getting down roller style March 31, 2008

Our old school roller skating shower was yesterday. 80’s theme. It rocked.

Our friends dressed up, they dressed their kids up. There were abundant side ponytails. I had blue eyeshadow.

S, of course, was not skating, but we booked the rink for ourselves, and she had fun watching everyone. It was a perfect shower. I don’t know about all you social people, but I get really worked up when everyone from different areas of our life, work, grad school friends, both families, S’ s friends, are all in one place. Yikes. But blessedly, our roller party involved no shower games, no gathering in the living room for awkward conversation with someone’s great aunt, no opening presents for 127 minutes (but lets not talk about the presents or lack thereof, which is fodder for another post entirely). Oh, and it was a potluck-ish brunch, which is, in my opinion, the best meal ever.

BTW, I’m like 6′5” in roller skates. If I had fallen, it would have been ugly. And not only did I skate, I skated while dancing to 80’s music, which was mostly good times, but some songs just came out of nowhere and brought me back to some angsty fucking years.

This party was also an opportunity for my friends to scope out meet our donor, RM, my friend WTF and their family. I mean, who wouldn’t be curious about him?

Apparently my friends, most of whom FORGOT to look for him.

You gotta love my friends, who are totally interested in our pregnancy, but not at all interested in scoping out our donor at an event where there was ample opportunity for covert staring. Luckily, I was later able to describe him to them because he stood out not only for his good looks and good dad skills, but for his mean roller skating skillz. The man is coordinated. He was all skating backwards and shit, and not on inline skates, but on old school four wheelers. Our reaction to his skating prowess cracks us up…I mean normally one does not care whether one’s friend’s husband is a good roller skater, but for us we’re like SCORE. Sexy donor roller skating times.

my damn imagination March 25, 2008

when i picture the birth of Waffle Recipe, there is a moment of giant happiness. of course it is immediately followed by a strange kind of sadness that the baby will not be put on my chest, will not be put on my skin. the slippery warm feeling of Smarty alive and perfect on my chest is one of those perfect experiences. a moment where i could almost believe in angels and a benevolent god. i want that again. and no, i cannot get into bed with S and have the baby put on both of us. there is no room in the bed of a laboring woman who has just pushed a giant baby out of her vagine (a word from Borat that S and i use ALL the time and nothing makes us laugh harder than saying that after the baby S’s “vagine hang like sleeve of wizard” oh lord).

of course i do not want to feel like all mixed up about the birth. yes, i had my turn at this, blah blah. but that makes it so much harder. when we did this the 1st time it was all either of us knew. this time i know what it feels like to have a slippery baby put on ME. i’m scared that this time it will be less special. that it will feel like her baby. i want to breastfeed. i want to be the one. i’m really scared that i will be partly sad when she is born, which feels selfish and wretched.

it is a bitter ugly feeling, and i had enough bitter ugly feelings while TTC.

snakes and snails and puppy dog tails March 23, 2008

I get so riled about gender marketing to children. So mad. It really seems to get worse and worse over the years. Chicory posted a while ago about this topic and it reminded me how much I adore my boy, and how proud I am to be the kind of parent who buys my boy these pink crocs, when he picks them out in the store (because pink is his fav color).

But even S and I are all kinds of gender stereotyped, even when we are rebelling. Anyone who says “my boy really just does love trucks, I had nothing to do with it” is delusional. We absolutely influence what our kids like to play with, and so do our peers, their peers, their friends, their grandparents, billboards, toystores. If girl likes trucks we think it’s “cute” or “great”. It isn’t unnoticed. I mean I wouldn’t be thrilled if my daughter picked out pink shoes. I’d be like ‘great more pink shit, how indoctrinated can you be?’ (I don’t really like pink).

That said, nothing makes me more proud than my boy…wearing a dress. Seriously. He asked me to buy him this dress the other day (which, BTW, is a nightgown for like an 8 year old) and I did because it was only $6. He didn’t show much interest for a couple weeks, but then he wanted to wear it!

He put it on and was transfixed. Do you remember what dresses felt like when you were little (if you wanted to wear one that is)? The way they move around your body? Smarty loved it. He slept in it. He twirled in it for 2 days. He wore it with his fireman’s hat for hours.

Anyway, I loved Smarty that day more than I have ever loved him, save the day he was born. I don’t really want to post a pic here…hmm…maybe I’ll post a password protected picture tomorrow.

It brings me to tears just thinking about it. The freedom. Such unabashed joy, which is soon to be crushed. He already gets comments regularly from older kids about his pink shoes. It is infuriating, but mostly it is just sad. Most boys don’t ever get to wear dress…unless they are pretending to be a woman, for halloween or at a frat party. It is something to laugh at. They certainly are not allowed to enjoy it. My point is that even progressive parents (us, for example) are still part of this culture, and we are all, ALL, influenced by gender stereotypes about girls and boys, even if we are questioning them.

So S and I muddle through, and are very proud when our boy, partly because he wants to, and partly because we let him be whoever he wants to be, wears a pink dress. That evening my lovely boy wore his dress to the beach - sunlight streaming through his curls as he ran across the sand. Motherhood just doesn’t get better than that.

the dentist March 18, 2008

the week in short sentences.

i didnt have dental insurance. so i didnt go to the dentist.

for SEVEN years.

fittingly, when i went last week, i had seven cavities.

this is slightly nightmarish for someone with dental phobia (google it). even the little metal scraper thing the dentist uses to poke around in there and check things out sends shivers down my spine.

last week i called a dentist and asked for drugs. i went in for ex rays (do these make evryone practically throw up on the hygienist? wtf?). drugs i got. but after picking up the Halcion prescription which can cause retrograde amnesia (yeah) i freaked myself out. then the receptionist was condescending. i almost chickened out.

but i didn’t. i swallowed the pills and tolerated 3 fucking hours of drills, needles, poking around and the awful taste ofyour own teeth dusting your mouth. thank you Halcion
for making it tolerable to th point where i FELL ASLEEP during parts of the procedure.

god bless the responsible use for the drug class “sedative/hypnotics”. and a huge shout out to the previously unknown (to me) world of sedation dentistry. that prescription was the best $9 i’ve ever spent.

super powers March 13, 2008

I was tagged to do a 6 non-important things / habits / quirks about myself meme (like 2 weeks ago-i’m busy okay?). I decided that instead I will list some of my Super Hero Powers. In our house we like to discuss powers one possesses that might be odd or irrelevant or awesome but are, in fact, powers. Secret powers. And of course every superhero has a weakness, or two. So here goes.

S’s top superhero power is: everyone likes her. And her top fatal flaw/weakness is: the complete and absolute inability to hurry.

One of our best friend’s fatal flaw is the inability to stop telling a story. Like if he sees a movie you haven’t seen he always wants to talk about it, he thinks he’s sharing something unimportant - but you don’t want to know anything - so you say wait, stop, I don’t want to know but he can’t stop. He can’t. Same thing if something is grossing you out. You say ‘eeew M, I’m eating, don’t say anything else about it’ but he can’t stop. He tries to make it not gross, but it is, of course, still gross, and he says it anyway, while you are eating. We have come to believe this is a true weakness of character. His wife’s fatal flaw is running like a girl. A ridiculous, arm flappy crazy run. She knows about it but can’t help it.

This is one of S and my favorite conversations. We imagine our friends in ill fitting outfits. Sometimes we give them Superhero names.

Here are mine:

1. I am an excellent shot. Guns, archery. Great shot. I know this is bordering on an actual super power which is especially odd if you know me IRL, because I’m the least athletic person ever. I discovered the gun talent when we went to a shooting range once, and thought that was it, but a few years ago at the Renaissance Faire (yes I go. I have even purchased the giant turkey leg.) I tried my hand at some old fashioned archery. Lo and behold I kicked everyones asses…the men, and the very athletic S. Thus discovering that I have AIM.

2. I know when people are lying. MAD lie detection skills.

3. I always know what S is getting me for Christmas, or my birthday. I get all House on her ass. Poor woman. She has learned that she cannot answer one single question I ask. If I say, ‘did you already get it for me?’ She now knows to refuse any answer at all, because from such a seemingly innocuous question such as that I will deduce the gift and ruin the surprise. This Christmas she almost got me, but alas, nope. We were at a giant toy store and I couldn’t find her for a few minutes. I thought nothing of it at all (big store - we get separated all the time), but then I saw her walking towards me from a direction other than what I expected. She looked pleased. From that I deduced that she had snuck into the game section, purchased Gui.tar Hero for the Wii, run out of the store, put it in the trunk and was returning from said attempted surprise. I let her think she surprised me until Christmas when she looked smug and said ‘you don’t know what I got you.’

This brings me to me weakness: I have to be right. It’s an ugly weakness. I can’t let anything slide. Could I just give her a little pleasure in buying me a gift? Hell no. I can’t do anonymous donations because I need credit. Is that a pathetic quality in a person or what? Irritating too.

How is gift prediction a superpower? I don’t know. Make it work. What did you expect?

What are yours?

grover is scooting and book purge 2008 March 9, 2008

*that little blue monster is further and further towards the right on that little ticker. i remember having to take that  ticker down after the miscarriage.  unbelievable that it is so far over.

*i am so busy in a paperwork laden job that i just don’t have the mental space to type, or think, or be witty at all. so i have not been posting. but maybe i’ll try to just give more updates, even if they are lame. big news this weekend. we got our room clean. this required a day and a half of cleaning and organizing. i would post before and after pics but its to freaking embarrassing.

*also we purged 1/3 to 1/2 of our books. it was totally terrifying.

categories that got booted:

1. books that make us look smart, but we have not read and do not plan to read. like The Epic of Gilgamesh. honestly? one of us had to by it for a class. never going to read that shit again.

2. novels i loved but will not read again in the next 5-10 years. gone. this one is particularly sad, because i loved some of these books dearly. but we need room in our too tiny house and i refuse to store books in a box downstairs where they will mildew. not good book mojo, that.

3. reference books. can we now look this info up online? if so, out with the big beautiful glossy books. sad.

4. stupid books we will never read, or outdated books. like are we really going to read the lesbian parenting book from 1993? sadly, 1993 was 15 years ago, and it just ain’t current information. What to Expect When You’re Expecting? worst pregnancy book ever. out. gone.

Purged. I want to say I feel cleansed, but really I feel a little gutted. I am happy to have some very needed space, but getting rid of books is like chipping away some of the  concrete foundation under my house. Even the stupid books are books, and I remember when I bought them and they are a part of my history. I love books. Anyway, that’s all an illusion. And we need space for the effing baby. It’s worth it. But no one is allowed to come to my house EVER AGAIN to look at my books, especially if it is to get some insight into who I am. okay?

ug March 6, 2008

i work with kids. sometimes reports
have to be made, if you know what i mean. and it is awful. and sometimes people make mistakes. but when you make a mistake designing a room, someone’s wall gets painted the wrong color, or you waste a client’s money on the wrong sofa. (i used to be a designer). but in this job when i make a mistake it has a real human consequence. and i don’t always know what i’m doing. so yesterday i kinda made a series of mistakes and i had to make a report, which i should have made on monday, and my supervisor had to tell me i made a mistake (not catastrophic or anything), but today i feel ill. this is the first day i am taking my work home with me. i usually have good boundaries about that. but today i’m spinny and beating myself up and yuck. why didn’t i just scrap this whole profession and bake cakes? the worst that can happen there is that you mess up someone’s special occasion cake. bfd.

help for a friend March 3, 2008

The friend who got me my current job, and who I went to grad school with, just found out that she has elevated FSH levels (ranging from 10 to 17 during the 3 tests she got on day 3). Not good. She usually has a lot of spotting before her period so the day 3 was always a little unclear (like when was the 1st day of her period), but on 100 mg of clomid she did ovulate (they think) and the clomid cleared up the spotting problem so the last test (FSH was like 11) was absolutely on CD3. Do you have any resources for her? She’s going to see an RE next week, but I would like to help her get as much information as she can before going, because we all know that REs vary greatly in knowledge and competence. She has no IFV insurance, but she does have IUI insurance, and some drugs. Any luck with IUIs and this range of FSH elevation? Straight to IVF? Any trusty internet sources for this condition?