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.

Three in a Row

Never before have I thought for an instance that we could ever wind up on Super Nanny.

We have not handled Ty-Baby's sleep trauma well.

After letting him cry for almost an hour the first night, we managed to convince ourselves that it was a fluke.  As a result, we were not prepared for the same ragged howling last night.  When Ty-baby started crying again, without showing any signs of slowing, we broke like a pair of dry twigs. 

Or, rather, G. broke. 

He went upstairs intending to sooth Ty-baby and came back downstairs, carrying Ty-baby.  Ten seconds later, Hen-Bug, noticing that he was alone in the room, started screaming as well.  "You can't bring down one baby and leave the other in the room," I said.  "It's not fair."  As a result, we had the babies downstairs, happily playing with trains, eating gluten-free cookies, and watching Project Runway until about 8pm.  G. and I were somewhat less happy.  We were even more unhappy when we put the tired twins to be at 8:30pm only to have Ty-baby cry for 45 minutes.

We surrendered our principles, and we didn't even get results.  That sucks.

So, tonight, we went back to principles. I lay Ty-baby down in the crib and put Hen-bug in bed.  When I turned around, Ty-baby had gotten up and was holding onto the crib bars.  His eyes shimmered with gathering tears.  I bent over, hugged Ty-baby for a long time, and then stepped away as the corners of his mouth turned down and the tears spilled over.  Ty-baby's crying started before I even left the room.

I know that Ty-baby needs to learn to sooth himself to sleep.  At almost two, he also needs to learn that we're the ones in charge, which is what this is all about, I think.  I just wish that we didn't need to leave him alone as part of the lesson.  When I think about it, however, I realize that Hen-bug and Ty-baby are only alone when they sleep. 

Although the twins sleep in the same room, we're all alone when we close our eyes and start fading away from the thoughts, sounds, and colors of waking life.  It's difficult to do.  It's only when I'm really, truly tired that I seek out sleep.  Otherwise, I lie in my bed, with either the computer or a magazine propped up on my knees, clinging to the day with everything I have.

Party On, Dudes!

It seems hard to believe, but I've never been to a child's birthday party.  As a result, I was probably looking a little too much forward to the party that we attended today.  Primarily, I was excited because the party was held at the same gym where the twins take classes during the week.  I'd been scoping the gym for the twins' second birthday party as it took me two days to get the crayon out of the carpet after the first one.

My only mistake was assuming that only moms went to children's birthday parties.  Everyone was a couple at this party, even the parents who brought only one child.  I was fine with G. staying home, watching UCONN football, because I assumed that he would be the only dad present.

Wrong.

Nevertheless, we managed to have a fine time, mainly because both boys decided to get a bad case of the willies.  While other 19 and 20 month olds careened around the gym, the twins stuck close by my side.  They didn't want to go in the ball pit.  They didn't want to bounce on the trampoline.  They didn't want to crawl through the tunnel.  It was the strangest thing.  They stuck close to me and close to each other.

It could have also been the presence of Miss Karen, the apparently evil replacement for the much-better-known Miss Donnie.  I'm not sure whether she does all the parties at the gym, but it was a serious fly in the ointment as I would be seriously disappointed if every photo of Henry turning two featured his angry, frowning face. 

Guy's Guide to Halloween

G. has always complained about his January 10th birthday.

When we thought that having kids would be easy, G. and I discussed the best month to have a birthday.  G. crossed out December, January, and most of February as being too close to the holidays.  Having always missed out out on class cupcakes and birthday celebrations, I eliminated all of the summer months.  We decided on March and April.

Our kids were born in February.

But G. has discovered a way around having a birthday elipsed by Christmas.  He's adopted October, specifically Halloween, as his favorite time of the year.  I love Fall, personally.  I love the air's sudden crispness, the tang of fresh apples, and the chill on my skin. 

G. thinks these things are just fine, but his feelings about the month stems from an entirely different set of items:

1)  Horror Movies -  G. loves a good horror movie and is always quoting them.  "Your suffering will be legendary, even in Hell!" I've seen some of them with him and find them amusing, but I refuse to see anything made within the last ten years.  Nasty stuff, that.

2) Toys & Gadgets - In addition to the Walking Hand, we've also acquired the Evil Talking Head.  It sits in a bowl and shouts out "are you suuuuuuuuuuuuure you want to do that" as you reach for a Reese's Peanut Butter cup.  It does not deter me at all.  The twins, however, were a little more leery.

3) Pumpkins- At last count, we had five pumpkins.  We will no doubt have more by tomorrow.  I like pumpkins too, until they get all smushy.  The twins love them.  They've been picking them up by their stems and dragging them around the house for the last few days.

4) Scarying People Me - Hiding in the back of the mini-van only to jump up and shout "boo!" just as your spouse starts the car is not amusing.  He would claim that hiding a large fake spider in the toilet and closing the lid is equally unfunny.  But it is funny.

The Red Sox winning the World Series was just icing on the cake.  "Best October, evah," G. said. 

Made Up Words

Every family has them.   

Made-up words that carry meaning when used within the family but mean nothing when used in anyone else's company.  It seems sometimes that G. and I have more than our fair share of these words.  Yet, since we've had the babies, one word has trumped all others in the frequency of its use.

That word is mung.

G. claims he got the term from the "Wayne's World" sketch on Saturday Night Live, where it was listed as one of the worst top five things to get in your Halloween bag.  However, he revamped the term to fit his own circumstances.  In G's world, mung refers to any type of dirt or substance produced by the babies.  Except poo.  Poo is still called poo.  But drool, snot, food, milk, and anything else is mung.

The word is endlessly versatile. It can be used as a noun as in, "could you get that mung on Ty's chin?"  The verb form has also become quite popular.  After spotting a large wet spot on his shirt after being hugged by Hen, G. will exclaim: "He munged me!" 

Curious about the real origins of the word, I looked it up on Wikipedia which defined mung as computer jargon for making "repeated changes which individually may be reversible, yet which ultimately result in an unintentional irreversible destruction of large portions of the original item." 

I read this definition out loud to G. who didn't quite get the connection between the way we use mung and this somewhat formal definition of it.  I explained it to him.  "Read the definition," I said, "and then think of our carpet."

He understood it right away.

So, I'm curious.  What are your words? 

Anniversary

It's good that G. took me out to a nice dinner on Thursday, our fourth anniversary, because he's leaving again tomorrow for another five days.  G. didn't travel for the pretty much the entire duration of our marriage, but he has these two trips back to back.  I'm usually the one who travels in this relationship, but we're both learning something from the change in roles.

1)  I'm learning that it's impossible, just impossible, to keep the house clean if you're the sole care-taker of 18 month old twins.  The fact that G. does it when I'm away speaks to a super-human effort, one that I'm disenclined to make when he's gone.

2)  G is learning that exhaustion sinks in deep after travel, especially when crossing multiple time zones.  Having to immediately take supervision of twins can be rough, as he found out when I told him to take the twins the second after he returned and went upstairs to take a nap.

3)  Taking care of the twins alone, even with the nanny's support during the day, is infinitely more difficult than I thought it would be.  Even though I'm looking forward to my next trip, it will be with the realization of the toll it takes on G. when I'm gone.

All in all, this switching roles has been a good thing for us.  Our roles are what they are for good reason.  G. actually gets some satisfaction from cooking and cleaning, while I'm probably close to a zero on the Martha Stewart scale of domesticity.  We're not looking at changing them as it works for us; however, switching it up a bit has worked as well.  It's taught us both a little tolerance and given us a capacity for forgiveness, which we didn't quite have before.