Binkytown

Under Pressure

Hello, my name is Binkytown, it's been 15 days since my last pregnancy test.

Without any problem I got knocked up. Then, again, I got knocked down.

The bleeding started this morning. This was kind of a surprise, although it shouldn't have been, I've been overly cautiously optimistic. I told my husband, my best friend (only because she noticed I wasn't moaning and complaining about my period like I usually do) and the day care manager; waiting lists of twelve months do not allow you to be cautious.

I'm not devastated. I'm not looking for a tree to bury anything underneath or some way to honor what was lost. All that's been lost this time is my sense of optimism and any ability I might have had to relax and enjoy it the next time I get pregnant. 

I sat today eating a hamburger with my son listening to INXS and Queen on the eighties flashback music track and was overwhelmed by emotion and hormones and, well, life. The last time I miscarried it was so traumatic, so very hard to deal with. Here I was again at it; the music reminding me of where I've been, my son reminding me of where I am and Freddie Mercury reminding me of things no longer with us. I chocked back a few tears with my fries and did my best to carry on. We left early. My son, so hot and thirsty from our trip to the park downed a mini-sized bottle of milk in his lap and was pissed off. And wet.

I mopped him up the best I could, grabbed one more bite of custard before chucking it in the trash and we came home.

No use crying over spilled milk.

Bed Time Stories

I read this today at CribChronicles and I can't get it out of my mind. As I said there in the comments, you can really learn a lot about a person from the kind of bed (or lack of) they have slept in.

I too, love my bed. I would eat in bed if it were not ABSOLUTELY forbidden to do so. I would rather do nothing more than lay in bed watching television, surfing the net or talking on the phone. I don't get to do these things and I feel the pull of being torn out of bed unwillingly much more frequently than I savor the sweet cradle of sleep or even dare I say, relaxation. But like a good friend, distance does not make me love it any less. I have entire days where I imagine going to bed. My soft pajamas that hang off my shoulder and the big heavy weight of the blankets. Ahhhh.

So it is with tremendous bed love that I rip off bon and remember some of the beds that have shaped me:

1. My water bed, circa 1982. My parents, high on something, decided it would be a good idea for everyone in the house to get a waterbird. My parents got one, my brother got his own, (a twin sized waterbird for a 7 year old, really, it's mind-boggling.) My sister and I begrudgingly shared a room and had two white, ornate, very princess-ey twin beds. So of course, a double water bed made perfect sense for a twelve year old and her seventeen year old sister. To share. It had cushioned panels around the edges and a gigantic headboard with shelves where I placed my virgin Mary statue and my clock radio and I think it had a light in the mattress. It was a delight. Especially when my sister came home drunk and puked in it. Yeah. Puke, water-bed. Enough said.

2. My apartment, 1995. The only time I've ever lived alone. I had a one bedroom apartment that I shared with someone else. Technically we were the apartment managers, but we didn't do much and the rent was free, which was an amazing stroke of luck for a college student. The other person moved out but the owner of the building lived out of town and we only spoke on the phone so they had no idea I was living there on my own. I loved it. Now I'm sure I would find it to be terribly lonely but back then it was living. My own kitchen, my own bathroom, my own double bed and bedroom with two windows and a radiator that clanked loudly. (I know, I should have complained to the manager).   

3. Night train, Paris to Nice, 1996. Seemed like a good enough idea. It was a bunk style, in a shared cabin, I had the top bunk. Having been up for more than twenty four hours prior I think I took something like Tylenol PM and settled into my sleeping sheet for a nice long nap. I awoke with my passport sack (you know, one of those sneaky ones you could tuck into your pants) out and with my belongings strewn around the bed. Nothing important was missing so to this day I still don't know if fell asleep with it unzipped and tossed around enough to strew my stuff or if someone had a look around. It's a mystery. I still have the sleeping sheet that says BNP on it.

4. The floor, also 1996 in Sienna Italy. Traveling solo I met up with a group of girls from my home town University who were studying abroad. They invited me back to stay with them for a long weekend. It was a three bedroom upstairs apartment over a sandwich shop, but not just a run of the mill sandwich shop. This place was old and beautiful and had fresco's on the walls and huge shutters that opened to view the beauty and breezes of Tuscany. Even though visitors were strictly prohibited, there must have been 15 girls staying in that apartment that weekend. I don't remember them all but I shaving my legs in the sink because there was only one bathroom. I also remember staying out all night and drunkenly signing songs at seven o'clock in the morning cooking pasta with fresh tomato's and girls in sleeping bags all around me.

5. Duplex on Humboldt 2000. The apartment my husband and I rented when we moved in together. We had his mattress and box spring on a metal bed frame in the worlds tiniest bedroom. It was a modest sized closet. There was barely enough room to walk around the bed. This is a testament to how much in love we were- we thought it was charming. We hardly noticed. I guess the time we spent in there wasn't focused on the size of the room, but L'Amour.

6. Recovery Room, St Mary's Hospital 2005. I had been out of my emergency C-Section surgery all of five minutes. I was dazed and drugged and some nurse was unmercifully pushing on my now empty belly and I was pleading LOUDLY for her to stop. A phone is ringing. Am I dreaming? No, there is a phone next to the bed and the nurse is saying, "Yes, Who is this?" She is trying to hand me the receiver, "It's your (insert name of most trying irritating relative here). She wants to know if you've had the baby. Do you want to talk to her?" Trying to figure out if those big white blogs that wouldn't move were actually my legs I said "No." She kindly translated and told her I'd call her back a little later.

7. My current bed 2007. It's the first real bed I've ever had. It has a pillow top, four pillows besides, an electric dual-control mattress pad for the winter and as far as I know, my husband and I are the only people to have ever slept in it, which is a nice thing. Our bed frame is tall and solid wood and very grown up. It's a Queen-size and just enough room for us, a big poodle and a small child. A King would be better but I think that's excessive and really, there is something very comforting about waking up, all of us in our collective pod, curled up in poses that surround each other, even if it is only for lack of space.

Is it time for bed yet?

The Full Mommy

If you haven't noticed that devilish looking blonde on my sidebar, go ahead and click on her.

Mayberry Mom is not only nice and a talented schmoozer but she's also pretty smart. She pulled together a gaggle of fabulous ladies to launch The Full Mommy- A review blog where we are putting it all out there.

Not only do I now have a vehicle to host Parent Blogger Network reviews, but these ladies get better Hi! I love your blog! emails than I do and have been kind enough to send a couple of them my way. Not only do I love this whole idea but I still remember how hard I laughed at the end of the Full Monty each and every time I see the blog name so, yeah, very cool.

I'm not going to tell you who the other naked bloggers are (oh, just imagine the disappointment of the pervert Googlers out there hoping to see Dooce) you'll have to stop by and see for yourself.

Lights out

I walked into the house, toddler whining  "I wanna watch Thomas..". The (big) dog was underfoot (and legs). The wind was howling and the thunder was booming. The house was dark.

Okay, OKAY. Yes, Oliver, I see you. I'll feed you in a minute. YES little man, Thomas, I know. Just a second. Walking over to the light switch I turned the kitchen light on. YES, I know you want your binkys. One second please.

Flicker, flicker. Oh no. Don't you dare.

The lights came back on. Phew.

Then a flash of lightening. Lights out. Shit.

I call my husband. We have no power. Yeah, well, he says, I'm dodging trees as I'm driving home. Stop talking to me then, I say, just get home.

The trees are bent over. The thunder is growing louder and stronger. My son is becoming more afraid. Soon he is under a blanket, cover my head mama, he says. It's 90 degrees above the blanket and the air is literally dripping with humidity but it makes him feel safe, so I do it. I smash up next to him on the couch, letting him know I'm close. I pet his sweaty head through the blanket, telling him, shh. Everything is fine, you are safe, but I'm watching. Listening. I hear police sirens. Are those tornado sirens? I'm calculating how many steps it would take us to reach the basement.

There is no sound except the wind and the rain. An occasional car goes by, driving slowly, wipers franticly beating. I watch each one approach, looking for the black Volkswagen. I know he'll have the fancy headlights on. He loves them.

Minutes pass. Then more. The storm is calming. He pulls into the driveway and appears with a soaked shirt. My son emerges from his cocoon. PAPA. There's no powers. Where's the powers?

We load into the car. They've got lights on! They've got power! I'm peering through windows of houses close to ours, jealous of people enjoying their routine, cooking dinner, watching the news. Our favorite restaurant is open. The one with lights hanging from the trees. The lights! My son squeals as we get pelted with rain drops and the puddles splash through our Crocs. He doesn't mind.

We join the crowd. I order some wine AND A HOT GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH my son yells excitedly over the din of happy diners and clanking silverware. We draw pictures, play with cars. He merrily eats the green applesauce that he snuck into the shopping cart. Dinner arrives, hot and yummy. We talk. We watch him and we smile as he dances, entertaining patrons with his awkward elbow thumping moves. My husband is telling my son about how bath time tonight will be by candlelight. I call the power company. We are aware of your outage, a robotic voice deadpans, due to the weather conditions, we have no estimated times that your power may be restored. I have the urge to sigh disappointedly, but then I realize, I am not disappointed. This is fun.

We light candles, moving them from room to room. We read books with a flashlight. Just like camping- we say. My husband has a baseball game on his trusty transistor radio. My son falls asleep easily, lulled to slumber by the quiet and steady rain. We talk some more. I'm going to bed, I say setting the alarm on my cell phone. It's 9:15. Glorious.

Out the window I look for neighbors with lights on. I find none, but I see candles, softly glowing and radiating from inside kitchens and under porches. I wake up. No clock yet. I check the phone. 2:30. It's still raining. Unbelievable. My son is stirring. He's talking but I can't understand him. I lay waiting, hoping he finds what he is looking for and falls back asleep. He does. So do I.

The hours

Mondays are never easy. I remind myself of this, every Monday, when the week stretches out long before me. By Wednesday I'm back in the groove and I can't believe it that Friday is already here, but no shot of espresso is strong enough to bring me to life on a Monday, slowly and painfully making my way to work and going through the motions of the day.

9 o'clock: It's only nine? At ten it will be mid morning.

10 o'clock: Mid morning is here. Relieved it's not 9 any more.

11 o'clock: Oh good, it's almost noon. I'll go get a sandwich, that will burn at least 30 minutes. 

Usually by Sunday night my patience has worn thin. I've had enough of whining and demands and short tempers and tantrums. Usually I'm looking forward to that one hour after my little man gives in to sleep and I struggle to stay awake, just to unwind. To reflect on the two days that have passed and mentally re-group for the five to come.

Yesterday my little man refused a nap. Not exactly refused, but succumbed for a few minutes in the car only to be refreshed and ready to play. A coy attempt at a nap via letting him lay in my bed and watch television in the afternoon worked for about 15 minutes before I crept up the stairs to see if he was asleep, sticking my face in his just to be sure and waking him up again.

After his dinner he was fading fast. Not having had mine yet I tried to prolong the inevitable with Popsicles. Yes! Sugary ice! It worked! He wanted to ride his bike. Great! It sounded like a good idea until he fell off. The wailing that ensued was more reflective of his level of exhaustion than any bumps or bruises he might have had. I scooped him up, snuggled up close to him on the couch and turned on some music. My arm was wrapped around him so I could feel the deep exhales and the rise and fall of his chest. His head dropped lower and lower. Within minutes, he was fast asleep.

His dad and I looked at each other. What do we do now? He's never asleep this early. Waking him up could mean another burst of energy that could last for hours, guaranteeing a difficult morning and a tired crabby toddler (and mother). We gently layed him down, did a quick diaper and pajama switch and put him to bed.

A whole Sunday night stretched out before us. Rather than feeling relieved I felt sad. There was no one to "wanna bite" of my dinner. I didn't feel the satisfaction (that I didn't even know I would miss )of cleaning up dishes listening to the peals of laughter during some one on one time with his dad. There was no book reading or gathering of a clean little boy out of the bathtub. I didn't sit in his rocking chair, ever vigilant, as the sun went down and the room fell into darkness.

It was only two hours; the span of time he spent in bed instead of with us, but it felt much longer than that. It still does, today. Almost as much time as I've been without him so far today, and they day is just getting started.

It's 11 o'clock. Almost time for lunch. 

Lemmings are cute and all, but...

Since I don't live under a rock (just a messy, messy excuse for a rock) I have noticed that BlogHer has opened up their advertising campaign for applications to join the network.

Most, make that almost all, of the bloggers I read have ads on their blogs. Why not? Why not get paid a few dollars AND write? I can't think of any reason. I applied- just for kicks, thinking I'd noodle it for a while and see if they even came back and invited me in. It took all of about 15 minutes to receive my confirmation email that I was in there like swim wear.    

So now that it's a go, I'm finding myself wondering if I really want to do this?

I really try not to get hung up on stats and traffic and so-called blog popularity. I know I would feel differently if I were staying home while trying to hunt down opportunities; writing gigs, columns and web-based businesses. I like comments as much as the next blogger (love them, actually, hint hint) but I'm not hustling to be seen or read.

I have had to make a conscious choice not to care about my site meter. I have seen so many bloggers raise the bar with their level of skill and money making ventures. Could I try to keep up? Yeah. Do I want to? Sort of. Would that be a good idea? No. I'm driven, it's in my nature. If I see a brass ring I want to go for it.  But when my life is out of balance, I am one unhappy mama. There is no place in my life, at this moment, to invest and spend more hours on line and strategize where to place snazzy comments (big traffic blogs) in hopes of getting a lot of hits back. I don't want to invest my time in cruising sites to see what traffic generating topics are out there or what controversial breastfeeding vs. formula stance I could take to get people engaged in a smack down. You know bloggers do it. For me and my blog, it's not worth taking away from my already chiseled life to do it. There are not enough hours in the day without giving up something and even though my work is rewarding, just in doing that alone, I think I already give up enough.

So I had to decide: Accept mediocrity, know I wasn't going to be a mommy-blogging superstar and stop caring what everyone else was doing, or give up because I didn't want to feel like I wasn't as good, talented, profitable, clever, etc. as so-and-so. I do still care, sometimes more than others, but obviously, I haven't shut down yet.

All leading up to the million dollar question: If I've decided I'm not in this for the money, why do I need ads?

Do I need ads? Does it even matter? Am I over-analyzing nothing?

I don't know. After all of this, I just don't want to do it because everybody else is doing it.

Haiku, PA

It is three AM

I can't sleep this blows big time

My room is too cold

Almost puked on plane

Next to a total stranger

It's my worst nightmare

Shops in the airport

It's total genius, I think

Not enough Gap pants

There's a conference here

My boss said I had to come

Where's the chocolate at?

Disgusting

There has got to be a better way to do this.

I can't read this book one more time. I can change a diaper and not think twice about it but if I have to look at that picture of that pile of poo outside the chamber pot I am going to wretch.

I don't want to go into the details because I am not a fan of reading about other people's children's bowel habits, but let me say this: All of this stuff of motherhood, the not sleeping, the constant whining, the not enough hours in the day- I'm convinced it's all a warm up to the big potty training cluster-fuck. I don't know what mother gene I am missing or how my parents went wrong in raising me, but I HATE reading that book out loud. Hate it. I don't mind having a real life discussion about it face to face with my son, but please, I don't want to look at that picture of that little useful hole again.

All I will say is after many months of coaxing we were doing so well! We had Elmo big boy underwear washed and folded and ready to go. I actually convinced him to sit on the potty when it was time to do more than pee and we did. Sort of. But things didn't go exactly where they were supposed to go and now he will use the potty no more.

Going number two freaked him out.

Also, I need to ask, where exactly are you supposed to clean a soiled potty training seat? Ugh. Here comes the gag reflex again.

I can't bribe him with candy. He can't tell the difference between candy as a reward and CANDY CANDY CANDY ALL THE TIME. I've been as excited and happy as a mother can be (for the 40th million time) when we've had successes or even attempts at success.

We are like a toilet in desperate need of a plunger. Please help.

The easy part

I'm struggling. I feel as though talking about it will jinx myself. Not talking about it is trying to control every little thing. Which I don't do anymore.

I am not pregnant. That's what I don't want to talk about, not being pregnant. Because not being pregnant is a non-issue. Like not being hungry. Why would anyone need to discuss that?

Step one, decide you want to be pregnant.

Step two, get pregnant.

This is how it worked for me, for us, last time. The last two times, actually. It was not hard. So when we threw caution to the wind last month, I kind of thought in that little place in the back of my mind that even though we didn't officially try, I'd get pregnant. Voila!    

I am not, and that's PERFECTLY FINE but it's so much work to be perfectly fine with whatever comes my way (or doesn't) that I feel the need to say I'm perfectly fine and that seems kind of crazy, because if I were perfectly fine, I shouldn't feel the need to say anything at all.

Pregnancy number one didn't end well. I spent all of pregnancy number two worried, REALLY REALLY worried. Totally unable to relax and surrender the fact that I could not control what was happening. I was the same for probably the first 12 months of my child's life as well. Anxious, nervous, afraid. It was exhausting and unproductive and I don't want to repeat that cycle again.

If I'm serious about not wanting to be stressed when I'm pregnant than I need to not be stressed about getting pregnant. I'm really not, number two is a very different goal when you have a perfect, beautiful number one shaking his hips in front of the television. (Is that a bad thing?). But bad habits are easy to repeat.

Last night I found myself irritated that my ovulation kit came back negative on day six. I waited for the line to turn pink, willing it to do so with my mental prowess. I couldn't. Because no matter what, I had to remind myself that miss ovary one and miss ovary two will do what they want, thank you very much.

And I did. I didn't agonize over the stick. I didn't do another one, just in case that one was wrong. I didn't wait and check again. Then again. Then once more to be sure.

I tossed it.

(But I'll be doing another one tonight. That doesn't make me crazy. It says I should right on the box. Just because I can't tell the O twins what to do doesn't mean I can't check up on them from time to time.)

   

DVDs you can play EVERY DAY! Woo hoo!

Back in March I reviewed a video set for Parent Bloggers Network (that makes me sound old. It's actually a DVD) called "Your Baby Can Read!"

This set is designed for infants to children 5 years of age. The 5 DVD and word card set teaches your children whole language and phonics using a combination of sound, sight and interaction. Your Baby Can Read! takes a multi-sensory approach through interactive DVDs and sliding word and picture cards, which they promise helps a child grasp word recognition -- leading to early reading success.

My son is two and a half and when I went back to refresh my memory on what I wrote the first time around,(here) I was surprised to realize how much his verbal skills have changed since March. I thought this would be the perfect time to start volume two.

Dr. Robert Titzer appears in the opening segment of the video, suggesting that you have your child watch this DVD every day (cool!) twice a day (you mean I can actually get the clothes in the washing machine and get them out the same day?!) It's a good idea, and Dr. Titzer has certainly tried his best to make the DVD as interesting for two year olds as he could with music and pictures and animals. But I could not get my son to focus on these DVDs for thirty minutes twice a day and I'm just not interested in forcing him to watch a video.

It's a good thing I'm not a competi-mommy because my baby can't read yet, but to be honest, I didn't really expect him to be able to. Even though he's not reading after watching these DVDs, I still think they add a lot of value to a toddler's ever expanding universe of communication. My son is asking a lot of questions these days, only he doesn't know how to form a question grammatically. He sort of makes a statement and inflects his voice at the end to indicate that he is asking something. Throughout the video the narrators ask questions starting with "Do you?", "Have you?" & "Can you?" These are things he needs to know how to say in order to form his questions and may not have been able to grasp the first time around. 

I work outside the home and one of the benefits of day care is that because he is learning when we are apart, the hours we spend together in the evenings and the weekends are more structured around play. I certainly am trying to incorporate learning into the time we spend together, but it's not my first priority. He needs those hours to be a kid and I need them to be his mom. Devoting an hour to the DVD series each day was not really a practical option for us, but I could see how it could be for someone who has more hours in the day to fill or who is seeking out more educational programming than you find on PBS kids.

Again, as I did after reviewing the first series, I still would recommend this video to any parent. After seeing first hand the changes that a few months can make in terms of language development, I plan to continue to pop these in once in awhile and leave the flashcards in the toy box for him to mull over. I still have time before we focus more intensively on reading, but when I do...

Watch out competi-mommies. My baby's going to read.