Category Archives: Stress

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.

Anxiety Episode #5: Neighborhood solicitors or other would be criminals force their way into our house to burglar, assault, kidnap and/or murder us.

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Our neighborhood sees a fair amount of people walking its streets, knocking on doors with offers to mow lawns, pave driveways, or repair windows and roofs. Also, there are Jehovah’s witnesses (rarely), and the occasional dudes who are in transition—they’ve found Jesus, they’re many months sober, and they’re preparing to leave the halfway house. Somehow they believe their future success depends on the sale of magazine subscriptions, of which I’m meant to buy several.

Are these people legit? Are they prospecting for real business or just casing houses for potential burglaries? Are they in the (black) market for cute, bright babies? If so, I’ve got a couple I am absolutely NOT wiling to part with.

I always get both nervous and extremely irritated when I see these folks approaching the house. Nervous, because I find them to be highly suspicious, and irritated, because I have not invited them to my home, and therefore, do not welcome their presence. I know, this all sounds very Scroogey and judgy, but I can’t help it.

Usually these types come around when Liam is still at work and I’m home alone with the girls. I go into overly protective mode then and try to meet the strangers just outside the door in sight of other neighbors. Or, if I think I can get away with it, I hide from the windows, and hope they just go away. I’m sure their intentions are good, really, but these “traveling salesmen” creep me out.

On second thought, maybe I should give these people a small glimpse of our living room, so they could see we have little of value worth taking should their motive be burglary. Of course, if they’re looking for doll house furniture, children’s books, random board game pieces, broken crayons, uncapped, dried-out markers, prized coloring pages, and/or a small collection of baby dolls and stuffed ponies, they would soon come to the realization that they had indeed landed at the jackpot house.

I can usually dismiss the fix-it-up peddlers straightaway because we rent our property. We are not able to make the kinds of decisions they want homeowners to make, thus requiring their services. As for the Jehovah’s Witnesses and other reformed types, I will usually just accept some literature kindly, with every intention of trashing it once they’ve walked away. Sorry, but it’s true.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be entertaining these folks at all. It’s probably not wise that I do. They’re so intrusive. I feel the same way about 800-number callers who call many times a day over the course of many weeks and refuse to leave messages on my phone. Get a life!

I know I could probably invest a little time and energy to deter these folks. I could make a bold “No Soliciting” sign and hang it on our front window. Or, a “Beware of rabid attack dog who gets lose from time to time and has been known to break through skin” sign. Or, I could call the police. I’ve also been thinking I might just stand in the window next time and simply shake my head no while simultaneously wagging a finger until the creepers get the message and go away. This seems slightly rude, but could be effective.

In any case I’ve been locking the door obsessively lately, just be safe. In addition to the presence of the neighborhood peddlers, I’ve been worrying about how a local woman was attacked in her home recently and murdered by strangers. I don’t know the specifics of how the bad guys got in, buts it’s enough that I know they did.

Liam likes knowing that I lock the door when he’s not home; it eases his mind to know that I take precautions. However, I think he finds the habitual practice of locking the door to be a little over-the-top once he’s joined us for the night.

Take for example, a common sequence of evening events at our house:

Liam pulls in the driveway after a long day at work. I usually see him coming and go to unlock the door (which I’ve had locked since I walked in from school said goodbye to my mom or to Candace, the girls’ two favorite caregivers). I give him a hug and kiss, welcome him in, and then close and lock the door behind him. He greets the girls. We eat dinner. He may go back outside again to check mail, or empty garbage, so he has to unlock the door. I lock it soon after he comes back in (once or twice I’ve nearly locked him out while he was just making a quick trip to the garage). After dinner he decides to make a fire in the fireplace. We keep our firewood on the porch, so he must unlock the door to go get some. Minutes after he’s come back inside, I notice the door is unlocked and re-lock it, even though I know he’s likely going to need to go back out for more wood in a half hour. A half hour later, as noted, he needs more wood, and so must go back out to the porch, only after he unlocks the door for the fifth time in just under two hours. And so the game of back and forth with the locks continues until we go to bed. Often, he will look at me during these moments and simply shake his head, as if to say: you’re really overdoing things here, woman. Thankfully, he refrains from adding that he thinks I’m bat-shit crazy, and at most will do the shaking head thing and/or sigh.

What? I’ll counter. I’m just trying to keep our family safe.

I think this weekend may be a good time to get started on that rabid dog sign. I really think it might be a game-changer for us.

Ten (or fewer) weeks to go!

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We’ve reached the thirty-week mark of this pregnancy. And when you consider that full-term is forty weeks, thirty seems like I’m very nearly there, right? Especially since I’ve been pregnant since JULY. Until you stop and count and figure out that ten weeks still adds up to about two and a half months. So, not nearly there after all. Ugh.

A colleague who just had a baby recently posted one of those cutesy card-type-message things on Facebook that read:

Each month has an average of thirty days…except the last month of pregnancy which has 1,453 days.

I thought this was pretty funny given the truth, if slightly exaggerated, in the statement. It certainly feels like the near end is a long way away.

We are mostly ready for the baby but for a dresser or some piece of furniture in which to store his clothes. The girls share one now and there is no consolidating to make room. He will have gender appropriate clothing for about six months. And then if we don’t do some shopping, he will look lovely in shades of pink, purple, and bright blue, with an assortment of flowers, hearts, cats, dancing girls, ice cream cones, dresses, leggings and ruffles. But it’s the third kid, right, so I’m sure he’ll just go with it.

On Friday I have an appointment to do fasting bloodwork for the dreaded three-hour glucose test. With all three pregnancies I’ve had to do this. My numbers flagged the one-hour test, but were fine with both girls after the three-hour. I’m praying it goes the same way with this one.

I’ll show up in the morning having eaten nothing since the night before. Then I’ll have to drink, in under a minute, a small 10-oz. bottle of a fruit-punch-flavored concoction that has enough sugar in it to likely keep a person alive in the wild for forty days and forty nights, or the equivalent of about 86 Mountain Dews, without stopping but for a second or two to catch my breath and coach myself to keep going despite the awful gagging sensation that is rising in my throat. Certainly this can’t be good for the baby.

And then I’ll sit in the waiting room and/or walk around the limited space in the hallways of the hospital, at least for the first hour, after which I’ll start to feel so loopy and dizzy on account of all the sugar that’s built up in my system on top of not having eaten anything for half a day. After that I’ll have to stay seated until they call my name to draw blood, and pray I don’t pass out from all the excitement.

At my last appointment the kind receptionist reminded me to bring a snack for after the test. “You’ll feel a little hungry and tired and will need to eat before you’ll start feeling better.”

Really? Yeah, my body got that message the last two pregnancies.

I’ll be sure to come packing with a thermos full of coffee and cream (hold the sugar, please), and likely a jalapeño cheddar bagel, toasted, with bacon, eggs and cheese, along with a side of chocolate chip cookies I just baked tonight, and maybe some orange juice as an extra special treat to wash it all down.

Take that, gestational diabetes. Bring on another nine-pound baby. I’m ready.

It Was a Great Day—Right up until It Wasn’t

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Our family had the nicest day together yesterday. We woke up in no hurry to go anyplace. We lounged around the house and enjoyed a pancake breakfast. We played outside in the snow and made a “Snowgirl”, complete with tufted hairpieces.

Our family Snowgirl.

Our family Snowgirl.

After we all napped for a spell, we headed out to the local Irish pub in town for some Irish session music. The girls danced on the stage there and colored in their coloring books, allowing us to enjoy some precious adult conversation and mellow downtime. Then, we capped off the evening at a pizza parlor, enjoying a pie and pleasant conversation.

On the drive home Liam and I talked about how it had been such a great family day. Nora asked why and we explained that we got to do some very fun things—nobody had to work, we got out of the house for a bit, and we were able to enjoy just spending time with one another.

At home, the fun continued as I’d promised the ladies I’d take a girls’ bath with them. We filled the tub with bubbles and soaked in the suds. Nora ratted on her sister once for trying to drink the soapy tubby water (she’s a very observant and concerned big sister—read, tattler). Otherwise, everyone got along just fine.

We had probably been sitting in the water for twenty minutes when Nora suddenly pointed and shouted, “Mommy! Oh no! Look! A poopy! Franny did some poopies in the water!”

Definitely not the words you want to hear, well, EVER. But especially not when you’re actually in the tub with the poopy and your youngest may or may not have ingested particles of it only moments earlier.

Liam heard the commotion and came running, took one look in the tub—we were all standing up at this point, paralyzed with indecision—made a face like, glad it’s you and not me in there, and then proceeded to actually walk away. Can you believe that?

“Get back here!” I yelled. “And do something!”

He smirked, chuckled, and then handed me some toilet paper. Awesome. Husband of the year, right here, folks.

At this point, the water was slowly draining. It was slowly draining because about six or seven pieces of toddler shit were gathering nicely in the drain, while several others floated on by near our feet. We decided to keep the girls in the tub so I could turn the shower on when the water drained and hose us all off and rid us of toxic hazardous waste.

In the meantime, I had to fish out the little turds so the damn water could drain properly. I made Liam promise to forever erase the image in front of him from his mind, of his very pregnant, naked wife bending over, grasping at mushy shitballs with only soaking wet toilet paper between her hands and the mush, gagging, while his daughters looked on half in horror, half in mild amusement. Definitely a low point for us all.

After all the shrieking and excitement died down, I lectured Frances about going number two in the bath. I told her no more. That she needed to tell me when she had to go so I could put her in a diaper (she refuses to sit on the potty chair or the toilet at this point).

And then, after some thought, there was a fleeting moment when I remembered that Frances might have tried to tell me she had to go, or was actually going. At one point early on in the bath she was busy scratching her bum uncomfortably, and she might have even said poopy (I can’t be sure, but it seems likely. I was preoccupied at the time reading news of the impending snowstorm and checking my weather app every few moments, hoping against all hope for school to be cancelled—we ended up just having a delay). The problem is, she says “poopy” all the time, sometimes when she has in fact gone in her diaper, and sometimes just for the hell of it. How was I to know?

Liam had basketball tonight, so I was on my own with the girls for a bit. We took another girls’ tubby—I know, it was real risky after last night’s episode. I told them no bubbles. Mommy wants to be able to see what’s in the water tonight. Nora giggled. Frances looked clueless. Poor girl. She has no idea. No idea.

Thankfully, we made it through without any incidents. The girls are both sleeping soundly and I’m hoping for another delay tomorrow. Go snow!

Coloring Page Clutter

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We have a prolific artist living in our house. She loves to paint, draw, write and color. Our fridge showcases many of her best pieces, and every now and then, so do our walls. More often, though, the papers end up on various tables, desks and floors. Not only are the pages unsightly, they are hazardous as well (imagine for a moment a seven-months-pregnant lady who can’t see beyond her growing belly, walking in socks on the kitchen floor, and then slipping on an unseen giant “Winnie the Pooh” coloring page, and the ensuing rage that will surely follow).

I don’t know why clutter has the power to undo me, but it does. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a house full of clutter—picture newspapers and magazines, unopened mail piled up in every corner—the result of living in a home that was far too small for the six people that inhabited it, combined with full-time working parents who had little time to clean and organize while also raising four children, combined with what may be the slight hoarding tendencies of my very well-meaning mother.

I, however, can spend loads of time organizing and de-cluttering our small house. I have a very low threshold for messiness. Which isn’t to say that our house is always clean and put-together. Our living room, kitchen and dining areas, our most heavily used spaces, are prone to collecting post-tornado-like debris on a daily basis. My husband, who has a much higher tolerance for clutter, often argues, “Why do you even bother cleaning up? They’re [the kids] just going to destroy it all again anyway.”

I see his point. I do. In fact, I sometimes find myself muttering the same thing under huffy breath. Still, I find there is something so satisfying, so necessary, about ridding spaces of clutter. It seems logical, then, that I might want to start with the countless coloring pages that pile up and grace the flat spaces in our house.

I suppose I could neatly stack the papers and file them away in some sort of album, or shoebox. This is something my mother would have done. Alas, she and I have a different relationship with clutter, so into the garbage they will go.

I try to find moments when our little artist is either not in the house, or absorbed entirely in something else, to stealthily trash the pages and create order once again in our home. Two or three times I made the mistake of throwing pages into some of the open waste baskets in our home. The artist, Nora, would then pass by and discover the fruits of her hard work in the dump and yell, “Hey! What’s my picture doing in the trash?!”

I blamed it on her younger sister a couple of times, which wasn’t totally inconceivable, because Frances went through a phase of trashing things that definitely didn’t warrant trashing. There was a span of a few weeks when I had to carefully examine the contents of the wastebaskets before I dumped them into the larger trash because I had discovered, quite by accident, a baby doll in one bin. Thanks to my checking, a pair of socks, a book, and several play dishes were saved from certain death-by-trashing.

“Oh, Franny must have done it,” I said. “Remember when she tried to throw away Baby?” And then, admonishing the younger, clueless sister, “Silly, Franny. We don’t put coloring pages in the trash.” Poor sucker. I know, I’m totally heinous. I then had to pull the artwork from the trash and hang it prominently on the fridge until a satisfied smile appeared on the artist’s face.

Since then I’ve learned to use the trashcan in the kitchen to dispose of old pages. It has a lid which hides its contents well from unsuspecting passersby. But then this past week I made another mistake. I just wasn’t thinking. Minutes, and I mean minutes (I usually wait at least an overnight), after Nora finished a lovely butterfly coloring page, I discovered it had fallen from the magnet which was attempting to secure it to the fridge. Frustrated after finding another effing paper on the floor, I took advantage of Nora’s bathroom break and moved the paper to the trash.

Then, I started cooking dinner. I set my youngest up at the sink to play in some dishwater so she would stop demanding incessantly that I hold her. Nora asked to eat a clementine once she returned from the bathroom and I told her fine. As long it means you leave me alone to finish dinner! 

She walked over to the trashcan and used her foot to press the pedal to open the stainless steel butterfly lid (a month ago she didn’t have the strength or coordination to pull this off!). She began peeling the clementine and must have discovered her drawing as she looked down after dropping one of the peels inside. “Hey!” she shouted, sounding appalled. Oh shit. Caught red-handed. “What’s my butterfly doing in here? Who threw my butterfly in the trash?!”

I couldn’t really blame the toddler then. She had been splashing in the sink with spoons and bubbles. And even if she hadn’t been, she lacked the strength necessary to open this trashcan. I quickly came up with some lame-sounding excuses, so my daughter wouldn’t think her mother was the most offensive, uncaring, soulless human being on the planet.

“Oh honey. Mommy must have done that by accident. Maybe mommy didn’t see the butterfly, but instead the other side of the paper. Maybe mommy thought it was a paper she didn’t need anymore, like a grocery list. Here, let’s get it out of the trash and straighten it up and put it back on the fridge. There we go. How’s that?”

Sheesh. She seemed to fall for my sorry ass excuses, appeased for the moment. What will I do when she wises up a bit more and starts to notice that all of her drawings are slowly disappearing day after day after day?

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There aren’t enough magnets to support the number of pages that get churned out at our house each day.

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Sample table clutter after a lengthy session with crayons and markers. The neatly colored lion was done by yours truly. I do love a good color every now and then.

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Sample under-the-table clutter featuring the GIANT coloring pages I mentioned above.

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Today’s dump. The artist was at her grandparents’ house so I had plenty of time to dispose of the evidence.

For all my bitching and complaining about these damn papers, I do appreciate very much that the girls are engaged in making art. It keeps them busy for long stretches so that I am able to get things done around the house. And, I do keep the best ones for posterity, though they are very small in number.

Nora colored the Piglet below a couple of days ago. I told her that I liked how the colors were so lifelike, that the watermelon looked just like a real watermelon. And Piglet looked just like the Piglet in the books. I suggested she hang it on the back of the front door since it was too large to fit on the fridge. I rolled some tape doughnuts for her and then walked away. A little while later, I stumbled upon this scene in the bedroom.

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Piglet watching over me as I sleep, in all his true-to-life colors.

I found Nora and told her I thought she was going to hang it on the door. Her response: “Since you liked it so much, mommy, I decided to put it next to your bed so you can see it all the time.” Oh joy.

Whenever the youngest walks into the room now, she looks at the wall, squeals, “Nor-Nor! (her name for her sister), and starts cracking up laughing. If I’m being honest, I guess I’ll admit I do too.

Anxiety Episode #4: My husband flies through the windshield of the car, leaving me a widow. Alternatively, I fly through the window, leaving the kids motherless and my husband without a wife.

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My thoughts have still been relatively anxiety-free since New Year’s, so I’m reaching back in the memory bank to catalog this one.

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My husband’s family lives in Connecticut, so we take several road trips back and forth there each year. I try to remember to say a silent prayer once we begin each journey to ask for our protection and for the safety of all of the drivers sharing the road with us. Occasionally I forget to do this until midway through the trip, at which point I freak out, and then quickly offer a prayer of thanks we made it as far as we have without our divine force field in place, and one for safeguarding the rest of the way.

The girlies are pretty good travelers (we’ve been lucky in that regard). However, every once in awhile, one or both of them will start to lose it and need some kind of comfort or offering from us. Like most seasoned road-trippers, we try to pack the car full of things we anticipate the kids might need or enjoy—snacks, drinks, books, toys, games, etc. Most of the time we can just pass these things back over the seat, but occasionally one of us—the passenger, not the driver mind you—needs to unbuckle his or her seatbelt to more fully reach around or climb over the seat to provide the attention the girls need. I’ve even gone so far as to breastfeed a child mid-drive, much to the mortification of my husband (he gets a little nervous when I do this in public, never mind flying down the interstate at 70 mph with my top-half somewhat exposed).

When Liam is the one doing the unbuckling and tending to the girls, I go into hyper-alert mode, concentrating on everything around me. I am the most defensive, vigilant driver the highway has ever known. I slow down my usual fast speed. I consult all the mirrors every few seconds, all the while hoping he finishes what he needs to do as quickly as possible. This kind of situation makes me physically uncomfortable and a mental wreck. If he takes too long, I might even scream at him to sit back down and buckle up, and leave the girls to their own devices.

During the moments Liam is out of his seat, unprotected by a safety belt, and in between suspect glances in the mirrors, I have flashes of us being hit by a car (despite my best attempts to watch out for this very thing). We wreck badly and Liam flies out of the front window. The girls and I are OK, but Liam doesn’t make it. In my mind I run through how I am going to comfort the girls in the moment, deal with the horror of tending to Liam, and then quickly—because I can’t dwell on that part too long—the nightmare of raising the girls without their beloved father. Will they even remember him? Will they understand he’s not coming back? Who will walk them down the aisle when they get married?

Inevitably these atrocious thoughts—specifically death of my spouse—always make a little space for a silver lining. We happen to have decent life insurance policies (should I be admitting this online to would be assassins?). So, while I recognize that life without Liam would be terribly sad and unjust, I always find myself thinking: Well, at least there’s money set aside in case a tragedy like this would happen. At least we are prepared.

And then I find myself daydreaming about that large sum of money and all that I could do with it (by this point Liam has usually returned safely to his seat, so it’s okay I’m slightly distracted). I wouldn’t have to go back to work…the girls and I could buy a new house…we could travel around the country—or world even—visiting spectacular places…college funds could be started. And then, I remember that I’ve just buried my dead husband and I start feeling guilty because I’d just been fantasizing about how I’d spend his life insurance fund. Despicable, I know.

In the instances when I’m the one out of my seat, usually perched precariously and uncomfortably over a car seat —often with my shirt half off to unsuspecting cars passing by, and an exposed boob (poor witnesses)—I’m running through the same scenario, but in reverse. What if I’m the one to fly out the window? What will the girls do without a mother? And I without them? Who will help them through puberty? Liam would be at a total loss with this one. Will they even miss me after a year has gone by?

These kinds of thoughts are the absolute worst. They make me so incredibly sad and can actually move me to tears (which is unnatural, right, because in reality nothing has actually happened to me); I can’t dwell on them too long. Still, I find comfort knowing that Liam would do an amazing job, even without me, and of course, he would be set financially for a good number of years. Think of all the great things they’ll be able to do together with that money.

It’s so crazy to me all of the horrors and catastrophes that my mind is capable of imagining. None of my thoughts are rational or based on anything besides my own hidden fears (quick plug here for NPR’s new podcast, Invisibilia—yes, I’ve already tuned in). And how they can bring about such emotion, when in reality all is well and good, is beyond me.

Why Our Son May Just End Up Being Named Fitzliam

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I’ve always been envious of the women who’ve known since childhood the future names of their unborn sons and daughters. Or those who, after consulting with their partners during the early months of pregnancy, have decided on names and feel, with a certain degree of certainty and relief, that they’ve chosen well.

My husband and I do not have a great track record when it comes to making these kinds of decisions. Both of our daughters were named (finally!) in the hospital, the day after they were born. It’s not that we wanted to wait and see what our children looked like before we named them. We’ve just struggled choosing the right name from a small list of contenders. We haven’t been able to decide on such an important, meaningful thing as a name—a future identity—with any ease.

And also, I guess there’s the fact that we don’t prepare well. Waiting until almost the third trimesters to even begin conversations that are more than:

Well, anything sticking out to you at this point? No? Me either.

isn’t very helpful.

So why should things be any different this time around? Even our parents have come to expect that our child will be nameless until at least the day or night after he is born. With all of my pregnancies, my father has insisted on giving the babies—fetuses really—names himself, like Maggie and Seamus, abandoning them only after we’ve stepped up to the plate.

Liam loves the idea of having a junior. This tradition exists in both of our family trees; his father and my uncle are juniors. Liam’s also fond of his name. I am too, but the idea of calling out to Liam at home, or any place really, and having to differentiate between two beings for a lifetime makes me totally crazy. I’m looking for less, not more, stress in my life.

So, we’ve been tossing about William since Liam is derived from that name. I love the name Will, but then when I say it quickly with our last name, Powers, it sounds too much like willpower. I don’t know, maybe we should name our son this, and he will grow into the name and fare far better than his mother and father have in the area of self-discipline.

Liam just picked up the baby name book this past week (which is about right, since we are nearly into the third trimester) to have a look and see if anything resonated with him. I find that when this sort of thing happens the two of us spend more time entertaining ourselves with all of the really terrible names that are out there, instead of locking on to something we really love. Again, an example of how we are lacking in WillPower(s).

When Liam got to the “Fitz” names (Fitzgerald, Fitzpatrick, Fitzhugh), he read that “Fitz” means son of. Mind you, Fitzliam was not in the baby book; it was my guy’s compilation entirely. Which isn’t to say that there aren’t plenty of strapping Fitzliams running about. If you should happen to meet one, will you ask him if he likes his name, and then get back to me? Because if we don’t get our act together soon, Fitzliam just might be a contender.

P.S. We do love the names we eventually chose for our girls. They’ve grown into them quite nicely.

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Our girls: Nora and Frances