not that you asked...

Things I've Been Thinking About

* * * Taking this one step too far: I created a Facebook group called People Who Shower Correctly. JOIN ME IN FIGHTING THIS INJUSTICE. * * *

Try to remember the last shower-related product you saw advertised on television. Body wash, soap, shampoo—anything. Now do me a favor and also try to remember the way that product was being modeled for you. Can you see it? It starts with some sudsy brawny man or toothpick woman, right? And they’ve got their eyes closed, their heads tilted back, some smirky little half-smile… and what else? What else are each and every one of them doing?

I’ll tell you! They’re showering while FACING THE SHOWERHEAD. And they’re making it look downright ENJOYABLE.

I personally do not shower while facing the showerhead. I do all my lathering with my BACK to the showerhead, and even most of my RINSING with my back to the showerhead, turning to face the showerhead only when I need to do something very specific to the front of my body, like get soap off my face or shampoo out of my eyes. Otherwise, I don’t enjoy like the idea of standing there and getting sprayed in the face for the duration of my shower.

This topic is not something I’ve ever discussed with anyone. So it is entirely possible that 99 percent of the human population chooses to shower FACING the showerhead (honestly, I JUST CAN’T IMAGINE) and I am just the tiniest minority. But something tells me this is not the case; in fact, I boldly proclaim that the Shower Product Advertising People are being downright exclusionary in their pictorial representation of How Americans Shower. Are they trying to PUSH their showerhead ideals on the general American public? Are they out to make us feel inadequate or of low stature because of the way we like to cleanse ourselves? Which is WITHOUT WATER IN OUR FACES? (Or also, without streams of water hitting us directly in the nipples? Dude, that HURTS when you’re pregnant.)

I am putting my foot down, Shower Product Advertising People! I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do, but it is going to be important, and earth-shattering, and will result in realistic advertising standards! Perhaps this means I will start a Facebook group dedicated to People Who Shower Facing The Wall, NOT THE SHOWERHEAD, and well, YOU HEARD ME. EARTH-FREAKING-SHATTERING.

Please let me know how you prefer to shower in the comments. I would appreciate that. I need to know if I’m even MARGINALLY correct about this. If I’m not, I will apologize.

Also, may I also just wonder aloud: Do you think television news will ever move past the point where the reporters have to act like they’re just having an everyday conversation about the murder rate with SOLELY each other? Like the television audience doesn’t even exist? Even though, HELLO, here we are, watching and simply being the reason you’re even on the air in the first place?

When you step back and think about it, it sounds completely ridiculous: “Well, Maureen, tonight we have an amazing tale of two conjoined dogs who were separated during a thirteen-hour surgery.” Maureen, let me sit here and tell you, JUST YOU, EVEN THOUGH I’M LOOKING DEAD INTO A CAMERA, about these two amazing dogs. Let’s pretend like those millions of people who are watching us aren’t even there, like, AT ALL, and let’s just talk to each other like we’re the only two people in the universe who are privileged to know the tale of these TWO AMAZING DOGS. Back to you, Steve!

This never bothered me before, but suddenly it has become MY OBSESSION, and I cannot make it through one newscast/morning program without wanting to scream like a crazy person at the television. Something along the lines of, “I’m RIGHT HERE, so quit acting like I DON’T EVEN EXIST.” And there’s no real solution, either, because its not like I want Meredith Vieira talking directly TO me through the television, hello, AWKWARD, but I still think something must be done. SOMETHING. Like, maybe another Facebook group? I know, I know. EARTH-SHATTERING.

Finally, something else I thought about a lot was how much I hate Asher’s toy box. I picked it up at a yard sale for $30, and it’s wood, and it’s nice, and it has these hinges that hold the lid open so it won’t slam down on his little fingers, but it’s Just Not Me. It's very traditional, and kind of boxy, and well, honestly, I HATE IT. But I figured I would Just Deal, because, hey, $30 is a BARGAIN, and maybe I could spruce it up with some paint or something, you know, when I have a free minute or two. (HA.)

But then yesterday on our walk, we passed a store that was going out of business and that was selling all its completely untouched furniture. And I saw this (in red! In perfect condition!), and I FELL IN LOVE. And I bought it for $20 and now I have every reason in the world to get rid of the other one.

So. Uh, anyone need a toy box?

Let’s get this (long, rambling) post out of the way, and then we can talk about something else

So! Pregnancy. It’s kind of a whole different ballgame when the fetus inside of you is living and growing and generating its own body parts instead of… well, instead of… the opposite.

Apparently the mistake I made with the last pregnancy—the DOOMED one, if you will—was simply believing blindly and wholeheartedly in the “every pregnancy is different” schtick. Which, ok, I realize that technically, yes: every pregnancy IS different. However, my last pregnancy was different because I DIDN’T FEEL PREGNANT. In other words, to lack any symptoms WHATSOEVER is certainly not the same thing as not having morning sickness until nine weeks instead of five. Or having less severe morning sickness. Or not having any morning sickness at all even though you’re peeing every three seconds and sleeping like crap and generally feeling exhausted, hungry and like you’re about to burst into tears EVERY MINUTE OF THE DAY.

I assumed I was lucky last time. After all, my body had already produced one healthy, full-term child, and I couldn’t imagine any reason why it wouldn’t do it again a second time. Instead of panicking about feeling great, I just figured I was one of the chosen few for whom each pregnancy was truly different; and in my case, truly enjoyable the second time around. Except that I never got The Boobs. Not having The Boobs, that was kind of sad.

Anyway, as it turned out, I was all kinds of wrong.

This time, though, I feel TERRIBLE. I’m not throwing up, but I’m non-stop queasy. I’m sleeping like crap, I’m exhausted, I’m breaking down into hot, sniffly tears over Pampers commercials and any time I hear the National Anthem. And Sunday, during Asher’s nap, I curled up on the bed in discomfort and cried while Dave ran out to CVS for stool softeners. STOOL SOFTENERS! (He bought me a bottle under similar circumstances when I was pregnant with Asher, but I gave them to my grandparents when they were visiting about a year ago. TRUE STORY.)

The feeling sick and the constipation and the non-stop eating to relieve the non-stop queasy, though… this time, its comforting more than it is torturous. I mean, yes, it sucks (OBVIOUSLY), but it is also a reminder that things are happening inside me. Nothing is at a standstill. Innards are being formed and a little heart is beating and I will likely be dragging a big Rubbermaid tub full of elastic waistbands down from the attic by the end of the week. (See above, re: NON-STOP EATING.)

In other news, I ended up switching OB practices. Despite my pestering phone calls and numerous assurances by the staff at my old office that they would locate my surgery report from my c-section and make sure it was in my chart for my next visit so I could talk to someone about it, it never materialized. Maybe I haven’t mentioned it here before (I did here), but when my doctor finished stapling me up after Asher’s delivery, she leaned over the drape and congratulated me and then told me something was wrong with the way his cord or the placenta or SOMETHING inside me was formed, and that I would always require a c-section as a result. Whatever it was—as important as it may be—I will probably never know, even if it is a potentially LIFE-THREATENING CONDITION. I obviously can’t remember what she said because I was hopped up on some serious drugs and new-baby euphoria. And I can’t overlook this situation, I feel like it was a serious misstep on my practice’s part to not be able to inform me of what happened in there, even though everyone came out fine on the other side.

My new doctor is going to try getting the report from the hospital, but she seems to feel that in all likelihood, my surgery report was never dictated to anyone. Got that? As in, IT NEVER EXISTED IN THE FIRST PLACE. And since I’m one of a thousand patients at my old office, there is no way anyone would be able to remember what happened during an emergency c-section almost two entire years ago, especially since the day I went into the hospital to be induced was also the first time I ever met the doctor who delivered me.

My new doctor saw me immediately upon learning I had a previous miscarriage. She met with Dave and I in her office, where we talked for 15 minutes about concerns, and history, and what we thought went wrong last time. I am at an increased risk for developing preeclampsia with this pregnancy, and she is concerned about the fact that Asher was delivered at 38.5 weeks and weighed a good bit under six pounds, especially with my family history of large babies. Something was overlooked last time, and she assured us she will do everything she can so that it doesn’t happen to us again.

I don’t completely blame my old practice for what happened with Asher’s pregnancy and delivery. I now know I could have been a better advocate for myself, but back then I was so afraid of being the overanxious pregnant woman. So I let myself believe that it didn’t seem like such a big deal at the time, the fact that they forgot to give me a Rhogam shot or never followed up with me on the blood pressure medication they prescribed for me after delivery (I eventually just stopped taking it). Or that at my eight-week postpartum appointment, no one could locate my surgery report. I figured that since everyone seemed to have turned out fine, I shouldn’t be too concerned, water under the bridge and all that.

But I had no idea how much I stood to lose last time. But now that I have Asher, I absolutely DO know exactly what I have to lose, and that’s why you can bet I won’t let it happen again.

A picture is worth a thousand blubbery, incoherent words

But really, the only three that matter are: IT’S STILL ALIVE.



Six weeks, five days. A tentative due date of January 9. And all the hope in the world that everything is going to be okay this time.

Except I don't care what you say, IT WAS WEIRD

Two weeks ago, when Dave was outside one night putting the trash can away, our new neighbor came over and invited us to a housewarming party for the following Saturday night. Dave thanked him for the invite and said something that I imagine was along the lines of, “Oh, yeah, okay, see you then,” because that is how men communicate with each other, they do not think to ask about the START TIME of this party, or whether we could BRING SOMETHING, or even possibly WHAT IS YOUR WIFE’S NAME.

Anyway, in the following days there was some discussion about going to the party with some other neighbors who had been invited, and we decided that yes, we would all drop by in the spirit of Being Good Neighbors, but we figured we would do it after the kid was in bed, you know, take the baby monitor two doors down and have a beer and then pretend he was crying so we had an excuse to leave. (We expected it to be, uh, kind of lame. Possibly awkward. I’M JUST BEING HONEST.)

But then Saturday, we return home at around 5:30 from an outing to Home Depot where we bought stuff to make our house look marginally pretty for the next two or three weeks (until I forget to water all the flowers and they rot and die) and we had just come inside the house when there was a knock on the door. Dave opened it, and lo and behold…

“Hey!” said our new neighbor. “Aren’t you guys coming over? The party’s in FULL SWING.”

“Uhhhh, yes?” said my husband. “Yeah, yeah, uh, we’ll be right there.”

“Okay, see you in a few!” said our neighbor.

And then Dave closed the door and then he turned to look at me and I just stared at him because, DUDE, are you KIDDING ME? It is not enough to just INVITE us to your party, you have to come to our door to REMIND US that you’re having the party and then ask us point blank if we’re coming? Is there any chance we can say no to your face? I DIDN’T THINK SO.

In a way, kind of genius. I mean, now we HAD to go. He put us on the spot! The party was already RAGING, right? And then, on the other hand, WHAT A DIRTY TRICK that makes for a very socially awkward gathering. I felt like I was attending at gunpoint! And we were the only neighbors who came! Everyone else was WORK FRIENDS! And it WAS an awkward party! And then Asher fell off their deck headfirst and almost gave himself a concussion!

EXCEPT! The one marginal saving grace was that when we got there, the new neighbor mentioned that two other neighbors had dropped by for a few moments but that we had just missed them. “Oh, too bad!” I said. “Who were they?”

WHO WERE THEY, INTERNET? Oh, just the president of the homeowners association and her lovely friend Edna. What a lively party THAT would have been! All four of us in a room together with smoke coming out of our ears! Welcome to the neighborhood!

Anyway, then we did our part to make the party more awkward because Dave and I went ahead and told all the awful Edna stories against our better judgment and now our new neighbors probably just think WE’RE the jerks for getting all snooty and mean about the two nice older ladies who stopped by earlier. We probably shouldn’t have even opened our big mouths. We probably shouldn't have let our kid fall off the deck either, but we'll let bygones be bygones and all that other crap.

You probably don’t really care all that much about this stupid story, but I did want to know: the knocking on the door while the party was in session and asking us when we were coming? Now that’s weird, right?

A humble moment

Something that is hard for me is being fair to my husband. Do you want to know what I struggle with on a daily basis? I never seem happy with his work/home balance, and I would like to tell you—here in one of my humbler moments—that it is not his fault.

There are days when I desperately want us to have the life he is working diligently for us to have: a life that includes the ability to pay bills on time, and take yearly vacations, and provide a college education for our children. A life not unlike the one our hardworking parents gave us. A life I am more than happy to help him achieve by being his devoted partner, his right-hand man.

On the other days, though, would it kill him to be home before 6:30 every night? How hard is it to call and let me know he’s going to be late, AGAIN? Does he even KNOW how hard my day has been? On those days, I am the opposite of supportive and understanding; instead I am frustrated and angry, and when he comes home I complain that he is willingly choosing his career over his family.

I vacillate wildly between those two crazy emotions—pride for my husband and his work ethic and his genuinely admirable desire to support a family to the best of his ability, and loathing for all the extra and off-hours he has to work to get us all there. It seems impossible for me to find a balance.

Dave and I made the decision for me to stay home full time together. It makes the most sense for our family right now, especially since I am able to cobble together a meager source of additional income through some freelance commitments. But I am almost ashamed to admit that I never once thought about the strain and the stress it must cause him to know that he is technically The Sole Provider for our family. If the bottom fell out of all of my little projects tomorrow, we could figure out a way to live. I would have to cut Target out of the equation, and we would have to stop eating out once and for all, but we could do it. However, if the same happened to him, well… let’s just say, at least my parents have a finished basement.

And yet, on at least a weekly basis, I find myself angry with him for choosing the career path he’s chosen. A career path that isn’t throwing money at him even though he works a fair share more than the standard 40 hours a week. A career path that doesn’t afford him six weeks of vacation time or generous benefits or a dependable yearly bonus. I lose sight of the most important issues through the haze of Putting My Selfish Interests First. I want my husband to be home, with me and his family. It’s not FAIR that he works so much. And I never think about how fair it is to him, this pull between work responsibilities and a demanding wife. Instead, I’m usually thinking about how unfair it is to me.

I also forget that I want him to love what he does, and to find some fulfillment in the daily grind. It’s only fair, isn’t it? I certainly have found fulfillment in mine. Why wouldn’t I want him to enjoy his job too? Why isn’t that a good trade-off, a few extra hours of work each week that ensures he’s challenged by and excited about what he does?

Because I can be selfish, and egocentric, that’s why. But also because I have a hard time seeing his side of things. He’s not much of a talker, my husband. He doesn’t come home and tell me about how his day went or whether he likes his new clients. I’ve told the story before (I think) about when Dave and I were at a party, and he came up behind me telling someone what he did for a living, and when that person walked away, Dave said, “You know, that’s not AT ALL what I do.” He’s just not someone who can talk endlessly about his job and his challenges and his goals. He’s a quiet, honorable, hard worker. He has more integrity in his pinky finger than I do in my whole entire body. (As such, he would never have an interesting blog.)

And yet, as much as I admire him for all the hard work he does, I wish he told me more about it so that in turn, I could appreciate all he does instead of automatically assuming that I Do More just because I take care of the baby and do the chores and pay the bills. And because I talk about it. I have no issues with letting him know exactly how much I do. He always listens and never complains. And perhaps most admirably, he never counterargues the way I would if he brought up how hard HE works.

It is hard sometimes to know that, for the foreseeable future, my husband’s job will involve long hours. He will never be the kind of person who leaves the office at 5 on the dot and is home for dinner at 6. He’s not going to make a salary that affords us a million dollar home or an endless string of brand-new cars or bi-annual vacations in Antigua.

The reality is that my husband wants nothing more than to be with his family as much as possible. He is trying his hardest to make sure that we get to feel secure and that we feel protected and that we have everything we need. He has the weight of an entire beautiful family riding on his shoulders and he deserves every ounce of my respect, admiration and understanding. I trust that he is doing exactly what he thinks he needs to be doing for his family.

I wish I could always remember that.

In the meantime

I'm working on something kind of serious. Introspective. DEEP, even. Well, maybe. I'm like, two paragraphs in and who knows where it will all end up. But as always, I'll want your input and your thoughtful opinions and maybe we'll all learn something together!

IN THE MEANTIME, enjoy some mating tortoises. We saw them at the local zoo the other day, and I originally thought the one was having some kind of seizure. And then I turned around and looked at him from another angle and WHOOPS! He was having relations, not a seizure. MY BAD. (It sure looked and sounded like a seizure though. Can't imagine how utterly delightful that was for the other party.)

P.S. Don't you love how he couldn't bother to finish whatever was in his mouth before he decided he needed to copulate? HOW CLASSY.

Truthfully, I never even WORE that particular bathing suit, but it's not like SHE knew that

I’m guessing you won’t be remotely surprised that I sold the bathing suit.

I put it out on Saturday more as an experiment than anything else, but by 10am, it was LONG gone. Sold to a woman who also bought two of my purses and a shirt. A woman who spent a lengthy amount of time comparing and discussing the differences between our breasts and whether the $6 bathing suit would cover hers. I assured her that it would, but what do I know? AND WHAT DO I CARE? Frankly, she should have been more worried about how many crotches that bathing suit had come into contact with, and for HOW LONG EACH TIME. But she didn’t ask.

I actually spent a lot of time discussing my breasts with Yard Sale Clientele. For example, there was one woman who wanted to buy one of my adorable LOFT dresses (brown linen with a halter neckline and yellow embroidered flowers) but wanted me to give it to her for $7 (not the $10 I was asking) because she wasn’t sure it would fit. And as she was telling me this, she was gesturing wildly—first to my chest, then to her own and back again—all while wearing a rather skeptical expression, I suppose because if my sad, droopy, minimalist chest once wore that dress, than there was NO WAY ON EARTH her enormous magnificent hooters were going to squeeze in there. But then I cleverly pointed out the elasticized back and the adjustability of the halter straps and LO AND BEHOLD, ALL TEN DOLLARS WERE MINE. Never mind that I probably paid something like four times that when I bought it three years ago. It still felt like victory.

It was also amazing how many women stopped by to peruse my clothes who were (and I say this in the nicest of ways) much larger than me, but who insisted that all of my clothes were WAY WAY too big. And then there were the awkward moments when people asked me if I thought something would fit them, and I wanted to say something like, “Yes, I was about your size right before I lost some weight,” but that sounded RUDE and AWFUL, even if it was honest. Selling your own stuff is hard because you can only imagine it on YOUR OWN BODY, not someone else’s. And remaining indifferent while trying to help someone by sizing up their body, with its set of lumps and bumps that are so different from your own, is completely impossible. It just makes you sort of… judgmental, I guess. I DO NOT RECOMMEND IT.

I sold 95 percent of the clothes I brought and 75 percent of my pregnancy literature. I sold some old artwork and a film camera and my file box. I sold some lamps and picture frames and our rusty brass fireplace tools. I sold a cute blank notebook to a fourth grader for fifteen cents. I sold every purse I arrived with (more than 15 altogether). I ended up making about $175, despite the fact that Dave came to relieve me around 11:30 and proceeded to hold a $1 sale just to get rid of everything else so he didn’t have to cart it back home.

One guy bought three or four pregnancy books for the woman he was there with, and after he handed over the cash, I saw him try to smuggle them by an older woman who I assume must have been one of their mothers. She was all, “What’s THAT? What did you buy?” and he’s trying to stuff them under his shirt, mumbling, “Nothing. I didn’t buy anything.” It was rather amusing.

Then at one point there was a little old Asian man who was investigating my desk lamp who asked me, “Why are you selling this?” I thought he was accusing me of peddling crappy merchandise that didn’t work or something, so I said, “Oh, don’t worry, it works. I just don’t have room for it in our house anymore.” “Oh, ok,” he replied. “I didn’t know if you were selling it because it was a souvenir from a relationship gone bad.” I assured him that I was still very happily married, but part of me was really hoping that was some sort of awkward geriatric pick-up line.

So it was a good day. Makes me want to do it again come fall. Possibly with an entire card table devoted just to underpants. JUST FOR FUN.

Yard sellin'

So we’re participating in a yard sale on Saturday. I say “participating” because we’re not hosting it at our house. Instead, we’re joining a million other people and their carloads of crap a few blocks away in a parking lot. This is good—I prefer neutral ground for yard sales anyway, because yard sales have a tendency to be major self-esteem busters.

I get a little nervous just thinking about it. Me, in a parking lot, with a bunch of people milling around either completely disregarding my stuff or else telling me it isn’t worth what I think it’s worth and they’d like to pay me less than half of what I’m asking, thank you very much. But this is MY STUFF, and even though I don’t have room for it any more, that doesn’t mean it ISN’T NICE. So come Saturday, there I’ll be, with my stack of fives and ones trying not to cry when someone tries to offer me only two dollars for my plastic file box instead of the five it’s TOTALLY WORTH. Come ON! A FILE BOX! Sturdy plastic, gently used, comes with a neatly placed Apple sticker and a half-inch thick layer of dust. Seriously, two dollars, dude? You’ve got to be KIDDING ME!

I also am selling a bunch of clothes that don’t fit anymore, including a handful of cute dresses from Ann Taylor LOFT that I bought at the end of summer clearance in 2005 and then was too pregnant to wear in 2006 and then was too skinny (HALLELUJAH) to wear in 2007. So yes, they’re three years old, but I happen to think they’re still cute. Of course, this theory is easy to shoot down IF NO ONE BUYS THEM. And I’ll be wondering: Is this because they don’t fit anyone or because THEY’RE SO UGLY AND OUTDATED?

I’m just not very practiced at yard sales. I’m not good at having them and I’m not good at going to them. I don’t like to have them because I don’t like to bargain. And I don’t like to go to them because I don’t like to bargain. And also because I don’t want to get sucked into buying things because they’re so CHEAP only to get home and find that I have buyer’s remorse. Not because I spent too much, but because I bought something heinously ugly/pointless/broken. My family hosted a yard sale a few years ago and I was TERRIBLE at selling things. If it hadn’t been for Dave stepping in, I probably would have instigated a Buy One, Get Three Free policy. As it was, I think we only ended up making something like $100 that round. It was kind of pathetic, actually. Until I remember that a yard sale is only as pathetic as its Product Mix, of which ours basically consisted of 16 Rubbermaid tubs of old stuffed animals and a fondue pot.

The other thing that confuses me about yard sales is where to draw the line concerning Personal Items. Like, for instance, I have this bag of bathing suits that are either a little too big or a little too unflattering. Is there even any REASON to try to sell bathing suits at a yard sale? I mean, bathing suits and underwear are like, the only two things I can NEVER imagine buying secondhand. But would other people? Honestly, I’d hate to just donate them to charity without TRYING to sell them for a quick buck or two first. But then I wonder: Will I look like the Yard Sale Newbie for putting crap on my table that all the Professional Yard Salers know will NEVER SELL? Also, how embarrassing would it be to watch someone BUY YOUR OLD SWIMSUIT? About as horrifying, I imagine, as watching a total stranger try on your old bra.

All proceeds from Saturday’s yard sale will go towards furnishing Asher’s new playroom, which, BELIEVE IT OR NOT, is looking a hair better than it was last week.

THEN:


NOW:


Of course, what you’re not seeing is what it took to get us to this point. That journey included one trip to the dump, three vacuum canisters of sawdust, 3,000 decibels worth of nagging, and a giant gash in the carpet made by a circular saw. AWESOME. "Don't worry," said Dave. "I'll tape it down." Yes, Asher, doesn't that sound exactly like the playroom of your dreams? I THOUGHT SO.