The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness

Our days as shiftless layabouts are numbered. Seven to be exact. A week from today Tom leaves to Texas (or maybe California, either way: somewhere hot and far away) for a two week training for his new job.

I am trying to be excited for him, and for our bank account, but really – would you be excited about staying home, pregnant, with a toddler, for two weeks alone? Yes? Then you are bat-shit insane my friend.

We knew the job was as much as his before he even applied, so we have been putting it off, working on the house and trying to stretch out a few more days of summer. Our house to-do list is shorter than it was two months ago, but still long enough to make us consider just throwing this house away and getting a new one. It’s like that bowl in the back of the fridge that has something growing in it and you know you could clean it and have the right number of place settings in your cheap set of dishes, OR you could throw it away without breathing and go on with your merry little life one bowl short. Can’t you do that with houses? They really should come as a set of four, and be dishwasher safe. Work on that, will ya?

Ella is having second thoughts about this whole ‘growing up’ thing. Sure, going pee in the potty sounds glamorous, but look what it leads to. Jobs and parenting and cleaning and bills and nooooo thank you.

I’ve been spending as much time away from this seductive box as I can lately, which I’ve found is not very much. Our computers are in a main thorough way in our house, so anytime I am going to get a glass of water, change the laundry, chase the child, bang my head against a wall, I am tempted to just sit down for a second and check one of my 5 email addresses. And then read my blog list. And then make comments and upload pictures, and look up recipes for dinner, and find 10 more crafts to lust after, and play United States Tetris, and really it goes downhill from there.

And so, here is a short list of things I have attempted to distract myself with lately:

And then I got on the internet to tell you all about it.

It’s pretty much a given that if you send me out on an errand on a Saturday (mission: go to Shopco and get outlet covers) that I will be gone for three times as long as I need to be, because damn – there are a lot of garage sales around here. I always tell myself I will just stop at one, but then there is another big pink sign (Baby stuff? I need baby stuff, awesome, I’ll just do a quick look around) and before I know it, Tom’s calling me because he is A) worried, and B) Ella has taken an interest in the 3 whole outlets we did not have plugged and is determined to stick something in one. So, I promise I will be home right away (just as soon as I pick up those outlet covers, can’t forget that…) and somehow end up a mile away from Shopco, sifting through an dead woman’s scarf drawer while her grandson sits in the living room smoking cigarettes and blowing smoke into the couch marked “Antique, $300″.
Which is to say, Hey I got some cool stuff today!

I generally limit what I will spend to less than $20, unless I find something amazing enough to send me to the cash machine. And since I am lazy and do not want to go find an ATM, $20 it is.

Birth ball, with stand, $5. I have been looking online at this exact brand and scoffed at paying $40 for it (Hi, I’m cheap.) I was going to ask to borrow one from a friend once birth is more imminent, since I loved the one at the birth center last time, but wha-la! Plus it has a stand, which will help us avoid that whole “Oops, Ivory fell off the ball again” thing that we went though last time.

This awesome lamp, $1. I about peed my pants when I found this, unmarked at a garage sale. I fully expected to pay at least $5 for it, and was not cool about it at all when they shrugged and said a buck. “No WAI!”

See it here in action. Mmm, I’m loving that lamp.

Super cute tin, .50 Cents. (where the H is the cents key on a keyboard? How have I never noticed that it is missing?) Because I need more places to keep my crafting crap.

Rainbow prints, $1.50. They are a trip up close (and have names like “All strung out”. ) Perfect for my kid’s room!

Cool wooden car, $1. Found at an estate sale where there were no other toys, just purses and vases.

Maisy Christmas Flap book, because it’s never to early to start celebrating getting presents, .25 cents.

These neat branches, $2. They are metal and just stick in the wall with posts like thumbtacks on the back. They are not placed exactly where I want them yet, but I was considering painting branches coming in, and this is SO MUCH EASIER.

Things that did not manage to get photographed before they were squirreled away:

Two great giraffe swizzle sticks that were confiscated by someone whose names rhymes with “Smella” – A nickel each (though now that I search online I see they care fairly common, and I want to buy a million and line them up on the window sills of my house.)

A couple shopping bags full of baby/toddler clothes (now in the washer): Both for Ella, Cricket and for a friend who is due soon – $5

A bead wreath thing that I did not being into the house because I knew Tom would roll his eyes and ask “Another?” because I have about 7 and have no real plans for them. But hot damn they are cool! – $1

A bright red purse, and a handful of costume jewelry – $1, also confiscated by Ella.

So that puts me at what, $18.35? Not a bad day’s work. There is always tomorrow for that last $1.65 – I’m sure it will be something I neeeed too, right?

I could go for something a bit lighter, how about you? Alright then.

To-Do craft list:

• One of these head bands (a year after everyone else…)
• Baby quilt for Cricket, using these fabrics. I’m not sure about a pattern yet, but god, aren’t these beautiful? In the interest of ever finishing it though, I’m thinking something more like this.
• Quilt for Ella. I have been looking for an excuse to make a story-time quilt, and I think she is at an age that she would really enjoy it.
• A million onesies
• Dresses from men’s shirts! Holy crap how cool is that?!
• 2 Million Diapers
• Finish Ella’s belly cast (and make a new one for this kiddo)
• A few very fun (but secret!) gifts for pregnant friends
• Lotsa Booties
• Some shoes for myself
• Finish these damn thank you cards (I’m trying to use up all my scrapbooking paper since I have WAY too much considering I’ve never scrapbooked in my life!)

But first, we need to finish the upstairs of the house, so that I can focus on putting back together my craftroom. I am working on a progress post, but haha, I need to clean a bit before I take pictures of a few rooms. What of it? For anyone insanely curious (ohhh, you know you are) you can check out the Renovation Vacation set over on Flickr. The vacation may be over soon though, since Tom has an interview on Tuesday (which will mean no more midday naps. Booooo.)

On the Fourth of July, we sat on the deck of Tom’s parent’s lake cabin and enjoyed the sunshine, chatting about whatever came to mind. Tom’s sister J struggles with smoking, and a few of Tom’s aunts and uncles offered her encouragement – one day she will quit for good, she just has to keep trying, she can’t give up. They each told their stories, laughing about their naivety, praising that first cigarette in the morning, hoping that they quit soon enough. I sat at the end of the table, knitting squares for a baby blanket for a friend, and listened. Nearly an hour went by, and then one of the few quiet moments of the day came on, and J turned to me. “Your mom died of lung cancer, right?”  I nodded, put down my knitting and stood up to go hug my daughter. “Yeah. She did.”

Today my mom would have been 48 years old, though she never made it past 42. The older I get, the younger that seems. When I am 42, Ella will be 18, the same age I was when I held my mom’s hand and told her she would beat this, I would take her home. I lied.

She smoked for 25 years, and I used to be so fucking angry at her for this. She could still be alive, had she just fought harder to quit, if she had just stopped when we asked her to, when we broke all her cigarettes, when we hid them behind the fridge. She could have been there when I welcomed my daughter into the world, and she could have seen me marry the kind of man who she was never lucky enough to find. She tried, but damn it. She did not try hard enough.

And then I became a mom. I grew the fuck up. I learned that we do the best we can, and sometimes it’s just a fight to get out of bed when the world seems stacked against you. My mom was married multiple times, often to men who treated her like shit, and while she was one of the strongest women I’ve ever met, she did not know how to quit falling in love with assholes. She tried to give her kids the material things she thought they deserved by sending us to live with our father, but by doing so she lost a huge part of her identity. She was our mother, but she could only do so in letters and phone calls that three kids took for granted. Mom would always be there. We will have time with her later. She’ll call back, I’ll write her when I am not so busy. We make stupid mistakes in life, and we pay for them later. My mom died of a bad habit, I missed out on years with her due to laziness. I’m not sure who I am more angry with now.

I hate feeling this way on her birthday. It’s a beautiful day outside, the first in a week of scorchers. We are moving my craftroom into the largest room in the house, so that I can throw fabric in a huge pile on the floor and swim around in it like Scrooge Mc’Duck. Ella is playing, the baby is kicking, Tom remembered that it is our one month anniversary (which I did not.) I want to plant my mother flowers, to tell Ella about her Nana, and bake a cake. I want to celebrate the day she was born, not wallow in her death.

I am trying. Just not hard enough.

Thank goodness there are days that the sun shines, the wagons are on sale, the fire trucks throw candy,  the coffee is strong, and the kids take a nap at the same time.

Have I ever mentioned that I generally have at least one child extra in the house? No? Well, that is likely because it’s not very kosher of me to share other people’s kids with the blogoverse. My own kid, I can exploit all I want. Other people’s kids, not so much. I would be irked if someone was posting pictures of my kid to the internet without my knowing, and while I could ask the kid’s parents for permission, it would still feel weird. But, it’s pretty much impossible not to talk about them in passing sometimes. So, weird references to a second (or third, or eighth) child does not mean I have finally embraced my inner schizophrenic, but rather that I like feeling like I am not a complete money-vacuum. While we do not need the money to eat, I have a *ahem* thrift habit that I need to support, and it doesn’t seem fair that I do not make at least some of that money I am spending on another bag I will only carry for a week and shoes that (surprise!) hurt my feet. Garage sale season is upon us! I need small bills!

Ella is not excited to drive around town and stop every other block to look at velvet wall hangings.

All day long I have been writing a post in my head about how sometimes being the mom sucks. How can the best job of my entire life also be the one that I want to run screaming from? My boss yells at me all day, I never get a sick day, and the food sucks. How much vacation time have I accrued here? On days like today, the two minutes I can get by playing hide and go seek, and hiding in the locked bathroom, isn’t enough.

(Photo is actually from our trip, but I think the sentiment is right.)

And then?

Then she went pee in her potty. Twice. And it was like I had finally seen some progress on a project I’ve been working on for years. A scientific breakthrough – the wire that finally lit up Edison’s lightbulb. And while the pay still sucks, at least I get a bonus occasionally. Two less diapers almost makes up for the fact that she threw yogurt at the curtains today. Almost.

(I guess I’ll keep her.)

Everyone says the second labor is different. On Monday night, at the auditions (which were a flop BTW), the main organizer, Teresa, was scrunching her face and pausing during her contractions, but laughed them off, saying that she remembered clearly what her son’s labor was like 5 years ago – this may be labor, but it’s not the hard stuff yet.

So, instead of actually having auditions (which would have required people showing up to you know.. audition) and to take the laboring mom’s mind off the pain, we all told our birth stories and talked about the wonderful parts of labor. The rush of adrenalin, the closing in on a deeper part of ourselves, the bonding between parents who labor together, the feeling of your child being born into your waiting arms. Why don’t we talk about this more in our society? Birth is surrounded by so much fear and (hello Puritan forefathers!) shame. Our bodies are seen as unwilling participants that must be prodded along, monitored for cracks. I know I talk about it a lot, and truthfully if it bothers you then we wouldn’t get along very well in real life, because it’s something that I can’t just ignore and accept as part of the American Dream (the same way I can not accept that a woman being raped every 2 minutes is “just the way it is”.) If you haven’t noticed by now, I have a hard time blindly following the norm – I ask too many questions, I am a pest and a trouble maker. It’s one of the things I really like about myself.

So, birth. It’s pretty much awesome and everyone should think so. (See, even I run out of steam sometimes. That and I need to go put on pants and get this day started.)

We talked for over an hour, laughing at each other’s adventures in birthing, and reveling in the miracle we had each experienced (in hospitals, at home, at birth centers, with medication and without – we’re pretty egalitarian about miracles.) I was the only one who had not had (or was not in labor with) my second child, and they all nodded – yes, the second labor is so much different. Sometimes it is longer, often it is much shorter. For those of us with positive first birth experiences, our bodies take to our second labors like they are bored – yeah, we’ve been here before, everyone chill out. There is a great scene in the play where a mom describes the differences between her first birth and her second. Her first birth was birth as entertainment- An “I Love Lucy” skit where, in the confusion and excitement Dezi forgets Lucy on his way to the hospital. “That was my first birth” she says. “This birth is just about showing up.”

Finally we gave up on waiting for an auditioner, packed up our papers and walked out to our cars. Teresa walked slowly, but we all waited for her, and we made sure she had a ride home. An hour after I left her to walk to my car, she gave birth at home to a 9lb little girl, 10 minutes before the midwife could get there (since Teresa was sure she was not in active labor, no one had called her until too late.) She sent out an email the next morning, “Birth really is amazing,” she wrote. “One minute I told Kris it was much more painful than I remembered and we aren’t doing this again, and 15 minutes later there was such release and woosh, gone is the physical memory of the pain. Amazing.”

I agree. Amazing.

Dear Mr. Dentist Man:

Pregnant gums hurt. And bleed when you touch them. And  if you pick up that f-ing hook one more time I will have to .. I don’t know. Not cry though, because I am not a wimp. Just nervous about your grimace and silence.

Also? Stop treating me like I’m the worst mouth you’ve seen all day. No cavities sucker! I saw that old woman with the visible hole in her front tooth – go take care of her and stop snarling at me and reminding me to floss.  I floss! I don’t drink soda! I pay you on time! Go smash someones else’s nose while you dig into their gums.

The amazing thing is I was able to take a shower, get out of the house, go to the dentist, drive home, have breakfast, whine online about my gums AND watch some tv before Ella woke up. She is a bum and will sleep until noon if we let her – though it does mean she will be up until 1 am. But! But!!(Oh god if I say it out loud I will jinx it) last night was the 3rd night in a row that she has went to sleep without nursing, and slept in her own bed for 10+ hours. ALONE. At this rate I will get her out of our bed just in time to share it with a new squirmy worm, but at least newborns do not stick their toes in your eye at 3am.

The auditions for the play I am directing are tomorrow and I am twiddling my thumbs, wondering if gollygee willikers I am up to this. I have not been in a production of any sort in over a year, and have not been active in a production in at least two. And then I got the worst flu of my life one night into the run and had to beg (though thankfully not very hard) my assistant director to make sure that everything was taken care of for the last few shows. I am making audition forms, double checking the passages I want women to read, wondering if anyone is going to show up. Are you in Spokane? Do you want to be in a play about birth? Let’s call it the Vagina Monologues meets sperm = babies, how do we get them out?

I really love the play, and am so excited about being a part of something I care so deeply about. It seems like the only theatre I get into anymore is community activism theatre, and I really just want to do it justice. My passion for women’s rights never faded, it’s just changed – as mothers we deserve someone to fight for us too. We deserve to be respected and encouraged during our pregnancies, not treated like our bodies are lemons and are not qualified to carry a child without supervision. Every woman has the right to the birth she wants – in the play there are epidurals and c-sections right next to home-births and rants about episiotomies – and the point isn’t so condemn anyone’s birth. It is about wanting maternity care to reflect the desires of the mother, which sounds so easy. Why isn’t that easy?

So, come be in the play. If you can’t be in the play, go see the play. Engage in the discussions afterwards. See if your view of birth changes – if not, well I will pay you back for your ticket. If so, then congrats you have a wider pool of knowledge to draw from in your life. Sounds like a win for Team Vagina.