So much for TGIF

I had a stupid fight with Tom this morning. I apparently hurt his feelings by being annoyed that he neglected to actually GET the inspection sticker when he got my car fixed last night - the whole point, *being* to get the sticker, since mine expires today. Hmmm. Anyway, I said I didn't want to go today because I had a lot to do, but I would go and he did that resentful thing and made plans to get it over his lunch break, but acted all huffy about it.

So, instead of my usual tiptoeing around this behavior, I confronted him about being resentful and reminded him that I said I would go get it myself, if he'd just give me directions. That's when it came out that he had hurt feelings. I honestly can't even remember that i said anything that *would* hurt someone's feelings, but apparently the very fact of me being annoyed is enough to manage this.

So, I, in my infinite wisdom, instead of aplogizing, say that he's hurt my feelings too, but he doesn't seem to care. And he has no idea what I'm talking about, duh. I can't say what it is here, but I might be willing to discuss it privately if anyone cares that much. I'm sure it's something many of us deal with ;).

Can you tell I'm not feeling very fecking sympathetic about this?

So, in a fit of hormones, I started to cry, which upset him more, so he slammed out of the house. Twice. Because he forgot something the first time.

So we're not talking. And I'm leaving for PA. Now. I refuse to give in. Oh, and the second time he came back in, he stood there in the hall, ostensibly waiting for me to stop what I was doing and come and *hug him goodbye.* Um, no. Sorry. Duh. So that's what impelled him to slam out harder the second time.

Anyway, I've left him a note taped to the computer to let him know what precisely he's done to hurt my feelings, and hopefully he will come to his senses and stop being so darn oversensitive to things I say that aren't even directed toward him or in any way meant to make him feel bad. ::sigh::

Pregnant Images my foot

I wrote this article after I had Soren about how pregnant women should embrace their bodies.

I'm having a really hard time doing that. I feel like a big fat slob, even though I know I'm not overweight, but everything that is changing about my body, I despise right now.

I feel so unattractive and fat and non-sexy, and this is not how I want to feel. I wish I could just be done gestating so I could feel in charge of my body again, and get in shape and feel pretty and sexy. I know how shallow that must sound, but it's true. Well, I'd keep the breasts ;).

I lay awake after Tom goes to bed and cry about how ugly I feel. Nothing helps - I try to buy flattering clothes, wear makeup, do my hair. Yuck. And he doesn't look at me in the same way. I don't know if it's a Madonna thing, or maybe I'm just fat, but I don't measure up to Playboy, that's for sure.

the UU

Jo asked how my visit to the UU was. It went pretty well. They are in the middle of interviewing the ministers (married) that the search committee just found, so the service was *packed* to the gills with people who wanted to hear the sermon that day. It is a much larger congregation than I'm used to - about 1100 people their website says.

They have a very nice choir with a choir loft, but the architecture of the church itself didn't impress me. There are no windows in the sanctuary and it's a concrete floor with cinder block walls - all very industrial looking and not warm and spiritual feeling to me personally. The minister's sermon was OK. It struck me as a little "preachy" for a UU sermon. All in all, the whole experience was a little more Christian than I was comfortable with, but I met a lot of really nice people and it was nice to be in a "familiar" environment.

I did get a call from the RE acting head, but haven't had a chance to call her back. I want to find out why she's the "acting" head and what the deal is with looking for a new RE director, or if she will be it. We went through an RE crisis in State College and I have no desire to get in one here. I know that something must have happened, because, oddly enough, the woman from the homeschooling workshop at the conference w/ the 8 yo twins was there and her kids were in Emma's RE class. Both kids really liked RE a LOT and want to go back, which is a big selling point for me. Anyway, the woman with the twins said that they had left for awhile, looking for a different RE curriculum elsewhere but had just come back, so I want to find out more about her experience.

After our UU experience, we went to my friend Jana's house, who is on my Nov98 list, and we hung out for the whole afternoon and dinner with her 5 yo, 2 yo and 6 mo. It was fun!

I need to run, as I'm evaluating software/workbooks for the girls for summer that the school sent home. They seem pretty cool. We haven't had new software for a long time!

Is it still Monday?

I'm tired, and it's only 1:30. No nap today either, fer sure. I took the girls to school this morning so I could go on Soren's class field trip to Strong Museum. I had taken the girls there on an inservice day so we knew what we wanted to do, but we weren't there very long! And half of the time was taken up with a "lesson" using the Berenstain Bears exhibit. The kids got into groups and had to write a story with beginning, middle and end (that was the lesson part) and then act it out in front of the rest of the class. They did great!

I was really impressed with the whole class. It was the first day for the new substitute who will be there for the rest of the year. I don't like her nearly as much as Soren's regular teacher, but she's passable I guess. She's going to need to firm up a bit though. The whole class is SUCH a cool group of kids though! They were much better behaved and fun to hang out with than Emma's old 2nd grade class that I went to RMSC with a while back.

We came back to school in time for lunch and I stayed for the first time to eat with Soren. She was SO good and was totally fine when I left after lunch. No tears, just asked for Kissing Hands.

I don't know if I mentioned this or not, but she had a run-in with a lunch lady last week. She apparently made a fan out of folding a piece of paper and was fanning another child and her story is that the lunch lady grabbed it out of her hand without even confronting her about her behavior, and then took her whole sandwich, which she had only had a bite out of, and threw it away! She was very upset about the whole thing.

Just let me be totally un-PC here for a moment - this woman is clearly a lunch lady for reason, and it's not because she likes kids. It's because her intelligence is sub-standard and she is a fat, stupid imbecile. I saw her do something similar to two other children while I was there today. She actually had made a point of coming up to me and introducing herself to me and telling me what a "good kid" Soren is, but she was probably afraid I'd blast her. I told Soren just to ignore her - Soren could run mental rings around her even on a bad day. Yeesh. As my friend Jennifer used to say, "Stupid People Shouldn't Breathe."

Another cool thing about Soren is that she confronted the girl two girls down yesterday for being bossy! She did it in a really nice way too, and the girl, who is 9, seemed to get her point, and tried to be less bossy the rest of the time they were playing :-D. Made my day!

As soon as the kids got home from school yesterday, I sent them outside, because it was warm (it's sleeting today). We took the training wheels off of Emma's bike (note: I have been trying to get Emma to ride a bike without training wheels for about 3 years now), and the first time she tried on two wheels, she took off like a bat out of hell and never looked back. I guess it was just time! So I called David and told him right away :).

Soren is doing great with her rollerblades too. Not really "skating" yet, but practicing getting around and getting up from falling down!

They played with the neigbor girl for awhile, then I got them all to husk some sweet corn for me for dinner and then I shooed the playmate out so we could eat dinner. I think this kid could become a real leech if I let her. I don't like other people's kids enough (except my close friends' kids) to have them hanging around all the time. We had lentil soup and fresh cantaloupe and corn on the cob (first of the season, from Fla.). It was yummy! Then Emma had to go to the gym for practice.

While we were eating dinner, one of Emma's old classmates stopped by to ask if she could play. They live in our development and I've given them an open invititation since we moved here, so it was too bad that the timing was off. We're going to try for Thursday of Friday.

Anyway, I've got to get dinner started and pack gymnastics stuff for the girls so it's not a big rush when they get home. But boy would I rather have a nap!

The Conference

Yesterday I went to an Alternative Living Conference. I think that's what it was called! it was all day long at this place called School Without Walls. It was a neat building and I'll need to find out more about it as a high school option at some point, assuming we'll still be here then.

The first session I went to was on beginning homeschooling, and even though I didn't get my questions answered about legal stuff and doing the paperwork (which I can't seem t stop obsessing about and can't seem to get any answers on from actual homeschoolers here for some reason) I met a couple of really cool women, and got the number of one of them, who has 8 yo b/g twins. She seemed really supportive and cool.

The second session I went to was on Waldorf, as I wanted to learn more about it since I'm sending the girls to a homeschooling program at Lilac Children's Garden in September. I am glad I went, because I now know that the Waldorf philosophy is not an educational one that I'd want to pursue full time. I have some real concerns about how rigid it seems in some ways, among other things.

Then I had a lovely lunch with my friends Krista and Patty and my midwife Meg, and another CNM whose name is Kathleen I think (Or Katherine?) I meet so many people sometimes it's hard to keep track! Anyway, that was nice and we all had an interesting discussion about my spotting, the Rhogam shot and other interventions.

I decided to go to the parenting/childbirth track for session 3 and attend a vaccination workshop, because none of the other tracks appealed to me at the time. It turned out to be a mistake.

The woman who ran it presented a lot of anecdotal evidence, much of the citations were taken out of context to the point where they weren't clear and she was very new to the vaccine movement, as a result of her daughter's death from cancer. I unfortunately let the journalist/research/logical side of myself take over and found myself challenging her facts and the way they were presented, as well as asking for clarification, etc., throughout the entire workshop. I know I came off pretty bitchy at one point (Krista told me so ) but I just couldn't seem to help myself. I hate when people present information poorly, and I think it does the vaccination "movement" a disservice to have these kinds of one-sided diatribes because they only lead some people to think that those who are concerned about vaccines are all fringe lunatics.

The presenter and I ended up talking for quite a long time afterwards and I tried to explain to her that I supported her mission, but that I really thought there were some problems w/ the way she was presenting it, in a gentle way. She clearly didn't get where I was going with it. She is too caught up in her own pain still to move forward, and that's OK. I kept reminding myself of the keynote speaker's message about how we each have our own stories, and we can't know all of someone else's story, so instead of comparing everything and making it good and bad, we should try to always *wonder* what the story is, and try to be open to it.

I am pretty sure I alienated another attendee though, who sadly is the treasurer of Lilac Children's Garden and runs the Homebirth Circle. I did have 2 other people come up to me and say that they agreed with me though - that she needed to organize her info better and that they had heard other complaints about her workshop from prior conferences. ::sigh:: I guess once the LCG woman knows me better, she might understand.

I just think as a responsible parent and consumer and writer, that I can't stand by and not challenge poor logical thinking. I could have done it in a more subtle way though ;).

The final session I went to was Krista's session on babywearing and Elimination Communication/Diaper Free. It was SO nice to put on the sling and imagine nursing my new baby. I got really into it :). Speaking of which, Soren tried to nurse this morning - well she pretended to, and I discovered that I'm making colostrum! So then Emma wanted to nurse, which kind of squicked me out, but she tried once and it hurt like hell! I told her there's no way she is going to remember how after all these years, and that's final ;).

I am actually getting more intersted in EC. It's an extension of being aware of your child's needs, but it sounds like a lot of work, although perhaps in the long run, not any more so than dealing with diapers.

Anyway, the conference was overall a good experience, and I'm glad I went. Tom took the girls with Danielle and the boys to a sheep shearing festival where Soren saw her "best friend" Lani. They apparently had a great time and the girls got their faces painted very professionally like a tiger and a cheetah (or a leopard, I can't remember which). He was skeptical when I told him about it, but last night told me it was a good idea. I knew the kids would love it - he'll get used to this kid stuff ;).

We also got all the crap out of the Suburban so now I can hopefully get all the books over to Danielle's too, so I can have a real living room for a few months!

We're heading off to the UU this morning for the first time if I ever go and get a shower. The girls are skeptical and Emma is nervous about not knowing anyone, as am I, but it should be a good step toward having a spiritual community if we like this fellowship. If not there are two more I want to chec out.

I stole this meme from Jennifer - thought it looked cool.

Bolded ones I've read

Author - Title
Anglo-Saxon guy - Beowulf
Achebe, Chinua - Things Fall Apart
Agee, James - A Death in the Family
Austen, Jane - Pride and Prejudice
Baldwin, James - Go Tell It on the Mountain
Beckett, Samuel - Waiting for Godot
Bellow, Saul - The Adventures of Augie March
Brontë, Charlotte - Jane Eyre
Brontë, Emily - Wuthering Heights
Camus, Albert - The Stranger
Cather, Willa - Death Comes for the Archbishop
Chaucer, Geoffrey - The Canterbury Tales
Chekhov, Anton - The Cherry Orchard
Chopin, Kate - The Awakening
Conrad, Joseph - Heart of Darkness
Cooper, James Fenimore - The Last of the Mohicans
Crane, Stephen - The Red Badge of Courage
Dante - Inferno*
de Cervantes, Miguel - Don Quixote
Defoe, Daniel - Robinson Crusoe
Dickens, Charles - A Tale of Two Cities
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor - Crime and Punishment
Douglass, Frederick - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Dreiser, Theodore - An American Tragedy
Dumas, Alexandre - The Three Musketeers
Eliot, George - The Mill on the Floss
Ellison, Ralph - Invisible Man
Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Selected Essays
Faulkner, William - As I Lay Dying
Faulkner, William - The Sound and the Fury
Fielding, Henry - Tom Jones
Fitzgerald, F. Scott - The Great Gatsby
Flaubert, Gustave - Madame Bovary
Ford, Ford Madox - The Good Soldier
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von - Faust
Golding, William - Lord of the Flies
Hardy, Thomas - Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Hawthorne, Nathaniel - The Scarlet Letter
Heller, Joseph - Catch 22
Hemingway, Ernest - A Farewell to Arms
Homer - The Iliad
Homer - The Odyssey
Hugo, Victor - The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hurston, Zora Neale - Their Eyes Were Watching God
Huxley, Aldous - Brave New World
Ibsen, Henrik - A Doll's House
James, Henry - The Portrait of a Lady
James, Henry - The Turn of the Screw
Joyce, James - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Kafka, Franz - The Metamorphosis
Kingston, Maxine Hong - The Woman Warrior
Lee, Harper - To Kill a Mockingbird
Lewis, Sinclair - Babbitt
London, Jack - The Call of the Wild
Mann, Thomas - The Magic Mountain
Marquez, Gabriel García - One Hundred Years of Solitude
Melville, Herman - Bartleby the Scrivener*
Melville, Herman - Moby Dick
Miller, Arthur - The Crucible
Morrison, Toni - Beloved
O'Connor, Flannery - A Good Man is Hard to Find
O'Neill, Eugene - Long Day's Journey into Night
Orwell, George - Animal Farm
Pasternak, Boris - Doctor Zhivago
Plath, Sylvia - The Bell Jar
Poe, Edgar Allan - Selected Tales
Proust, Marcel - Swann's Way
Pynchon, Thomas - The Crying of Lot 49
Remarque, Erich Maria - All Quiet on the Western Front
Rostand, Edmond - Cyrano de Bergerac
Roth, Henry - Call It Sleep
Salinger, J.D. - The Catcher in the Rye
Shakespeare, William - Hamlet
Shakespeare, William - Macbeth
Shakespeare, William - A Midsummer Night's Dream
Shakespeare, William - Romeo and Juliet
Shaw, George Bernard - Pygmalion
Shelley, Mary - Frankenstein
Silko, Leslie Marmon - Ceremony
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Sophocles - Antigone
Sophocles - Oedipus Rex
Steinbeck, John - The Grapes of Wrath
Stevenson, Robert Louis - Treasure Island
Stowe, Harriet Beecher - Uncle Tom's Cabin
Swift, Jonathan - Gulliver's Travels
Thackeray, William - Vanity Fair
Thoreau, Henry David - Walden
Tolstoy, Leo - War and Peace
Turgenev, Ivan - Fathers and Sons
Twain, Mark - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Voltaire - Candide
Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. - Slaughterhouse-Five
Walker, Alice - The Color Purple
Wharton, Edith - The House of Mirth
Welty, Eudora - Collected Stories
Whitman, Walt - Leaves of Grass
Wilde, Oscar - The Picture of Dorian Gray
Williams, Tennessee - The Glass Menagerie
Woolf, Virginia - To the Lighthouse
Wright, Richard - Native Son

I went to a consignment shop today with high hopes. They had some cool nursing tops, which I don't need yet. I tried on one pair of pants that didn't fit me right and a Leading Lady bra that made me look like Madonna in that video with the pointy bra! So, it was a wash. There's a new one open, but I don't know where it is and can't figure it out on Mapquest. Will have to wait for Tom to get home and ask him.

Soren

I got this email from the school counselor today about Soren. I am just pleased as punch at the progress she has made in the last 2 months. She NEVER asserts herself, let alone talks to, other children, so this is a huge step. And the fact that she expressed her feelings and explained herself is amazing.

"Today I was quite impressed by Soren's ability to be assertive in an appropriate way. I didn't make a big thing out of it with her but wanted to share with you. One of the other girls in the group tends to get "grabby" and, when she grabbed the toy Soren was playing with, Soren took it back.

"The other girl got upset and very clearly didn't see that she was in the wrong, so I asked Soren if she could tell her why Soren took the toy. Soren explained about not liking to have things grabbed and then found a way to say that they could still play and that she still likes the other girl. Very cool. Emma told me as I was passing by that she will be having a brother and that she got to see the ultrasound. She was very pleased and excited to share. Best wishes to all "

Woohoo! Go Soren :)

:::yawn:::

I'm tired! I went to a LLL toddler meeting this morning which lasted about 2.5 hours and then I had to find my way to the bank on that side of town, which is always an adventure. I discovered at the meeting that I was spotting again, and tonight had a glob of mucousy stuff come out, which was pretty freaky. I'm tired of it! So, I was feeling a bit discouraged and tired, so laid down for a half hour and of course the phone rang and woke me up.

More bad news about the house after talking to the attorney. It looks as though, because of the septic problems, we will have to let the bank foreclose, but they can sue us to fix the septic, so we have to file bankruptcy to avoid that. Just what I need! ARGH!

Anyway, the girls and I went to the library after school. Well, after they roller skated for awhile. They both LOVED the library :). They got a ton of books and two videos, and I found Stephen King's lastest Dark Tower book available, which thrilled me! Emma was just so happy to sit there and read. She found a few longer books that she really wanted and I discovered that their children's library is really nicely laid out and makes it easy for kids to find stuff. We came home and ate and now they're getting a quick bath so they can watch the Sound of Music. They are *really* into the music :).



I forgot to mention that on Saturday I went to a "pelvis party" featuring "The Pink Kit" by ICAN, of which my friend Krista is the local leader. Obviously, those that know me know I haven't had a c-sec, but most of the women there didn't. It was a great opportunity to learn about the pelvis and how it functions. We even mapped our own pelvises. Pretty cool stuff!

It's a....

Well, do you really want to know? If I tell you that Emma is *really* happy, does that give you a clue?

OK, OK, it's a ... boy! Yep, little penis sticking out there for the whole u/s room to see ;). I was actually really relieved just to *know*. Although I've been hoping for a girl, I've felt that it's a boy, and I'm actually quite happy now that I know for sure. The name du jour right now is Jude Thomas. Or possible Jude Austin. Or Austin Jude. But Jude is really the only boy's name that I like right now.

So the u/s was really fun! We got a video, and pictures and the tech was super sweet and explained everything to the girls, who were there, and talked the whole time and drove me nuts but were really happy and funny. We got good pictures of the head, the heart, the penis (of course!) and a great profile. I want to go over and show my MIL this morning :).

In other news, this weekend was nice. Saturday night I got to have Indian food, which I've been craving. Erica and I took a LONG walk and ate a LONG dinner and it was great. Then Sunday I went to the UU for the Ingathering service, where all new members are welcomed. There was also a lovely bridging ceremony for kids who were graduating from the RE program. Lots of good speeches and music. I'm glad I went although I missed having the girls there with me. The children's story was cute; about Higgins, a drop with a dream. Dont' ask ;).

The drive back was delayed, because it was 82, yes *82F* in State College, so when the girls kind of wistfully talked about the park, I said, WTH, and off we went for an hour so, which was cool, because one of Emma's best friends, Gabrielle, was there and Soren and G's little sister Hannah, played too! I got stunningly sunburned too. I'm a lovely shade of lobster red.

I'm happy to be home, oddly. The house feels more like home all of a sudden, and I missed Tom dreadfully. I made a big batch of egg salad this morning and I'm off to eat some!

Pirates?

Stolen from Karen, who stole it from Jennifer, my pirate name is:

Your pirate name is:


Captain Jenny Rackham
Even though there's no legal rank on a pirate ship, everyone recognizes you're the one in charge. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

I like it!

In worse news, the sale of my house fell through. Apparently it will cost upwards of $20,000 to fix the septic system. Hahahahaha! Whatever. This is becoming like a bad sci-fi movie.

progress

Well, I finally felt baby movement again when I laid down for a few minutes after lunch. Yay!

I paid bills this morning, then ran to the bank and deposited money, then went to the social security office (finally!) to apply for my new card with my new name. I was afraid that if I sent my taxes in they would get delayed if the names didn't match!

I also sent our taxes :). Go me!

I just spent an hour and a half cleaning our bedroom. It was trashed (note to self: Don't leave Tom alone for several days ). He does a great job helping when I'm here, but clearly reverts back to bachelorhood when left on his own!

I got all the sundry papers into recycling, took out the trash, sorted the kids' artwork and cleaned my dresser off. I also put away my luggage from the PA trip, cleaned off Tom's dresser, and put away stuff that has been sitting out since I moved in back at the end of November. I also did a spot clean of the bathroom and after a short break am going to tackle the girls' room to prepare for the new dressers, and then will move downstairs to put away the rest of the luggage and start sorting out the baby stuff and the laundry room. Argh! I bet I'll be tired tonight. I hope I have enough stamina to get a LOT more done today while the girls are gone.

I miss them *desperately* already. I can barely stand it! I couldn't nap today w/o my Soren cuddlebug :(.

I haven't able to update much, because I've been so busy while in PA. I stayed with my friend Erica, who was feverishly working on a paper that is due, so the girls didn't get to see much of her, but she was a perfect hostess as always!

On Saturday afternoon after I posted, I ended up bleeding a bit more than I was comfortable with and having regular braxton-hicks contractions. I paged my midwife but didn't hear back, so Erica took me to the Emergency Room at the hospital around 5:30 p.m. They shot me right up to Labor & Delivery. The volunteer who took me upstairs (in a wheelchair, no less!) was an older woman and when Erica mentioned that I was planning a homebirth, she said that she had had 2 hb's herself and thought that was the best way to go!

We got upstairs and I got changed into the requisite backless gown and climbed into bed, where they hooked me up to the machine to measure contractions after they found a good baby heartbeat of 138. That was reassuring to say the least. I asked Erica not to mention to the L&D staff that I was planning a hb, because I didn't want to have any snootiness from the nursing staff or the doctor.

Tom arrived right before the doctor, which was great. He had been at the house with a few friends packing up my piano and the rest of my furniture to move.

The doctor on call was brand new to the area and was very nice. He also said that I have a friable cervix. I can't find a good link that doesn't discuss cervical cancer, but basically for whatever reason, my cervix is easily irritated and bleeds easily. He also couldn't see any obvious infection and I've been tested for everything, but he gave me an antibiotic cream to use for seven days to see if it will clear up anything and possibly stop the bleeding. He was very funny and said "Don't put anything in your vagina except this cream for 7 days!" and the nurse subtly pointed out the "no sexual activity" restriction so as not to embarrass me in front of Erica ;). Like what does she think girlfriends talk about?

Anyway, when I got the prescription, I was in gales of laughter, as the instructions said to use one dose PER vagina every night! I know that that meant IN the vagina, but the idea of having multiple vaginas tickled my funnybone somehow.

Anyway, Tom headed back to NY early Sunday with all my stuff. The girls and I went to a very nice intergenerational service at the UU Fellowship and saw lots of friends. Then I took them back to their dad's and I can't remember what i did for the rest of the day!

On Saturday afternoon, I had a huge fight with my mother, as usual. I won't go into all the stupid things she said to me, but it was typical Betty. I am convinced that i started bleeding more because I popped a blood vessel in my cervix while yelling at her.

Sunday night I picked up the girls. Monday we visited with my mom for awhile, and had lunch with her. Then I took Emma to her friend Katri's, where she spent the evening. Soren and I hung out and had leftovers with my mom at her place.

Tuesday morning we visited my friend Anne and her girls, which was a blast! Then I took Emma to the Friends School for the afternoon and she went home and to gymnastics with her friend Gabrielle. Soren and I took a long nap in the afternoon. Then we went out to Red Lobster, where the Crab Alfredo pasta I ordered had been made with bad alfredo/milk. It was disgusting. I picked up Emma and G. at 8:30 p.m. and we visited with G.'s moms for an hour or so, which was lovely.

While we were at the gym, one of the older gymnasts was playing with Soren in the foam pit and mentioned that Soren was so much more fun than before we moved- that she never used to play or talk. It was so nice that even a 10 year old cold see the difference in Soren's behavior! Several other people mentioned it too :). It made me feel good that we're finally seeing some social improvements in her. ::whew:::

Yesterday morning I took the girls to their grandfather's in Altoona, and was supposed to meet up with Jen, our former babysitter, who is due with her baby at the end of May. We talked on the phone a couple of times and she told me to call her back after I went sneaker shopping but when I did, she didn't answer, and never called me back. I was pretty upset that she blew me off, because I wasted a bunch of time hanging out at the mall waiting for her call. However, I did get a good deal at Limited Too on 2 bed canopies for the girls for when we move.

I decided on the drive back to State College that I would head back to NY because I was so lonely without the girls already. I figured I could do a bunch of stuff at the house although Tom warned me that the house was trashed with all the furniture sitting in the middle of the living room. He was right! It's a mess ;). However, I have the whole day to get working on pieces of it, so that's a relief. We also got our completed taxes to sign last night and holy cow, we're getting a refund! I'll be able to pay off all outstanding bills and even part of the credit card! woohoo! I'm SO relieved. I hope it doesn't take too long to get our refund.

I'm sure there are other things I want to mention but I can't remember them now. Right now, I'm hoping to feel a definitive movement from the baby, who has been suspiciously quiet since Tuesday. I'm starting to get very anxious about that but feel bad about calling the midwife *again*. I'm starting to feel like a real worrywart.

First of all, if you emailed me yesterday after about 10 a.m., I haven't received it and am not likely to until Wednesday because I stupidly set up my mail to not leave messages on the server, so I can't get them off the web :-/.

I asked Tom to fix it this morning, but it's not working still, so we must have changed the wrong account.

I went to the midwife yesterday and she did an exam, yielding the information that my cervix is irritated, but no sense of why. There is no yeast, no sign of infection. She said it may just be a part of this being a third pregnancy and the cervix is a bit open, allowing the inner tissue to be a bit more vulnerable to being bumped. She was easily able to make it bleed with a swab.

she said that it's nothing major to worry about, but that I should be aware of my b-h contractions and that if they start to seem real, to call her. Otherwise, I am apt to spot throughout the pregnancy. Oh joy!

I made it safely to PA. David looks rather strange - his hair is quite long and looks very weird ;). He didn't invite me in to his new apartment. Typical. Apparently he's sleeping in the closet. Again, typical ;).

I had a nice evening with my friend Erica and recruited a couple more people to move furniture this evening. I just need to pick up some beer and order a pizza later.

Today I went out the house and gathered up the rest of my things that need to go to NY. I cried the *entire* time. I sooo do not want to sell this house. I would stay there with nothing in it. I wanted to die in that house. I don't know how the children can stand it - they must be so depressed to leave their whole lives there. I know that I am. It was my first real home. it is like a death to leave this final time.

There is nothing to be done about it except nurse my broken heart and move on. I will have to find a way to love NY the way I love it here but so far I haven't made much progress. The people are great. I hate the city. I miss my home desperately.

Spotting

It's happening again. Woke up to spotting and some cramping. I see the midwife at 11 a.m. but am supposed to take the girls to PA today to see their dad.

I probably won't hit the computer again until tonight, so don't worry if I don't post an update. she says it is probably a blood vessel or yeast. Maybe she'll send me for an ultrasound today yet. Gads.

I guess I should stop expecting things to go smoothly ;)

More chocolate for me!

I love this news.

Wednesdays are worse than Mondays

I hate Wednesdays because I have to go to the gym twice. I also have had a really shitty morning. I woke up at 2 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep until after 5 a.m., so I am tired and my back hurts.

I have to take the kids to the bus now because Tom starts work at 8 a.m., which is fine, but Emma was slow and impossible this morning and it took forever to get out the door. I can't wait till this damn school year is over.

Just before Tom left, he informed me that I have to deal with getting the registration for the truck for this weekend. Um, thanks for telling me at the last damn minute. I have NO time today or tomorrow and am leaving Friday! I wanted to leave after yoga on Friday but I don't have a babysitter, so I'll probably just skip yoga and go early. ::sigh:: so I have to find time to do this darn registration deal before then.

Meanwhile, and I can't remember if I blogged about this, Tom has a friend named Jennifer who lives out on the west coast and we got pregnant at the same time and got married around the same time. I found out that she lost the baby a couple of weekends ago and oddly, (because everything has been so parallel with us) I am pretty sure she lost it the day I was spotting. :::cue twilight zone music::::

I am really upset about it and just needed to talk about it someplace....like um..here. I haven't told Tom yet. I feel so badly for her, and I want to write back to her today and give her some warmth. Gah, it's just awful.

I feel like crying and not facing the world at all today. All last night I was considering calling off work this morning because my hips hurt so bad last night and I was so exhausted. Now I'm sorry I didn't. At least I'd have time to go to DMV and finish laundry.

I'm also still procrastinating horribly on my writing and I haven't been paid yet. I'm afraid if I quit w/o finishing the two articles I have in process, that he won't pay me for the work I've already done, and I'm hesitant to ask him when I *will* get paid, because I'm so far behind on my work.

Some days I think I have early PPD.

I forgot!

Jennifer sent me a package of baby stuff today! I'm so excited :) I've been so so so broke and it's so exciting to get stuff that I didn't have to go out and buy! I am so grateful for all my friends who are handing down baby stuff to me. I'm getting an almost new infant seat with 2 bases too, from my friend Jana.

OK, gushing over ;).

Job perks

Tom had a good first day at work and is convinced he'll have the job permanently already :). Woot!

At one of the apartments he was working at that was empty, he found a Junie B. Jones book and brought it home for Soren. She wanted me to read the whole thing to her, so we did :).

I made spaetzle and paprika chicken for dinner and it was yummy! The spaetzle turned out perfect this time. The first time I made it, it turned out like mush! I hate when there are meals that I love that David used to make and I have to figure them out myself now ;).

Emma's at practice and I guess I should go switch the laundry. When she gets home I have to help her finish her homework. Her handwriting is abysmal! I made her do a draft of her spelling sentences this week and I"m glad I did, because they're almost illegible. What can I do to help her write more neatly?! Of course my solution is to type ;).

Three of her classmates sent home more questions for me from my career day presentation today, which I answered and put back in her backpack. Pretty cool! I wish wish wish that I could afford for them to go to a decent school! Soren is going to miss having a class to go to every day I think :(.

GodDESS!

You are a GRAMMAR GOD!


If your mission in life is not already to
preserve the English tongue, it should be.
Congratulations and thank you!


How grammatically sound are you?
brought to you by Quizilla


Pretty cool. Glad I did well, since I'm an editor.

Good weekend although Emma and I almost destroyed the shrinky dink oven ;). She pushed the tray in too far and when I tried to push it back, the shrinky dink fell OFF the tray and melted down into the frame. Gads! It took a lot of work to fix it and I ended up taking it apart twice.

We colored eggs at my ILs yesterday, which was fun! The girls really enjoyed themselves. It was one of the nicest visits we've had, actually.

My stomach has exploded. I really need to get some pictures. I have an easily identifiable bump now ;).

This morning, we had a parents' breakfast at school and then I talked to Emma's class about coaching and journalism as part of career week. I hope I did OK! They all seemed to enjoy it :). My favorite question was "What is the favorite story you've ever written?" I thought that was a great question :).

Emma was in a "you're an idiot, mom," mood today, and got really snotty with me when I tried to help her with her "number of the day" math at school this morning.

In other news Soren did NOT cry when I left her classroom this morning. That was a first! Yay! She even had a substitute teacher there.

That's all for today. Tom started his new job this morning. I'm anxious to see how it's going when he comes home from lunch.

I scheduled an ultrasound for 4/19 so hopefully we'll find out the gender!

TGIF

Again! This week just flew by. I feel like I'm failing at my freelance gig. It's so hard for me wrap my head around it right now, and I just literally didn't have enough time this week, partially because my boss waited till the last minute to give me corrections and partially because I wasted most of last week doing I have no idea what.

Today the girls had off school (again!) and it was very hectic. I had a 9a.m. parent/teacher conference w/ Soren's teacher, so I got up at 7 a.m., worked for an hour, showered, fed the kids and ran them to my MIL's for an hour. Met with the teacher, which went great! Soren is really doing great in the classroom and is being moved up to a more advanced reading group. She is apparently a delight in class and is doing well at math and writing. She said that her writing is actually really, really good - both the mechanics and the content :).

Then I ran back to MIL's, who wasn't feeling well, encouraged her to call the doctor (she did, and ended up having an ear infection, which was causing her dizziness!) and ran the kids home. Emma's friend Stephanie's mom came to pick her up for the day, then Soren I ran to pick up my gym boss's daughter, who was babysitting Soren for me. Lost yet?

Then, I dropped Elizabeth and Soren back to my house, ran to yoga, ran out of yoga and to my midwife appointment, which went great. We had a long talk about GBS, spurred by a discussion on my parenting list, and got a form to have an ultrasound in four weeks. I'm measuring 14.5, and the heartbeat was in the 140's. (still hoping for a girl!).

Tom made it for the end of the appointment, and then I ran home, and took Elizabeth to meet her mom at the gym in time for HER dance class. Picked up my paycheck, went to the bank, and then Soren and I decided to check out the library for the first time. Everyone kept telling me how big it was...WTF? The library in the small town I moved from is larger and nicer. Plus I think I'm spoiled by Penn State's library, which is awesome.

Anyway, we got out A Child is Born, although it's not the new edition. We also got some Rosemary Wells books and a couple of first readers that Soren wanted.

My midwife let me borrow Welcome With Love and warned me that it would make me cry. I read it to Soren, and of course, cried ;). Soren keeps asking me why it makes me cry!

Last night I went to a Creative Memories scrapbooking party and had SO much fun!

It was at Krista's house (the woman who lives near where we are moving to), and my friend Alyce was there, along with a few other people I've met at Homebirth Circle, LLL and yoga. I talked with a woman named Cynthia for a long time about the city schools and city life in general. She was very cool and is working on her masters in public health. She was incredibly knowledgable about breastfeeding. I hope I get to meet up with her again sometime.

It really inspired me to dig out my creative memories stuff, which is cool. The party was at 7 p.m. and we got home around 10 p.m. The girls came with me and had a GREAT time. There were lots of kids there. Soren keeps talking about how much fun it was, although she mostly sat on my lap ;).

When we got home, Tom immediately got in my face about how late it was and how worried he was, and why didn't I have my cell phone with me, and didn't even talk to the kids. I was pissed and he stomped upstairs, while I yelled, "Yeah, I had a really good time, thanks for asking!"

I finally went in and said that I was sorry that he was worried, but that I felt like I was under surveillance or something, and that it wasn't that late. He grudgingly said he guessed he owed me an apology, but it wasn't very sincere, dammit. He also does this "silent" passive aggressive thing every time he's upset about something that makes me feel like I'm walking on eggshells and is wearing thin really fast. He even sleeps with his back to me when he's mad, which he NEVER does. He always sleeps on his back! Argh!

I thought of several things to say to him today after I had thought about it some more, but he's still being all standoffish and cold and withdrawn and I am tired of being the one to break the ice.

FTR, there were about 10 moms there, mostly with children younger than mine. Not one of them called to check in with their husbands because they thought it was late. Not ONE of their husbands called them on their cell phones to check in on them. And when I checked in with a couple women at yoga today who were there last night, and mentioned his being upset, they couldn't figure out why either, so I really don't think it's me.

His mom said it's because his ex-wife burned him so bad that he worries, but sometimes I suspect he can be a little controlling in a passive-aggressive way, which worries me. I don't react well to that, and have never checked in with anyone in my life, except when I'm legitimately LATE or have a huge change of plans. I don't like feeling like I have to account for where I am every minute, especially when I've already said where I'm going to be, and I'm still f*cking there.

Anyway, I guess I don't need reassurance that it's me, but I don't know how to deal with this silent treatment and coldness. David used to do this and it drove me BONKERS but he was nowhere as bad as Tom is about it. At least when I approached him, he would make a legitimate attempt to talk to me and resolve it there on the spot - not keep making me come back to re-resolve it, or whatever.

I feel like Tom is so sensitive to whatever I say that I will make it worse if I try to explain to him how his behavior is really having a negative impact on me and makes me not even want to be around him when he's doing that - I'd rather he go out and get drunk and work it off, or yell and fight it out, or ANYthing than this silent shit.

OK, I promise to stop venting about this. It's just that the few arguments we've had always end up like this, sometimes even not arguments, but just things I say that he takes personally when they're not even about him, and it worries me about how we're going to resolve it. Pretty soon, I'm probably going to lose my temper and just follow him around until he yells back at me or something ;).

Speaking of David, he's been very nice lately, emailing me frequently and being mostly responsive to my emails, which is new and different. He said he's feeling a bit manic, which worries me though.

We got 2 offers on the house, enough to pay off the mortgage w/ nothing left over, and we may have to shell out some bucks to fix a few things, but hopefully it will work out!

It makes me very sad though :(. I am going to have to let go of this dream that Tom will suddenly change his mind about needing to be here and we can move home and back into my house, which I love so much. I am really grieving the loss of the only real home I have ever known, that was truly *mine*. I don't think I am going to take it well when we finally close on the house.

The reality is, though, that even if we moved back, we're so far behind on payments, that it would be foreclosed upon before I could get back up to speed :(. I guess I'm just SOL as far as that goes, one way or the other. Not to mention that my credit looks like shit now.

::sigh::

So, overall, a good day for the most part, although some outstanding sadnesses and issues that I wish would get resolved. Just like most days I guess.