What Assertiveness Gets You

I've watched America's Next Top Model (ANTM) since, oh, about Cycle 6.

I'm not quite sure why I put the show on my TIVO because, as a 40 year old mother of two boys, I'm certainly not the demographic.  I'm not quite sure what 40-year old women watch instead of ANTM, but every week I join the hordes of women 18-34 and female teens who watch the show.  It's certainly a train wreck, which in and of itself is interesting, but it's also a train wreck with fashion, which is why it makes it on my TIVO.

I am not proud of my viewing choices.

I have never been less proud than this week.

Last night, the show known for terrible ideas decided to stage a photo shoot with real live homeless teens.  As the prospective models vamped for the camera, real live homeless littered the background, dressed in borrowed finery.  The lesson learned from this experience was summarized by Tyra as being homeless is hard.  If you're wondering how she knows this, it's because she pretended to be homeless for a day for her talk show.

I am not lying.

If you looked closely, though, there was another lesson embedded within the farce of the first. 

Before the homeless shoot, one of the prospective models spoke disbelievingly of the fact that she was asked to model a pair of $500 shorts and a bag over $2,000.  She admitted not understanding the need for clothes this expensive and expressed absolute confusion over their production and sale.  Directly after having these clothes on her body, the prospective model came face to face with real teens, just like herself, but whose future appeared far less rosy.

At this point, I was wondering if I was the only viewer left speechless by the juxtaposition of Bagdley Mischka and severe poverty.

The prospective model was not left speechless.  During panel, the segment where all the models are judged and one is eliminated, she announced in a somewhat quavering voice that "fashion doesn't interest me at all."  As she admitted this fact in front of the panel, all of whom had careers dedicated to the fashion industry, and the assembled group of girls competing to enter fashion's golden gates, I couldn't but admire the courage it took to stand up for herself, to assert what she knew to be true, and, perhaps unwittingly, expose the sickening nature of the entire episode.

For her pains, she was dressed down by Tyra Banks, basically ordered off the stage, and had her picture ripped in two.

I'm not sure that it affected her at all.

However, I'm not that worried about this one girl, but about the hordes of young girls watching this show and learning that it doesn't pay to go against the grain.  If you're going to assert yourself, how much better to do it over another girl stealing your granola bar or knocking your modeling talent.  It's this type of assertion that is rewarded, that gets ratings, that draws the public interest.  The real type of assertion, that of speaking truth to power, is dismissed.

And it's picture is torn up.

I rock!

In real life, I'm a gutter-ball magnet.  On the Wii, not so much.

It would have been a perfect game had I not run to go get the camera in the 8th frame, thus breaking the strike zone.

It's sad that I know so little about bowling that I don't know a single name of a pro bowler with whom to compare myself.  Saying that I'm the Michael Jordan of bowling seems a little, oh, I don't know.  Boastful?

Still, I'm not sure that it's boasting to say that we haven't been out of the house for an evening since before Christmas.  Hence, well, the Wii.

First Day

As our nanny celebrated her last day with us yesterday, we started our new routine today.  I made lunches for the twins last night and packed everything away in the refrigerator to be ready for this morning.  I ironed labels on little shirts and pants (two each), wrote our last name on stacks of diapers, bought two little new blankets, and washed the crib sheets.  When we woke up this morning, we were ready.

All except for Hen-bug's epipen.

As the daycare facility only opened last month, they've not been very organized.  It was only late last Thursday that I received the paper which the daycare facility needed signed by the allergist's office to authorize the epipen.   The allergist's office warned me that the form could take up to two weeks for them to complete, but I begged.  While the daycare apologized for being late with the form, they also wouldn't accept the epipen without the form and they wouldn't accept Hen-bug without the epipen.

This left me sitting in the daycare facility this morning with the boys as what was supposed to be a quick, painless drop-off lengthened into a long wait for a fax.

I think that it ended up being a good thing, though, because it gave the boys time to get used to the room, the daycare providers and the other kids.  Although we had been there before, it was never in the morning and never without the nanny.  They started the morning close by my side.  By the time the fax arrived and I could leave, the boys were playing and barely heard me say "goodbye."

I drove home and had a good, productive work day, knowing they were safe, assuming they were happy.

It was good and it was enough, because when I returned, they ran at me with smiles and chattered the entire way home in the car.

Should We Stay or Should We Go Now?

My parents and I looked at a lot of houses while they were up here last week.  Aside from the fact that my parents are planning on moving to the area, they looked at houses simply because that is what they do.  I have countless memories of picking my way through construction sites in pursuit of my parents as they investigated the homes in progress.   As they've gotten older and slightly better off, my parents began looking at finished homes, with real estate agents.

One of the houses that we saw on our Family Home Tour absolutely astonished me for no other reason than it's cherry wood floors.  Things of beauty, I would never by a home with these floors for the simple reason that they would make my Rooms R Us grad-school furniture jealous.

I did get me thinking.

What if we moved now, rather than later? 

The plan has been to buy the "big house" after we no longer had the expense of daycare.  However, the market seems uniquely suited to our needs right now.  Inventory in our "buying" range seems to be sitting on the shelf, with prices going down, while inventory in our "selling" range seems to be moving just fine.  We could also afford a jump in mortage costs....if we stopped the stock purchase option in the company where my husband works.  In order to fully convince my husband, I need a better list of pros and cons:

Reasons to Stay Put:

1. The market could be just as good if not better for us in three years.
2. Later, we could afford potentially more home and without stopping the stock purchase option.
3. It's always difficult to tell what is going to happen with the public school systems.  In between the time we bought and the time when our kids would start school, we could be redistricted or face the merger of school systems.  It's dicey out there.
4. We've engineered our daycare options to be convenient for where we live currently.  Moving would open up a whole new kettle of fish.  Commuting is not a factor as we both work from home.

Reasons to Move:

1. The market might benefit us both as sellers and as buyers.  If we waited for the economy to improve, interest rates could rise as could the price of houses in our proposed range.
2. Our house is twenty years old and getting older.  The longer we wait, the better chance we have of facing buyers who can clearly see the need to replace the deck, the countertops, and the kitchen cabinets.  We would also loose the benefit have having just painted the house (last year) and put in new carpeting (two years ago).
3. We are possibly in the position to afford the house we want if we stretch ourselves for three years.  When the kids enter school, we can relax a bit and possibly even stash some money aside if the need arises to place them into private schools.
4. Suz really wants a house with smooth ceilings.  Really.  That would be nice.
5. We currently live in the flight path of our area's major airport.  That airport is facing major expansion so the air traffic could increase and pose a real problem to house sale.

So, there it is.  Everything that I can think of.  What do you think?  And how do you make your decisions to move (or not)?

The Four Stages of Google

I was reminded of an old boyfriend this week when a friend of a friend started sharing her concerns about the 30-year old who had been dating her daughter for two years.   I listened for a while before issuing the following opinion:  "He just needs to grow up," I said.  "He has no clue what he wants, so he obviously can't tell her."

I delivered this verdict about someone whom I've never met with absolute, unshakable certainty. I thought that I knew the type.  In my second year of graduate school, many years ago, I met a law school student at a Superbowl party.  We dated for eight years during which I slowly moved to desperately needing more commitment while he gradually and sporadically came to realize that he wanted less. 

After we eventually broke up, I ran a marathon.  You know it's a bad breakup when it takes 26.2 miles and a really bad case of planar fasciitis to get over it.

In a weird way, the conversation with my friend's friend brought all this to the surface again, igniting my curiosity about what happened to this person.  Did the person who just "wasn't ready yet" ever tie the knot?  Was he happy?  Sad?  Was he doing as well as me?

It was here when I entered the first stage of Google.

My brother-in-law introduced me to the four stages of Taco Bell.  "When you first enter the restaurant," he said.  "You're hungry.  Starving, actually, and it smells really good so you're excited and order a lot of food." This would be the first stage.  The second stage involves the first few bites where it actually tastes good, too.  You keep eating into the third stage, but it doesn't taste as good and there's an odd flavor in your mouth.  The fourth stage sees you leaving the restaurant, feeling a little ill and thinking perhaps all that food wasn't quite good for you.

When I started finding out information about my ex-boyfriend, I enjoyed knowing.  It was interesting to find out that he did get married, two years before I did.  He owned a home a year before I did, but it was cheaper than mine.  It was here where I started feeling a little ill; however, like eating Taco Bell, I had to keep looking.  When I learned that he married a kindergarten teacher and they had a baby boy born just a year after my own twins, I knew it was time to walk out of the restaurant.  So, I did.

But what difference did it make?

I didn't know and now, I knew.

Knowing or not knowing?  It really doesn't matter either way.  It doesn't change my life or how I think about it.  It does, however, make me realize how much I've changed from the person who thought she wanted and needed him so badly. 

When all is said and done, I really didn't want him.  I didn't need him.

I wanted and needed what I have, now.

The quiet Friday night.  The twins sleeping upstairs.  A glass of wine. The heavy computer on my lap and the slow, steady breathing of the man who loves me at my side.

Now, Two

Our boys turned two with the maximum amount of fanfare, including a birthday cake that turned their poo green.  I'm not talking any maybe-green shade either, but a bright summer grass green.

We were all excited over here.

I'm assuming that it was the cake because the deep blue icing was so strong that it stained their hands and mouths blue for hours following the party, making the boys into two little Goth toddlers.

The cake before the cutting:

Goth-Baby:

Other than the scary blue icing, the party did go off fairly hitchless and the boys had fun playing on the gym equipment. 

Following the party, we opened presents at home with the family. 

The celebration continued into Monday as my parents, the boys, and I travelled to the next county.  There was a little something for everyone:  my folks looked at new homes; the boys saw cows; and I got to hang out with all of them.  Walking along the brick paths of the neighborhood, clutching a little hand in each of mine and come-hither mooing at the cows in the distance, I felt perfectly at home and perfectly comfortable.

Two is going to be good.

Countdown

I've spent the morning running around collecting the last few gift bag items for Hen and Ty's second birthday party tomorrow.

I would like to think that I learned from their first birthday.

The five kids invited to the party quickly overwhelmed our home, which shrunk to the size of a rather small box.  I decided then, no matter what, the second birthday party would be outside the house and be short.

Even in the South, it's not a good idea to plan for an outdoor birthday party in February.  As a result, we rented out the little inexpensive gym where the kids take classes.  Although our event is pretty much as low-key as it gets, I've been having an interesting time adjusting to the world of kid parties.

Over the last two weeks, I've had to figure out the answers to the following questions:

1) Who do you invite?  We decided to keep this party focused on friends who have kids around the age of the boys.  However, this seemingly unassailable paradigm started to fray when we approached the gym class that the boys attend.  Who do you invite?  Everyone?  Even people who don't talk to you?   I didn't have space for the entire class, so I slipped invitations to the two parents who were friendly and whose children were close in age to the boys.  This might have been a faux pas, but we only have two gym classes left, so at least it's a faux pas with fairly minimal consequences.

2) What do you put in the Gift Bags?  We went to a birthday party two weeks ago were we got pens, pads, a chalkboard, and a CD with the birthday boy's favorite songs.  The CD was really well done, but it got me thinking about copyright and the music industry.  Would somebody sue me for distributing 15 CD's with "Dancing with Wags the Dog" on them?  I didn't want to find out.  As a result, we have chalk, noisemakers, bubbles, and bouncy balls.  On seeing the bouncy balls, G. made his only contribution to the composition of the gift bags by saying:  "Weren't those things outlawed in the 80's?  I mean, don't they zoom around and then hit the kid upside the head?" 

3) What do you do about Hen and Ty's hair?  If you're going to have bad hair any time in your life, it's probably the best idea to have it when you're under five.  The twins have really, really bad hair.  They get it from their dad, who also has about 4,000 cowlicks.  We used to keep it short until I decided to grow it out and now it's in that awkward in-between stage.  It's going to have to stay there.  At least they'll have something to laugh about when they see the pictures in ten years.

It's been so busy around here with the transition to daycare, the party, and my work responsibilites, which have suddenly skyrocketed from middling to vast, that I haven't had much opportunity to think about the fact that my little guys are beginning to be not so little.  Although I'm verging more on the anxious than the melancholic these days, lack of time to rue its passage might be a good thing.

Day by Day

After the nanny puts the boys down for nap, she'll often leave to run some of her own errands.

She called me twenty minutes after she left today.  She was in a car accident.  After she stopped at a green light in order to allow an ambulance to cross the intersection, a car hit her from behind.  At the time of her phone call, she was shaken up, but okay.  She had called the police.  They had arrived and were in the process of determining whether the people who hit her had car insurance.

I don't know if she'll be in tomorrow or not.

There is a reason why I'm telling you all of this. 

As a result of our nanny's not returning to work this afternoon, I took the boys with me to the gym.  I joined this swanky new gym, by the way, after years of membership at the YMCA.  I figured that the gym itself would motivate me to work out more and, so far, it has done its job.  One of the gym's nicer features is the child care center where I've taken the boys in the past.

Even though I only work out for an hour, it's always been hard to leave them.

Today, however, I got them established and said "bye, bye."  To my surprise, Hen-bug came over to kiss me and said "bye, bye."  Ty-baby said the same thing and, after hugging me, went back to playing trains with another kid.

It's going to be okay to leave them at daycare.  It might not be fine immediately, but it will be, eventually.

Psycho Mom

The plan, as G. and I have carefully crafted it, involves the nanny helping us to transition the twins into far away daycare before she leaves us at the end of the month.  After about seven months, space would have opened in a much closer daycare, at which time, we'll move the twins again.

It makes all the sense in the world.  The nanny has to leave the state.  We've weighed the options and have decided not to hire another nanny.  Instead, we're placing the twins into the best daycare that we could find, but transitioning to the closer daycare as soon as we can.  If this daycare works for them and for us, we're in it for the long haul.

All the change, though.  It's monstrous.

There are people who thrive on change.  They gravitate to start-up corporations.  They move every few years if not every few months.  They feel nervous without change.

I am not one of those people.

When my husband and I were dating, I asked him to say "L" instead of "love" because I couldn't take the chance.  I couldn't embrace a change that could turn out well, but was more likely to turn out badly.

On the drive to the second daycare to reserve our September spot with a rather large check, I could actually feel my heart beating.  I could almost hear it.  I spent an hour and 1/2 with the center owner going through the center (again), observing the children (again), and quizzing her on center policies (again).  I went over and over and over strategies for helping the twins transition.  I handed her the check.

I walked out to my car.

I went back in and got my check back and drove home.

As soon as I got home, I knew that I made a mistake.  We made the plan for the simple reason that we can't afford to drive all the way across town twice a day for any longer than necessary.  The daycare near our home is a good one, with good people, and a good program.  I got G. for moral support, drove back, and gave the check back to the owner.

You know that place where you doubt every decision?  You feel like you need to stay in one spot and not do anything because anything you do will rock the boat and you're already nauseous from the waves?

I'm in that place.

It's called the couch.  And I'll be here for the foreseeable future.

The Other Gold

Like just about everyone else, I think about why I keep blogging.

It's partially about the writing.  I really enjoy writing and often fully don't know my own thoughts until I've written them down.  I'm so painfully aware of the passage of time, as well, that I can't help myself from trying to document it's passing.  What if I don't remember that Hen-bug asks for a kiss by pushing his lower lip out and Ty-baby says "ack" when he's stuck? 

When I really think about it, however, the desire to cement memory is a somewhat specious reason for continuing because I've kept diaries during my life but I've only very rarely gone back to read them.   Glancing at my 16-year-old diary, reveals a self-conscious girl clearly writing for the future reader.  It's horribly boring as a result.  I might revisit some of blog entries written during infertility and the first year of the boys' life, but these were pretty painful years and not one that I really want to remember ... at least not yet. 

It's not so much that I think that someone living in some vague future would like to read these thoughts as I just like the idea of leaving them behind.

When I think about it, carefully, it's more about the community.  As I work from home, I don't have a great many people to talk to throughout the day and very few to whom I'd be as honest as I am here.  I love being able to take a quick break to check bloglines and see where other people are in their days. Especially after leaving the ranks of infertility bloggers, however, I haven't been quite sure about where I fit.  It's been an odd little journey, but is one of the reasons why I felt almost absurdly happy when Angela saw fit to give me a Best Blogging Buddies award.

I love awards.  As G. frequently reminds me, I'm like Lisa Simpson in the teacher's strike episode of the Simpsons where she just bounces up and down looking for someone to grade her.  Getting something like this, well, it feels like an "A +" and a nice pat on the back across cyberspace.

In thinking about whom I'd like to pass it on to, I find myself reaching back to the past and those people who have been reading, laughing, and sympathizing for a very long time.  These are folks who saw me go through infertility and come out the other side, so I'd like to award the following. 

• Cat of Galloping Cats
• DD of TKO More or Less
• bittermama at Bittersweet
• Jenn at Jenn's Journal
• Jen at Fertility Now

I'm afraid that I might have left someone off, though, and I might have if I've lost track of you.  I also might have simply by virtue that it's after 9pm and the evening's glass of wine. If I have left you off, please consider yourself awarded or let me know at suz764@gmail.com. And thank you.

It's good to have friends.

worry, worry, me

G. and I discussed several of our "book" entries tonight.  It's only been a few days, yet we had three pages worth of comments.  Most of them were gotten through rather quickly and some of them were old issues that we've had since the beginning.

Last night, Super Nanny featured a husband and wife who confessed to having vast difficulties in their marriage, but seemingly not so difficult that they couldn't be solved within the hour.  This couple had been married six years, just one year more than G. and I.  As they discussed their troubles to a tearful, sympathetic Super Nanny, the husband turned to the wife and said, "You've changed.  You're just a different person since we've been married."

Our reaction was to laugh out loud.  It wasn't just because the husband was staring at the wife's boobs as he uttered this line, it was our mutual acknowledgment that, in many respects, we haven't changed.  He's still neat, a good cook, and fearful of people (me) messing with his stuff.  I'm still forgetful, messy, impulsive, exuberant, and anxious.

Recently, anxiety has been absolutely running away with me.

We've told our nanny that she can leave whenever she gets a job in her home state.  We've arranged for child care and, for various personal reasons, she really does need to go home.  She's been good to our family and we both want to help her out as much as possible.

It should be okay.  I've arranged for the twins to attend daycare at a recently opened center.  Even though I have little choice, I've been questioning my decision to the extent that I can't fall asleep at night. 

1) Daycare is so difficult to find in these parts that the center is about 30 minutes away from us (one way) on the highway.  We could get the twins into a much closer center, but it wouldn't be until September and they want a full month's deposit (well over 2K) in order to secure the spot.  If we stole from savings, we could secure the spot.  However, it would mean moving the twins to a closer center after they've been in the far-away center for only six or seven months.  Is cutting our commute worth possibly leaving a place that they've become accustomed to?

2) My decision not to get another nanny and send the little guys to daycare instead has been driving me crazy.  How are they going to fare in a situation where there's one adult to every seven children and there are fourteen (14?!?!) children in the room?  They've been two on one since they've been babies and, while they seem to play fairly well alongside other children, I'm still worried about this.  I think the part that drives G. crazy is that there's nothing much we can do about this.  We've already decided that they would benefit more from learning to get along in a group and having some sort of curriculum than being cared for another nanny.  But, I'm second-guessing this decision.  I'm third-guessing and fourth- guessing it, too.

3)  For their entire life, I've pretty much been in the next room.  I could hear what was going on and keep tabs on the boys.  Nevertheless, I completely missed the fact that our first nanny was not treating them with the kindness and patience which they deserved.  I'm going to be 30 minutes away.  How can I ever keep track of the twins?  What if something happens at the center?  Some kid beats up on them or a caregiver is unkind?  How will I know?

I don't know how one is supposed to deal with these sorts of questions, especially as our choices seem to be so limited.  So, not knowing how to deal with them, I toss, I turn, I poke my husband awake in the middle of the night, and I get an entry in the book.

Back to the Book

G. and I have started doing "the book" again. 

Before the Catholic church would consent to marry us, we had to go through testing and counseling.  Neither one of us was looking forward to the counseling, but we had already sent out the wedding invitations, so had little choice.  The counseling ended up just being a discussion with another couple, who had been married for years, about our test and about a few of our concerns.  I didn't expect much from this session, but we both ended up learning a great deal.

One of the strategies we learned was "the book."  Hearing of our occasional trouble communicating with each other, the counseling couple suggested that we write down our thoughts in "the book" each day and then discuss at the end of the week.  These weren't just thoughts, but thoughts about each other and the little things that troubled us.  One early entry, for instance, read:  "When you don't put the cap on the toothpaste, it gets all crusty and I have a hard time getting it on my toothbrush."

I'm serious.  This is what can happen when two people, used to living alone, marry each other in their mid-thirties.

We discussed the matter and started using two separate tubes of toothpaste. 

The book served us well.  It served us so well that we didn't need it any more.  However, I think that we're in the position of needing it again. The night of the Superbowl, we had one of those fights that are about nothing and everything all at the same time.  We argued about how much time he spends in the shower in the morning (seriously, twenty minutes?) and how, when I say I'm going to take care of the twins in ten minutes, it's usually more like thirty.  We argued about how his shows replace mine on the Tivo and my growing amount of time on the computer.

It was two year's worth of fight in one evening and not much got settled.

Back in November, someone asked me how we managed to preserve our relationship after having twins.  When reading this comment, I laughed silently because the truth of the matter is that we haven't been doing a great job of it.  The twins, in the way that children do, push everything out of their way and work swells up to fill the remaining spaces.

So, we're back to the book and hoping that it gives us the same common ground that it did five years ago.

Scooped

I fear all sorts of things when it comes to the twins.  Falling off the deck.  Accidently stabbing each other with sticks.  Catching some sort of dread disease.  Falling on their heads trying to escape from their cribs.

The most predominate of these fears, however, surfaces whenever I have to get the twins in and out of the car in the parking lot.  It's not a problem to unbuckle one child; the difficulty is figuring out what to do with the first child as you unbuckle the second.  They don't really understand the concept of "stay," nor will they hold each other's hands and wait.   Thus far, I've kept the first child standing in front of the one that's getting unbuckled or put him down right in front of me, holding him with my knees.  Nevertheless, I keep seeing a twin darting out into traffic before I could say or do a thing.

It happened once.  It was terrifying.  Even though there weren't any cars moving down our row in the parking lot, there could have been.

When I take the kids with me to the gym, I try to get a space as close to the door as I can.  This vastly simplifies things as I can open the mini-van doors with the clicker from the sidewalk.  This leaves one less thing to do in the middle of the parking lot.

Although getting a good space can be hard on a Saturday, I managed to catch a woman just as she was backing out and put on my blinker.  However, as she pulled away, I could see another car on the other side of her speeding down the lot with it's blinker on.  I hesitated for a minute and the other car spead into the spot.

I was furious.

I had to go deep into the middle of the parking lot and walk far across it, holding a twin on each side of me.  As we passed the Usurper, unpacking her children from the car, I announced to the twins that here was a Mean Lady. 

I am nothing if not Passive Aggressive.

Of course, the Usurper wasn't only going to my gym, but also dropping her kids off at the same child play area.  I managed to get in several looks before she pulled me aside.  "I had my blinker on," she said.

"I did, too," I said.

At this point, I should tell you that I suck at confrontations.  I always want to get away as soon as possible and never know what to say at the time.  I told her that I was there first.  I said that I saw her speed down the lot.  And she asked me if I wanted her to move her car.

You know what?  I should have said, "yes."

Instead, of course, I said, "no" and walked away.

It should have ended there, but the Usurper went to the same BodyFlow class as myself.  She parked her fat ass in over-tight workout clothes right next to my mat and proceeded to exercise there for an entire hour.  I couldn't even get away from this woman during the class.

My only hope was that Hen-Bug somehow managed to cough on her kid while on the play area.

I'm going to be seeing the Usurper again, probably next Saturday.  Maybe I'll just sit in the parking lot with my blinker on, waiting to pouch on whatever parking spot she believes herself entitled to.