Author Archives: powerskirstin

Our children: Mini versions of us…or not?

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As we wait these last weeks for our boy to arrive, I find I become consumed with excitement, thinking about how he will fit into our family. How his personality and behaviors may be similar to or different from the girls. What he’ll look like and whom he’ll resemble.

When Nora was born many remarked that she was the spitting image of me when I was a baby. One friend later said, “Look! A blond you!” Now that she’s a bit older I still see the resemblance, but I notice more of Liam in her physical appearance too. She’s got the same chubby, round cheeks he had as a boy, and a very slight dimple in her chin right where his is. She’s a pretty good mix of us both, I think. She definitely has her mother’s personality, though.

Frances, on the other hand. Well, we’ve never much seen a shared likeness with her, at least physically (she’s got Liam’s peaceful and easygoing spirit). Liam and I both have dark hair and eyes. Franny’s blond with bright blue eyes. In fact, people say she looks more like Liam’s brother. These kinds of statements are always sure to bring on awkward pauses and comments, which we of course just love.

My sister sent me the picture below via text yesterday with a note: This could be Nora and Frances. The picture is one that was taken of the two of us, at roughly the same ages as the girls, probably circa 1981. Seems Liam’s sibling isn’t the only one who shares a likeness with our youngest. If you put some blue eyes on my baby sister, she’d look like our girl too!

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Whether they resemble us or not, they’re sure beautiful, our girls. Even if there’s something totally gone wrong with their thin, straw-like and brittle hair. They walk around with bed-head most of the day despite numerous attempts to comb out knots and nests in which small creatures very well could be living. But I’ll save that post for another day.

Can’t wait to meet the boy and see whom he favors. Me? His father? His grandparents? The mailman? That joke just never gets old.

Pet Peeves: Part One

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Why Part One? Because there will surely be more to come. The sampling below includes just a few that came to mind today. In general, I am easily irritated. At eight months pregnant, irritation is my main state of mind.

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Pet peeves? Everybody’s got ‘em. Let me tell you about some of mine.

1. Too-cold house: I walked in the door this evening after school to a frigid house (the girls were at my mom’s house). My husband, whom I lovingly refer to at this time of year as Father Winter, insists on turning the thermostat down as low as he possibly can without freezing the pipes, whenever we leave the house (50 degrees), and when we go to bed at night (61-62 degrees). I get the rationale behind this, I do. It saves money, right? When I complain, he tells me to put on a hat or a sweatshirt. I think he gets this from his father, as this was likely the way things worked in his household growing up. Me, I prefer a balmy 68-70 degrees at all times. So, we compromise when we’re home. This compromise looks like Liam turning the temp down to 64 and me turning it up to 68 and so on and so on, back and forth and back again.

And so now, I’m sitting at the dining room table, typing away on my laptop, with my scarf and jacket on, still all bundled up, and fingers in danger of getting frostbite if the temp doesn’t rise here quickly enough, because when he left for work this morning, on a record-breaking cold day, Liam did his usual turn-down to 50.

2: Placing used, wet towels on the bed instead of hanging them up on the bathroom door, or any place really, so long as they’re not on the bed.

3: Clothing that’s left around on various household surfaces (rocking chair, floors, bed, dresser tops) instead of being hung up, put away into drawers, or thrown in the dirty laundry basket. I will admit to being guilty of this one at times, but only briefly. For example, I might leave a pile of clothes on the floor at night, but the following morning, I make sure to put them where they belong.

I went through a passive-aggressive phase once, for a couple of months, where after a week had passed by without any putting away of clothes, I began to madly stash all of said clothes in a heaping pile on the floor of my husband’s closet. Clean, dirty, folded, a mess—it didn’t matter—into the closet they went. After a time I realized this was pretty immature and stopped. It annoyed the hell out of my husband, I’m sure, and maybe fixed the bad habit for a time, but mostly we are back to piles everywhere. I guess this is something I’ll just have to live with.

4: General kitchen clean-up and inefficient use of dishwasher. My husband and I do a fair share of cooking and cleaning in the kitchen. Usually, when one person cooks, the other will clean up. When I make dinner, I try to clean as I go, taking advantage of any down time to wash and/or put away dishes and food items. When Liam cooks, he takes his time, dabbles here and there, making a mess and piling up items on our limited counter space.

When I clean up after he cooks, I’m left with many various-sized dishes and spills. I insist on washing the large dishes, pots, and pans by hand, and only putting into the dishwasher the smaller items, so as to make more room to accommodate more dishes in the coming days.

When he cleans up after me, Liam’s likely to only have a few large pieces, as I’ve already done most of the hard work, yet he’ll force-load everything in the dishwasher, instead of washing by hand. This makes it so that when I get stuck again on clean-up duty, I can’t put a fucking thing in the dishwasher because of the three or four large-ass items he refused to clean himself, and are now taking up all the storage space. Clearly, this is not upsetting to me, even now.

5: Girls interrupting. There’s nothing I like more when Liam comes home from work, than to sit down to dinner with him and the girls and talk about the day. There’s nothing I like less than when I’m really into the telling of a story or event and the girls—who’ve previously been silent—start busting in on the conversation with demands and screaming and whining. It’s enough to make me want to pull out my hair, scream at the top of my lungs, and get in the car to drive as fast as I can, away to Mexico.

OK. Peeves off chest. I should counter now and admit that I am extremely grateful to have a partner who shares very equally the duties of parenting our children, if not all the housework and cleaning. He spends one day a week at home with the girls, all by himself, since he has to work on Saturdays. He is super hands-on and chooses to be so, without any pressure from me. He’s on board with using, changing and laundering cloth diapers, which can get straight up nasty when soiled. You can’t simply throw them in the trash, even when you would very much like to. He gives baths, reads bedtime stories, puts the girls to bed, gets up early in order to let me sleep in, and as I’ve mentioned before in a previous post, plays the best make-believe “Daddy Cat” the girls have ever known. Also, it should be noted that he is an amazing, talented cook. So while cleaning up after him might be a chore, I always know we are sure to enjoy a gastronomic feast when he’s in the kitchen.

And the girls—even though they are capable of making hurricane-force destruction with their toys and arts and crafts supplies, and also shrilling, screeching noises that could render any sane person loony—I wouldn’t trade them for anything else in the world.

And now, nearly two hours later, after on and off writing, I think I can finally remove my jacket and scarf. In just another hour or so, it will be time to don the bedtime hat and sweatshirt necessary for our nighttime arctic temps.

A season of fasting…with some exceptions.

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Lent begins today. I’ve given some thought to sacrifices I can make over the next forty days that will hopefully help me to be more mindful, healthful, and devoted, both to prayer and to my family.

While I will continue to try and write on this blog daily, I’m going to give up other forms of electronic media. My cell phone and I are breaking up for a spell, taking some time apart to “see other people.”

I will likely continue to use it to text, call, check weather, etc. But, I will refrain from using Facebook, Instagram (a new, rarely used app), reading news (both celebrity gossip sites as well as more respectable outlets), and listening to podcasts. Not sure if I can give up Amazon Prime. We are bound to need things that just can’t be bought in the store with as much ease and convenience.

Hopefully, this electronic abandonment will allow for more book and magazine reading, perhaps some letter writing, and in general, less distraction from and more attention to the kids, husband, gratefulness and grace.

In addition, I’ve gotten the husband to agree to give up sugar along with me. This will help us to be more healthy and conscious of the foods we put into our bodies. Also, I know for me, that once I get past the craving stage, my stress, anxiety and tiredness will lessen. And, if the baby should happen to not gain an extra pound or two these next seven weeks, then we will all be better for it (and by “we” I of course mean me and my lady bits).

It should be noted, however, that we ARE making some exceptions. Since Lent coincides with Birthday Season (Liam, the girls, and I all have March and April birthdays), and potentially the birth of our newest family member, we will be breaking the rules from time to time.

I know, I know…not a true sacrifice then, right? At this point though, I’ll take the best we can do. And if that means eating cake or ice cream or cookies or cupcakes (or a combination of up to and including all four), on the days during which all of us celebrate our birthdays, well, then I’m OK with that.

And, you’d better believe that I’ll be taking full advantage of my “free” meals at the hospital when the baby comes, and ordering some chocolate peanut butter pie. That pie alone may be reason enough to consider having a fourth child. Hmmmm…considering done. No deal.

Birthing play toys, nursing baby dolls, and neti-potting. All in a day’s work (play).

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You’ve likely heard the phrase: art imitates life. How about: toddler and preschooler imitate life?

No? Surely those of you living and/or familiar with small children, can recognize their capacity to be inspired by both the mundane and significant details of the lives of those individuals within their intimate inner circle. And, their subsequent aptitude for acting out, in all their make-believe glory, those details, rituals, and behaviors.

Over the past three days, my oldest daughter has “given birth” to three baby dolls, two stuffed dogs, and one plush, half baby, half mermaid. Here is a brief synopsis of the process:

She goes into her bedroom for privacy, proceeds to stuff the play-fetus-of-the-moment down the front of her shirt/sweater/footie pajamas, emerges to show us all the spectacle that is growing inside of her, and then makes a big show of all the excitement and expectation surrounding the upcoming birthing event. Then, she retreats back to the bedroom for what I imagine is the world’s most pain-free labor, and re-emerges with the play-child wrapped in a blanket or covered in a crib, only to unveil him or her to the whole room of waiting-with-bated-breath-family-members—me, Franny and Liam. We go through the rituals of greeting and holding the baby-dog-doll-merchild, only to do it all again many hours later.

The youngest has only birthed one baby doll so far; she prefers to push her babies around in the stroller with a tote bag slung over her shoulder, stopping occasionally to lift the baby from her seat and “nurse” the baby mid-stride.

To top off the latest string of imitation events, just last night, my husband caught the oldest child attempting to neti-pot—is that even a verb?—with a play tea-cup, in the bath (I’ve been using one to lessen my cold symptoms this week). I thought this last action could potentially end up as a near-drowning event, but she seemed to handle the forced water to the nose like a pro; there was very little sputtering and coughing.

I find it so amusing, satisfying, and flattering to see my beloved little people imitating one of their favorite grown-ups—me.

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Adventures in neti-potting. Note the “lips” tattoo that has resided on her chest for the past two weeks. Liam has declared it gone by tonight’s bath.

Federal tax refund + Nesting + Ease of online shopping = Financial Disaster

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When it comes to finances and money, I wish I could use the following adjectives to describe myself: cautious, thrifty, prudent, frugal, saving—even penny-pinching.

Thankfully I am married to a man who embodies these qualities. For I am impulsive, uneconomical, spontaneous, materialistic, and, at times, excessive, with a devil-may-care attitude when it comes to spending money.

Liam and I both have good taste, I think, and we both enjoy nice things. The difference is, he can wait on a purchase, or go without, whereas I, simply, cannot. Take for example, the fact that Liam has owned an iPhone 3 for more than five years. (I upgraded to a 5 over a year ago). He admitted recently that when he uses his phone at work, he’ll open an app, leave his office to go take care of some sort of business, then come back to the app, which will have slowly opened and begun operating in his absence. I think: ain’t nobody got time for that! But, he just rolls with it. (By the way, just this weekend, I convinced him to upgrade to a 6. I think he is happy with his choice, but I know he is still smarting from the cost of it all).

We’ve begun a dialog recently—Liam and I—about whether or not we could afford for me to stay at home with the kids for a year, next year, if I took an extended leave from work. Liam insists we could do it—we’d just have to make severe cuts and sacrifices.

For instance, he suggests we could eat hotdogs every night for dinner. We could give up cable. We could not go out to eat a few times a month as we do now. We could not purchase beer and wine. These are just a few areas he has mentioned making cuts to our spending budget.

The problem is, I like our lifestyle as it is. Hotdogs for dinner every night would kill us, perhaps literally. I just read an article about how kids who eat more than twelve hotdogs a month are at greater risk of developing childhood cancer than those who do not. It means a lot to me (and to Liam, which he will readily admit) that we eat organic (when possible), whole foods. This, however, is costly.

The giving up of cable is a no-brainer for me. I haven’t watched TV in about three weeks running now. I sincerely doubt, however, the hubs’s ability to go without ESPN, NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, pro soccer and golf leagues, and NCAA nearly everything. Also, I would not want to deprive him of either the occasional beers after work with dinner, or the glass or three of wine. I’d be right there with him if it weren’t for the whole I’ve-been-pregnant-or-breastfeeding-since-2010 thing.

And lastly, let’s address meals out, either just the two of us, or with the girls. We love this time. We love food and adult beverages and restaurants and atmosphere and dinner conversation and food.

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I once heard a rumor that a former colleague of mine from an independent school outside of Boston had a wife who wore the same dress every day for a year. I can’t recall if this was for financial reasons or to make a political statement. I bring it up just to say that I couldn’t be that person. I wish I could go without. But I choose not to.

I struggle with this on so many levels. Why can’t I be like the devout Christians who are willing to give up all they own to follow Christ in service to others? I love my king size bed too much. And the yellow chair in our living room. And the fact that I can go out to a fancy dinner with my husband once or twice a year where they serve “complimentary” glasses of champagne for special occasions along with dinner to the tune of almost $200 for an evening of some of the best (local!) food we’ve eaten time and again.

Hotdogs for dinner? One dress for every day of the year? I guess I’m saying I’d rather return to work in late August than to stay at home with my kids in order to preserve the lifestyle that allows us to indulge every once in awhile. Ugh. How depressing is that?

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Which brings us to the past week. We’ve gotten our tax refund processed. It’s in the bank now, sitting there, teasing us. Making us think we are millionaires, when in fact, just two weeks ago we had just enough money to pay all the bills.

The plan is to put a little bit down on one of the cars, which we hope to have paid off in a few more months. The rest is meant for savings, for us to live off of once I go on leave in seven weeks and one day, or less (definitely not more), and no longer receive a monthly salary.

It’s been sitting there, that money, begging of me to spend it. And I’ve been hunkered up in this house all blustery winter making lists of things we need before the baby arrives (new dresser, nursing bras, additional King-size sheet set because I’ve had the brilliant idea of pushing the girls’ twin beds together to create another family bed if the need arises once the baby comes; Easter basket goodies, since the baby is due to arrive then and who wants to go shopping after she’s just pushed out a nine-pound baby? Not me, that’s who.).

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Lastly, can we talk about how easy and convenient online shopping is these days? Two words: Amazon Prime. I know, I know. I’ve listened to the podcasts and reporting about what goes on in these warehouses and how the employee ‘pickers’ there are mistreated and grossly undervalued. Still. I can order something on my computer, or phone, and two days later, sometimes just one, a box shows up on my doorstep, free of shipping? Well, certainly not free. There is the cost of the workers’ stress, their medical bills, and therapy appointments.

Alas, I find I’ve been willing myself to steer clear of mobile devices until that excess money gets moved to its rightful place once all of our bills have cleared. I hope my husband does this soon. Because all I keep thinking about is the new bag I want to buy to take with me to the hospital when the baby comes. Liam has graciously offered to let me use his very ordinary black duffel. And, I have that bag in my closet which I have used every time I’ve traveled for the past seven years. Again, were I a practical gal, preferring functionality to style, these choices would suffice. As I have admitted though, I am not. I want that new, pretty bag!

But, I also want to be able to afford more than hotdogs once July rolls around and we are nearly penniless again. And so, it’s a constant balancing act for me that must go on in my heart of financial hearts. Splurge, save. Save, splurge.

All I’m saying is that money better be gone from our checking account soon, or else this house will be the owner of another bag too many.

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The baby’s new dresser which of course had to have coordinating baskets for storage underneath, as well as a new lamp to grace its top.

Regression: a return to a former or less developed state.

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Keeping things short tonight. This girl knows when to say enough is enough. After the week we’ve had, plus coming down with a full-fledged cold, a bubble bath and early bed are all I can fit into the rest of this day. Feeling beyond overjoyed that I get to savor another day off tomorrow. Thank you presidents, from the bottom of my heart.

I will leave you with a photo and a question to ponder: What is wrong with the scene below?

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If you guessed that the younger child, and not the oldest, should be sitting in the baby highchair, as opposed to on her knees in the normal seat, you are correct. At least this situation was slightly better than the one before, where the only seat open when I came to dinner was the baby highchair. I insisted I would not be the one to sit there and that someone had better move unless they wanted me to take my dinner to eat in the basement, which, given my mood, may have been best for everyone.

The oldest actually prefers the baby seat, as of the past few weeks, so she obliged and gladly moved. Is she regressing since the baby is due to arrive in seven weeks and two days? (Not that I’m keeping exact count or anything). I think she might be as she now commonly refers to herself as “me” instead of “I” as the subject of many of her sentences.

Take for example, the following statements (this drives me totally crazy, by the way):

“Me do it.” “Me want daddy sleep with me.” “Me color using red crayon.”

This caveman speak from my child who has been forming grammatically correct sentences since she was twenty months old. What, oh what, do we have to look forward to once the baby actually gets here? I can’t wait to find out (note sarcasm, please).

Anxiety Episode #7: High winds cause flying debris to crash through any window in the car while we are driving, and impale any member of my family.

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My parents watched the girls tonight, along with my niece and nephew, so that Liam and I could have dinner with my sister and brother-in-law. We didn’t realize that some bad weather had begun until we headed outside at the end of our evening together to pick up the girls and bring them home.

While we were inside having dinner, and later playing boardgames and laughing so hard I cried and slightly peed my pants—can laughter bring on labor?—about an inch of snow had covered the cars. Strong winds were causing what little snow had fallen to blow all around us. As we were driving to my parents’ house, I expressed to Liam that the snow didn’t really concern me. Our new van has AWD. It’s the potentially crazy other drivers on the road, and the whipping wind that disturb me. “How so?” he asked.

And then I told him, in my dark mind’s eye, I visualize a jagged piece of lumber or wood, roughly eight inches to two-feet long, being picked up from its resting spot on someone’s fireplace pile, or pick-up bed, and hurling itself, propelled by the wind, toward our car an ninety miles an hour, with enough force to shatter a front windshield or side window, crushing whatever may lie in its path, my family included. It was enough to make me wonder whether we should just sleep at my parents’ and avoid risking the girls’ lives in the storm.

As usual, he assured me I was overthinking things. We would sleep in our own bed. The weather was not that bad. The girls would be fine. No wood would be flying about.

We picked up the girls from an evening of ice cream and Oreos and fun time spent with cousins and grandparents. The drive home was uneventful, unless you count the barking of song requests that came from the nearly four-year-old in the back seat the entire thirty-minute ride.

No one was injured. And we are all sleeping in our own, big, collective bed. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Favorite new hiding place: the puzzle shelf.

Favorite new hiding place: the puzzle shelf (which the girls insist on referring to as the doorwell).

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Our little Valentines. Snuggled up in front of the hideous animal print pillows that came with our cozy couch, and which are so comfortable I can’t bring myself to throw them out. One of these days I plan on sewing covers for them. Don’t hold your breath waiting for it to happen, though.

A summary of the past twenty-four-ish hours.

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The bad and the ugly:

      1. Woke up at 11:30 last night to Frances coughing. Realized moments later she was going to puke, woke up Liam, got her to the trash can ten seconds too late.
      2. Into the bathroom for clean-up of hands and face. Pajama change for Frances.
      3. Back to bed, armed with giant kitchen bowl (since most of trash can got the first batch and was sitting in the bathroom reeking away).
      4. Rested in bed with tossy-turny baby, eyes closed, though no sleep came.
      5. Repeat of puking six more times until 5:45 a.m., with a two-hour sleeping period from 3:30 until 5:45 a.m., where in-between responsibilities included: mom holding Frances and bowl, dad cleaning out bowl of puke, washing up kid’s face and hands, changing pajamas (two more times), sheets (one time) and pillowcases (twice). Also, had to somewhat wash Frances’s hair, though how she managed to get barf on the back of her head I still can’t quite figure out.
      6. Up and about before 6, with eyes burning and both girls ready to be awake for the day.

The good:

    1. Got to enjoy the day off from school, with Liam, making the weekend a four-day weekend.
    2. Enjoyed a long, hot, cleansing shower.
    3. Took a three-hour nap (Frances slept from 10:15 until nearly 3:00!).
    4.  Nearly all the weekend chores have been completed:
    • Weekly grocery shopping finished.
    • Fresh, clean sheets on all the beds.
    • Bathroom squeaky clean and disinfected.
    • House vacuumed.
    1. Frances back to her silly, rowdy self, except lacking an appetite.
    2. Nobody else has gotten sick. Yet.

Despicable me.

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I was in a dark place this morning when I left for work.

After we got off to a rough start yesterday morning with the iPhone debacle, and didn’t end up getting the girls to bed until nine last night, after the car battery fiasco, I was resolved to make it out the door on time today. I woke up feeling groggy, probably because it’s been about four nights in a row now that Frances has had some difficulty sleeping. Her top two fangs are making their way down, and she’s got two bottom teeth that are just about to erupt.

So, I busied myself making coffee and lunches and packing school bags and a diaper bag. Nora and Liam slept in a tiny bit, while Frances got right to work pushing her baby dolls around the house in their stroller, while wearing her older sister’s sparkly, purple, polka dot, two-sizes-too-big, shoes. This girl and her morning energy. I always wake up feeling somewhat irritated with her after nights like last night, during which she caused such sleep disturbances. But, watching her move and play about with such happiness just pleases me too much to stay angry. I found myself laughing out loud at her presence.

As the morning minutes wore on, however, and we got closer to the time we needed to depart to our respective destinations, my smiles faded and were soon replaced by barking orders and increased levels of stress. The wretched Mother-dragon had awoken, and was firing about on all cylinders.

Dragon Mother: Nora, five more minutes of breakfast and then get dressed, please.

Older Child: (resigned) OK. (fidgets in seat with caterpillar game pieces, makes no move to eat)

Dragon Mother: (mildly annoyed) Do you need me to set a timer or just remind you?

Older Child: Just remind me. (continues to not eat)

Dragon Mother: (very annoyed) Nora! Eat!

Older Child: Maybe you should set a timer (takes ONE bite of cereal, resumes fidgetiness and talking to herself)

Dragon Mother: (sets a timer; timer goes off, shouts in loud voice) Time to get dressed!

Older Child: (scurries down from the table, disappears into her room)

Dragon Mother: (Begins to try and eat breakfast. After wolfing down a few bites of eggs and drinking a couple of cold sips of coffee, ventures into child’s bedroom and sees child running around, playing with younger sister) Nora! Please, we need to leave in five minutes if mommy’s going to get to work on time. You still need to get dressed and brush teeth.

Older Child: (beside herself with exasperation) Okay, okay. Ugh!

Younger Child: (sees mom with food, comes running, even though she has already eaten breakfast) Eat! Eat! Hold me! Up!

Dragon Mother: Not now, Frances. Go see what your sister is doing.

Younger Child: (whines) No. Up! Eat!

Dragon Mother: (holds her distressed ground) Mommy is not holding you now. I need to brush my teeth and get ready to go to school.

Husband: (comes out of shower, heads to bedroom)

Older Child: (sprints out of bedroom, still in pajamas, and makes her way to the living room)

Dragon Mother: (totally pissed off now) NORA! GET DRESSED!

Older Child: (whines and protests) I want YOU to get me dressed.

Dragon Mother: (screams as though at wit’s end) Aaahhhh!!!!! (proceeds to eat one more bite of eggs, then goes to child’s bedroom to help child get dressed)

Husband: (senses wife’s boiling point reached, takes care of younger child and attempts to begin teeth-brushing routine)

Dragon Mother: (finishes dressing child, takes bags out to the car, then returns). Nora! Boots and jacket on please! Hurry!

Older child: (sits on bench, stares out the window, sings Frozen songs to herself)

Dragon Mother: NNOOORRRAAA!

Older child: OooooKaaaaaay! (puts boots on; struggles with jacket; spins around and around like a dog chasing her tail while she aims to get one arm inside the coat sleeve)

Dragon Mother/Wretched Wife: (can no longer witness this tomfoolery, heads to the kitchen, nearly bumps into husband) She’s a total nightmare! She can’t do one thing right this morning! (referring to older child)

Husband: (looks as though wife has just said something completely certifiable, but attempts to remain neutral, not wanting to offend wife further; remains speechless)

Dragon Mother/Wretched Wife: (takes in husband’s look, bursts into tears, makes admission) I’M the nightmare. Why am I yelling at her like this? No child should begin her day under such stress. She’s behaving totally fine. I am not. I hate that lack of sleep, job dissatisfaction, physical discomfort, pregnancy hormones, stress, lack of time, and who knows what else make me feel and behave this way.

Husband: (gives hug) You’ll be fine. Take a deep breath. Oh, and don’t forget your coffee.

Dragon Mother/Wretched Wife: (returns hug, kisses younger child goodbye, grabs coffee and tissues, dabs at cheeks and eyes, ushers older child out the door, five minutes late)

Older Child: (walks down driveway to car) Mommy, why are you sad?

Dragon Mother: (terribly ashamed) Because I’m feeling very grouchy this morning and I don’t like how I feel when we have to hurry and I get frustrated and yell.

Older child: (proceeds to tightly tie the pom-pom ear flaps of her winter hat together, over her face instead of under her chin, resulting in ear flaps covering her entire mouth; turns to mother with a scrunched up face and muffled voice, due to ear flaps in the way) Mommy, look at me. Will this make you happy? (begins to crack-up at herself)

Dragon Mother: (turns, surprised to see what daughter has done to contort the image of her face; erupts into hilarious laughter at the sight, and then tears up again because she is so touched that after the god-awful past half-hour, it is her child who has acted in such an intentional way as to soothe the beast within her mother and restore her mother’s spirit once again)

We drove the rest of the way to Nora’s school in peaceful silence. I don’t know what she was thinking about. I was busy breathing in and out, relishing the past moment of grace and humor, and feeling grateful for the special gift that is my oldest girl. Even when she makes me totally crazy, she is capable, at the same time, of making me feel such love and overwhelming affection.

I’m hoping to be more mindful and generally appreciative when I wake up tomorrow morning. It will help that it’s Liam’s turn to do the pre-school drop-off. And also that it’s Friday and there is a three-day weekend coming up. I’m very much looking forward to the break and the opportunity to recharge my soul and put out the fires burning within. Rest in peace, Dragon Mother.

Back up your phones, people. Just do it.

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I’ve been having some issues lately with my iPhone. I’m constantly running out of storage, so I find I’m having to delete photos and movies and text messages in order to make space for new data. Even more annoying is that I am neither receiving texts from certain contacts nor successfully sending texts to others. Specifically, there is one friend at work, with whom I have a long, successful history of texting, who cannot send texts to me anymore. When I look at her phone screen, I can clearly see the evidence of the message she sent to me. But on mine—nothing. Weird, right?

Also, just this past week I have been notified by at least three people that texts I sent and thought had been received, were in fact, not. I have since sent several replies to messages with no response back. This then leaves me wondering: Did the contact receive the text and then just get busy and forget to reply back? Did the message not get sent? What the hell.

I consulted our wise babysitter, Candace, a wealth of all kinds of information, and she replied with a few troubleshooting questions:

Have you deleted messages lately? Sure, you already taught me that trick.

Have you backed up your phone? Who actually has time to do this?

Turned it off and on again recently? What? That’s an option?

Installed the latest software? What version would that be again?

When I realized the answer to almost all of these questions was no, I decided I needed to get to work addressing my problems. This morning, about a half hour before I was due to leave to take my oldest to school, and then drive to school myself, was probably not the best time to decide to plug my iphone into my laptop for the first time in—oh, I don’t know—nine months? A year? What? No judiging.

So, it starts doing its update thing, the little line moving across the phone to show the progress of the latest install. I was watching the clock, sensing I’d have to leave the phone home for the day, as it wouldn’t be finished in time for us to leave, when all of a sudden iTunes reports that an error has occurred and it can’t finish the install. WTF? I disconnected the phone, stuffed it in my pocket, and shoved my personal laptop into my school bag (I never bring this computer to school, but it seemed this situation could quickly escalate into an emergency).

At school I tried to restart my iPhone, but it is and has been stuck with this lovely little image of a power cord and a red iTunes graphic on the screen. Very pretty, but not so functional. When I plug the phone back into my laptop, iTunes tell me that the phone appears to be in recovery mode—duh!—and will need to be restored to its original factory settings. Like I said—emergency.

This wouldn’t be an issue at all—if—like a good tech consumer I had made a backup, like EVER. The last backup of my photos appears to have taken place sometime in the spring of 2011, when my oldest was a newborn. Awesome. So responsible of me.

I called the number for the local Apple people at our mall to ask them if the restore was my only option. Wasn’t there some sort of magical device they could hook my phone up to, to make all the data come back to life? The tech guy, complete with a Texas draw—are you sure this is the Apple Store in the mall in Lancaster, Pennsylvania?— told me no, that this was the only option available to the Apple tech people too. Some geniuses they purport to be.

My husband has counseled me not to touch anything until we see someone in person. I looked online for data recovery programs and there are some out there. Will they steal my identity though? Are they legit? I have no idea. I might be willing to try. It’s only a matter of time, anyway, before the current hacking groups get ahold of their next target, surely some online system of which I’m part, and do their damage.

After all of this, I think I am most troubled by the fact that I am more concerned about my lack of being able to use my iPhone than the impending loss of data. A whole three years’ worth of precious photos and videos gone? Meh. What’s that compared with not being able to check e-mail, weather, news, do blogging, Facebook, texting, and the myriad of other apps I use daily to distract me from work,  parenting, writing, or relaxing?

This is an emergency. I hope I can figure it out soon!

Update: This evening I drove to the mall to talk to the Apple people. Essentially, they told me the same thing, in person, that the cowboy said on the phone. So, I went out to my car, resigned to do the restore, and lose all the photos in the process.

Instead of driving home, though, I decided to sit in the parking lot. I remembered—how, without my phone, I don’t know—that I had a midwife appointment nearby in less than an hour. I tried to pick up a wireless connection, did, and set about restoring my phone.

You can imagine my excitement when, after the restore finished, one of the backup options mentioned 7:18 this morning. The Texan had assured me that I had no backup on my account. Yes! I thought hopefully, please work. Ten minutes into the twenty-minute process, I decided to turn on the car and listen to the radio. I didn’t start up the engine, since gas was low, but turned the key just to get the volume going.

After ten minutes of listening to the news, the phone finished, restarted and—I had all my photos back the way they were this morning, when all was nearly well, minus the whole mis-texting fiasco. Wahoo!

I started the engine, or attempted to, with fifteen minutes to go before my appointment, and—nothing. The car battery was dead. This was turning out to be quite the day. Instead of calling my husband and asking him to meet me (he’d likely just returned home from my parents’ house with the girls), I decided to run back into the mall, where my brother happens to work and was working, and ask to borrow his car.

On the way back in I realized I had to pee—badly. However, I usually give a urine sample first thing at the office, so I didn’t want to lose my sample to the mall restroom. I decided to hold it. After my brother graciously agreed to loan me his car, and walk me to it, I discovered he’d parked as far as possible from the location of his store, where we were at the time. So, we had to book it to the opposite end of the mall. I had only eight minutes to spare at this point, and was dangerously close to having an accident in the Sears wing.

As we were walking he began to tell me about the car I’d be driving:

The thing is, the door handles don’t work. So, you have to unlock the car with the key, I’ll show you how to do that. Then you have to hold down this button here to make the windows go down. But, you can’t let them go down the whole way or else they’ll fall off the track and we won’t be able to get them back up. So the window goes down halfway, right, and then you reach inside the door to open the handle that way. Then, when you get in the car, you can just roll the windows up.

Piece of fucking cake. Totally brilliant day this is turning out to be. Could it get any better? I get into the car without losing a window, thankfully, and discover the gas tank is on empty. The kind of empty where the mileage range is nearly single digit and the yellow light is definitely on and in effect. I drove normal speeds to the appointment (the office was only a mile away or so) but I still felt a few times like the wheels were going to fall off and I was losing power steering. How the hell does he drive that thing around safely?

Don’t worry, he assured me later, the parts are coming. I hope the parts include a new car, because that thing is a piece of shit. Sorry, bro.

I got to the appointment with a minute to spare. Amazingly, my blood pressure was normal. My pants were dry. The baby’s head was down, heartbeat strong, and was moving around like crazy. I drove the shitbox back to my house at a mere 20 mph, after I put a little gas in the tank. Liam and I packed up the girls in our car, headed back to the mall, and jumped our other car. Thankfully Liam knows how to do this and do it well (his old car had battery issues, so he’s an expert by now). On top of everything else, I just couldn’t fathom adding electrocution of husband to the stress and anxiety of this day.

We got the car back home, left our SAFE van for my brother to drive back to our place after he finished work. And, only moments ago, my brother came to claim the keys for that rickshaw of a vehicle he calls his car. I hope he texts me when he gets home. Of course, if the texting problem isn’t fixed, I may never know and will stay up worrying about him half the night.

So, after all of this, what lesson have I learned? If I would have just backed up my phone, none of this would have ever happened. Amen, amen.