Worst conference EVER!

Picture this.......you're invited to spend 4 days in Miami in the middle of January for a work "summit".  The hotel is on the beach, it's going to be in the 70s, and the organizers are aware that most people coming to the meeting live in cold climates.  Given this, and given that I work in a university setting that tends to be holistic and wellness focused, one would think we would have had a decent balance of work and play.  One would be wrong.  Very very excruciatingly wrong.  Instead, we spent 11.5 hours INSIDE in a conference room talking about "student learning outcomes".  While I understand the importance of setting goals and measuring their effectiveness, that's just basic practice in my world, I didn't need 30+ hours of training on it.  To make matters worse, one of the presenters requested we turn off our cell phones.  That by  itself isn't a big problem, but then he said he wasn't above TAKING THEM AWAY from people.  Ummmm.....that's funny, you don't look like my dad!  Wow I was pissed.  Here we are, in the middle of trying to get a loan from the bank to renovate the house, I have multiple situations with students at work, and you're going to TAKE MY PHONE AWAY?  Ummmmm....see....just because learning outcomes are the whole of your life doesn't mean they're the whole of mine.  So we spent 4 days in Miami and not quite an hour on the beach the day we left.  Unacceptable.

The Business of Being Born

In the past few weeks, I have been researching options for childbirth.  This may sound like an odd thing to do when one isn't pregnant, but what can I say, I'm a planner.  Luckily my lovely husband (which is still fun to say) knows this and just rolls with it, which frankly is all you can do once I get going on something.  So I've been reading reading reading, googling googling googling, and what do I find out?  The way we as women are intended to birth is, shock and dismay, the healthiest for everyone.  Of course there are exceptions, but about 85% of the time it would work like it should if we would only let it. 
A few statistics:  Save the Children (April 2006). This is the second worst newborn death rate in the developed world.
- Among 33 industrialized nations, the United States is tied with Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia with a death rate of nearly 5 per 1,000 babies, according to a new report from
- The five countries with the lowest infant mortality rates in the March of Dimes report -- Japan, Singapore, Sweden, Finland and Norway – midwives were used as their main source of care for 70 percent of the birthing mothers.
- Cesarean-delivery rates are now at an all time high in the United States, standing at 1.2 million, or 29.1 percent of live births in 2004. The increase represents a 40 percent increase in the past 10 years. (In 1970 the rate was 5.5%) In several New York City-area hospitals, the Cesarean-delivery rate is even higher – over 40%.  In my research, I have found it to be about 38% at my local hospitals.
- A new report by the World Health Organization, published in the international medical journal, Lancet, identifies complications from cesarean surgery and anesthesia as the leading causes of maternal death in developed countries, including the United States.

I highly recommend that anyone pregnant or thinking about getting that way do some research.  You don't have to see the movie, that being said it was a lot easier for NG to take in the information that way.  He was HORRIFIED at the statistics, he had NOT A CLUE that we even had the option of birthing outside a hosptial.  The movie focuses on home births, and he was upset to discover from yours truly that attended homebirths are illegal in our state.  ILLEGAL.  We are strongly considering going to a neighboring state (only about a 30m drive) to a birthing center just so we can stay out of the hospital and avoid the cascade of interventions. 
TD is a cascade-of-interventions baby...........go to the hospital on the due date, get pitocin (fake hormones that your body isn't really that faked out by), need an epidural (because your body isn't really faked out), be unable to walk because of the epidural and the whole strapped-to-the-bed-with-monitors thing, don't eat anything but ice chips (since you're probably going to have major surgery), get totally exhausted, shockingly your labor fails to progress (since you're exhausted, stressed out, and fighting the force of gravity), then end up with a C-section.  There are so many things wrong with that process that it's hard to even wrap my head around. 
First of all, NO ONE straps me to a bed.  Unacceptable.  I can check my email while I sit in the creek at my dad's, you can't tell me the monitors can't be wireless, too.  Second, generally babies will come out when they're good and ready to come out, not when the doctor says it's time.  Babies don't have little tiny calendars in there with their due dates circled in red.  This tirade of mine just scratches the surface of the problems inherent in medicalized birth.
It's time to stop thinking doctors know everything.  It's time to stop looking at pregnancy as an illness.  A huge part of me just wants to scream about the destruction of personal power inherent to being strapped to a bed with an (often male) authority figure messing with your girl parts telling you you've failed.

Here are just a couple of the great blogs out there on the subject:

Well Rounded Birth Prep
Navelgazing Midwife

Getting There

It's been so helpful to hear from other stepmoms on the "always second" frame of mind, I'm glad to know it isn't just me that has struggled with this.  I think it really is a frame of mind, too, and I'm not sure where it came from to be honest.  It certainly isn't the message I get from NG, he's excited for our life and our children, including TD.  My guess, not shocking and just to be blunt, is it's a symptom of my own insecurity.  And why is it that I go a little crazy when I don't exercise???  Clearly I need a steady stream of happy brain chemicals.  Hopefully over time the insecurity will abate and life will go on.  I also wouldn't be surprised if being off birth control has something to do with the issue, I'm wondering if my body is still regulating itself hormonally.  Ponder ponder ponder.  This therapist needs to get out of her own head.  :-)

Always Second

Some days, rarely really, it occurs to me that I will never have a first with NG.  I'm not his first wife, wasn't his first wedding, won't be having his first baby, etc.  Yesterday I just about came unhinged over the first baby thing.  It was odd, really, that I got so upset.  I hadn't exercised in a few days and I think the lack of happy brain chemicals contributed to the problem.  I learned the other night that he has already attended birthing classes, and that was kind of the light bulb moment, or the opposite really, like someone hit the breaker and it all went dark.  I have been researching birth options, have been getting all excited about having a baby and being a family, and then WHAM, I realized this is old hat to him.  I got annoyed with him because he wasn't as excited as I was, then I realized why......it's just not new to him like it is to me.  He's been there, done that, got the tee shirt.  The tee shirt comes over 3 or 4 days a week, this shouldn't be news to me, but somehow it was suddenly very real and very very sad.  I told him about it last night, once I could put words to it.  He made a joke and that was that.  Knowing him, he just didn't know what to say, will ponder it and come out with something brilliant and loving in a couple of days.  It's not his issue to fix, though, it's mine, and somehow I have to reconcile it in my brain.  Exercising this morning helped, going to work today will help, and somehow I'll wrap my brain around it.

Kids on the Grocery List

We had TD Thursday and Friday this week, off schedule because of some travel NG was supposed to do (ended up not going because of weather).  We had a really great time both nights, as usual, despite our heat pump going out and it being 20 degrees at night.  TD is very flexible most of the time (except when it comes to food) and was happy to sleep on an air mattress in front of the wood stove with the dog.  I just love her.  She makes me INSANE with the picky eating thing, but I'm letting go of that some, which is quite a process, and our relationship is improving because of it.
The best part was Friday night.  I always tell TD to put things she would like from the store on the grocery list.  She has never put anything unreasonable on there, so I think it's a good way for her to feel some power over the food in the house.  I tend to think the picky eating thing is a power struggle, it didn't start until after the divorce, and a lot of time food issues tend to be about power and control or lack thereof, or so my therapist head thinks.  But I digress.....so we're in the kitchen, just she and I, and she gets the pen and writes something on the list.  I didn't really pay attention at first, and when I looked up, this is what I saw:

It's not a very good picture.  Our grocery list has a dog theme (that's who the tennis balls are for).  If you look at the top, you'll see that the child put 2 children on the grocery list.  I just about peed my pants laughing.  I so sincerely hope that enthusiasm continues when we actually have children.  I would love to hear what people have done to incorporate new children into a family like ours.   We're hoping to get pregnant in the Spring (Lord willing and the creek don't rise, as my dad says), so she'll be 10 when he/she is born.  Any tips, tricks, or insight?  

The honeymoon, the holidays, and the renovating

One of these days I hope to get good enough at this to remember to do it more regularly.  I was on a roll there for a while! 
Our honeymoon was AWESOME.  It was exactly what we needed and exactly what it was supposed to be, time for us to connect and bond as a couple.  We're going to try to take a vacation, just us, at least once a year for the health of our relationship.  Not a St. Lucia vacation, mind you, just a long weekend.  Maybe we'll do a big one every 5 years.  This is one of those great things about marrying a man who has been married before.....he knows what doesn't work.  Putting your children before your marriage doesn't work.  Never being without your children doesn't work.  Basically, trading your marriage for a family doesn't work.  Marriage and family experts will tell you that, and if you look for them you'll see examples all around.  If you focus on the health of your marriage, your family will be healthy, too.  To paraphrase an old saying, if mama and daddy ain't happy, no one's happy.
We got back from our honeymoon a week and a half before Christmas.  Guess who, apparently in a happy newlywed haze, volunteered to host Christmas dinner???????  Yeah, that would be me.  The dinner wasn't the problem, the house was.  It was a mess.  I spent 2 solid days just cleaning.  It's amazing how much of a mess can be made when no one's home.  Then there was the cooking.  I can't just make dinner, I have to MAKE dinner when we have company.  Ham with an apple rosemary glaze, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, green salad, baked apples, and homemade creme brulee for dessert.  It was super yummy, even to my constantly critical brother.
And now onto the renovation.  When did bankers become so stupid?  "We can loan you $50,000 if you can bring $25,000 to the table."  Ummm.........if I had $25k we wouldn't be having this conversation you dumbass.  The general contractor's wife has bone cancer, so the window installation has started but isn't finished and it's January so that's a cold endeavor to begin with.  It's.......well........it's a home renovation, it's pretty much par for the course.
There is, of course, the ever-present custody situation.  A few months ago, as you will recall here TD said she wanted to spend more time with us.  TM tabled it until after the holidays.  Lo and behold, she has changed her mind.  I'm sure the uninterrupted week home alone with TM right before this massive switch had nothing to do with it.  Riiiiiight.  TM said she didn't want to tell NG because she didn't want to hurt his feelings.  All we told her was that she doesn't need to worry about hurting our feelings (underlying message: we are not emotionally dependent on you, you are not your dad's BFF, we're stable adults), that she can tell us anything, and that she is loved.  Hello, High Road, good to see you!

Cartilage and Carcasses

This Thanksgiving found us joining the masses of road warriors, traveling from house to house to see all of the family.  I don't think we will typically journey to NG's family for this holiday, since it's about 11 hours from home, but this time we were invited to NG's dad's 70th birthday surprise party and couldn't resist.  In order to miss the bulk of the traffic, we went to my family 3 hours away first, then traveled the rest of the way to NG's family on Thanksgiving day.  It worked out pretty well, aside from the regular crap that comes up when you drive that far........exits with no re-entry, rain, etc.  We were driving a rental Impala (no mileage limit on the insurance rental from my accident, so why not?) and that made it harder.  What car designer makes a car without cup holders in the back seat???  Insanity, especially when a car that big is clearly a family car.  If only that had been the only design flaw.........it POURED rain for the last 5 hours of our trip on Thursday, and the handy-dandy traction control system in the car just about wrecked us several times.  Terrible car.
The trip was fun, though.  The party went off without a hitch, got to spend some time with NG's sister and dad's girlfriend/long-time fiance/acts like a wife, got to see snow, and met lots of people that I've heard lots about.  Apparently TM didn't like going up there and refused to go after TD was about 2, even though they were still married, so NG drove 11 hours ALONE with her for several years.  The trip feels like a piece of cake for him now that I'm here.  His family is very nice to me, very welcoming, and appreciative that I, I don't know, participate in their life?  It seems as though TM opted out, just wouldn't go up, wouldn't interact when they came to visit, and just generally acted poorly.  Its weird to me because they're very nice people!  TD LOVES to go up, her cousins live on a farm and she loves to help with the animals, this trip she got to feed a calf from a bottle which was just the coolest thing.  She cried for 3 hours Monday night when everyone went home. 
NG did quite a bit of hunting while we were there, it was good for him to spend some time with his dad and brother and friends and he really enjoyed himself.  TD and I were just hanging out when they all (all 11 of them) descended upon the house declaring NG's dad got a doe.  My first clue was when NG's dad showed up in the kitchen bloody.  Ew.  It was quite the ritual to watch, I'll have to elaborate another day.  TD watched them gut and skin the doe, much to my surprise, and decided to take a hoof home to show her mom.  That went over about as well as you would think, TM was not amused. 

The cartilage piece is less fun by far.  After my accident my chest was sore.....I knew that it pretty much came with the territory, chest x-ray was normal, life goes on.  Well I clearly didn't give myself enough time to recover before our trip, and found myself picking up kids and hauling around luggage and cases of beer for the party.  When I woke up Sunday morning I could barely move.  I sneezed this morning and it hurt so badly I stood in the bedroom and cried.  Luckily I work with nurses and doctors who were nice enough to make sure I didn't have pneumonia (I have a cough that hurts like hell) and that I hadn't broken a collarbone.  That all checked out fine and the doc helpfully told me I have something really awesome called costochondritis, better known as pissing off your cartilage to the point that it yells at you every time you move.  And holy Lord don't cough or sneeze whatever you do.
The honeymoon is 4 days away.  A hurricane hit there around the first of November, but we've been assured everything's fine.  My luck is not so good these days, so I'm unconvinced but hopeful.  I think 7 days on the beach picking up nothing heavier than my margarita is just what the doctor ordered.

Top 5 List

Today's Top 5, potentially a new blog tradition in the making, is the

Top 5 Stupid Things I've Heard This Week

1. Would you like to rent a Beetle?
From the rental car guy, after I JUST TOLD HIM we are taking a family trip to Western NY where it will be snowing.

2. You have one pill left on your prescription.
When I tried to refill my migraine medicine today (can't imagine why I need that).  Apparently I can get one pill, NOT ONE REFILL mind you, one pill. 

3. REPL RCY COMPL INR STRUCT +25%  $3734.50
When you send an estimate for repairs to a layperson, and this is JUST ONE ITEM on said estimate, it would be much smarter to write it in English so I can understand it and not have to ask you a million questions and waste everyone's time.

4. She doesn't have any winter clothes.
From TM when asked what she is packing TD for our trip to NY.  The child does not have any sweaters.  None.  Zilch, zero.  Yes we live in a pretty warm climate, but we still have winter here. 


and last but certainly not least......................

5. Maybe you should take a different route to work, this one is dangerous.
This from my typically bright and wonderful hubby whom I love dearly, while we are standing on the median looking at the carnage of my car.

Ice and ibuprofen

These are my two biggest friends right now.  3 ibuprofen every 4-6 hours, ice whenever I can, and I get to breathe without pain.  Hooray.  When we went to the bodyshop to sign for repairs today, I got a really clear idea of why my chest hurts so much.  I hit so hard the seatbelt came out of it's housing.  No wonder it hurts to breathe, I dislodged the seatbelt with my chest.
The police report came out and it's pretty clear it was my fault.  I still have no memory of hitting her, of seeing her, anything.  All I remember is getting smacked in the face with my airbag.  I don't know how it happened, I don't know how I didn't see her.  I wasn't distracted, I'm not one of those people who puts on makeup or plays with their phone in the car, I can only assume she was in my blindspot when I pulled out.  Not that anyone actually cares, the result is the same.
So now the fun starts..........insurance and probably lawyers.  We all know there are people in the world looking for easy money.  I don't know if she's one of those people or not.  I can hope and pray she isn't, and find a lawyer if she is.  We weren't on terribly good financial footing to begin with, and if she's an opportunist we're in deep trouble.  I feel really badly for NG.  Here he is minding his own business and now he has to cart me around, worrying about lawyers and our financial future.  The guilt is not insignificant, and it is a bit unexpected.  When it was me, it was just me, whatever happened only effected me for better or for worse (as they say).  I'm just glad we haven't had time to combine a lot of things, so hopefully the fact that my name isn't on his stuff (house, car, 401 (k), etc) will keep him in the clear if she decides to go for the throat.

So you had a bad day.....

This is what a bad morning looks like today.  Not the first clue where the woman came from or how I didn't see her.  The first memory I have is my airbag hitting me and then trying to figure out what happened.  I'm very thankful today for a lot of things.....patient 911 operators (could NOT figure out where I was, and this is the route I take to work a lot of days), helpful bystanders, friendly police and medics, a wonderful and supportive husband, helpful insurance people (including my stepbrother who's my agent, that my stepmom called and I think got out of bed to call me), and modern safety equipment.  At the very least I would have a concussion if it hadn't been for the air bag.  As it is, all I have is a sore sternum, and I am extremely thankful for that.

So I'm at home, and I'm going to find something to bake because that always helps me feel better.  Big thanks to Rach for the recipes, I think today is a great day to try some out, provided I have everything in the house since I'm clearly not driving anywhere.

Chimpanzees, garter (garden?) snakes, and family time

When I picked TD up from school yesterday, she said she had a bad day and she even looked stressed out.  Turns out, TD had been procrastinating on a couple of reports and projects, they had all piled up on her, and her teacher called her out for pouting about it.  So after lengthy discussions about time and stress management, we were off to Target for 3-D animal habitat supplies.  Love Target, by the way, especially the ones that have Starbucks in them.  That's a happy Saturday morning in my world.  Anyway, this particular project she had not procrastinated on.  We started it this week and it isn't due until the 30th.  We'll be out of town for Thanskgiving, though, so it has to get finished way before it's actually due.  As a side note, I can't imagine we're the only people going out of town, so why would projects be assigned over a holiday???  Anyone?  She's 9!  This is the 4th grade, not graduate school!


So we spent all of last night doing homework.  Sentences for spelling (extract vs. extract?  Seriously?), an entire report (rough draft and  final draft and drawing) on chimpanzees, math worksheet, and finishing the 3-D portion of the animal habitat project.  That project still needs a report, but she's going to do that at her mom's. 
Just as an aside, I feel badly for TD when she has to juggle these multiple-week projects across two houses.  That just adds a layer of difficulty to everything for her, and it's going to get worse the older she gets.  *sigh*

She started when we got home from Target at 5 and worked until 9:15p.  The best part is that we had lots of fun doing it.  She learned a lesson about procrastinating.............and then we played with shoeboxes, craft paper, Play-Doh and pipe cleaners, all 3 of us.  We colored, we glued, we made tomato plants and sunflowers, there's a textured water effect, NG got out the drill, I made hot chocolate, it was a blast.  At one point she looked up at us and said "This is what families do, isn't it."  Yes, sweety, this is what families do.

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In defense of stepmothers.

"Why do stepmoms kill their kids?"  A direct quote from TD the other day, in response to the highly publicized murder of 10yo Zahra Baker.  This happened not far from us so it's on the news ALL THE TIME, and the primary suspect is her stepmother, who led them to the little girl's dismembered body last week.  Its a convoluted and twisted story, and undoubtedly this little girl's 10 years were horrible and torturous.  She was a cancer survivor, amputee and deaf in one ear from the treatments, and THEN she was murdered and dismembered presumably by her stepmother.  Given that her father lived in the home and knew the child had been missing for about a month prior to anyone reporting it, dad is likely also guilty. 

The focus, however (of course), is on the stepmother.  The evil, wicked stepmother, who in this case really does look pretty evil.  This is her mug shot.
Disney perpetuates it as recently as 2008 with "Another Cinderella Story" starring Jane Lynch as the modernly evil stepmother.  She then ironically became a stepmother about 2 years later, boy karma is a bitch.  TD was watching this a few weeks ago, and we had a very pointed discussion about the differences between reality and Disney.  [In the interest of full disclosure, I will say that I hate Disney and warn all parents, particularly parents of girls, to keep them away from the Disney Channel.  It's the most ridiculous, mind-numbing, and stereotype-perpetuating programming I have ever come across.]
So here I am, defending my basic worth as a person because some nutjob killed her stepdaughter.  I assurred TD that I love her, take care of her, and that it is a rare occurrence for anyone to kill anyone, particularly a kid.  I pointed out that biological parents kill their kids also, not because I want to scare her but because I want her to learn to look at more sides than are offered to her by the media.  Shaquan Duley and Susan Smith both killed both of their boys, and they were biological mothers.  No one asked if the reason they killed them was because of their role as mothers.  No one looked at the father of the kids and asked why he chose to impregnate the crazy woman.  No one is asking Zahra Baker's dad if he killed her because he was her dad. 
TD gets it.  We talked about it for a while and she gets that crazy people come in all shapes, sizes, and roles, and that the people in her life are not crazy and love her bunches.  It was a good opportunity for us to talk about that stereotype and work through it, but I'm sure we'll have to do it again and again as long as she watches Disney. 

A source of much debate.......

I'm starting to research child birth options.  I'm like this, it would be fair to say I'm slightly neurotic about planning things.  I had the wedding planned before we were engaged.  I'm planning childbirth before I'm pregnant, its just how I am.  That being said, I'm a little hippy-dippy about healthcare and childbirth.  My body should know how to do this and I want to let me do my thing instead of being poked and prodded and eventually cut open like the deer from yesterday's post, which is all too often what happens in hospitals. So I'm looking into midwives, birthing centers, etc, keeping in mind that I'm "geriatric" by many OB standards, as I'll be at least 34 by the time I have our first. 

So I'm soliciting opinions, stories, experiences...........anyone want to comment?  Positives and negatives to hospitals/birthing centers/home, midwives/doctors, etc???  Horror stories?  Happy birthing stories?  Tips for NG?  Thoughts on involving or not involving TD?  How does being stepparenting make these choices different?  Weigh in everyone!!!!

Just for reference, I've been gathering information from some blogs listed below....fascinating and informative stuff!

Navelgazing Midwife
Midwife Thinking
The Midwife Next Door

The deer, the termites, and the dog

Another busy weekend!!!  We loaded the kiddo and the dog up and went to the farm for the weekend.  The Farm is my dad's farm, where I was raised and where we will raise our kids.  Right now we live in The City and h-a-t-e it most of the time.  The only reason we aren't trying to relocate faster is TD, we're going to wait until she's about 16 before we start trying to move, that way we can establish residency and give her two states' worth of schools for in-state tuition.  By the time that happens, our oldest (should all go according to plan) will be about ready for 1st grade.  Perfection. 
Anyway..........this was the opening weekend for deer hunting rifle season.  NG hasn't been able to hunt regularly since he moved to The City and it's something he enjoys.  Truth be told, he really just likes to go sit in the woods where it's quiet and drink coffee, if a deer happens by well, all the better.  I like venison, I'm happy to cook it and eat it, and I'm not interested in killing it or processing it.  At all.  NG is okay with that, he kills and cleans (which he did on Saturday, hooray!), I cook, everybody wins.
Just so happens my brother's kids were staying between the grandparents this weekend.  TD and my niece (who's 4) are big buddies and generally have fun together.  Overall, it was a great time, complete with a trip to the park and jumping in leaf piles. The niece is DEFIANT in a most impressive way sometimes, luckily this was horrifying to TD and she is unlikely to repeat that behavior given her reaction to my niece.  TD got a little sassy about wearing a hat outside (it was 30 degrees), but was just sullen about it after some stomping.  All in all the whole experience just made me super hopeful we'll have boys. 

We got back to The City and investigated the termite situation at my old house, which is currently being rented by an exterminator.  He's SUPER nice and that's such a big weight off my shoulders.  He showed me the evidence, which I had seen and just didn't know what it was.  As a public service, a picture of said evidence is to the right.  I have these tubes about every 3 feet along the walls of my garage.  Awesome.  Luckily, with tenant guy being friendly and an exterminator and all, is going to do the treatments with a good product on his off time and charge me about 1/2 what it would normally cost.  Works for me.  Still freakin' expensive, but cheaper than rebuilding the garage.
So we finally get home and settled, get TD to her mom's, make a pizza and have sat down to watch some tv and FO starts to freak out.  *ruff ruff*  *BARK BARK RUFF RUFF!*  *ruff ruff bark bark!!!!* *BARK BARK BARK*  Loosely translated, that means "Someone's in the driveway!  And it's not someone I know well!!!!  DO SOMETHING MOMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  Then someone knocks on the door.  No one ever knocks on our door, scared the crap out of us. Turns out to be NG's cousin, dropping off wedding presents, and here I am in my pj's, no makeup, wet hair, no bra.  Awesome. 
And now we're back to another work week.  Funny enough, this is my 2nd to last full week of work until January.  Next week is Thanksgiving, not coming back to the office until Tuesday, then working the full 2nd week of December, then honeymoon, then the school closes the 16th and we don't come back until 1/3!  Love working in higher ed.  :-)

Nothing and everything...........

That's my answer these days when people ask "What's going on?"  Nothing.....nothing that looks particularly busy, just regular family life.........and everything.....adjusting to married life, figuring out how to finance and build an addition to the house, exploring pregnancy and childbirth options (no, not preggers, just planning), Thanksgiving trip 10 hours to NY followed by our honeymoon followed by Christmas, you know EVERYTHING. 
How do you finance an addition when you don't have any equity?  How do you start a family when you have two bedrooms, both of which are occupied?  How do you have a conversation about any of these things when the walls have ears???  And when did birth become so freakin' complicated?  MD, C-section, epidural, episiotomy, midwife, doula, hospital, home, something called Hypnobabies.....enough to make my head spin and we're not even close to being there yet, especially given the aforementioned housing situation. 
The tenants moved into my house and found termites, so that's an exciting and new way to spend lots of money.  The tenant is an exterminator. 
My car is being refinanced, the trash people stopped picking up the trash, TD cheats at board games because she doesn't have sibilings who will pummel her for it, the tooth fairy forgot to come, I have an eye infection and am fighting bronchitis, car and house insurances need to be combined, NG's health insurance card hasn't come yet, and the oil change guys forgot to reset my sensor.  Oh, and we're out of mlk.   Then there's these pesky job things we have.  Love mine, NG needs a new one so add job hunting to the list. 
I'm so very thankful that I married NG or this would just be too much, he's super supportive and gets that I'm a tick overwhelmed.  So when I'm snippy, he just pats me and asks what he can do to help.
The honeymoon is the sanity inbetween.  A week in St. Lucia, where it will be warm and sunny and a cabana boy will bring me drinks at my whim.  Yes please. 

Busy busy busy

Married life sure is off to a running start.  First NG's test, then getting my house emptied and clean for renters, now getting finances settled and getting NG's house family-ready.  It's a 1960s ranch, and everything is original.  That's a good thing when it comes to floors, not such a good thing when it comes to windows and the fact that they apparently didn't believe in insulation.  So yesterday, we bought and entire pallet of insulation at Lowe's.  They had to bring the forklift out to get it (fascinating process by the way).  We got goggles and respirators, dressed in nasty clothes and under the house we went.  I looked way less cute than the girl in the picture above.  NG, being the handy guy he is, has a pair of coveralls.  They're green.  He looks like Gumby and it actually makes me giggle every time he puts them on.  I'm not a big fan of crawlspaces or respirators, but it's not really fair for NG to do all the dirty work just because he's a guy.  I'm sure there are women out there who would pull the girl card and refuse to go under the house, frankly I think it surprised NG that I got under there with him, I just refuse to be that girl.  I will sometimes request that he kill bugs, only because I don't like to hear them crunch, but 9 times out of 10 I kill my own.  I'm not a dependent sort of woman, and I want TD  to see that being prissy and dependent is optional. 
Tangent aside, I'm keeping my handywoman persona close by.  We have windows to put in and an addition to build.  The economy being what it is, we're totally in DIY territory.  How much of an addition we build depends on the banks and a horrible thing called negative equity.  We'd like to have children before we're both too old to chase them, but the two bedroom two bath thing isn't going to cut it with a 40% kiddo on board.
Speaking of 40%, looks like we may be well on our way to 50%.  TM and NG decided to discuss it after the holidays, which seems totally logical since this time of year is a lot of back and forth anyway.  When NG broached the topic, her first statement was "changing child support isn't in my budget".  Hmmmm........so its about your budget and how much you would miss her (the excuse from last time they talked about this), does it matter what TD wants or is it about you and your needs?  Not that I'm totally self-less, mind you, but seriously?
Being the bright kid she is, TD has come up with her own new visitation schedule.  Right now, she is with us one night a week when she's with us that weekend, and two nights a week when she isn't.  It confused the hell out of me for a long time, but I'm finally, a whole year later getting used to it.  She wants to add a day to both of those.  Bright kid.  So she would be with us 2 days on the weeks she's with us that weekend, and 3 days on the weeks she is not with us that weekend.  What she doesn't understand, and hopefully won't for many years, is that if that happens her mother loses child support.  2+3+2(weekend)= 7 nights every 14 days = half time.  NG thinks he'll still have to pay, he's pretty pessimistic about the money part since it's been biting him in the butt for years now, but based on my rough calculations with the child support calculator, she may end up giving him money.  Now isn't that just a kick in the ass.

But I haven't even had my coffee!!!!!

It was a regular morning in our house.  Alarm went off early, snooze button and snuggling as is our routine.  NG woke TD up, assisted by the FO of course, and headed off for work.  We try to take turns taking her to school since it makes us both late for work, and he took her yesterday.  I like taking her, it's fun time for us to be together just us, and we have some fun traditions around it now, like watching Sunrise Earth on Discovery.  Love it. 

So I'm packing (going out of town this afternoon) and getting myself ready for work and here comes TD out of bed, sobbing.  Big tears. 

TD is not a drama cryer.  She does occasionally cry when she gets in trouble, but it's usually because her feelings are actually hurt or she feels really badly about what she did.  She doesn't cry to get out of trouble as far as I can tell.  Plus she wasn't even in trouble, she wasn't even out of bed yet, so I knew something was wrong.  She sobbed.....and she sobbed......and she sobbed......just heart breaking.  And I haven't even had my coffee.  There should be a rule about tears before coffee. 

I just sat with her and patted her until she could talk, and all she could get out was "I miss Daddy."  Even without my coffee, I knew she didn't mean in the present.  She misses her Daddy in general.  So I asked if she would like to be at our house more.  I didn't know if I should even go there, but she was so sincerely sad.  She said she would, and we talked about letting her dad and mom handle it.  I've heard NG tell her that if she wants to spend more time with us she should tell her mom.  I don't think that's appropriate, she's a kid, and that's grown-up stuff.  How on earth could we expect her to tell her mom she wants to spend LESS time with her?  Unfair. 
So we agreed that I would tell her dad, and she and her dad would talk about it, and he would talk to her mom.  I'm sure she and her mom will talk about it, and I think that's appropriate, I just don't think she should have to initiate the conversation and she doesn't want to.  We talked about different families having different schedules, how some do a week at a time (I'm a big fan of that I think, fewer transitions, more consistency), and some do as little as every other weekend.  I told her we would figure out what works for our family.
When I told NG about it, he was very happy (obviously).  He's going to talk to TD about it tonight.  He's had this conversation with TM before, and when more time with him comes up she says she won't do it because she would miss TD.  Ummmm....because NG doesn't miss her?  Come on.  We'll see what happens, I'm not holding my breath.  TM's whole life revolves around TD, I don't see her giving an inch (or 2-3 days a week in this case) without a fight.

Phew!

What a marathon this week has been.  And it's only Wednesday.  Yesterday we spent alllllll evening and into the night cleaning out my house and getting it ready for the renters to move in Thursday.  What a huge chore.  Thankfully, I have great friends and a great husband, or I would probably still be there.  Well....if I didn't have the husband I'd still be living there and we wouldn't be having this conversation, but you get the point. 
We scrubbed floors, baseboards, tubs, sinks, toilets, EVERYTHING.  Hubs fixed the broken closet door track, which took some ingenuity since they have apparently stopped making the kind that was already there.  I mean seriously people, do we have to have innovations in such things????  Whatever.  Luckily he's handy and smart and got the job done.  I replaced flappers in toilets, cleaned bird poo off the porch, and ate dinner sitting on the floor. 
It was sad leaving my house.  It was MY house.  All mine, independently, with my stuff and my gardens.  I worked hard on that house!  I love my new chapter, and it's hard to close the other one.  I think that's allowed, right?

Oprah-worthy Functionality

After 6 months on the market, my house, the one I bought all by myself 6 years ago this month, didn't even get an offer.  Not terribly surprising in this market, but we were hoping to use that money to build the if-we're-gonna-have-kids-we-gotta-have-someplace-to-put-them addition on NG's abode.  Plan B has always been renting it out, so we hooked up with a leasing agency last week.  We signed with them October 25.  On October 28 they had a leasee, who wanted to move in on November 4.  Ummmmmmmmmmm...............1/2 my stuff is still in the house and it's no where near clean.  I'm not known for my housekeeping prowess, and the FO lived there with me her whole life.   She chewed woodwork and couches and is nicknamed the Furry One for very good reason.  Its a mess, and we had less than a week to fix it.  Less than a week you say???  But October 28 to November 4 is exactly a week!  Well see, there's this life thing inbetween.  I wasn't in the office on the 28th, so I didn't get his email until the 29th, when we were leaving for the aforementioned trip to the other side of the state for NG's test.  We didn't get back until the 31st and we have these pesky job things that we do all day.  My old house is about 45m from my office, and that's TOTALLY traffic dependant.  If either NG or I leave our offices right at 4, it takes 45m.  If we leave anytime past 4:30 it takes TWO HOURS.  Insanity.  This is why I hate cities. 
So!  We spent Sunday evening packing and cleaning, Monday evening same thing, and last night same thing.  NG calls TD nightly, last night was no different, until we received a return call from TD.  NG often talks to her on speaker phone so I can participate, and she called back to find out if my niece (who she just loooooves to have over, she's 4) would like her jacket from a couple years ago.  TM chimes in from the other end (apparently also on speakerphone), greets me specifically, and says she has lots of TD's clothes and would love to have someone to give them to that she knows instead of just taking them to Goodwill. 
*crickets*  *crickets*
I was totally shocked.  That is some Oprah-worthy functionality right there.  I told her I was sure my niece's mom would love that, and thanked her.  She was totally friendly, said she'd bag them up and give them to NG next time he picks up TD. 
Funny enough, in my blog perusing yesterday I found out about this book called No One's The Bitch.  Appears to be a somewhat revolutionary concept that the bio-mom and step-mom work together for the best of the child.  That's always been my goal, and having not had an actual discussion about it, seems to be TM's.  I make an effort to always speak positively about TM, defend her when TD is complaining about her, and keep clear boundaries about what is TM's territory and what is mine. 
Case in point, a conversation TD and I had a few months ago........TD: I want deodorant, I think you should get me some.  Me: You need to talk to your mom about that.  TD: But you're going to be my mom soon.  Me: (Internal monologue: I wasn't born yesterday, TD, its way harder to manipulate me than that.  I bet your mom already said no.)  No, I'm going to be your stepmom, you have one mom, I'm not her, she makes those decisions.  TD: But I want deodorant!  Me: I don't doubt you do, I'm just saying that's not my call and you should talk to your momm  TD: *pout* Fine.
Apparently this is somewhat abnormal but is keeping TM from feeling threatned or weird about me.  Score one for the therapist.

Musings on Families

Sometimes being a family therapist isn't something I can turn off. Luckily, there are lots of times when I notice really great things about families because of the way I watch when I don't even know I'm doing it. Case in point, we spent this weekend with one of my dearest friends who is currently living on the other side of my fair state. This is the closest she's lived to me in YEARS since she's married to (and was in) the Air Force. They have two wee boys, 3y and 5mo old. {As a catty sidenote, 5mo post baby and her jeans are way smaller than mine. Harumph.} We went running Saturday morning, all 5 of us, in their neighborhood.......3 adults, two strollers, must have been quite a sight. It was really fun, and shocking for me since I could actually keep up. Truth be told I could have kept going, which was even more shocking since I don't consider myself to be in very good shape. My clothes from before I met NG don't even consider going over my hips, its really sad to have 1/2 a wardrobe.

Anyway, tangent aside, at the end of our run the 3yo, well, wasn't done! He wanted to stay outside and keep running! When you're 3 and you aren't actually running, it's super fun to snuggle up under a blanket and get pushed around the neighborhood on a beautiful morning! Who would want that to end??? According to his wonderful mother, he had a horrible and very embarassing tantrum. I totally missed it and I was standing right there. What I saw was an upset little boy ("Wipe my tears please Mommy") with two validating and consistent parents who set limits. Shocking. Who knew???? He was sad, it was okay that he was sad, and we were still going inside. Dry it up, end of story, "tantrum" over.

In the meantime, I get to watch a dad who feeds and diapers and participates in parenting. This is not always the case, not always the case in my own family, and I love to see this! Especially when Mom stays home, I've seen so much "well you have your job and I have mine", its really refreshing to see some participation. I feel very sure NG is going to be the participatory kind, especially seeing how he reacts to the opposite.
So these are my musings. Funny enough, they have nothing to do with steps and fulls and halves and whatnot. Families are families, they all look different, they all have "issues", and onward we go.