The Baby Juggler

And so I meant to mention

Sorry for the extra post, it just makes me feel like I've accomplished so much more, to add it here rather than edit my last post.  Plus, this is BIG.

Instead of napping, the babies have been stripping, laughing, playing with poopy diapers, and peeing in their cribs.  Luckily Super Apa was the one to deal with four loads of sheets and clothes and the subsequent baths.  Hmmm... I have a feeling the potty-training gods are calling.  Speaking of which, Jr. peed in the potty this morning.  On purpose!

Ok, resume what you were doing.

PHEW! And other tidbits

SO, we have successfully moved into the temporary apartment.  As much as I mourn our beautiful home, the likes of which we will NEVER be able to afford on the OTHER coast, it does feel somewhat like a vacation to live the apartment life.  No cutting grass, no sweeping the porch- just going to work, playing with babies, going for a run, folding laundry, then going to bed.  The ONLY bummer is that J and I have agreed to do the house cleaning for the three months in the apartment, a small economy on our part.  Huh.

After not having had to pick-up a vacuum cleaner in, ahem, five years, I found myself somewhat rusty when vacuuming the Big House just after the removal of the big furniture.  I surmised that we should probably vacuum prior to the carpet cleaners visit, so I spent last Thursday evening alone in a (mostly) empty house, surrounded by silence, vacuuming away.  I vacuumed, and I thought, "hmmm... so this is pretty much why I have paid people to clean my house for the past five years.  This is truly the most boring enterprise EVER.   And monotonous.  And boring. "  As I was thinking these deep and worthy thoughts, the vacuum (which was a virgin vacuum, having been bought a year ago but never used) made a strange choking sound over the berber.  As I quickly pulled it the two feet toward me, I noticed an empty, berber-thread width line begin to form.  My quick wits deduced I should stop pulling on the vacuum immediately, then I discovered the berber thread wrapped around the vacuum's roller, about three feet worth.  THREE DAYS BEFORE CLOSING.   These incidents are why I have been barred from using the lawn mower.  They are never really my fault, it's not like I fed berber thread through the vacuum, but these things JUST HAPPEN TO ME.

So, babies, books, furniture, papers and other sundry items are now successfully moved, mostly in an organized fashion.  One of J's friends gets kudos for saving our sorry slow asses.  Thanks, T!!!

I wanted to mention books I've been reading, since my stay at the hotel apartment (right, no maid service, damn!).  Most recently, I think I've mentioned the fabulous fantasy series by Jacqueline Carey, starting with Kushiel's Dart.  Next comes Blindfold Games, a new stand-alone thriller by one of my favorite mystery authors, Dana Stabenow.  Kate Shugak kicks ass, y'all! (er, for the record, Blindfold Games does not feature Kate). 

Interestingly enough the book I just picked-up, by author Gwyn Hyman Rubio, deals with a character with Tourette's Syndrome.  I had no idea, just got the book because the OTHER book I've read of hers, "The Woodsman's Daughter" just HAUNTED me for over a week.  I always forget, are book titles underlined or in quotes?

The Tourette's pretty much is shown to the reader in the first few pages.  Her descriptions are painfully familiar, stimulating my own compulsions to no end.  I totally understand the character's almost orgasmic release of her compulsions whenever she is finally, blessedly alone and in hiding.  ** an aside, have I mentioned here how horrible my C-section was, not in itself, but the paralyzing effects of the epidural drove me mad, not being able to complete a tic below the middle of my back.  It was the biggest mind-f#%k ever, me needing to spasm, or thrash, or jolt a muscle group and not being able to move.  If i were ever truly paralyzed I think I really WOULD go mad.

I think I will start a book list here, again.  I stopped the one I had before because a) I read so many books I'd be updating it almost daily, and 2) I felt obligated to write reviews (even though I never did so). 

The babies were pretty stressed out with the move, at first.  I think realizing Super Apa will still come to the apartment to baby sit them, and adding a fun regime of swimming at the apartment pool has really helped to alleviate most anxiety.  Super Apa is WONDERFUL and loving and good to those babies of ours.  We are lucky lucky to have her.

That's all for now, oooohhh!  I almost forgot.  Comcast struck again, with adding on hidden line installation charges to our first bill with our move (for lines we told the installer NOT to add) and with our cable ALREADY failing.  I. Am. Getting. Satellite. when we finally settle.  I swear it.

Please go and wish Liza and her J and Noah a hearty congratulations and other well wishes for FINALLY getting their second parent adoption legalized.

Internet Freedom

I'm going to refer y'all to Liza's post, cause why repeat a good thing.  I'm WAY too lazy.

Just a little update

Not sure what to write about here.  I have NOT fallen off the face of the earth, nor have I given-up blogging.  We have been packing our three bedroom two and 1/2 bath "mansion" as my mother calls it (take time to laugh right now) and moving into our three bedroom apartment.  Boy, is it small.  BUT there is something relaxing about the IDEA of living worry free for the next three months.  I say IDEA because we are still busy moving little odds and ends to our apartment,a s the house doesn't close until Monday. 

Aside, I think  it is MUCH more difficult to do a small move months before a big move.  One gets somehow befuddled into thinking one doesn't really need to PACK all the items one will be using daily for the next three months.  Suddenly, we decide we can just throw those said items into a box and go.  We only felt the need to pack items we will be storing until we get to our destination.  Weird. 

I would love to give baby updates (they are growing like weeds and have I mentioned they actually EAT now?  REAL FOOD?  They still won't eat a vegetable, but I give them lots of different fruits and spoon feed them jarred veggies once a day) but am at work and don't have time.  They are talking away, mostly gibberish but plenty of one word vocabulary happening.  I can't believe they are going to be 20 months old in a few days.  Unbelievable.

We are trying to develop a behavior modification program that is age appropriate.  I am a bit unsure about when to time-out (I can see putting a three-year-old in time-out for a tantrum, but a 20-month-old???  seems inappropriate to me, somehow).  And I can see why they get upset, so it makes it harder for me to give a consequence.  I would be pissed also, if someone picked me up out of the blue and took me away from, say, my toy truck.

I want to update a bit about our baby-sitter.  She is WONDERFUL and amazing.  I tell her constantly that she is a gift from G-d.  She deals with my neurosis beautifully, she LOVES the children.  This is a fantasy situation, one that doesn't often happen in the real world.  I think parents want to think their children's caretakers love their children as much as the parents do, but often the situation is not as ideal as the fantasy.  I truly believe "Apa" loves the babies as much as J and I love them.  She devotes her whole self to them when she is with them, more so than J and I as we are always busy with everyday living stuff. 

With the apartment move comes more anxiety for me, concerns about criminal behavior/ break-ins as well as giving Apa more freedom with the babies.  I have decided it is time she be allowed to drive the babies around town, as the aprtment complex is NOT AT ALL in a pedestrian neighborhood.  She must now drive them to even the park.  SO, she trades cars with J during the day, Apa  takes the minivan and J takes Apa's car.

Sigh.  I trust her completely but have many safety concerns.  It is hard to maneuver safely to get two babies in and out of the car.  I worry about another car flying into the parking space where the stroller is sitting with one baby.  Recently a woman in town was at the "Y" getting something out of her trunk when a car backing-up slammed her and trapped her against her car.  From the story, I think she and the other driver must have  had SUVs, as she had massive internal injuries, needed blood transfusions, and one leg amputated.  Can you imagine the stupidity and recklessness of someone backing out THAT FAST from a space and not looking, HARD ENOUGH TO TRAP SOMEONE between cars and cause massive internal injuries?  I get angry at the driver just thinking about it, and want to shake my fist at this state for not requiring Driver's Ed.  What if it had been a stroller with my kids (or anyone's kids) sitting there?  Ugh. 

Sorry, I didn't mean to get depressing.

We close our house the 26th.  Hopefully I will be able to resume working-out and blogging at that time. 

 

To Mini and Jr.

Again, for LGBT Family Blogging Day

To Mini and Jr.:

You are 19-months and 6 days old today.  And exactly that many months and days ago, my life finally began.  You two are what makes our family complete.  Your arrival has changed everything about my life—in all the best possible ways.  I used to be a bit of a work-a-holic sort (just ask Mommy), but now, I just want to be with you and Mommy.  You are what matters to me.  You are what I was put here for.  To spend time with you, sing to you, laugh with and at you, play soccer and softball and basketball and hockey and what ever else you want to play with you.  To teach you to write your name and to say “mommy” and not just “mama” (though god bless you for THAT).  To look at your awed little faces when you get to “touch” a truck or see the gorillas and lions at the zoo.  To marvel at the fact that you already know which shoes you like and DEFINITELY DO NOT like, Mini.  To hold you when you are hurt or sad or scared.  To figure out what the new thing you’re saying today means.  To save money for dance lessons, because with your mommy and me as your sources for that, you are not destined for great things in that realm.  To quit going to Starbucks so much (and I gladly do) so that we can save more money for your college fund.  To move across country so that you will get to know your grandmas and grandpa, and see your cousin more and grow up with the children of all my good friends there, and have a home and a place you will hopefully live until you graduate from high school.   

I had no idea I would feel this way.  I had no idea that you would infuse my life with so much meaning that when I look at your faces, I know I can quit searching for I have found my home.

I thank your Mommy for making you possible and for knowing what I perhaps did not then, that I was meant to be your Mama.  And you are meant to be ours. 

Mama.

Mother's Day

In honor of LGBT Family Blogging Day, I have written a  post.  I am also VERY VERY excited to announce that I convinced J to write a post as well.  So the post just above this one is J's, and it brought tears to my eyes.  AND, she wrote it before she read what I wrote, so you see?  How well I know that woman?  See, Internet??

Again, hurried, couldn't proof read...

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I want my own day.  I want a day to be fed breakfast in bed by my family, have my feet rubbed, be worshipped at the Shrine of Mommy.  I thought about that this past Mother's Day while reading the blogs of other parents.   I read about someone being sent for a pedicure, or a big family brunch in Mom and Grandmother's honor.  I thought about how we spent Mother's Day this year, awake at 5 AM and getting breakfast ready for two sick kids who wouldn't eat it.  I wanted my own day.

What does one do (or what do two do), as two moms?  I contemplated asking J to accept the date of Father's Day as her parental celebration day, her day to sleep-in, get breakfast in bed, get a foot massage, get worshipped at the Shrine of the Other Mother.  Then I thought that wasn't fair;  it was, in fact, ridiculous.  Ridiculous in the same way that me trying to teach the babies the sign for "mama" to be the sign universally used for father.  She IS their mother, as much as I am. 

Never, not once, not for a second before the babies were born was I concerned that I would feel ownership for the children over J. Never, not once, not for a second did I think J would fail to feel ownership as a mother.  I always knew and still know that J is the best mother I could have chosen to raise our children.  And I know that J has never felt like these kids of ours, these shining stars in our lives, are less hers than mine.  If I ever fail anything in our relationship, it will NEVER be that.  I know for a fact that J feels as if our children have completed her life, given her a renewed sense of self.  She is really the best mother they could have.  And so I will share Mother's Day with her, forever and ever.  I will give-up the fantasy of sleeping late, breakfast in bed, foot massage, and worship at the Shrine of Mom.  Some people may balk at this, but I think I made a choice at some point, to not hide behind a heterosexual relationship, to live my life as a lesbian.  In doing so I gave-up not only the right to sleep late, breakfast in bed, foot massage, worship at the Shrine of Mom on Mother's Day; I lost many many of my human rights.  But the rewards from my little family creation have been more than worth it.