins during the week.  It’s my way of understanding what goes on when I’m working and of participating in it.  Besides, our nanny tends to come up with some really good ideas for keeping two toddlers busy and happy.

The pumpkin patch turned out to be quite the toddler paradise with a hayride, a slide, some barnyard animals and a little fenced-in dock.  However, in all fairness, it wasn’t so much a pumpkin patch as a big field, speckled with previously plucked pumpkins just waiting to be selected and brought home. 

The lack of vine didn’t bother the boys one bit.

Squinting against the brightness of the sun and brilliant contrast of orange pumpkin against green grass with shining blue sky, the boys ran from one pumpkin to another.  And really, there is nothing sweeter than that.  A beautiful day.  A field.  And tiny boys, picking up one pumpkin after another, testing their strength and glorying in it.

Catching Up

If I go three or more days without blogging, topics and ideas have a tendancy to pile up.  It's hard to start writing again without authoring a monster post to get everything caught up.  The more I put off the monster post, the harder it is to do.   A list stands out as the perfect way of putting everything into place, but only time-pressed cowards write lists.

It's true.

However, the combination of work and, well, work, won't let that monster post come into being so I'm embracing my inner coward and conjuring up a list.

Ten Days in the Life of Suz:

• Fly to Texas.  Drink with salespeople.  Fly back again.
• Nurse a hangover
• Get another bad case of Poison Ivy
• Fail to confront neighbors who let Poison Ivy grow in their yard
• Take steriods for Poison Ivy and go a little nuts as a result
• Still not nuts enough to confront neighbors
• Drive to Atlanta for a Braves baseball game with G. and the boys
• Sing "Rock-a-Bye Bear" over thirty-five times
• Marvel endlessly at an HD TV the size of my house.  Literally, people.  My house is 2.5 stories.
• Leave computer and cell phone in Atlanta
• Pay $70.00 to get computer and cell phone overnighted from Atlanta
• Give a somewhat bad reference for our first nanny
• Work in the yard with Hen and Ty-Baby
• Watch the premiers of Heros, Ugly Betty, the Office, and Reaper (rocked!)
• Get ready to take the boys to pick out pumpkins over the weekend

Everyone caught up?  Yes?  Yes?

Good.

Wednesday Matters

Knowing that I planned to blog on the flight from Charlotte, NC to Houston, TX, without an internet connection, I should have had the good sense to write down the exact wording of Julie’s Hump-Day hmmm.  Instead, all I have is a vague memory of wanting to write about what I do that matters.

I’m finding as I grow older, that this question is becoming more important.

In my 20’s and early 30’s, I really didn’t care about whether I made a difference or not.  What I really wanted to do was to succeed at my chosen profession, one which I believed I was truly called to do, in an almost religious sense.  I also wanted to earn enough money to replace my un-air conditioned car.

Eventually, and to the surprise of almost everyone, I ended up leaving this chosen profession for one which, although not as chosen, allowed me to maintain ties to my previous career and purchase a rather nice, totally air conditioned car.  With my career settled, or at least mostly settled, I focused on finding a home, a person to share it with, and, eventually, a family.

Well, we know how that turned out.

Home - yes.

Person to share it with - yes.

Family – not so easy.

As Chris recently described in her not-quite-manifesto, one of the hardest things about infertility is that it tends to consume everything that it touches.  Living with infertility is like living in a bubble.  You can see everything going on outside those plasticine walls, but you can’t touch it or engage in much contact at all.  Because your bubble protects as much as it isolates, you ultimately don’t really want to.

Recovering from infertility is like coming out of that bubble.  It’s the process of discovering other people and extending friendships to replace those painfully removed years earlier.  It’s starting to ask that question of how one might matter - not just to the wider world, but within a community and to a family.

Aside from the infertile aspect, this question has become increasingly important to me because I don’t believe that there is anything other than this world or the people that live in it.  When I think about dying only to reunite with those that I love in the arms of a being who is love, the image is so beautiful that it makes my heart break.  But everything I’ve seen or read or experienced makes me believe that Chris Haddon, in the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, said it best. 

Unfortunately, I don’t have the book here with me on the plane, so I’ll have to improvise.  One of his characters said that you die and are buried and your atoms and molecules mingle with and become those of the grass, and the tree and the sky.  And, that’s it.  You lack consciousness, but you're a part of the world.

In some ways, this is a comforting belief, but in other ways, it's not.  Mattering on a day to day basis to those around you is the only immortality available. 

Great responsibility comes with that belief.  It makes me want to make a greater impact, to do something to truly change the world.  That is, until I see my messy house, an inbox heaping with email, a child dragging a book, and wake up thinking of coffee.

Maybe this is a cop-out, but I don’t have the energy or the time to matter on an earthshaking scale, so I do it small.  I recycle.  I turn out lights.  I reuse bags at the grocery store.  I teach people how to write, so they can improve their lives.  I help others use technologies with which they can change the world.  I’m kind to my husband and rub his feet when they’re tired.  I raise my kids the absolute best that I can.  I feel that if I can raise kind, thoughtful, and loving people, who in turn, raise kind loving and thoughtful people, that I would have made a real difference.

I write it all down.

That is how I matter.

Tomato Moments

I've slowly been going through my digital photos and developing those pictures that I'd like to display or give away.  This takes a long time because, on average, I take from 400 to 500 pictures a month.  I have no idea where this falls in the scheme of things, whether it's a lot or a little.  It seems like a lot and I've been feeling oddly without purpose while my camera receives its annual cleaning.

This weekend, particularly, seemed to present more than a few opportunities for picture-taking.  The heat finally lifted and we got the first hint of fall with 70 degree weather.  For the first time in about three months we could venture outside without feeling the immediate urge to take a long shower.

We spent most of the time outside working on the yard.  Hen, Ty, and I went to the nursery to buy some plants to replace those that didn't make it through the summer.  The stroller couldn't handle the gravel pathways of the nursery, which left me running between Hen and Ty, shoving the necessary plants on the cart as I encountered them.  When Ty wanted to push the cart and do nothing else, I finally had to ask for help.

While I planted about thirteen ferns and hostas, Hen and Ty wandered around the backyard.  They played with the hose and messed around in the sandbox.  They were happy and cute and messy and perfect.

My favorite image of the entire weekend, though, was when Ty crawled into G.'s overgrown garden and emerged with two tomatos, one in each fist.   Delighted, he proclaimed "ball" and proceeded to bang the tomatos together.  Seeing this, Hen grabbled one from him and perhaps figuring it was food by smell, bit into it.  Juice trickled down his chin and he laughed.  Then, Ty offered him his tomato, which received the same treatment.

If you like tomatos, which the twins do, there are few things as good as a late summer tomato, straight from the vine, eaten when there's a chill in the air.

At first, I missed having my camera to capture the tomato-sharing, especially as the twins are rarely together without fighting.  In retrospect, perhaps the moment would have been diluted by my lurking behind a camera.  In my concern about "getting the shot," I probably would not have paid as much attention as I did or let myself go in laughter at Ty's shocked face as he grabbed the fruit back from Hen and tasted garden fresh tomato for the first time.

I'm pretty sure that I will get back behind the camera in a few weeks, but in the meantime, I'm learning to observe the moment as it happens, and let it pass.

Stop, in the name of ?

In preparation for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and the whole holiday season, I took my camera into the store for a cleaning on Wednesday.  Buying the entire cleaning, lessons, and warantee package was one of the smartest things we did when purchasing the camera.  Nobody's thrown the camera into the toilet, but we'll be able to traipse down and get a brand new camera when it happens....and it will happen.

This whole camera thing is relevant because it turns out that, this week, I wanted to take a picture.  And it didn't involve the twins.

They started appearing on stop signs around our neighborhood early in the week.  By Friday afternoon, they spread to the next neighborhood and I could go through five intersections without seeing a stop sign so unadorned.  There they sat like elogated index cards, over the "s", the "t" and between the "o" and the "p."

Maxi-pads on stop signs.

It's like some mysterious invasion.

And how does this occur to people?  Hmmmm...I have a maxi-pad, let's put it on a stop sign!

Whoo Hooo!!

Fear and Fearlessness

Because the nanny got out a little early yesterday, I took the boys to feed the ducks that congregate around one of the nearby lakes.  In addition to the boys, I took along roughly nine bags of sad little bread ends that had been sitting on the top of the fridge.

G. hates to throw things away and neither of us like the end pieces of bread loaves.

The lake is pretty, with a nice little boardwalk surrounding it, and gets a lot of foot traffic during the evenings and weekends.  As a result, the lake ducks aren't only fearless, they're downright aggressive.  Truth be told, I'm a little afraid of these over-fed, angry ducks.

With the boys in the stoller, we wheeled out onto the boardwalk.  I took the boys out and gave them each some bread for the ducks.  I showed them how to break it into pieces and fling it out. 

It didn't take long for the ducks to find us.

Out from the lake they came, swiftly waddling, and intent.

Hen-Bug flung out his bread ends as a piece, laughing as the ducks congregated around the prizes, ripping them to shreds.  Ty, on the other hand, tore his bread into pieces, but instead of giving it to the ducks, stuffed the nasty, hard, probably moldy bread into his own mouth.

Seeing this as a one-way street, the ducks didn't pay Ty much attention until he finally dropped a piece. They advanced on the piece, two of them.

"ACKKK" went one of the ducks, warning Ty to get back. 

Ty didn't budge.  Instead, he opened his mouth and squared his shoulders.

"ACKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!," Ty said.

He bent down and, right in front of the advancing ducks, picked up the nasty, wet piece of bread from ground and ate it.

It made me feel better.

I don't know why.  I wrote this piece in the morning and spent most of the rest of the day trying to extract some meaning from it, but I honestly can't tie this one up in a little bow.  All I know is while fear can be good, even protective sometimes, that it can also be smothering and dangerous.  I know that escaping from it feels like, and probably is, freedom.

Fixed

We didn't have much to do on Sunday, so I finally decided to do something about the terrible, terrible haircuts that the boys got a few weeks ago.  G. swears that he heard someone laughing at them at Cracker Barrel the other day.  Given some of the merchandise in the Cracker Barrel gift shop, I'm not sure that anyone in that restaurant should be laughing at anyone else.  Nevertheless, the incident did inspire my trip to the baby hair salon to "fix" their hair.

You might be wondering how the twins' hair got broken in the first place.

Basically, I gave our nanny money and asked her to take the twins to the baby hair salon.  When she returned, they had these horrible hair cuts.  Eventually, she admitted to taking them somewhere else but never told us the name of the place or gave me the receipt.  I have been trying to convince myself that all was okay ever since, although I wasn't about to trust the nanny with hair cuts again.

I like the baby hair salon.  It caters to children so all the chairs are child-sized.  The stylists are used to working with children, so they don't get flustered or upset by the occasion wailing baby.  And the woman who cut Hen and Ty's hair this time did an amazing job. 

It's short, but it no longer looks as if they're wearing off-balanced sun hats.  I should have gotten the bad haircuts fixed a long time ago.

After the haircuts, I decided that the twins and I would all walk over to the bookstore, about seven stores and one street away from the baby hair salon.  We progressed slowly with Hen on one side and Ty on the other.  We managed without incident and played in the bookstore for about an hour before we headed back.

We manuevered our way out of the bookstore and onto the sidewalk.

I waited until both sides were clear until taking a little hand in each of mine and started to cross the street over to where I parked our car.  Suddenly, a truck materialized out of nowhere, coming rather quickly down the street.  Both hands being occupied, I stared at the truck, hoping to catch the driver's eye and quickened the pace.

It was then that Hen decided to become fascinated with the flecks of rock in the road.

He bowed his head and bent his knees to get a better view.

He sat down and would not budge.

In the middle of the road.

I pulled Hen's arm up.  Since he refused to actually straighten his legs to walk, I carried him, dangling, by that arm one...two...three...four steps until we had cleared the road and were once again on the sidewalk.

The three women sitting on a nearby bench munching bagels looked, but did not smile in my direction.

We walked on, but Hen was now crying.  He kept crying and refused to stop as I buckled him and Ty in the car.  It looked like he was holding his arm awkwardly, so I tried to more his shoulder, wrist, and elbow.  Everything seemed to work and move just fine.  I assumed that he was simply hungry.  We drove home.

However, Hen wouldn't stop crying.  He was carrying his arm like a broken wing, carefuly held slightly away from his body.   After a short chat, G. and I piled into the car and headed over to urgent care.  I didn't know what I thought would happen, but I was feeling guilty, terribly guilty, and wanted G. with me.  After sitting in the waiting room, the in-take room, and the treatment room, a doctor finally came in.  She lifted Hen up and gently felt the bones of his lower arm.  With a look of concentration on her face, she slightly manipulated them and the looked up at us and smiled.

Hen's arm was fixed.

Apparently, the ulna, one of the two bones of the lower arm, can pop out of placement quickly.  All she had to do was put it back and we were good to go.

Or, shall I say, Hen was good to go.  Ty was good to go.  G. was good to go.  I, however, was not. 

Tonight, I'm questioning everything about both myself and my child care choices.  Sure, the twins were with me, but what if they had been with the nanny?  I'm also making decisions.  The twins will not be attempting a walk this long across a street any time in the near future, at least not with me.  I will tell the nanny this as well, but if I can't trust her to take them to hair salon, how am I to trust her to get them across the street without incident, especially when I could not? 

I'm trying to put everything I can between myself and my memories of this afternoon.  I'm trying to fix it, to make sure the boys are as safe as they can be.  To bat away these fears that seem to be suddenly circling around me.  And, I'm having a hard time.

Feeling Forty

On Saturday morning, we do one of two things, neither of them sleeping in.   The first option involves Cracker Barrel for breakfast followed by Target, because who doesn’t need a few things from Target on a weekly basis.  Alternatively, we venture to Blue Jay Point to play on the slides and take a walk down by the lake.  The option we chose depends entirely on the weather and our hunger level. 

This morning, we woke up starving to one of those hot, humid southern mornings, so to Cracker Barrel we went.  The breakfast progressed uneventfully as did the trip to Target.  We roamed Target, picking up diapers, baby toothpaste, baby cold medicine and crayons.  We tried to get Halloween costumes, as a cheaper alternative to the ones I already selected, but they were sold out.

What are Halloween costumes doing sold out in the middle of a hot, day in early September?  Who, other than me, the super planner, thinks of this?  Who? Who?

Thankfully, the checkout lines weren’t crowded, so we selected a young fellow and proceeded to check out.  Everything proceeded according to plan until he held up the baby cold medicine.

“Are you over forty?” he asked.  We are both 39.  We looked at each other awkwardly.

“Why do you want to know,” I snapped.  He smilled.  He said that he meant to say “over 21”, which we had to be in order to purchase the baby cold medicine. 

“Sure he did,” I said to G. later.  “He was actually thinking that we looked over forty.  That’s why he said it instead of over 21.” 

I don’t really care if we look over forty.  The truth of the matter, as G. and I decided later, was that we both felt over forty.  Let me say again; we’re both 39.  It bothers us that we feel older and I wondered why. 

During our twenties, we worked on ourselves, going to school, partying (in G’s case) and starting to work (also in G’s case). During our thirties, we focused on finding someone and settling down.  Because it took longer than anticipated (on both counts), we didn’t have what we wanted until our late thirties.  Throughout all of this, we still felt young.  It hasn’t been until recently that we started feeling, well, a little old.

I think that it might be, for the first time in both of our lives, that we’re surrounded by people who are younger than us.  Most parents with toddlers are younger than us.  The folks that we work with are starting to be younger than us. 

They say that the young make you feel young.

They’re wrong.

We either need to make some friends our own age, who also have toddlers, start volunteering at a retirement home, or just start accepting it.  We're almost forty and we'll be over forty soon.  For us, our forties will be about family and that's a good thing.

At least we're old enough to buy baby cold medicine.

Saying No

The twins have learned to say “no.”

They do not seem to understand quite what it means.

Me:  “Do you want more banana, Ty?”
Ty-Baby:  “Nooooooooooo”

I take the banana away.  Ty-Baby cries and stretches out his hand for the banana.

Me: “Do you want to get out of the tub?”
Hen-Bug:  “No!”  Shakes head.
Ty-Baby:  “Nooooooooooooooooooooooo”
Me:  “Okay, we’ll stay in then.”

We stay in for five more minutes until Hen’s teeth start chattering and he gets lifted out.  Seeing this, Ty starts shaking his head:  “No.  No. Noooooooo.”   The minute I tell him that he can stay in, he lifts his hands to get out.

Me: “Hen-bug, where’s your nose?”
Hen-Bug points to nose.
Me:  “Hen-bug, where’s your foot?”
Hen-Bug lifts his foot.
Me:  “Hen-bug, where’s your belly?”
Hen-Bug:  “No.”

Okay, maybe they have a point on that last one.  I would also protest if asked to identify my feet forty times a day.

No matter what I say, the answer to any question is "No."  Even if they don't know what the question means, or even if they do know what it means, it's impressive how the answer is always "No."

No, I don’t want to watch Wiggles.  No, I don’t want any more cheerios.  No, I don’t want to get out of the car / climb the stairs / get in the car / brush my teeth.  And I most certainly do not want to go to bed.  No way.  No how.  No bed. 

No.

Frankly, I’ve always had a hard time saying “No.”

When the people from the twin club ask me if I want to store over hundred books on my already groaning shelves, I say "yes."  When my manager asks if I would mind traveling out to the west coast on a moment’s notice, of course I wouldn’t mind at all.  Could I help fix our nanny’s computer?  Yes!  Give away boxes of the twins’ baby clothes?  Yes! 

Of course!  Give me the number / date / information.  I’m in.

We’re told to say “yes” to life.  The only things that we’re allowed to deny are drugs, alcohol, and chocolate.  If we say “no,” we’re being stingy, mean, and ungenerous.  Saying “yes” is infinitely more socially acceptable. 

Quite frankly, I would like to learn from the twins and start giving out “No” as my default rather than “Yes.”  I might be able to watch a little more television and, failing that, at least be a little less stressed.

“Hmmmmm,”  I say to my manager, “California?  I’m not sure.  What about sending one of our team members from Texas?”

It's not much, but it's a start.

Wordless Wednesday: Tree to the Uninitiated

Boundaries

Because nothing makes me want to spend time outside more than a day off and I'm one of those folks who must always be doing something, we puttered about in the yard most of Monday.  I took Hen-Bug to the garden center for some plants while G. took a hacksaw to the overgrown camillas in our front yard.  As he hauled the branches into the woods, I dug holes for the new shrubs and flowers. 

The twins swirled around us, alternatively interested in my digging and G's hauling.  Although the large branches scared them to tears, they would follow him to the open gate.  Once they got there; however, they would pause.  Our boys, who would truck happily into a parking lot or waltz blithley into the street, looked for G. and waited patiently for his return.

Twin Fight Club

Several days ago, I left the boys to play in the living room as I picked up some of the clutter around the house.  Carrying objects from one place to another, I flitted in and out of the room, never leaving the boys alone for more than a few minutes.  Before I got more than two steps out of the room, on my last pass, I heard a yowl and came rushing back in.

Hen-bug was beating Ty-baby over the head with a book.  To be precise, he was beating him over the head with a copy of The Giving Tree.  Ty-baby, not to be outdone, had shoved the spine of On The Day You Were Born, a truly lovely book, directly into Hen-bug's face. 

This is what caused the yowl.

The boys have always hit each other, but the more mobile they get, the more damage they're able to inflict.  Now, granted, they're not usually angry at each other.  However, when they've decided that they've had enough...that's it.

The most recent development has gotten to be too much.  Ty-baby has started pulling hair. Hard.  The only redeeming feature of this is that, after a few times of knowing what to look for, you can see it coming.  Ty-baby rests his hand gently on Hen-bug's head, but the give-away is his face, with the lips tucked together and a look of steely determination in his eyes.

And then....action and reaction.

Thankfully, there is no retailation possible because Hen-bug does not seem to have learned how to pull hair.  Also, as opposed to Ty-baby who remembers offenses and stores them up for slightly later retribution, Hen-bug only does things by the moment.  By the time he recovers, the incident has been forgotten.

At this point, both G. and I have said "no baby" to Ty over and over and over again, but nothing after the incident ever works.  Our only chance lies in stopping it before it happens.  The minute that either sees Ty-baby's angry face and the hand reach, we hiss:  "stttttsttttt"

We sound like something out of the Dog Whisperer, but for now, it appears to be working.  Ty-baby stops what he's doing and looks at us.  We then swoop down and remove him from his brother.  About 15 minutes or so is all it takes until they're ready to play together again.