Wabi Snobby vs. Wabi Foxworthy. (They Have a Fight. Foxworthy Wins.)

Due to the hilly topography around here, our house has a lower and upper backyard. Nine months out of twelve we use the hell out of the lower yard, which sits directly behind the house and includes a covered patio and grassy area. By comparison the upper yard is all wasted potential with a side of weeds. Although it’s pretty big by urban standards and fairly flat, we have yet to figure out what to do up there. You have to go out the side gate of the lower yard to reach the path that leads to the upper section, which is awkward. The upper yard is also hidden behind a large hedge, which is good for privacy from the neighbors, but bad in the sense that the hedge blocks view of the upper yard from the lower one. Since the girls are too young to play unsupervised in an area I can’t easily monitor, we hardly ever set foot in the upper yard.

In Target this weekend I suddenly hit upon an idea on how to use that upper yard. Standing in seasonal sporting goods the pools caught my eye. Hmmm, I thought. What if we stamp out that weed problem by taking out the sod and installing a pool?

As soon as I considered it, I found two sides of myself arguing passionately right there in the store.

Snobby Wabi said, “You have got to be kidding me. NOT an above ground pool. It’s so tacky.”

To which Foxworthy Wabi said, “Oh hell, YES. Suit up and get wet!”

Snobby pointed out that nobody else in the neighborhood has an above-ground pool. What would people say?

Foxworthy said she’d be having too much fun splashing in the pool to hear what people say.

Snobby fretted that the neighbors with the bare trellis fence on that side of the house would not be pleased to see the screaming-blue visage of our pool looming next to them.

Foxworthy said those folks should have grown some freaking vines on their trellis at any point in the last 30 years before complaining about lack of privacy now. Plus a pool might motivate them to go in with us on a better fence next year. “Two birds with one stone!” Foxworthy trilled.

Snobby said she wanted a classy pool. An in-ground pool. One with a stone deck and maybe an attached spa.

Foxworthy pointed out that short of winning the lottery, the classy pool was not going to happen while the kids were still kids. Especially since we never, ever play the lottery.

I drove home from Target and asked DH what he thought. He doesn’t have as much redneck in him as I do, so I figured he’d turn pale at the very thought of an above-ground pool and say it was out of the question. Instead he said, “Hey, we wouldn’t have to mow up there anymore! And you’d get to swim with the kids and cool off on the really hot days when the house turns into a kiln. Let’s do it.”

So we checked into the zoning and permit requirements and found out we were good on all fronts. Next thing I knew we were whipping out the credit card and ordering a pool online. It’s on a truck rumbling across country toward our house as I write this.

So, after all the years I spent fleeing my Upstate NY hillbilly roots, I find myself embracing them again. I still wonder what the neighbors will think about the pool. But not enough to give up trying it out this summer. Ever since I was a kid I've dreamed of having a pool of my own. But my family was pretty poor and I never had that pleasure. Now I'm going to be able to see the glee on my kids' faces and feel the exact same emotion stir inside me. What could be better?

This feels like a big milestone. I mean, I know it's a ridiculous thing, just a pool. But that's the point. For many years now I've felt like I just didn't have it in me to put forth much extra effort in life beyond what needed to be done to keep everyone clothed and fed and breathing without a tube. When you are in survival mode due to fear or pain or grief, it's all you can do to grit your way through each day. And now here I am, debating whether or not my neighbors will dub me a redneck if I get a pool. What could be more frivilous? It's like I'm almost ... normal. Something nearby normal, anyway.

Yee haw!

Uh No, I Don't Do That

Normally I don't talk about work here due to a healthy fear of being dooced. But four different conversations this week involving the "What Do You Do?" question have got me thinking. Describing my work to people I've just met inevitably leads to misunderstandings.

If I just say "I'm an editor," most assume I mean a copy editor -- a professional grammar cop who ferrets out spelling and syntax mistakes. Anyone who reads this blog can guess that is NOT my area of expertise. In fact, (SHHH, don't tell anyone who hires me) but I'm just a wee bit dyslexic. To occasionally spot a howler of a mistake in a manuscript is indeed possible for me, but being a stellar copy editor under the circumstances? That would be like putting a color-blind guy in charge of picking all the tints for Revlon's lipstick division. Not a pretty thing.

But, I must fit the nerdy, persnickety personality profile of a copy editor, so this is the conclusion most people draw. To dissuade people from this assumption I started saying, "I'm a book editor."

But "book editor" also carries heavy assumptions. Many automatically think I work on fiction. Not just any fiction -- best-selling stuff. The excitement and interest that warms people's voices when I say "book editor" flatters me, so sometimes I don't elaborate further, but look away and blush with equivocation. (Hey, I'm human and I need to be loooved. Just like everybody else does.)

Except sometimes people sound too excited about my job. Then I must hasten to add, "I work on nonfiction" as I back away slowly. Otherwise someone whips out a 1,000-page manuscript written in a sestina verse variant that retells the story of Moby Dick from the whale's perspective. And that person will always expect me to take their manuscript home and spend the next six months of leisure time reading and editing it for them (for free, of course) before I short track them through the rest of the publishing process to fame, fortune, and Oprah's book club. There really isn't a nice way to say "Oh hell, NO!" under these circumstances. All you can do is run away and hope the manuscript doesn't give you a concussion if the person throws it as you retreat.

Usually saying "nonfiction editor" stops this process dead. But a small, diligent group of memoir writers still gets too excited at this news, which leads me to add "I work on educational books. You know, for college?"

That ends all conversation. Because apparently university press is like tampax: something a lot of us use and need at one point in life. But not something we want to think about.

Meantime, people STILL have absolutely no idea what it is I actually do to the books I edit. Probably they assume I'm a copy editor.

I really envy DH when people ask him what he does. "I'm an animator" inevitably brings cheers of "Wheee!" from all age groups, no strings.

Bye Bye, Baby

Latest development in the Wabi-Sabi abode: sisterly relationships are blooming! Up until now, the two A's shared space with each other, but most interactions were short and cajoled into occurring by a grownup. ("Hold her so I can take your picture together," etc.) But since Little A's birthday, the girls now play together on purpose. Big A builds block towers so Little A can smash through them. Even though Little A still can't walk, they play tag and some variety of hide and seek, too. It's incredibly heart warming to see the girls seek each other out enjoy each other's company. Growing up with a house full of brothers, I always yearned for a sister. Now I get to experience some of that through my own kids, which is wonderful.

Of course, just as I'm reaching for the camera to record video of some adorable scene, it has usually morphed into a tug of war over toys or some other variety of domestic strife. They are not shy at screaming at each other if the mood so strikes one of them.

The other day Big A fell asleep on the couch after a long walk, and her sister (who was energized after snoozing in the stroller on the bike path) crawled up and started poking Big A in the face. Big A moved away instinctively in her sleep, but that just made Little A even more interested in continuing her torture."Stop it, stop it, stoooop," complained Big A groggily.

To which Little replied, "Heh heh heh," sounding like a bonafide trickster. "Haw haw," she crowed triumphantly as she poked even harder before I could scoop her up.

My innocent little baby is now officially a toddler, I think.

What Do I Like about Mornings?

That was the question Big A asked me at seven o'clock this morning, right after she'd snuggled into bed beside me and announced, "Let's have a little talk."

"Well, I like drinking coffee," I answered.

"What else?"

"I like it when you come into my bedroom and say 'Good morning!' and are happy to see Daddy and me," I continued. "And I like talking to you like this."

"Do you like eating toast with butter?" she asked.

"Yes, that too," I said.
.........................................................

Big A's question got me thinking about a book that came out last year that claimed people are terrible at cultivating happiness in their lives. Dan Gilbert, the Harvard psychology professor and author, seems like a pretty amusing guy. Take this excerpt from a Mother Jones interview about his book:

Mother Jones: The title of your book is "Stumbling on Happiness." Do people stumble on happiness the way a wanderer stumbles on an oasis in the desert ("stumble upon"), or the way a father stumbles on a child's toy in the dark ("stumble over")? Thematic aspects of the question aside.

Dan Gilbert: Most people think it is the first, but it is actually the second. The book is about the mistakes people make in their attempts to locate happiness. In this sense, people stumble on happiness the way Dick Van Dyke stumbles on an ottoman. Or the way Chevy Chase stumbles on everything. Or if you are too young to conjure either of the images, then how about the way Paris Hilton stumbles on high heels when she's totally ripped?

Gilbert was talking mostly about how people are poor at predicting what will make them happy in the future. But it struck me that I am pretty bad at doing it in the present, too. All the things I had just told Big A that I enjoyed about mornings were things that could make me happier right now, yet somehow are the very items I always rush through or skip. My coffee is usually stone cold before I take a sip, the newspaper remains folded on the table until late at night, and breakfast? I make sure the kids eat a good one, but somehow hardly ever sit down with them myself. What, I wondered, would the morning feel like if I gave the things I like preference over the rest of the to-do list?

So when DH poured me a cup of coffee, rather than leave it on the counter and go on to 15 other tasks, I actually drank it while eating some toast. Then I read my favorite sections of the newspapers we get delivered to the house before resuming the mad rush to get everyone out of the house on time. It took maybe 15 minutes in total, so I skimped on cleaning up the kitchen like I usually do, since I have to clean it up after dinner anyhow.

I know this must be duh-obvious to most, but my morning felt markedly less stressful than usual. That's striking to me, given that this week has been quite unpleasant and I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed with childcare and work issues. But I am a little happier today than I was yesterday, and it didn't require some new event to happen that solved the unpleasant things I am currently dealing with. All it took was warm coffee and toast.

I wonder what other areas of my life I could improve, just by realizing what I already like about them?

Bargainer's Remorse

Maybe I was due. I've been surfing a tsunami of a birth high ever since Little A came into the world ten months ago. There were some turbulent, sad eddies here and there, but for the most part I have just felt so happy and thrilled to be alive and have a healthy baby. Life came at me in super-saturated colors. Fresh! Shiny! Smelled like skittles! At least until September, when the wave finally broke.

And what are the things that are making me glum? I am sheepish to admit them, they are so pedestrian. My kids have both been sick for most of the last four weeks. Nothing life threatening, but when the baby wheezes you end up going to the doctor a whole lot -- 3 times last week just for Little A, whom, it turns out, doesn't really sleep much when she's jacked up on albuterol. Then I caught the cold from the girls and also got my eyes contaminated with the germs (oh so gross to contemplate how that occurred) and came down with a raging case of viral conjunctivitis. Imagine picking up your child from preschool carrying a baby that has green stalactites hanging from her nose while you look like a hell demon yourself, what with those crimson, weepy peepers. Oh, won't you play date us, fellow preschool mommies? Care for a home-baked treat? Well no, I guess not.

Living in the house of plague has put a kink in my regular work schedule, which has already been dented because a relationship with a longtime babysitter has become a vexing, disappointing thing that I need to get out of. The problem is that I am far too behind on everything to properly research a replacement yet. So I'm stressed about work. I am upset about the babysitter. And I miss my DH. He's been on deadline for a new playable level on a video game ,which means that I've not seen him very much for the past few weeks.

The thing that bothers me nearly as much as the things that are bothering me is that I had promised myself I wouldn't get so caught up in this circle of stress and frustration over daily life again. If only I could get through such a difficult pregnancy with Little A alive and healthy, I just knew it would all be different.

What does it mean, to go back on a promise like that? I have major bargainer's remorse these days. It's so strange to discover that life suddenly feels ... normal. Recognizeable. And that despite my wishes and vows, my bar for stressing has readjusted from where it was last year to something a trifle closer to that of the "regular" human population.

I honestly don't know if this is a failing on my part, or a sign that I'm healing.

Maybe both?

Little Mysteries

This is the third time in the past few weeks that I have reached into my underwear drawer and pulled out a pair of cotton briefs that belong to Big A. I know we're both female and potty trained and live with DH (the person responsible for putting the underwear away). But I'm also 100 pounds heavier and twenty-six inches taller than Big A, so our butts are not NEARLY the same size. Yet DH has been getting confused about whom wears which undergarments when he sorts the clean laundry.

Worth bringing up in marital discussion? Probably not. But I still find myself a little alarmed that he might think I own Dora underpants.

ER Musings

The woman darted across the parking lot in front of me as I carried Little A toward the emergency department entrance. The baby was flushed and whimpering softly from her as-yet undiagnosed double ear infection. I was walking fairly fast, worried about what might be wrong, wishing we were at home so we could have gone to the pediatrician's office instead of the ER. But the lady still managed to beat us through the sliding doors. She rushed up to the sign-in window. I thought she must be in a tizzy of anxious fear about someone who lay in a bed beyond the check-in area.

But no, not quite.

Woman: "I need someone to look at my shoulder. I was putting on a sweatshirt this morning and hurt it. It hurts when I move."

ER Gatekeeper: "What is your level of pain, 1 being not too bad and 10 being the worst?"

Woman: "Hmmm. I guess ... eight?"

Now, I realize that I'm not an unbiased observer. Since tweaked-shoulder lady obviously rushed to get in front of us so she could be at the front of the line, I admit to being automatically ticked off at her. When you have a sick baby, you might begrudgingly let someone cut in front if they are missing an arm and several quarts of blood, but that's where your magnanimous spirit ends. Your mother instincts make your lips curl over your eye teeth, and you have to fight the urge to hiss "My baby FIRST!" at everyone else in the room.

Still. Am I wrong for wondering how someone experiencing level-8 pain could win a speed-walking race to the front door with me a moment before?

Sleepless, Sick, and Psycho

Well, maybe not psycho quite yet. But getting close. Last week the first illness of the school season struck our house. I tried to keep Big A from infecting anyone else, and the poor kid really does have good intentions about not being sloppy with her stuffiness. But, she's three and still very distractable, like a labrador retriever puppy. She forgets. So most of my interactions about not sharing germs went like this:

Big A, mouth wide open as post-nasal drip tickles her throat: Cough, cough, cough.

Wabi: "Baby, remember to cover your mouth."

Big A furrows her brow and wants a do-over. She fake coughs into her shoulder, exactly the way she's been taught, and looks up at me.

I bend down to be at her level to give her a compliment: "Good ..."

"AHHH CHOOO," explodes Big A.

"... Job," I finish while wiping mucous off my glasses.

Needless to say, everyone here got sick quickly. This is the first time we've had both girls ill simultaneously. All I can say is God bless the moms of multiples out there, because WOW, getting up five times per night sucks. Even when I had a newborn, I only got up two or three times per night. (Amazing how as a twin myself, this sort of never occurred to me until now. Feeling a wee bit guilty about that ...)

Anyway, the getting up every hour and a half wore DH and I down, which meant that we got sick too. Now the girls and I are mostly recovered but DH's head cold moved into his chest and decided it wants to stay awhile. I am still in forced insomnia mode due to DH's coughing fits. I know we should probably try to sleep in separate rooms when sick, but I find I have trouble sleeping without DH next to me regardless, so usually we try to stick it out in the same bed despite whatever plague one of us hatches. But after a night like the last one, I may have to reconsider trying the couch out this evening. I feel like I have crossed into the territory of mommy-of-a-newborn tired, which is oh-so not fun.

So now I'm struggling through the usual work/kids/errands triad of life while exhausted. I'm also cleaning my house like a meth freak, because oh yeah, my parents in law are arriving tonight for a week-long vacation in California with us.

I'm hoping my MIL arrives late enough so I can keep the lights dim, slosh some double-strength cocktails in her direction, and just generally distract her from noticing how sticky around the corners the house is!

Little A Keeps on Getting Bigger!

Just back from the pediatrician's office from a well-baby visit. Little A now weighs 19 and a half pounds! That puts her in the 70th percentile for her age, unadjusted for her prematurity. Her doctor says that adjusting her age is silly at this point, given the rate of her growth.

Here is a picture from yesterday, showing that she really will eat just about anything. (Including Mommy's yummy Economist.)

A Suburban Thing

When DH and I moved across the Bay to a ranch house built in 1950, there were some mental adjustments to be made. We'd spent the previous nine years living in San Francisco, light years away in lifestyle from our little suburban slice of Oakland. For a long time we couldn't help remark on things here that most people probably take for granted. For instance, we have a yard big enough to require a mower, and that seemed bizarre and exotic after living surrounded by concrete for so long in SF. And our Oakland house is totally plain, yet it still has a second bathroom, something rare as unicorns in most SF flats. But the thing that floored me the most about moving here was the parking situation. Because not only does our house have a two-car garage, but a wide driveway leading up to it.

That meant no more hunting for street spots or honing parallel parking skills on hills with a 14 percent grade. For months after we bought the house, every time DH and I were out late or came back home during a rainstorm (always bad times to hunt for street spots in a big city) we would revel in our good fortune at having the garage and driveway.

But time passed and now I have lost my gee-shucks newbie instincts about our street. I realized I had officially morphed into a real suburbanite the other day when I got annoyed at my neighbor because he parked his car in front of my house.

When we first moved, being mad over this never would have occurred to me. The rule in SF is that any open curb space is up for grabs by anyone at any hour of the day. And of course, that's still technically the law over in Oakland, too. But over time I came to notice that the custom here is different. It doesn't matter if you've got a huge garage and driveway with your house. A homeowner gets dibs on the curb space directly in front of their own home, too. It's for their cars or their guest's cars. All around the neighborhood, people park their cars directly in front of their houses. It is acceptable to park in front of your neighbor's house, but only if the space in front of your own home is taken by another car for some reason.

Everyone I see does this. Everyone, that is, except for my next-door neighbors. They have two cars. One gets parked in their single-stall garage, the other in front of my house. Always. There are two parking spots in front of their own house that remain empty while the space in front of my house is taken by their car. Once I started noticing what they did, it began to bug me. And now I can't stopped being bugged about it.

I know it's ridiculous. These are nice folks who keep their house and yard in much prettier condition than certain other people in the neighborhood do (cough, cough, ahem). They are quiet and friendly. Hell, they even brought me home-made cookies after Little A came home from the hospital. But I find myself wanting to yell "GO PARK IN FRONT OF YOUR OWN HOUSE!" every time they pull in front of mine.

Either I'm totally crazy, or it's just a suburban thing. Maybe both?

It's Friday So This Must Be ... Crap, Where's My Day Planner?

I thought working part time until Little A turns one would down shift the pace of family life nicely. In some ways, it works great. I get lots of time with my girls and don't feel the same kind of guilt for working that I did when I worked full time during Big A's infancy. But the childcare situation with two kids is an ever-dizzying spiral of complexity.

Back when I worked full time and had one child, daycare was simple. I had a full-time babysitter and Big A got dropped off and picked up at her house the same times Monday through Friday. Then after Little A was six months old, I went back to work part time. At this point I started dropping off both girls at the babysitter two days a week. Not as consistent as before, in terms of my work routine, but still familiar and easy to keep track of.

Things got more complicated when I realized that two days a week without the kids was simply not enough time to adequately finish my freelance projects. I needed at least another day of babysitting each week. But due to the high cost of childcare, another day per week at my regular sitter would actually put me in the hole at the end of the month unless I opted to go full time. A friend of mine was in a similar predicament and after ranting to each other about how the cost of daycare for two kids makes part time work practically impossible, it suddenly dawned on us that we could defray childcare costs by swapping babysitting services with each other.

So for awhile, on Mondays and Wednesdays I had my girls at the regular sitter's house. On Tuesdays I babysat my friend's two boys so she could work, and on Thursdays my friend took my girls so I could work. It was definitely more complicated, but still something I could easily remember after I got into the rhythm. And I got an extra day of work without paying any more for daycare. It was great!

Enter preschool. Big A's program is only in the afternoons on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I wanted Big A to go to her old babysitter in the mornings on Mondays and Wednesdays (along with Little A) so I could work more hours those days. But the babysitter said she was going to charge me the same $60 per-day, per-child rate whether Big A was at her house for 3 hours in the morning or the whole freaking day, which made that option completely unaffordable.

But, my friend's eldest son was also going to preschool at the same place Big A was. They were originally going on different days, but we switched them to the same program so their time there synched. That allowed us to further the swap and get a few more hours of additional childcare per week from each other. But this is when I also lost ability to keep track of my kids' whereabouts without writing it down. Here is the new schedule:

Monday: Little A goes to the "real" baby sitter's house at 9 a.m. Big A gets dropped off next at my friend's house at 9:15. My friend serves Big A lunch and drops her off at preschool for me at 1 along with her eldest son. That means I get to work from 9:30ish until 4, at which point I pick up Big A from preschool. I pick up Little A from her sitter no later than 5.

Tuesday: I stay home with my 2 girls and my friend's 2 boys. My friend works 9:30-5.

Wednesday: The same deal as Monday, except this time after Little A goes to her babysitter at 9, I rush home so my friend can drop off her oldest boy at my house by 9:15 so she can work for the day. I watch the two big kids, serve lunch, and then drop them off at preschool by 1. Then I have three kid-free hours to work until preschool is over at 4. Once again, Little A gets picked up from the regular babysitter by 5.

Thursday: Both girls go to my friend's house between nine and five. I work 9:30-5.


Friday: Little A stays home with me all day, but Big A is only home in the morning and has preschool 1-4. Sometimes I manage to get some work done while Little A is napping and Big A is away, sometimes not. It's a crap shoot.

Adding to the complications is the fact that my friend and I originally met through my old babysitter, back when we each had only one child, still worked full time, and both had our kids there five days a week. Even though it is the baby sitter's own rate policies that led my friend and I to get creative with our childcare, we still know that the baby sitter would be miffed if she heard what two of her formerly full-time clients were doing. Since I still send Little A to her house, we opted to just not tell the baby sitter about what we are doing on the side. But I always feel a little awkward when I got to pick up the baby from the sitter's house on Monday and Wednesdays, because Big A is with me and has turned into quite the chatty girl. I fear she's going to innocently rat me out about the other childcare arrangement one of these days.

Who knew that child care could have so much intrigue?

Marriage Pictures

So the shoes I wrote about falling in love with awhile back arrived in the mail, and they were as pretty and twinkly as I remembered from the actual store. Wheeee! The first time I took them out of the box Big A's eyes widened and she sighed like she was inhaling jasmine. "Oh. Marriage shoes! Are you getting married, Mommy?"

I explained to Big A that her father and I were already married for quite a long time now. Her little forehead knotted up as she tried to recall the wedding, and got even more creased when I said it happened years before she existed. Before Big A? Incomprehensible! She wanted to see pictures as proof, so I dragged the album out.

"This is mommy," I said, pointing at a shot of me in my wedding dress.

"You are NOT supposed to wear that on your head," she admonished as she pointed to my cloche. "No hats! You are supposed to wear ... " She struggled to come up with the word. "Like THAT," she said, pointing toward the sheer curtains.

"Well, I didn't want to wear a veil because it was a pretty casual wedding. See, my wedding dress isn't really a gown, so a hat was ok to wear with it. Plus, at the time my hair was only a half inch long all over, so the only way a veil would have stayed on was with staples or a headband. And I was very anti-headband when I got married."

Big A stared like I was a lunatic. She glanced at the next photo and shook her head again.
"No! That lady is NOT supposed to be with daddy here!"

"Oh, that's just daddy with his arm around his sister, baby. It's Aunt SIL. Don't you recognize her?"

"No! Only you and daddy are supposed to be together in the marriage pictures."

"Well, here I am without Daddy but with my brothers. See? At weddings, everyone takes pictures together." I turned the page and tried to change the subject. "Oh look, here's one of Daddy and Mommy kissing during the ceremony."

"No, no kissing!" She looked horrified. "Mommy, you are doing it ALL WRONG!"

Preschool!

Big Changes! This week Big A made the switch from in-home daycare to preschool three days a week. Some related observations:

1) Peer pressure is good. Big A has always equated pig tails with a heinous method of torture, so her hair is almost never done up. But once she saw the other girls wearing their hair pulled back, suddenly she was willing to sit still while I combed, braided, and barretted to my heart's content. Is there anything cuter than a 3 year old in pigtails? I'm in mommy heaven.

2) Peer pressure is bad. Every day as we leave school, Big A tries to slide down the banister (of DOOM!) on the long outdoor staircase that leads to the parking area. When I tell her no, she whines "But other kids are doing it!" It is the first time ever she's used that argument with me to get what she wants. Unfortunately, I suspect it won't be the last ...

3) When I asked her teacher if Big A was shy on her first day, the woman snorted and said "God, no!" So, I guess BA hasn't morphed into a wallflower, despite the newness of everything.

4) H&M rocks. Seriously, Target-esque prices but their children's clothing is just so much cuter than bargain basement.

I just wish I could pull off the adult H&M clothes. I saw a coat that seemed tasteful and not too Forever 21 on the rack, and so I tried it on during Big A's shopping spree. Imagine my surprise when I found Jerri Blank reflected in the mirror:



Yikes!

Sobby-Story Life

This post was going to be about how lovely my weekend was , filled with planting flowers in the yard, leisurely breakfasts on the patio, playing tag with Big A, and hanging out with our nieces. (I did up a nice Father's day meal and gifty thing for DH, if I do say so myself.) And last night while I was doing chores after the kids fell asleep I felt really content. It was part afterglow from the weekend, part anticipation of the next few months. In my mind I saw many afternoons where the kids would be splashing in the kiddie pool and we would all be relaxing together. And most of all, I saw vacations. Summery, sparkly holidays!

DH really wanted to visit our parents (who all live in the same town) this summer because Big A is finally old enough for us to fly without tranq doses all around and Little A is young enough that she won't get incredibly antsy on airplanes yet. But while the timing is right, the price of four tickets to East Bumblefuck NY most certainly is not. In the last few years high fuel costs and airline industry consolidation have doubled the cost of going there. The price for tickets and car rental needed to visit the family is now comparable to an entire month's home-owner's insurance, local tax, and mortgage payments for us in the San Francisco Bay Area. Yikes.

Even if we had that kind of extra money, I'm from a place that Garfield author Jim Davis reportedly claimed was the source of his strip's "inspiration." When the author of a comic as lame as Garfield recognizes your home town is even lower on the totem pole of shame than he is, safe to say that it's not worth taking out a loan out to visit.

So rather than taking a full week off and flying somewhere, we finally decided that we'd go on a couple long-weekend camping trips this summer instead. Even though we had to buy a bigger tent to accommodate the growing family and also get a car-top carrier to haul all our stuff, it was still multiple-times cheaper to do that than fly someplace. And I actually like camping a lot. I love cooking on the cute little stove and snuggling down into my sleeping bag in the cozy little tent with my family surrounding me at night. Also, flashlights! I have a new LED one I can't wait to play with ...

But then DH calls me from work today saying a project deadline might be moved back so that it falls in our July camping trip. Oh, and that holiday known as July 4th? They have to work that day, too. The consolation is that they'll get two comp days off at the end of July. But this doesn't seem like much consolation, given that I can't just up and transfer my campsite reservations to the new days off.

DH works in the video game industry, and anything I can say about their work practices and long hours has already been said more famously before by others. But I am so tired of this sort of thing interfering with our lives. First, we aren't even going away for a whole week, just a few days. Why is it that we cannot even take a four-day weekend without work drama? Second, why is it that DH did not get the trips cleared ahead of time with his boss PRIOR to the schedule change? I told him the dates back in April when I booked the campsites and asked that he get it cleared with a supervisor so that if anything like this occurred (because it ALWAYS occurs) he could prove that it was a long-booked trip he'd already cleared with his boss.

I know this last part didn't happen at all, since when DH called me today it was "verify" the trip dates, meaning that they weren't even written down in his day planner.

Grrrr. I guess my big camping trip this year might involve setting up the tent in the back yard.

Eating, eating, eating ...

Cecily over at And I Wasted All That Birth Control recently wrote about trying to eat better, and boy can I relate to her thoughts on the joy of Whole Foods. Especially this time of year, a trip to an organic produce department is almost psychedelic: Ooooh, the colors! Also, the sense of well being that comes with eating tasty, healthy food on a regular basis is indeed wonderful unto itself.

It has been awhile since I've frequented Whole Foods (mostly because of it's "Whole Paycheck" downside), but I think now might be a good time for me to head over and get inspired by the fruits and veggies once again. They say kids are supposed to motivate their parents to try to lead better lives. But for me, kids have brought the worst eating habits of my life. When I was pregnant, to even look at a salad was to wretch or feel my rib cage melt from heartburn. The only things I could choke down on a regular basis while gestating were cheeseburgers and cookies. Breastfeeding also leaves me in the precarious of state of perpetual starvation, and so it seems entirely logical to have dessert after every meal -- even after snacks, if the whim strikes me.

After I weaned Big A and my appetite did get more normal for awhile, but family-related roadblocks to good eating continued. By then I was working full time again and too frazzled to cook properly. Enter the prepackaged dinners and takeout to solve that issue. Still, in between the junk there was still a decent share of fruits and veggies. At least until I got pregnant with my trisomy 18 baby and went through the medical termination. After that, it was a superhuman effort to just get out of bed, take care of Big A, not get a divorce, jump off a bridge, etc. All thought regarding healthy eating went out the window, where it stayed throughout Little A's dicey, tense pregnancy.

But now the fact that I'm still eating dessert after every meal (which happen to still consist mostly of cheeseburgers) is starting to bug me. I guess the good news is that life has become normal enough for me to worry about regular-type stuff like this. On the other hand ... the idea of giving up 5 desserts a day is gonna be a big challenge. Sugar, how I love thee!