overpopulator

Facebookio killed the bloggio star

2010-07-10T14:15:00.001-04:00

Discuss.

Hen.ry believes:

2009-02-16T14:57:00.003-05:00

1. That three is a magic number. (Everything must be in 3's or he comes unglued.)
2. That he has "too much sisters." (In response to my telling him he has 2 sisters.)
3. That if he screams for 45 minutes a third slice of pear will appear on his plate (see 1).
4. That I can make the moon appear at will if he screams about it long enough on moonless nights.
5. In Love.

So.phie's beliefs about lawyers

2009-02-16T14:51:00.003-05:00

1. Working at Target is a preferable job.
2. If not Target, then Whole Foods, b/c you could get a discount on the expensive thermoses.
3. If you're going to go to school for a long time and work a lot, you should at least be a doctor so you can make some money and get a bigger house.
4. "Working at Target is a more earth-friendly job than being a lawyer, because lawyers use 1200 pieces of paper a day."

Ca.rina's beliefs about pregnancy and childbirth

2009-02-16T14:46:00.002-05:00

1. That having a c-section would be scary.
2. That having a vaginal birth would be "ticklish."
3. That I carried her in my belly and Josh carried Henry in his.
4. That when she was born she was wearing a surgical mask.
5. That a baby gets in your tummy by lifting your shirt up and sticking it there.

Fuck "The Lost Months: Part II"

2009-02-16T14:43:00.002-05:00

We do not rest satisfied with the present. We anticipate the future as too slow in coming, as if in order to hasten its course; or we recall the past, to stop its too rapid flight. So imprudent are we that we wander in the times which are not ours and do not think of the only one which belongs to us; and so idle are we that we dream of those times which are no more and thoughtlessly overlook that which alone exists. For the present is generally painful to us. We conceal it from our sight, because it troubles us; and, if it be delightful to us, we regret to see it pass away. We try to sustain it by the future and think of arranging matters which are not in our power, for a time which we have no certainty of reaching. Let each one examine his thoughts, and he will find them all occupied with the past and the future. We scarcely ever think of the present; and if we think of it, it is only to take light from it to arrange the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means; the future alone is our end. So we never live, but we hope to live; and, as we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable we should never be so.

Blaise Pascal, Pensees

Visual aids for the lost months

2008-11-21T21:32:00.018-05:00

Reverse chronological order and all . . .

Car.ina after frolicking in the summer rain at a bday party.
Sop.hie after said rain frolic.

Hen.ry channeling Angus Young.
Car.ina about to ride a horse, and apparently feeling quite the badass.
Car.ina.

Sop.hie's first day of *real* summer camp. She loved it.

Hen.ry in sensory overload, eating delicious free cupcake at our neighborhood 4th of July parade while watching the firemen spray kids w/the hose from the ladder raised way up high.

Soph and friends at her small 7th bday party.

In the tub in May.

Celebrating the planting of the Obama sign in April.

At the Park 02/08

The lost months, Part I : 2/08 - 8/08

2008-11-15T22:17:00.003-05:00

So even though I'm trying to focus more on the present, on the here and the now, so as not to go more insane, I am an historian at heart, and I just cannot jump into the now without correcting the chronological deficiencies here on this blog. So, this entry is an "in previous episodes" re-cap that precedes the current drama - kind of a postmodern format for such a thoroughly fuddy-duddy modernist.

February 2008 - a crisis in my family (not the family I created) shakes me to my core and I don't remember a damn thing about what my kids did, except that I thought a lot about how much I loved them, even though I was often too stressed out to show it. I do remember a lot of planning and registering Sop.hie for summer camps in the midst of it all. That's what February signifies in my mind, not Valentine's Day, or winter, but summer camp registration time. It is a Very important time because if you miss it, you're fucked come June. I'll see if I can come up with some pictures to jog my memory.

March 2008 - See February. I turned 40! I had a B-day party. It was fun. Sop.hie stayed up so late she was a zombie - she could never hold her own with the Latino kids in NYC that we used to party with until the wee hours of the morning - I always thought it was a genetic thing that white kids wimp out early, but the Latino kids have the stay-up-late gene. I could not test my theory at my bday party.

April 2008 - Hen.ry loves trains and erplanes on our trip to celebrate Passover in Philly. He talks about the erplane, the train, and the shuttle bus for weeks. He's obsessed with vehicles, the bigger the better. He's so male and so American. But still cute. My niece, "Baby Onion" turns one. I work feverishly for Obama in anticipation of the N.C. primary. I take the kids canvassing. They hate it, but I still feel hopeful. I make appliqued Obama t-shirts for the twins, getting back to my inner-crafter. We go see Obama. I feel really really hopeful. I know it won't last, but I savor it. Sop.hie is the questionator. She asks me so many non-stop questions, all the time, that I decide that her role in Bob Black's abolished-work-world is to be a torturer at Gitmo.

May 2008 - 5/5 - Hen.ry and Car.ina turn 3 on 5/5. They have a little party. They love cupcakes. Hen.ry sleeps with his big new Tonka "flower-truck" he got from my parents for his b-day. Car.ina loves to open presents and loves candles and singing happy birthday, but doesn't care about the stuff. Obama takes N.C. in a landslide. I meet Bill Clinton on election day at a local poll and tell him "Welcome to Obama Country." He asks my middle-aged white neighbor, "do you think I'm a racist?" He appears to have dementia, or turrets. Sop.hie finds out about Hannah Montana. I tell her she can't watch it. Sop.hie goes to her first slumber party and calls me in a state of pure delirium and sadness at 12:45 a.m., but stays the night. My dad has heart surgery. I start to let Sophie watch Hannah Montana when I'm weak. I tell Sop.hie about sex. She doesn't care. Not even a little bit.

June 2008 - Sop.hie is diagnosed with ADHD, inattentive type, confirming what we already knew. Obama breaks my heart (FISA vote) - I'm distraught even though I knew it was coming. School's out and Sophie's summer camp Odyssey begins. Sop.hie really, kind of, sort of, learns to swim and the way she wiggles her butt when she does the crawl fills me with gIee. I give Sop.hie a Hannah Montana CD for her Birthday. And an American Girl doll and a bunch of other excessive consumer-culture bullshit because I feel guilty that I'm a bad mother and that she'll never recover from the twins' dethroning her as the center of my universe and I think I can buy her happiness. She's 7, going on 14. We spend a week at the beach with my family and Sop.hie is consumed with ennui, while Hen.ry is going for the full beach experience with gusto, and Car.ina loves the beach as long as someone is holding her. My mom has reefer madness when she busts certain family members consuming the evil weed - she is convinced that everyone will be a heroin addict by the end of the week, because Oprah said so. But Oprah was wrong, no one shoots smack at the beach house, or elsewhere, that week or since then. Sop.hie and I negotiate a deal where we take turns in the car listening to NPR on my turn and Hannah Montana on hers. I take all 3 kids to Target by myself one day after work and decide it's like the Mt. Everest of parenting - I feel as tired as if I'd climbed, but somehow I don't feel victorious, just grouchy. Henry now calls my niece "Babian," moving yet closer to "Vivian," I feel sad he doesn't say "Baby Onion" any more, but I like "Babian" almost as much. He also stops saying erplane. But Car.ina still says "I want to pick you up" every time she wants to be picked up. We don't correct her.

July 2008 - July 4, potty trained. Car.ina holds her pee from 8am to 5pm before I cave and give her a diaper. I make a cake to celebrate the goodbye to diapers. He.nry surprises us all by being a potty prodigy (well, not really, he was 3, but he gotit so quickly). Cari.na holds her poop for 3 days and then poops on the potty in an act that can only be accurately described as sphincter-defying. I find myself secretly listening to Hannah Montana's "see you again" even when Sop.hie is not in the car. I find the tabs to the song on the web and play it for Sop.hie on her new kids' guitar she got from Grandpa for her b-day thinking it will be a good bonding point - I'm meeting her where she is (besides, I like the fucking song) - but I am sadly mistaken - "this is SO boring." Sop.hie is relentless in her pursuit to get me to say I love her more than her siblings. "Just a smidge more?" "Just a teeny, tiny bit?" We finally settle on I've loved her longer. It's a truce. Hen.ry discovers the joy of playing with his penis - freed from the confines of his diaper, he discovers he can make it erect and does so over and over, proclaiming, "Big Penis!!!" and then "bye bye big penis" when it's back to normal. My brother wants to vomit when he hears this story. I forgive Obama. I tell Sop.hie there's no Santa. She asked. Sop.hie gets stung by a bee at camp. It's okay. I have my first jury trial. I feel like a rockstar even though it was a shoplifting case and the jury was hung - but I never thought I could make it through and I did. My kids hear about criminals more than is probably healthy. Oh well.

Resurfacing

2008-08-01T21:30:00.003-04:00

The longer you don't blog the harder it is to jump back in. After I haven't blogged in a long time, I get so hung up on everything that I should have blogged about, about everything I have to catch up on, and get so fixated on being all-inclusive that I end up not blogging at all. Which is pointless. "All or nothing" = stupid. I am really working on being more mindful and trying to enjoy the present, if only in little bits (yes, I am turning into a New Age freak before my very own four eyes). Before I got totally overwhelmed by parenting and working and grief and all of the bullshit of the 21st century, I used to tell folks how much I loved being a parent because it meant that every day, at least once, Sop.hie would do or say something that would make me unspeakably happy, if only for a moment, and that life was not like that for me before I had her. Often I blog about these magical moments, but when I get too stressed out, just too overwhelmed, they start passing me by - somehow I don't notice them as much or they don't get to me the same way. Luckily, I'm seeing those moments more and more again. Tonight Car.ina came out to go potty after she'd been tucked in and as I was helping her put her diaper back on, she started singing a sweet song she was making up about putting on a diaper, a diaper, a diaper, and her joy in that moment brought me into it with her. As cliche as it is, it's undeniably true that you can learn a lot from little kids. They are some one-mindful, living-in-the-present-moment little motherfuckers.

Mental health is just around the corner!!!

2008-03-26T21:51:00.003-04:00

It's springtime! The birds are singing, the flowers are blooming, and so on and so forth. I do love spring - it is my favorite season, and was before I was a parent. But now it takes on a special meaning, it is a new kind of re-birth, it's like salvation comes at just the right moment. And that salvation comes in the form of small socks. Or rather, the lack of necessity thereof that is on the horizon. This morning, as I was searching for socks for Hen.ry and Car.ina (do the math: FOUR tiny socks), as I do every damn day, and which takes up at least 50% of my patience and my energy, if not my time, every fucking day, I'm getting worked up just thinking about it - anyway, as I was doing the daily sock hunt (as our clean laundry is never ever folded and put away, but rather, is in a huge pile we fondly call Mt. Laundreus) I had a magical moment, a euphoric moment of the sort I associate with Spring (or good drugs): Behold!!!! sandal season is almost upon us!!!!!! I felt like the weight of one billion piles of laundry had been lifted off my weary back. This small, yet huge, change that I can look forward to has put a spring (no pun intended, really) in my step all day. My mom always says, to my great annoyance, that God only gives us what we can handle. Well, apparently She saw that I was reaching the breaking point and gave me a sockless future sooner than later. 70 degrees today, 75 tomorrow and Sears is having a buy one get the 2nd pair off kids' pairs of shoes through Saturday. The stars are aligned . . .

Easter per Sop.hie

2008-03-23T23:36:00.003-04:00

So, we are fake Jews in this family. Jo.sh is a real, bona fide Jew, but the rest of us, well, we're a bit weak on the Jewish credentials. I'm a WASP through and through, but an atheist, although I do celebrate a secular Xmas. When we had kids, we wanted them to be raised Jewish, or at least sort of. According to Jewish LAW, the kids are not Jewish unless the ma is Jewish, b/c who knows who ma's been screwing - might not have been a Jew, but if she's a Jew, then the kids a Jew through and through, regardless of the WASP milkman daddy-o. Anyway, we take Sop.hie to a secular Jewish education co-op once a month, and it's cool, b/c she learns some of her Jewish heritage and culture, w/o having to get into the God mess. I try to take a factual approach to answering questions about religious belief, perhaps an oxymoron in and of itself, but it's my way. This week she had Good Friday off and asked me what it was.

S: What is Good Friday?

Me: I think it was - yes, it was when Jesus was killed. He was killed b/c people didn't like the things he was saying and so they put him on a cross to die. That's called being crucified. And because it was on a cross that's why you see crosses in churches - it's a Christian symbol. (Note: this part is factual, so easy enough to describe).

S: So what's Easter?

Me: Well, after Jesus was killed on Good Friday, Christians believe that a couple of days later, on Easter, Jesus rose from the dead, he was resurrected.

S: [makes scoffing noise] Once you're dead, you can't come back to life!!! You're dead.

Me: Well, that's true, but Christians believe that Jesus was the son of God and that it was a miracle that Jesus came back to life.

S: Well, *everybody* knows that the Easter Bunny isn't real.

Me: That's true.

S: And what do eggs have to do with rabbits? Eggs don't have anything to do with rabbits.

Me: Well, rabbits don't lay eggs, but both rabbits and eggs symbolize birth, so that's why they're for Easter.

S: But the Easter Bunny is *not* real.

Me: I know. That's true.

I told my friend D.M., a lawyer who used to be a minister, about this exchange. I was so proud of myself for giving a non-biased, honest description of Easter and asked if he wasn't impressed. He was not. He said I made it sound like hocus pocus instead of the will of God. I responded, "but I'm not a Christian." His response, "not yet." If he has serious work to do getting me to convert, I think his task w/Sop.hie is equally Herculean. My little rational empiricist, how I love her.

The Agony of Defeat

2008-02-28T22:54:00.002-05:00

Recently, I lost a bench trial that I really thought I was going to win. It was my second trial and the second loss, in a row. I'm like Hillary Clinton! (Yuck). Anyway, I was so upset, so shell-shocked, that my down-and-out mood must have been obvious to S-phie when I picked her up from school, or so I thought. My general belief is that it's better to tell kids a kid-friendly version of the truth than to deny the truth, as they sense the truth anyway and then just feel anxious if you tell them that nothing is up when something is really wrong. Anyway, so here's how it went:

Me: S-ph, I'm kinda sad because I had a really bad day at work today.

S: Why?

Me: Well, I lost a trial.

S: What does that mean?

Me: Well, it means that the judge didn't believe me and my client, she believed the other people.

S: Why?

Me: I don't know.

S: . . . (thoughtful) . . . Well, maybe they told it more clearly.

Me: [thought bubble: omg, my 6 year old is a fucking genius, but she just totally dissed me] . . . Maybe so, S-ph.

Not guilty, y'all got to feel me . . .

2008-01-25T21:33:00.000-05:00

J-sh had his first jury trial today and the jury acquitted his client. I bought a half cake from Whole Foods to celebrate and tried to write "Not Guilty" on it with decorative icing, but it didn't come out so good -- must buy new frosting decorating tips for next milestone.

Hanukkah O Hanukkah

2007-12-05T23:34:00.001-05:00

Preface: Back in the day, when I lived in NYC, I took a fancy to writing haiku(s?) on the subway, most often about how evil Mayor Guiliani was/is, or about how fucked up welfare reform was, etc.

Present: last night, the first night of Hanukkah, we celebrated the festival of lights and the end of the vicious stomachbug that had been plaguing us, one by one, except for Sop.hie, for a week - a lovely celebration of miracles and Jews overcoming adversity. Around 8:30, Sop.hie started crying that she'd had too many Hanukkah cookies and her tummy hurt so much . . .

Hanukkah heaving,
Puking mespucha, now you.
First night, fifth puker.

Pets vs. sibs

2007-11-28T22:51:00.000-05:00

Today, while walking into the house after school, after telling me that her friend A. has a new rat, S-phie opined, "If we didn't have so many babies, we could have more pets."

Truth hurts

2007-11-19T12:47:00.000-05:00

Recently, my mom got S-phie Dr. Seuss's "My Book About Me. " I had it as a kid, and it was great fun. For those of you who were unfortunate enough not to have it, it's a fill-in-the-blank book for kids about how many teeth you have, what your favorite food is, how many steps and windows your house has, what your nose looks like, getting your postal carrier's autograph, etc. We got started on it the other night and filled out a few pages. One of them was about your house. It had pictures of all kinds of houses (apartment house, city house, mountain house, etc., w/about 20 choices). She chose "house in a town," which pleased me, as she did not choose "house in a suburb." Then, at the bottom of the page, it had the following prompt: "My house is: _________." I had been looking at this while she chose what kind of house (in a town) and wondering what she would say, as it's so wide-open and six-year-olds often struggle with questions like this. I was thinking "yellow, small, one floor," all of which she's remarked on, or even "cold." So, we get to the question, and without even a hint of a pause, she exclaims, "Dirty!", and then asked how to spell dirty so she could write it in. D-i-r-t-y.

p.s. I am going to search that book and make sure there's no page that includes the dangerous and potentially heart-breaking prompt: "My mommy is: _________" If such a loaded page exists, it's coming out w/an exacto blade before school lets out today. Some truths cannot be borne.

Still kicking

2007-11-07T22:28:00.000-05:00

Good golly it's been so long since I posted on overpopulator. I was talking about the blow job queen barbie tonight at bookclub (and about how Sophie concluded that the lowest common denominator of Bratz and MyScene Barbies was not their sluttiness, but their big heads, which I discovered when I overheard the MyScene barbie telling the others not to look at her big head, that she couldn't help it, was embarrassed by it, etc. and my mother also mentioned that Sophie had told her not to say anything to Nolee about her big head b/c it made her (Nolee) feel bad). And I realized that I should have posted this post-script to the Barbie story, as it is truly a story unto itself, and that I also really need to share my new revelations about offset parenting and the extent to which environmentally correct parenting has freed me of huge amounts of guilt and that I haven't even posted pictures of the buggers in ages. So maybe I'll just post some pictures right now, just jump right back in, and stories to come:

Summer 2007 photo montagearoo:

Henry loved the beach. We loved him loving the beach.

S-oph and R-by (Anna's daughter) frolicking in the waves, which they did w/much delight until R-uby got stung by a jellyfish. :(

Carina hated the beach so much. Look at this face - the WTF face. She would say, "all done beach," every day when we'd go out. "All done sand," when we'd try to build castles. "Hey Carina, look at the dolphins!!!!," "all done dolphins." How can I, pisces and sea-lover, mother this child? I could barely love her after this.

Henry w/self-styled solider-style sunhat.

Carina contemplating a piece of yard schmutz, aka communing w/nature.

Why blow-job-queen barbie makes me want another baby

2007-07-10T00:14:00.000-04:00

To Barbie or not to Barbie - that is not the question. We are a decidely Barbie household. Not pro-Barbie, but it just is what it is, we accept it b/c we are so Zen, and we make peace w/the plastic one. Of course I was anti-Barbie when S-ph was a babe. And hats off to those of you who have actually maintained a Barbie-free household. I wasn't anti-Barbie, as in never - it was more aspirational, like I hoped we didn't have to have Barbie, and that if we did, have to have her, that it would be a late onset. Then S-phie went to a b-day party when she was two, as in twenty-four months old, for another two year old, also as in twenty-four months old, and lo and behold she returned home w/Barbie. Barbie was the party favor. Did I mention this party was for a two year old? (Granted, this kid's mother was batshit crazy - she was a sugar nazi, who made her daughter's bday cake w/Splenda, but then gave two year olds Barbie, and she was rude to boot - the one and only time she came to our house, for S-phie's 3rd b-day, where we gave out books as favors (b/c we are so superior), batshit lady went into the bathroom off my bedroom (both doors closed) and started using my hairdryer and brush w/o asking or telling me (not that I really minded, but I found it rather odd) and then she told me that our house is so cute that "I bet you could get it on one of those shows where they come and fix it.") Sorry, but I could not resist that aside. Back to Barbie: apparently, according to S-phie's amazing nanny at the time who had taken her to the party at batshit crazy lady's house, when S-phie got the Barbie, she said: "beautiful long yellow hair." WTF? It's been awhile, to put it modestly, since I've read any Jung, but this really makes a strong case for the whole archetype thing. Perhaps I should consult Joseph Campbell who was always more accessible than Jung and who has the added bonus of talking about Star Wars. But all I know is that my daughter, two years old, who had never seen nor heard of Barbie, to my knowledge, and who had never seen a Disney princess movie, instinctually knew about the value of long yellow hair.

In any case, she played w/the Barbie w/the beautiful long yellow hair for a couple of days and then lost interest and we discretely tossed her in the garbage. I knew she would be back, but it made me happy to throw her away, like burning an effigy of the long yellow hair archetype. When Barbie came back into our lives, when S-phie was probably three, it was okay w/me. I mean, I still kind of cringed, but when I saw how she played w/them and how imaginative she was and how she was working out all kinds of emotional issues, I harbored less and less ill towards Barbie. And we got a variety of ethnic Barbies and brunettes, etc., and I would talk about how silly it was that her boobs were so huge and that her feet were stuck in stiletto pose, and it was all okay. In fact, I really considered the whole relationship w/Barbie to be a grand success when S-phie said to me one night, after watching a Barbie Princess movie, "how come the Barbie Princess always has yellow hair?" And then we talked about how most people don't have yellow hair and how even though other Barbies in the movies had brown hair, they were never the star, not to mention that all of them were always white, and it was a great teaching moment, as we who accept Barbie try to rationalize it.

Then came the Bratz. I just could not do it. Still can't. Why why why S-phie wanted to know. "Because they are Bratz and bratz are people who are not nice and we're not buying a doll who is famous for being mean." S-phie sensed what a load of bullshit this was, but then one day I let her watch the Bratz show on Saturday a.m. and I was appalled, not by how slutty they were, which was what I expected, but by how mean and catty and materialistic they really were. S-phie was silent. I think she couldn't believe it either. But she still wanted the dolls b/c she said she would make hers nice, which she would have. But no was no and even though I wondered if I was making the right decision, I stuck w/it.

Then came My Scene. At first I said no to these, that they were for teenagers. Weak, weak argument, at best. I knew I was fucked - they are Barbies and she's allowed to have Barbies - so it was only a matter of time. For her bday this year, she got six one dollar bills from my feminist aunt. And then after she went to get a checkup and had to get two shots, I gave her two bucks, b/c I knew she couldn't really buy anything much w/that six bucks, and she didn't even cry when she got the shots. Off to Toys-R-Us, and what do you know, the My Scene sluts were on sale for $8. She was eyeing them like crazy, while I tried to nonchalantly steer her towards bride Barbie (previously my worst nightmare). And I felt bad b/c I could see that she wanted the supersluts and that she felt ashamed or nervous b/c she knows I don't like them and she doesn't know how to reconcile that she wants something so much that I think is bad and then I think I am more bad than the slutty dolls, who can only make my daughter feel insecure about her body and her sex appeal and her stuff, not about her entire being like I can. So I cooly said she could have whichever doll she wanted that she could afford. Of course, she instantly gravitated towards this one, from the "Bling" line:

Folks, this picture is just not doing justice to what a streetwalker this bling Barbie is.. Call me a Puritan, but at this point I was having a full blown parenting existential crisis. Although I tried to remain cool and indifferent, of course S-phie sensed my anxiety and was saying "what Mom, what about her?" I was at a loss for words, as I literally pondered telling her "She looks like a hooker - like a streetwalker who gives $5 blow jobs." I mean, I knew what hookers were when I was that age, b/c my mom used to let me watch All My Children and I knew all about Billy Clyde, Estelle, and Donna. But S-phie doesn't even know about sex, as far as I know, so it seemed a bit much to get into the issue of selling sex for money on the street and also having to explain that prostituion is not so glamorous as the Barbies or Bratz make it seem (perhaps followed by a viewing of Pretty Woman, the most offensive movie of all time, for a real teaching moment). Luckily, I bit my tongue. And luckily, she chose Nolee the Roller Girl, easily only the third or fourth-sluttiest My Scene doll:
Nolee comes frozen in her little box with a giant lollipop held to her mouth - the blonde one has a red lollipop to match her fire-engine red lipstick. Needless to say, next time J-sh is taking S-ph to the toy store and I don't care what they get. Maybe I should just listen to Naomi Wolf and just embrace Bratz and all the little hotties (actually a very good article and not written by N. Wolf). I should just realize that I am just an old fogey and that as J-sh pointed out, Barbie looked like a ho in our day. I don't know. It's not just the sluttiness, it's the bling too - the materialism and consumerism - no wonder they sell their bodies to the night, they have to buy juicy outfits. But it's the sexualization too, the extent of it, it really is - one of S-phie's friends in kindergarten who has Bratz drew a picture of me and S-phie and all around us it said, "hot hot hot hot." I was disturbed. Clearly, I am just not up to the task of parenting a six-year-old girl. There in the streetwalker doll aisle, I found myself drifting off, in a sort of detached coping mechanism kind of way, thinking just give me a baby, where such complexities as whether or not to allow blow-job-queen Barbie are non-existent. But then she would just grow up too, so another baby is, unfortunately, not the answer to the blow-job-queen Barbie dilemma.

Letter to Anna

2007-06-30T15:40:00.000-04:00

Hi Dude,

It has been a year since you left our earth - it seems like yesterday and it seems like a long time. I miss you so much. I wish I believed in heaven so that I would believe we would meet again. B/c even though we are sinners both, I am sure if there were a heaven we would get to meet there again. And how fun would that be? We could smoke pot and drink bloody mary's w/o ever getting hung over and while someone else babysat the kids nearby. And we could lie in the most comfortable bed in the universe and chat and chat and chat and snuggle our babies. Just like we used to. But no heaven belief here, and you had none either, so unless we were both utterly wrong, which is impossible, we shall not meet again. I think of you so often and it pains my heart to not be able to share all that is going on w/my kids and in my life with you and to hear the same from you. The loss is so profound. But that just speaks to what a great friend you were. Even though you're gone and I miss you terribly, I have endless memories, and I have a part of you in me, forever. You were so strong, so comfortable about who you were and unapologetic about even your craziest ideas. I learned and grew a lot from being around you and following your example and through the love and support you gave me during times good and bad. You were there for the most important moments in my life, and I was there for many of yours. I wish I had been there more when you were sick. But I don't have many regrets about our friendship, except that it was cut way too short.

Why am I posting this on overpopulator? B/c I wish you were here to hear the stories I post. I miss your laugh a lot. And b/c you really understood being baby crazy, and crazy for babies and crazy in love with your kids and crazy with craziness b/c of your kids. You would not think I was crazy to want another baby. You wanted another, and maybe another after that. It was not to be. I remember how heartbroken you were when you first diagnosed w/cancer, when none of us had any idea it would take your life, and they told you that you probably should not have any more kids b/c of the estrogen. I feel so lucky to be here on this earth w/my amazing kids and yours are doing very well in spite of it all and I will always be part of their lives, I hope. Chiq and the kids are coming down to go to Oak Island w/us, like we'd done as families together for the last few summers. I know it would make you happy to know this tradition is continuing. I can't wait to see them all and to be there, but I also can't believe you won't be there too. It is going to be so hard. But we will have fun, just like you would have, and we will think of you and send all of our love for you out into the universe and hope that even if you can't feel it, that somehow it will make us all feel better, b/c you would want that too.

Love love

H

Six

2007-06-27T20:41:00.000-04:00

S-phie is six today. Six. A rising first-grader. I feel like every year I could write the post I wrote on her b-day last year - it's such a special day. But I can't just write every year about how amazing it was when she was born. But I've been meaning to write about her lately, b/c she's so cute and smart and funny, so maybe I'll just tell a couple of stories about her, my rocker/et girl.

Recently she informed me, w/great certainty, "Mama, I know what I want to be when I grow up. A rock star and a rocket scientist!" Like many six year olds, the girl definitely has the makings of a rock star. She makes up a lot of songs and often sings them in this really overwrought vibrato (think Celine Dion), but she also has a punk side. When she was three, we had a full rock band set-up in our bedroom so we could practice with our then band, the Last Nerves. S-phie loved to play the drums and knew how to turn on the mic. One day she went in there by herself and was playing the high-hat and singing into the mic, "Chicken on the bone! Chicken on the bone!" I don't remrember the verses, just this chorus. Perhpas a vegetarian anthem of sorts, as she doesn't eat meat (excpet bacon), and has certianly never eaten any chicken on (or off) the bone. More recently, she was playing w/her Barbies and they were singing, "Dirty houseware, I don't care!!!!!" I was thinking this could be my new anthem - hell yes! Her favorite band (aside from the Last Nerves) is the Runaways ("ch ch ch ch ch cherry bomb!"). She also likes Shonen Knife a lot. We like it that she likes the Runaways, in theory, but we don't really like to listen to them that much (alas, I cannot convince her of the merits of the Velvet Underground, the Pixies, or the Beastie Boys - or even Outkast for that matter - although she does like the White Stripes). In any case, although we think it's cool that she's so into the Runaways, we have evilly not corrected her misperception that that which is on vinyl can also be on CD or tape - she said recently about the Runaways album, "I wish they had record players in cars so we could listen to the Runaways." We gave her a Joan Jett greatest hits CD today for her b-day, so hopefully that will satisfy her Runaways cravings.

She also has the makings of a scientist. I don't think she understands that when people talk about rocket science, they're not usually talking about rocket science, which makes her comment all the cuter. But she does love science. She loves learning about natural and life science (once she told me, "Mom, tell me more about the body.") She has an amazing science teacher at school and this year she has really loved science class -- the little lab reports they do, about momentum and the like, are amazing. About two months ago she told me that she wanted to have a "science birthday party," and that she wanted to invite her science teacher. I explained that her teacher would be on summer vacation, but her classroom teacher suggested that S-phie write a letter to the science teacher to ask for her ideas. S-phie spent an entire weekend composing a letter, written like a card, to her teacher, asking her what she would do for a science party. Her teacher wrote back, on a greeting card, a long and detailed letter w/her ideas for a science birthday party. Then S-phie wrote back to her, asking for more details on how to make oobleck. It was inspiring. And how excited was I that she asked for a science b-day party rather than My Little Pony or some other pink consumer-culture shit? Thrilled. Like when she loved Velma more than Daphne, but even more thrilled. Anyway, we had the party and it was fun: she gave nature tattoos, we made pretzels so the kids could see the yeast rise, we played does it sink or float (S-phie's idea) and played w/modelling clay, and we made Oobleck (which the adults liked better than the kids). She had a great time.

Not really a science or rockstar story, but so cute, and it is her bday, and it did happen in science class. Her science teacher told me that one day the kids were making fun of one of S-phie's classmates' drawing, saying it was scribble scrabble. So they were making fun of his picutre when S-phie exclaimed, arms up and out at the elbows, "Maybe it's an abstract!!!" He said, "yeah, it's an abstract." The teacher asked the kids if they knew what an abstract was, and they did not, and Sophie explained, "it's when you draw something like you see it but it doesn't have to look like how it really looks." Love. Love all around.

I recently got a flatbed scanner, so on this day, her sixth b-day, I do solemnly swear to scan and post (before her next birthday) some of the awesome things she has drawn and written over the last few months. Keep me honest folks.

Here are some pictures of the girl from a couple of months ago, clearly being a rockstar, trying to make a tough face, but then giving it up to be my baby w/her sweet belly:

The ugly truth of offsetting your offspring

2007-06-10T22:46:00.001-04:00

When I was pg with twins, I think the most common comment I got was, "you're going to have to get a minivan," usually followed by a chuckle (not mine). It may have been the sheer oppositional defiant disorder in me that made me not do it - not get a minivan, or even a bigger car. It took a lot of doing, and a lot of different trial carseat combos, but I did it - I got three kids in the back of a Honda Civic for two years. Even rear-facing! I am very very very proud of this. No one seems to give this accomplishment the respect it deserves, so now I am proud to the point of having a chip on my shoulder, like I don't understand why I wasn't the subject of a local human interest story on the news or someone didn't give me a medal or something. Okay, so I crammed the little fuckers in there like sardines, hoped I wouldn't smash their fingers every time I shut the doors, bungey corded the trunk down every time we needed to take the double stroller plus anything else with us, and never ever thought about a collision with an Escalade. Getting the carseats in there was truly a grueling feat, so any time one of them had to be removed and subsequently reinstalled was a loathsome occassion indeed. Although I loved the Civic, the great MPG, the golf-cart engine, and the fact that I was proving to the world that big family doesn't have to mean big car, I must admit I was growing tired of what a PITA it was on a daily basis getting them in and out of there, especically having to unbuckle S-phie, who had to ride in an actual carseat to get the 3 across, but is too spastic to get herself out of a carseat (no Houdini). Cut to the chase: - no wait, first a moment of silence, for the Civic . . . Yes, I traded in my beloved little Civic for a bigass Odyssey. It's such a blow, on so many levels.

One: it's just not environmentally friendly - it's a gas hog. Now, granted, when I've got it packed to its maximum capacity of 7, then it's a good deal - mini mass transit, if you will (the first time H-nry rode in it, he repeated over and over, for the twenty minute ride, "Bus . . . bus. . . bus. . . bus. . . bus. . . "). In the past few months, I have been doing some sort of unconcious offset nesting. I really had written off getting a bigger car, it was not on my concscious mind, but I started going green like crazy: flourescent bulbs, turned up the thermostat, stopped washing in hot water, started saving grey water, started harvesting rainwater, started nagging J-sh to compost again, started buying soap and shampoo that don't have petro, and only changed the kids' disposable diapers when they were actually leaking or sagging to the floor. When we got the van, J-sh was like, is all of this green shit about the car? I don't know if it is, but probably, you know, trying to offset the crappy gas mileage. Which, I might add, is a totatlly legit concept in environmental law - offsetting. But the sad thing about getting the Minivan is that I realized that I really do need a bigger car, and the reason I need a bigger car is b/c I have so many kids, and that there is nothing worse for the environment than having kids. But, afterall, I am foremost an overpopulator and only somewhat of an environmentalist, so I did not kill the children or even stop wanting to have more of them upon this realization. And aside from being an overpopulator foremost, I was always a socialist before an environmentalist, and this country needs more lefties - we're being outbred by the right at an alarming rate (even USA Today knows it) and so what does it matter if the earth is green if it's ruled by a bunch of kids who went to Jesus Camp? But, alas, I will try to offset their environmental impact - call it the Overpopulator's Dilemma. I promise if I have another baby I will use cloth diapers and wash them in cold water w/a non-phospate, no petroleum soap.

Okay, the second thing about the minivan, the pain of it is, I am so embarrassed to admit, but it's the image thing. If I weren't utterly pathetic I wouldn't give a shit, but the cultural icon of the soccer mom is a strong one. Luckily, when I drove the "bus" off the lot, I had Elephant with me, and blasted it, and it made me feel a little better, but I am going to have to do more to offset the image. To demythologize the minvan mom. Here are some ideas I've had for the offset

1. Get a personalized plate: PSSYPTRL (I'm not even sure what Pussy Patrol is, but I know that when my friend worked at Walmart and she made a sticker w/the label maker that said this and wore it under a little flap on her nametag that had her real name, it really made her feel better). Maybe I'll even start a gang w/other minivan moms: The Pussy Patrol.

2. Drive around smoking a joint. Maybe even hotbox w/some members of the Pussy Patrol.

3. Play some mailbox baseball w/fellow gang members after engaging in number 2.

3. Have hot sex on the reclined 60/40 with another minvan driving mom. Perhaps as an initation to my gang.

4. Install a giant "system," and drive around blasting NWA's "Fuck the Police."

I can think of other offset ideas, all equally stupid, but I'm so exicted now about the idea of the Pussy Patrol and the gang of like-minded moms who will also shed the chains of the minivan mom image and engage in vicious culture wars with minivan moms sporting the sign of the fish and those little people that represent their families. OMG, I love my minivan.

Picture-o-rama

2007-05-15T15:48:00.000-04:00

From the B-day party: (Trying to put on a pair of Barbie sunglasses
from S-phie's new Barbie pool)
Kung fu fighting?

H-nry loves trucks - it's inside him, it really is

Sweet new cousin, V-vian, was there too - she's so preppy even her ass is monogramed!

Twin love:

*pictures of S-phie forthcoming - she needs her own post!

Two, two

2007-05-06T23:49:00.000-04:00

Happy Birthday C-rina. You are two. Happy Birthday H-nry. You are two too. We celebrated at home yesterday w/just the immediate posse, on the actual birthday, 5/5, and today we had a party w/the extended family. (Obligatory pictures to come). It seems so cliche to say, but I guess cliches endure b/c of their truth, but I just cannot believe they are two. And that there are two of them. Before they were born, we wanted another baby so much and didn't know if it was in the cards (going to go w/the cliche thing), and S-phie really wanted a sibling and was always asking about it (watch out, little girl, you might get what you asked for, and then some). But then when I was pregnant, I was so worried about whether I could love them like I love S-phie,* whether there was enough love in my heart to go around. Then when they were born, I realized that the love pie doesn't just get sliced into smaller portions when you have more kids, the whole pie just gets bigger. And I'm so grateful, happy, lucky these two funny little people are in my love pie. I can't believe they're two, my spunky little twins, H-nry and C-rina.

*another topic entirely, but not on the babies' birthday, for godsake

Why do my children hate me?

2007-05-04T17:12:00.000-04:00

I guess asking this question is kind of absurd, as the answer is axiomatic: because I am their mother. Kind of like after 9/11 when Americans were like "why does the world hate us?," and the axiomatic answer was, "because we're the U.S." Although then, there was at least room to blame George Bush and other historical atrocities committed by our government in the name of democracy. But here, in my case, although I have chronicled many of my shortcomings as a parent, and although all kids come to hate their mother at some point, I am a bit shaken by the fact that my soon-t0-be two year olds hate me, or at least their lives. H-nry is suicidal, while C-rina would rather be an orphan with really bad hair than live with us.

A couple of weeks ago H-nry got into a bottle of Klonopin, a mild benzodiazepine I take to help me get to sleep rather than ruminating all night about the stresses of being an overpopulator. Mother's little helper. J-sh and I had joked many times about giving him 1/4 of a Klonopin to take the edge off of his LF tendencies. But it was no laughing matter when, one morning while we were getting ready for work and school, we found him sitting on the couch eating them like candy. A call to poison control, followed by a rush over to the ER for observation (we had been assured by poison control that he would be okay, even though he may have eaten as many as 7 pills (which were, I might add, in a closed childproof capped bottle, although admittedly in a place where he could reach them through a little crafty maneuvering)). As I took off w/H-nry, S-phie, who had been about to leave for school w/J-sh, was standing in the yard saying, "I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing." Poor girl. Anyway, at the ER, I was freaked out, although not panicked, but soon my worries about what ill effects the drugs might have on him were outweighed by just trying to physically manage him during our stay there. He was, and I believe it was officially although I didn't ask, the worst patient ever. Even for a toddler. He was so irate about the IV and the little pulse monitor on his toe and the hospital ID band around his ankle and the electrodes on his chest, which he ripped off, that he was beside himself. I felt so bad for him b/c I knew he couldn't understand, and he was obviously under the influence, and having a bad trip. I figured, as did the docs, that he would get really sleepy, but instead he just got really really really agitated and pissed off - as in rageful - and nothing would calm him down, except a popsicle, and that only worked for a few minutes. We were there for 5 hours. He screamed as loud as he could for about 3.5 of those hours - conservative estimate. The staff there could not believe his stamina and remarked on it often, with a mix of pity, annoyance, amazement and even admiration. He was somewhat calmer after he ripped the IV out, but he quickly just redirected his rage to the apparently offensive ID bracelet and the not-so-innocuous-as-it-might-appear pulse monitor on his toe. He also just wanted to get off the gurney and walk around and open all of the drawers in the ER room, but he was too drunk to walk. I really felt so bad for him, because even though I thought perhaps he was being a bit unreasonable, I could see that he was having a bad trip and that he didn't understand what was happening to him, on many levels, and I knew it was my fault for letting him get to the pills. The doctor came by after few hours and said that he hoped I did not think he had been ignoring us, that all he was really looking for was for H-nry to remain conscious and not have depressed respiration or heart rate, and that because he could hear the screaming from wherever he was on the floor, he knew H-nry was fine. Basically, they had him drink charcoal to help absorb the drugs, which he didn't really mind drinking, as apparently it is sweet, and then they just monitored his pulse, etc. So no horrible intervention other than the initial IV, and of course the invasive ID bracelet and pulse monitor. When we got home the poor guy was so wasted he could not walk straight. It was horrible trying to make sure he didn't get hurt and he continued to be mad as hell and was awake until 2:30 a.m. that night, screaming, except when he would ride around on his riding toys. So, he is a habitual drunk driver and a mean drunk - good to know for the future. In any case, it did not occur to me that he was trying to hurt himself when he OD'd, until a few days later. He had recovered w/in about 48 hours and they claim there will be no lasting ill effects of any sort. Okay. So a few days later, he was out in the yard w/J-sh and came up to him and was speaking like he had a wad of gum in his mouth, only to reveal he had a large pebble in his mouth - perfect size to get stuck in his windpipe. Then, that same night, I was cleaning S-phie's room and H-nry was on her bed. I had a peripheral eye on him, just to make sure he didn't start jumping, but wasn't really paying attention to him. When I turned around, he was trying to climb into a plastic clothes storage bag, with his head fully in the bag and his rump in the air. I gasped, "H-nry!!!" and he just smiled at me through the clear plastic. I know life is probably not easy for a guy with such intense emotions, but it was a rude wake up call to find out that he is outright suicidal. And we don't know what to do - suicide watch requires really close supervision, and when you've got 3 kids, you can't play man-t0-man defense, zone is your only option, so it's tricky.

C-rina loves Annie the Orphan. She loves the horrible movie. She begs for it day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute. "Annie!" "I want Annie!" She's been known to shout it out in all times and places. I mean, it is cute when C-rina sings "amorrow, amorrow, I love ya, amorrow," but it's not a net gain - it's not worth having to watch Annie, w/her bad hair, and the offensive racial stereotypes, and the overly-drunk Carol Burnett. For a while, C-rina just loved Annie, but then she started claiming to be Annie. When you show C-rina a picture of herself, she points to herself and exclaims, "Annie!" Ditto when she sees her reflection in the mirror. Recently, H-nry was, as usual, trying to steal her food, and she said, "Annie's pretzels!!!!" Hopefully, C-rina is aspiring to at least be the post-orphanage Annie, living in luxury w/Daddy Warbucks and his hot secretary, and not the hard-knock-life Annie, b/c if it is worse to live here than to live the hard-knock life, we're really striking out at parenting.

S-phie hasn't lately expressed an explicit desire to die or live elsewhere, although perhaps her three-year hunger strike could be interpreted as the former, and her comments to my mother that "my house is trashed" and her recent report to me that "mama, I had a dream our house was clean," could also be interpreted to indicate the latter.

What to do?

Goddamnit, boy, why'd you do it? *

2007-02-16T20:57:00.000-05:00

a) he wants to be a mime and didn't know how to tell me b/c he can't speak that well, which is why he might want to be a mime, which is why he didn't tell me, which is why he took matters into his own hands, literally

b) he thought (correctly) that a Triple Paste mask treatment might help the unsightly patch of dry skin near his eye (although this doesn't explain the rest of the face, unless it was some sort of prophylactic)

c) he wants to be a clown and make people laugh b/c laugh and the whole world laughs with you and cry and goddamnit boy I'll give you something to cry about

d) he wanted to get a buzz cut and knew the Triple Paste would be almost impossible to remove from his hair and the face, hands, and feet were merely collateral damage

e) he knows how I adore Triple Paste and proselytize about it constantly and he thought I would love him more if he were covered in it and did not realize that I would actually love him less b/c he wasted at least $12 (conservative estimate) worth of the finest diaper paste on the market

* Title thanks to reality-is-better-than-fiction: in a transcript on a criminal case I worked on, a guy who was talking to his brother (who was being held in jail for murder) on a telephone which included a recording at the beginning stating that all calls were recorded, said, at one point, "Goddamnit, boy, why'd you do it?"

Snowbunnies

2007-02-01T22:12:00.000-05:00

Two posts in one day - I'm on a roll! Just wanted to post recent pics from a "snow" day - we had less than an inch of snow and S-phie was ecstatic, school was cancelled, she was making snow angels in the pathetic snow and trying to build a snowwoman - global warming makes for sorry snow days. Anyway, they had fun, the babies were little scientists, investigating the properties of frozen precipitation. Today, it so happens, was another "snow" day, this time only a dusting, but the pictures are from the last one, 2 weeks ago.

Zen Pukism

2007-02-01T12:24:00.000-05:00

So funny how it is that on Saturday nite, whilst enjoying a lovely evening with friends for a yummy salmon dinner, with five kids running amok, the subject of vomiting offspring came up. I was commenting on how bizarre it is that some people are grossed out by the gore of childbirth, when childbirth is nothing, at least in terms of gross bodily fluids, compared to parenting. My friend Karen was talking about her friend who caught her child’s vomit in her hands. Anyway, at least childbirth occurs in a hospital (or maybe not for you homebirthing hippie types) where the mess is confined to a small, otherwise sterile area, where you do not have to live, and where someone else cleans it up. Can you see where this is going? Surely you can, as poop and vomit stories are the bread and butter of parenting humor. Hackneyed though the subject may be, I simply cannot resist blogging about it.

How to describe it? Wall-to-wall-puking occurred to me. My friend Anna used to talk about wall-to-wall-fucking, but somehow wall-to-wall-puking doesn’t have the same ring, as wall-to-wall fucking has a figurative aspect (or not) that the wall-to-wall puking does not here. Anyway, point made about extent of said vomiting. Poor S-phie. It was such violent, unrelenting vomiting for hours and hours and hours. And diarrhea, and yes, both at the same time. She said, between heaves, “I . . . hate . . . when . . . this . . . happens!” Word up.

I write about this incident because it made me grateful for the small (or not so small) things. Since Anna's death, I am trying to be a tiny bit more Buddhist in my approach to life, thanks to my friend Maase, and in this context that means expecting vomiting, accepting that it is going to happen and will be gross, and just living with it and not feeling all disappointed about it. And then I find that I can see how good I really have it – not sure if this part is Buddhist – but it is working for me. So, here, I was just so elated that I have a washer and dryer in my house. Vomit-soaked were: down comforter, sleeping bag, pillow, sheets, two blankets, favorite stuffed animal, bedskirt, bed rail, and book jacket (not machine washable). But b/c I have a washer and dryer on-site, this was not a catastrophe, just a minor pain in the ass. I was also happy that I have a porch where I could put the pukey items-in-waiting and thought about what if I lived in a tiny NYC apt. how I would have to embrace the vomit stench in order to be Buddhistic, and that since I live in a house I didn’t have to get that Zen, which is good, b/c I'm not sure that I could. But then I realized that in NYC there’s always the fire escape for the items-in-waiting and so maybe parenting is about being crafty and Zen.

p.s. Speaking of Anna, check out our new blog about her.

p.p.s. what happened to my old font, blogger? It was like Georgia, only sans serif. Shit.

Booty shaker

2006-12-01T21:31:00.000-05:00

Poor C-rina, not naughty enough to warrant fond derision , not verbal enough to say cheeky things or call my bluff , this little middle child gets no airplay on overpopulator. She was, until recently, just so perfect that there was nothing interesting to say about her. Sure, she had her devilish moments, but nothing noteworthy - it's not easy competing w/S-phie and the original LF (O.F.). Now she's a little fiestier and seems to be learning from her sibs that the squeaky wheels do indeed get greased around here. But one thing that has always been noteworthy about C-rina is her dancing. I haven't posted about it before b/c it seems like so much would be lost in translation, from the visceral art of booty shaking to the written word. Trying to capture it on video is like trying to capture the Loch Ness Monster. It pains the purist in me to present the videos which do not fully capture the essence of C-rina's booty shaking, but I'm just going to go for it and post them because it's mentally healthy to accept that just because something isn't perfect doesn't mean it's not worthwhile (as if). And I think that it's plain to see that the girl gets down with her bad self.

Nascent dance walking
A precursor of great things to come.

La video montage
The whole crew boogeying admist various household disasters.

Feeling the Jay Z
The best footage I've got of one sequence of C-rina at work (plus bonus peripheral footage of H-nry acting like a freak)

**Jay Z is the best one if for some reason you have something better to do than watch three videos of my kid dancing.

Happy Ghoul Year (belated)

2006-11-11T12:29:00.000-05:00

When S-phie chose her Goth vampiress costume and started wearing it all over the house in early September, it warmed my heart. The girl is prissy and loves Barbie and Disney princesses and Polly Pockets and all of that pink plastic shit. But, alas, she has a dark side: she loves bats (the idea of them and learning everything about them from books but is scared if we see real ones - prissy still) and vampires and mummys and the Ghost of Cleopatra (whatever/whoever that is). So, when she insisted that the whole family dress up as vampires, I was all over it. And although preparing for it exhausted me, it was some serious family fun.

p.s. There were 867 trick-or-treaters on our street.

Who knew Fisher Pakyl was Jewish?

2006-10-05T13:25:00.000-04:00

No posts for a long time - I've just been in such a bottomless pit of guilt and/or anxiety about kindergarten, money, mice, childcare, career, maternal depression, neglect, cordless phones, bad credit, childhood depression, cancer, dirt, amblyopia, ADD, racism, doting, junk food, and and so on and so forth, etc., etc., etc. But alas, S-phie saves the day. Bedtime is chaos in our house. Not controlled chaos, but chaotic chaos. The other night we were trying to get H-nry and C-rina to bed and S-phie was running amok, then the mundane gave birth to magic. I was doing laundry and somehow thought (read: parenting genius) to suggest to S-phie that she should check out how the washing machine works. I opened the lid as it filled and she brought her little stool over so she could peer in. She was fascinated. Absolutely riveted. She kept looking in and then jumping down and running over to me, exclaimaing, over and over, "It's amazing!" And that's just while it was filling with water. I explained that the real action had not even begun, that once it started agitating she would really see something. I demonstrated, avec mon ass, how a washer agitates, and she enthusiastcally joined the "washer booty dance." The suspense built and built, and occupied her for some time, as we waited for the next phase of the washer (my beloved Fisher Pakyl, which was my first love of an appliance, long before my grande refrigerator, and which awakened my inner June Cleaver). When it started agitating she yelled, "Now it's really going to town!" Then she said, while doing the washer booty dance, "it sounds like it's saying 'oy vey, oy vey, oy vey.'" We both cracked up and I felt sheer, unadulterated joy, of the sort that improves your mental health long after the moment is gone.

Gassy rooster

2006-08-28T16:53:00.000-04:00

Recently, I took S-phie to the beach for the weekend - no babies, no daddy, just me and the girl (and the grandparents, whose time-share we were free-loading). The gassy girl, which she has always been, from birth on. We're riding in the elevator back up to the condo after a nice swim and it's just me, S-ph, and a man we don't know. Everyone is quiet until S-phie farts quite audibly and then turns and exclaims, "Mama!!!!" I just laughed - I couldn't believe it. When we got out, I said, "S-phie!!" To which she blithely responded, "What? You always do it to me." Touche.

Babies having babies

2006-08-23T23:07:00.000-04:00

S-ph and Zo- enjoying a moment with their babies
before Kindergarten starts next week

LF in the house

2006-08-23T22:54:00.000-04:00

"Full Effect"

"LF in respose"

LF

2006-08-16T17:16:00.000-04:00

I’ve really been meaning to write about this for awhile. In fact, I thought that by the time I got around to it, that it would be moot – that the phase would have passed. But it has not. Perhaps it is not even a phase, but a personality type, but let’s just call it a phase for now. Or even a developmental stage, to euphemize. The Little Fucker developmental stage. We like to call it “LF,” kind of like “MF*,” only insert Little instead of Mother. The most obvious manifestation of the LF stage is tantrums, but what distinguishes the LF stage from normal toddler tantrums is the sense of entitlement that seems to fuel it all. For instance, when you change H-nry’s diaper, he’s not just hopping mad b/c it’s boring and he’d rather be doing something else – he feels violated, he cannot even begin to believe that such indignity is being suffered upon him again - he’s a victim, but he’s not just going to take it lying down, he fights it tooth and nail every single time because he is entitled to something better. Perhaps our proximity to Duke has infected him with a sense of white male privilege at a young age – that’s my current theory. At first I thought it was bitterness about weaning, but that was months ago, and in any case that just proves my theory of entitlement-based behavior, as even though I’d nursed him for a year, he felt entitled to continued access to the breast. But he feels entitled to a lot more than that – he appears to feel entitled to everything, resulting in one indignant little fucker every time he doesn’t get his way – how dare you, do you know who I am, he says. Attempts to distract or appease him when he’s in a paroxysm of little fuckerness only make him angrier – he knows he’s being patronized. He bangs his head on the floor, throws things, and shakes as he stiffens his whole body and screams with all of his might. It may sound like an anger management problem, but the LF stage runs deeper than the outward manifestation of anger. I worry that he will become a right-wing extremist or some other sort of devoted fascist. He has the fortitude for it. I can only hope that he will use his might for good instead of evil. For now, it really works for him. I am a sucker for the allure of the bad boy – I love him not in spite of him being a little fucker, but because of it. So cute it is, the way he's a little fucker. My boy.

*At one point C-rina’s name was to be Maisy, but I just couldn’t give her the initials M.F.

Inventory

2006-08-05T21:37:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow is a very exciting day. We are getting a new refrigerator - a bigass, double-wide, fit-for-a-family-of-five behemoth. Be gone you tiny 19 cu feet p.o.s., with your measly storage capacity, defunct icemaker and missing veggie crisper drawer - be gone. Welcome, luxurious side-by-side, we eagerly await the Sears truck that will deliver you, and thereby deliver us, tomorrow. What is notable about emptying out my fridge in preparation for the big event is not the grime that was in the fridge or the stuff I found in there, it was what was on top of the fridge, to wit:

1. All of S-phie's artwork from school for the last several months
2. One tuition receipt for S-phie's daycare
3. One blue enamaled cast iron la creuset trivet (wedding present???) (a.k.a. massive head wound/broken toe/child neglect waiting to happen)
4. One yellow child's umbrella
5. One size 4 Huggie's overnight diaper (unused!)
6. One non-stick cookie sheet
7. One metal dish-drying rack
8. One dry erase eraser
9. One jump rope
10. One cardboard tab from the opening to a box of garbage bags
11. One small bubble wand
12. One off-white fleece glove w/spaklies and fuzzy around the wrist
13. Two lunchboxes and one thermal bottle carrier
14. One empty jewelry box
15. One empty plastic picture frame
16. Two half-full boxes of large bibsters
17. One stiff fabric insert that goes in the bottom of a storage bin
18. One carbon monoxide detector

Impressive, if I do say so myself. Just think how much shit we can fit on top of the new fridge . . .

Back in action, as promised, w/recent photos

2006-07-24T23:44:00.000-04:00

Excuse the rather banal grocery-list style presentation of photos. Blogspot's formatting is not sophisticated, nor am I. But here are the gang, and a mystery photo, guesses are welcome.

Bereft

2006-07-14T22:51:00.000-04:00

I have lots of overpopulator stories to tell, and one day soon a bunch will come at once. But I just can't write them yet. I'm just missing Anna so much that I can't muster up much except that. Last night at bedtime the crying came back and it was like it never went away. I know grief is like that, but it sucks; it's scary b/c it feels like it will never feel okay. S-phie got glasses, there's drama over S-phie's newly assigned Kindergarten teacher, I don't know what to do about the possibility that they're going to make all the kids say the "pledge" - these were all things I've been thinking about recently and all were things I would have gone to Anna for some good discussion and solicited and unsolicited advice, experience, etc. Or maybe I just want to tell her how crazy H-nry is, or how C-rina gets food stuck in her cooch all the time, but the point is, I just have all this stuff I want to share with her, and now she's not here and I just feel this huge, painful emptiness in my life. I know I'll get back to wanting to write silly stories about my kids and post pictures of them, but I just can't get to there from here quite yet. Soon maybe.

Anna

2006-07-01T11:48:00.000-04:00

"Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must pass over in silence." Maybe Wittgenstein's stance is a bit much, but I feel it now because I cannot begin to describe my friend Anna who died on Wednesday night after a grueling 1.5 year bout with breast cancer. Anna was my best friend, that I can say and you will understand. She was only 36 and the mama to 2 amazing kids - that too is easy to say. But to try to describe her is where I'm lost. To say that she was one of a kind would be to make a cliche of someone who was anything but. I am off to be with friends and her family, to tell stories and to remember her together.

We were friends for over 15 years and one of the greatest times in our friendship was the last 6 years, when we shared being mamas together. She loved her kids with a fierce passion. It broke her heart to think of leaving them. Hug your babies extra tight tonight, for Anna.

Five

2006-06-27T13:04:00.000-04:00

Today my sweet firstborn is five. I love S-phie's birthday because I think back to the day she was born and replay every minute of it in my mind. The moment they handed her to me, all cheesy and bloody and wide-eyed, was the single happiest moment of my life. That moment was so magical, so transcedent, that it has sustained me ever since. I think it gave me enough happiness to last me the rest of my life. And it was only the beginning of many more magical moments, of falling deeper and deeper in love with this girl over and over and over.

It's especially sweet this year because she has been really sick lately - running a fever for 15+ days and counting, w/no explanation for most of those days and w/glands as big as, dare I say it, golfballs. Even the doctors were starting to worry. But, alas, she just has CMV, which is basically a form of mono and she'll be fine. Even though I don't love Jesus, I do love Anne Lamott, and I've been saying her favorite prayers, "help me help me help me," and now, luckily, "Thank you thank you thank you."

Happy Birthday, my big girl.

Roosting chickens?

2006-06-16T17:01:00.000-04:00

For about 10 years I cut my own hair, and got progressively better at it - it can be self-taught if you're willing to endure some really bad haircuts. So, of course, I cut S-phie's hair when we started cutting it. In fact, I pride myself on being a little hippie, punk-rock DIY mama. I started getting my own hair cut professionally when I graduated from law school - I just didn't think the NC legal community was ready for my home-do. But it can only be insanity, vanity, and some sort of latent desire to sell out that made me decide that S-phie should go profesh. Or maybe it was just boredom that made me do it. Or the devil. I don't know. But I asked one of S-phie's friend's moms where her child, who always has a sassy little 'do, gets her hair cut and made an appointment with this "stylist."

S-phie's hair was a bob that had grown out to almost shoulder length, w/overgrown bangs. I asked the woman to cut the bangs and leave the rest of the length, w/just a little layering, hoping it would lighten up her thick hair and bring back some of her glorious toddler curls (greedy greedy greedy). I'm not sure where in that request she heard "give her hideous 70's-style layers close to her face and leave the back long and then make it all curl under and in toward her face like Kate Jackson from days of yore." Or did she hear me say, "give her a dorky, femmey pseudo-mullet?" Or was it something broader that she thought I said under the drone of the blow dryers, like, "break my heart." My pulse quickened as I realized what this psycho stylist was doing. At one point she asked if she should make it shorter in the back, which admittedly would have been less hideous, but I said no because I just wanted to get the hell out of there before she fucked up my sweet girl's lovely locks any further. I had a lump in my throat. Who knew I was so vain by proxy? The so-called stylist even said, "I've given her a bi-level and framed the face." A bi-level? Doesn't she know that's just a euphemism for mullet!?!? Of course I told S-phie how great it looked, etc., knowing all the while that I would cut it all off when we got home. In the car I told her how sometimes you have to adjust your haircut after you get home.

I got home about 4:50. I was going to wait until J-sh came home at 6:30 before I cut it, just to let him see the carnage. But what good does rubber-necking really do anyone anyway? I also thought of taking a picture to show him, but I didn't want it memorialized in any fashion. By 5:00 she had an ultra-short bob. It's been like that before and I like it, but she likes it longer, so as to be more "princess-y." I'm still having PTSD symtpoms over the "haircut" (I would call it a butcher-job, but I've never seen a piece of meat so inartfully cut as S-phie's bi-level) and S-phie is a little sad it's so short. I could attribute this whole incident to karma, since I seem to be convinced that all of these meaningless unpleasantries in my life have meaning, but I think this one falls under chickens coming home to roost, which is similar to karma, but more appropriate where there is a more definite nexus between the bad act (getting greedy and thinking S-phie should go profesh) and the bad result (see aforementioned "haircut.") My chickens have roosted before, so I know what I'm talking about (last 4th of July we took all the kids, including the 7 week-old twins, to a 4th celebration and concert in suburban hell and got caught in a deluge, which soaked everyone to the bone, and resulted in massive crying and hysteria, followed by an hour of trying to get out of the parking lot, during which time the babies screamed and we thought we were going to run out of gas, and my friend Anna commented, "That's what you get for celebrating your country.")

Faux Bun, Faux Pas (and rude bitches)

2006-06-11T23:02:00.000-04:00

We took the kids to the beach this weekend, which was fun, except for when the babies didn't sleep, S-phie got gum stuck to the hotel bedspread, and when S-phie woke up this morning with a fever and vomiting. But anyway, what I really want to talk about is the rude bitches I met there. And about my fat ass. Or, more precisely, my fat belly. Let me just say that I was feeling pretty proud of myself on Friday because I've lost 12 painstaking pounds since March. It's been awful. Okay, so I've lost the 12, need to lose as much again. Cut to the chase: arrive on Friday and the innkeeper remarks that I have three kids and, "I see you have another one on the way." I tell her no, I don't, and she is completley unfazed. Personally, I would die of embarassment if I made that mistake. Maybe she figured I was the one who needs to be embarassed, what with my faux bun in the oven and all. Anyway, I didn't like it, but I took it in stride, telling myself that the empire-waist dress I was wearing just made it look that way. Then Saturday evening I'm in my swimsuit, and another guest starts talking to me about the kids and says, "And that's great you're expecting again." I wanted to tell her I was expecting to kick her rude ass. Instead, I just smiled and said, "No, I'm just FAT." She also did not seem to care about what I considered to be quite a blunder, and just kind of laughed it off and drove away in her ginormous (a S-phie word) SUV. I was not happy after the second comment. I told my mom about the whole debacle, to which she sympathetically(??) said, "but think about what you looked like when you were 9 months pregnant!!!" At present, I seriously cannot look more than 6 or 7 months pregnant, at worst; I look more or less like I looked when I was 4 months pg w/the twins - a definite bump, if I were a celebrity there would be speculation about my gestational status in People, but I personally wouldn't feel safe asking.

Maybe this is my bad karma again. The worst part is - well the worst part is that my babies are 13 months old and I look 6 months pregnant - but the other worst part, about the rude bitches, is that I just can't stand the thought of them re-telling the story, although they seem so unembarassed that perhaps they won't repeat it, but I can't stand them telling someone and then saying, "bless her heart," the way crazy Southern women do when they insult someone they feel sorry for. I wish I could just learn to embrace my faux bun and flaunt it proudly in a bikini, like lots of fatties I saw this weekend - more power to them, bless their hearts.

Bad karma

2006-06-05T11:06:00.000-04:00

is the only explanation I can think of. Or perhaps hubris, related to my recent brag about our maggot-free lifestyle (see post from 22 May, "Golf Balls"). That's right, more maggots. But this time they were in the Shark. It would seem that when you vacuum up wet food from under the babies' high-chairs, in an apparently futile attempt to reduce the overall filth level, but then don't empty out the Shark in a timely fashion, the overall filth level actually increases. Did I mention that I'm a slow learner? But on the Shark website it even says you can sweep up "soggy pieces of food". . . .

I am so depressed about this. I have been trying so hard to be cleaner, to stay more on top of things. Now this. It really is a blow. I am going to take pictures later of my house and post them, without cleaning up first, b/c while it's admittedly cluttered, I really don't think it's maggot-worthy. That's why I'm convinced that it is karma. So, I'm going to make a list like Earl and try to make amends. Here are 10 bad things I've done, in no particular order:

1. told S-phie I don't like Disney princesses, thus giving her a serious complex b/c she does like them so much
2. don't recycle peanut-butter jars b/c I'm too lazy to wash out the old peanut butter
3. forgot my mother and brother's b-day, which they share, in 1991
4. euthanized S-phie's pet fish, Sea, b/c its tank was too dirty and it seemed sick and its pitiful existence tortured me too much
5. told my twin infants to "remember Andrea Yates" when they were waking me up every hour
6. bought S-phie's Halloween costume at Wal-Mart in 2004 (this should count for two bad acts)
7. see above
8. followed the evil wisdom of Dr. Richard Ferber
9. let my babies' diapers get so wet that they drag on the floor and fall off
10. bit my defenseless baby brother in 1972

Water and booty

2006-06-03T21:04:00.000-04:00

So, as I mentioned, we took the kids on an outing on Memorial Day, so as not to have to discuss war and death and politics w/S-phie again. These are some pics from our journey to the Eno River, a local river which was stinky and had a low-expectation-having crowd, but S-phie loved it. J-sh and I later observed that perhaps if you haven't ever lived in Oregon, as we did for many years, that one's expectations for a local river may be sated by a stagnant stream. Not much else noteworthy has happened this week - no maggots or mold! I need to think of a celebratory rhyme for this, a la "today was a good day, didn't even have to use my A.K.." I'll work on it.

The mystique of the H20 bottle:

And the rapture of the Booty:

The big questions

2006-05-29T11:03:00.000-04:00

So, it's Memorial Day and I'm trying to keep S-phie reallybusy and distracted so that she won't think to ask me what Memorial Day is about. I find myself particularly ill-equipped at handling the big questions. Let me recount some illustrative situations that have occurred in the last year or so (format borrowed from our friends, the C-ccones):

S-phie notices the magnet on our fridge that has a picture of Bush w/duck tape over his mouth as a suggested homeland security measure:
S: Mama, why does the president have tape on his face?
Me: Umm . . . well, it's a joke. So that he won't say anything else bad that will hurt anyone.
S: But isn't that mean to put tape on his face?

J-sh arrives home on the day Cheney shot that guy and I am giddy w/glee. We are both beside ourselves, remarking how awesome it is, etc.
S-phie: Why are you happy that someone got shot?
Me: Well, we're not really happy, umm umm umm umm, it's hard to explain, it's a grownup thing umm umm umm. (My trusted friend Anna later admonished me that I really blew this one, that I should have just denied it altogether).

J-sh is reading S-phie a book about Native Americans and does not censor the parts that refer to God like I do.
S: God made everything.
J: Hmm . . . where did you learn that?
S: From Z. Everything, even the trees.
J: Well, that's what some people believe. People believe lots of different things about God. The Native Americans believed there were lots of Gods, called spirits.
S: That's what I believe!
J: Some people believe that there is one God, other people believe there are lots of Gods, and some people don't think there's any God at all.
S: Let's ask Woofie. (Woofie is my dad, who is perhaps the least spiritual person on the planet).

Seems like you only hear about parents fearing questions about where babies come from. But that's so straightforward, it's just a science thing, no interpretation required. I'd take sex questions over socio-political and religious ones any day. Luckily, it's noon and she still hasn't asked about Memorial Day.

Found the cord to my digital camera!!!!!

2006-05-26T13:34:00.000-04:00

Happy Day. I finally found the patch cord to my (admittedly shitty) digital camera. Now I can upload the old pics and take new ones. The cord was under the desk in our "study" (more on this later).

H-nry and C-rina's b-day party (H-nry is beholding his beloved cupcake):

S-phie at her recent dance recital:

Maximum cuteness:

If you love something, set if free

2006-05-26T11:37:00.000-04:00

if it comes back to you, it's yours, if not, it never was. Remember those cheesy posters in the 70's sporting this quote and a photo of birds or some other symbol of freedom? Well, I've learned the painful truth of those propehtic words.

In the last month, I weaned C-rina and H-nry. I thought I might be an "extended nurser", or EN as it's known on the www. I just thought I might want to hang onto my babies for as long as possible, since there will be no more of them, barring a miracle (read: winning the lotto). And while I do hate seeing their babyhood slip away, continuing to nurse wasn't getting it for me. I was just tired of it and H-nry was using his many teeth for ill-advised chomping at the boob. I had figured that it would be really hard to wean H-nry, as he had been a diehard nurser, refusing the bottle and all. And when I cut out the after-work nursing session, he really did hate me for it. He would just look at me and cry, like "why are you betraying me like this?" But after a few days, he was over it. All of his short life he had been the biggest mama's boy, and as I said, a nursing fanatic. I sometimes worried he only loved me for the boob, but I convinced myself that it was more than that. Well, it wasn't. Now that he's weaned, he's his own man. No more hours of snuggling, which I now realize was just his way of buttering me up for a gratuitous nursing session (or two). He's on the go and got no use for his old ma. It hurts to know that he only loved me for the milk, and that he was using me all those months. What a crafty little bastard. Oh well, at least the co-dependence has been unmasked and we've both moved on. C-rina, being a more honest baby, never used me for milk and now is my snuggly mama's baby, for better or worse.

On the farm (what does not kill us makes us stronger)

2006-05-24T11:12:00.000-04:00

S-phie went on a field trip recently to Spence's Farm in Chapel Hill. They got to learn all about the animals and got to take eggs from the hen, and S-phie was so excited, telling us that they were still warm and that she didn't break them. But the biggest excitement was that she rode a horse. She was terrified and apparently was not going to do it at first, but then at the last minute she decided to do it. I wasn't there, but got reports from my spies. She was so proud of herself when I picked her up. And I love these pictures - she looks so pensive in the first two and so utterly thrilled and proud in the last one that I can't stop looking at it. Tears.

Low expectations

2006-05-23T13:26:00.000-04:00

This made me feel better about the whole mold and maggot thing.

Golf balls

2006-05-22T11:49:00.000-04:00

Last week my husband was out of town and I was flying solo w/my three for a couple of days. I go into supermom mode when he's away and clean more than usual, perhaps just to show him up in some twisted way. Anyway, I actually cleaned the high chairs.

Let me just issue a caveat here: I am a disgusting slob. And I look like Mrs. Clean compared to J-sh. Before blogs I wanted to have a 'zine called "dysfunctional living." Every month it would have a centerfold picture of the worst mess in my house that month. Never got around to it.

Anyway, H-nry's high chair is a Peg Perego Prima Pappa that we inherited from some people we barely knew in Brooklyn. For those of you low-rent MF's out there, let me enlighten you: the Prima Pappa [hereinafter "PP"] is the fanciest (i.e. expensive) high chair on the market. Apparently, people find its look less offensive than gaudier, less expensive alternatives, like perhaps a tacky Americana one from, God-forbid, Graco. Maybe Italian babies are cleaner than mine, or maybe fashion rules over function in Italy and in the lives of Stateside PP parents, but IMO, this highchair is a complete piece of shit. And not in the normal POS way - it has millions of unimaginable crevices and grooves which seem to serve no purpose other than for food to get stuck in. So put this in our house and what do you get? a) maggots? or b) mold? Answer: both. Although, to our credit, not at the same time (yet).

When S-phie was a baby, we had a fruit fly problem. It sucked because we had to really really really clean the whole house. But the fruit flies remained. We were stumped. Finally, I traced their flight paths back to the high chair. But it was spotless. Still, my observations revealed that they definitely came from the high chair. Further investigation, which involved using a screwdriver to unscrew little plates in the seat of the chair, revealed pits of teeming maggots in these little compartments under the screwed-in plates. I told you this highchair is a fucking nightmare. And do rest assured that the maggots were one of my all-time parenting lowpoints. But I blame the PP. We moved S-phie to a booster seat w/no maggot pits.

Hating the PP with a passion, I would have gotten rid of it, but instead I lent the evil chair to Ben, of the Trixie Update (now I know how to do links). I had bleached the whole thing several times, so only told him about the maggot incident after they were done using it. I would not have taken it back at all, except I was pg with twins and it just didn't seem practical to buy 2 new highchairs. But being no fool, this time I made sure to periodically lift the seat cover and dump a little bleach into the maggot pits and to clean around them. However, last week when I was in my extreme cleaning mode, I took the whole seat cover off (extreme, I know) and this time, in the back of the seat (the maggot pits are near the front), where the straps go through the seat cover, there were two balls of mold, each the size of a golf ball.

Which got me to thinking. You know how sometimes you think, why must there be roaches in the world? Or posion ivy? Or maggots? What purpose do they serve? And then you realize it's some bigger picture, food chain type of thing and let it go. Well, I feel that way about golf. That it's just weird and annoying and serves no purpose. But when I saw the golfball-sized mold balls, I had an epiphany: the golfball is a critical measurement tool. Golfball-sized hail, a tumor the size of a golf ball, or mold like a golf ball. A ping-pong ball is the same size, I suppose, but ping pong is wimpy, as are the balls, that can be crushed between our spindly fingers, rather than inflicting serious injury like the mighty golfball. This revelation, which has helped me make peace with golf and its representativies, really made me feel better about the whole mold thing. And, I thought, at least there weren't golfballs of maggots. I'm getting better at parenting.

The three I've got

2006-05-19T19:15:00.000-04:00

S-phie pretending to be Velma (of Scooby Doo fame)

C-rina (left/stage right) and H-nry (right/stage left)

What the hell am I doing with a blog?

2006-05-19T18:28:00.000-04:00

Only time can answer that question. Blogs are weird and narcissistic. But totally addictive, perhaps b/c of the voyeurism factor. Anyway, I was surfing links to mama blogs from my friend Ben's uber-blog, the trixie update. (Okay, a person who doesn't even know how to insert a link-y thing has no bizness having a blog, but maybe I can learn some new tricks). And then I wanted one of my own. My kids are cute too!

Speaking of which, let me say that I named my blog overpopulator because I am a crazed breeder (and b/c of the ubiquity of blogs). I'm a Mormon or Catholic or some other brand of fundamentalist religious fanatic procreator trapped in an atheist's body. I have three kids already - count 'em, one, two, three - as in three strikes you're out. But I don't want to be out, I want to bat again. That is to say that I have found myself having the strangest and strongest urges for yet another baby. My older daughter, S-phie, will turn 5 this summer. My twins, H-nry and C-rina, just turned one. We are totally overwhelmed in every way by having 3 kids. And yet I have the baby bug. WTF? Could it just be that with S-phie getting ready to start Kindergarten this summer and with the twins having just turned one that I'm feeling the empty nest? Maybe it's all just a silly daydream, fueled by my knowledge that another baby is not going to happen, and that maybe I wouldn't even want it if I could have it. Kind of like when I was a teenager and would plan my wedding to Roger Daltry (ick!) or David Lee Roth (ick but not as icky as Roger, I don't think - such different kinds of ick - apple ick and orange ick). If my husband J-sh finds out about this (the baby bug, not Roger and David), he will freak out. I even found myself thinking recently that all that was holding me back from another baby was that ever-elusive fortune and that I would put out a personal ad:

MWF w/3 kids seeks person of means to support child-bearing extravaganza. I am over-educated and overweight, but on a diet. Seeking patron or partner to support old-lady-who-lived-in-a-shoe wannabe and her brood; will divorce for the right $.

I think I should sleep on that one. Could this be delayed post-partum psychosis???