Monday, January 28, 2013

Filing

This weekend I got myself a new filing cabinet. Exciting, I know. I've been wanting one for several years. I have a little one, but it was too full to hold anything else. I wanted a bigger one so I could really get some stuff organized. So, last night I got busy organizing, shredding, tossing.

I do love a good organizational purge. I went through everything in the little cabinet, everything that's been piling up around it, everything that's been piled, shoved, tossed elsewhere in my house. It was good. And interesting.

Though I know I've been through those piles in the last 10 years, somehow I found things that should have been purged years ago. I found bank statements with the checks hubby wrote for our wedding (for the quartet, for the photographer, for the priest). I found a file hubby's mother had written all over, planning how they were going to pay for his college. I found records from the urologist hubby visited just before being diagnosed with a tumor in his spinal column a few months after we were married.

And then I found, most unexpected of all, records from our infertilitytesting and  treatments. The insurance forms from the early tests. The slips from the pharmacy for the evil Clomid that made me so crazy. The bills from the later tests and IUI. All of them useless.

I've been wondering why I still have them. Did I save them for some reason? Did I want to remind myself of it all? Perhaps I thought that once we finally got pregnant (ha - the naivete!) they would help me remember our journey and how worth it all the treatments were.

Maybe.

However, as I've thought about it, I think what actually happened was I shoved them in the back of the drawer because I simply couldn't bare to deal with them. They were such a glaring and tangible reminder of my failure to do the one thing I most wanted. To pull them out, even if only to throw them away, was too much of a reminder. To touch them, even if to shred them, was akin to opening the floodgates on all those memories, and hurts. The ones I had no desire to unleash again.

And so, imagine my surprise to discover first that they were there, because I had thoroughly and completely forgotten them. But second, to find that letting them go, shredding them, left me feeling nothing. No hurt. No sadness. No relief or healing either. Just nothing.

And that, I suppose, is proof that I've come further than I sometimes think I have. I didn't need to destroy those records to feel closure about the inevitability of ever becoming pregnant. Somewhere along the way, I've already found some. By no means am I "over" infertility. But the sharp, ever present pain, it's gone. And, for that, I am thankful.


Today's Lesson: Organizing can be good for the soul.

Monday, January 21, 2013

The best thing...

...I ever read in a patient's medical record

A lizard was present at the patient's resuscitation. Blurry squirrels will emergently take patient to the OR.

I have no idea what the doctor meant to write in his note. I'm quite certain it wasn't this. But, if it was, I love him.

Pretty sure, though, that what actually happened is he dictated it and then didn't go back, read and correct it. I kept waiting all day for him to do that, and then change it. And I'm quite happy that, as I leave tonight, it still reads as above. Because, I mean really, who wouldn't want that in his/her medical record?!


Today's Lesson: Sometimes you find the most unexpected things in the most expected places. Like a lizard, or blurry squirrels, in the emergency department. Or at least a good laugh in a medical chart.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

An Exercise in Adulthood

I have a confession. Neither hubby nor I have written a will. I know, I KNOW! It's awful. It's irresponsible. It's not okay. And yet, we're stuck. I mean, the material things (the house, the bank accounts, the life insurance policies), those are no big deal. It's the whole who gets kids thing that has stumped us. Like for 7 years now. Seriously. I know.

I mean, besides the whole "who wants to think about this?!" issue, how do you make that decision? How??!!! (No, really, pleasefortheloveofbabyjesus tell me!) How do you decide who will raise your children if you are not there to do it? I don't know. Hence why it hasn't happened.

I'm sure for some people the answer is obvious. But it's not for us.

Ideally, we want a 2 parent home - because we know how hard it is to parent two children when there are two parents. Trying to do it with just one, sheesh. My mom raised my brother and I on her own. She did (says her admittedly biased daughter) a great job. But I saw how hard it was. Additionally, when thinking about all the challenges and heartaches our children would have to go through (and will present to their new parents) in grieving the parents and family they've known their whole lives, well, it seems like having a partner to share that is better.

We want someone who lives locally, because most of our family are local (including the boys' birth families) and it's so important for those relationships to be maintained and even strengthened. We want someone who has a diverse community. We want someone who is in a place to parent two additional (busy) children. We want someone with similar values and beliefs as us. We want someone who loves them.

Also, I think adoption adds something for us to consider. And this has been a sticking point. Maintaining contact with the boys' birth families is absolutely important. An unwillingness to do so, or simply not regarding it as important, is a complete dealbreaker. We need, the boys need, someone who understands the importance of their relationships with their birth families. Someone who will make the effort to initiate contact when the boys' birth families have been silent. Someone who will respect their birth families, and the role they have in the boys' lives. Someone who will love, not just our boys, but their birth families as well.

How do you decide who will parent your children when you cannot? As we've talked about this and thought about this time and again, I've come to wonder if birth parents may be uniquely qualified to make this kind of decision. It's one they've made before. And It gives me a tiny insight into the difficulty of the decision they had to make.

We still don't know who to choose. It's an ongoing conversation. One we KNOW we need to make. And soon. It's part of being a parent. It's part of being an adult. And it's hard. Sure, we could just throw something out there, just to have something on paper, living under the belief that it will never be needed. And, of course, the likelihood is that it won't ever be needed.

But I also know that there's a possibility it will be needed. And, if it is, my children deserve to know that we made a well thought out decision. That we did our best to assure they were loved and taken care of in our absence.

Not that that makes it any easier. It's hard. Being an adult is hard.


Today's Lesson: Sometimes we (aka me) all need to put on our big girl (aka adult) pants and write the damn will already (or maybe that's just me).

Thursday, January 17, 2013

The Cubicle Chronicles: Chapter Six

Read previous chapters of The Cubicle Chronicles here, here, here, here, and here. It's been a long time since I last posted one of these. I'm no longer at the work location where the majority of the, uh, conversations were overheard. Thus, this may be the last. So, for now, I give you perhaps the final The Cubicle Chronicles...

Lady:Yeah, we had secret service in here the other night. Man: Why? Lady: Because some dumbass threatened to kill President Obama. Man: What?! Seriously?! (hahahaha) Lady: I mean, do you know how often people say they're going to kill the president? I don't like him, I didn't vote for him last time and I won't this time. But I'd vote for him over some woman. Because the last thing we need is some bleeding heart as a president. Now, you get some woman like me in there, well that'd be perfect. I'd blow them bastards right up. I like blowin' shit up, y'all. Yeah, I'd make a good president all right. (um, wtf. and, if I hadn't been working for 15 hours at that point, I'd have had to interject. Seriously, so much to respond to.)

Lady 1: Girl, I think she's COD. I mean all she does is clean. Lady 2: You mean DOC. L1: What? L2: You know "Disorder of the Cleaners", where all they like to do is clean. L1: Yeah, that. I mean, she is obsessive about it. (Sigh. If they were trying to be funny, well, it would be funny. But they weren't. I should be grateful they got the letters correct, right? No? I didn't think so either.)

And then, I walked in to the bathroom. You know, one where there are multiple stalls. In this case only 2 of them, but they both have doors. You know, that LOCK. Well, not only was the stall door not locked, it also wasn't closed. At all. It was wiiiiiiiide open. And, not only was she, uh, doing her business (yes, with the stall door all the freaking way open), also she was discussing her business as loudly as ever. Me = traumatized.

Lady1: Did you vote today? Lady 2: Uh, no. L1: Why not? L2: Girl, I don't have time for that. I got way more important things to do! L1: Like what? I mean you had all day, like 12 hours. L2: Girl, I got a wedding to plan and it is coming up soon!!!! L1: Oh yeah? When is it? L2: It's only 9 months from now! Can you believe it's going to be so soon???!!! (Oh, and here's the best part of this whole thing - Lady #2 from this conversation, she's also the Lady from the first conversation. Oh, yes. She is.)


Today's Lesson: All good things, apparently, must really come to an end. Fortunately, so do the awful ones. Boo for you = yay for me. Funny how that works, huh?

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Flipping Out

The other I posted a comment on someone else's blog post. She was talking about how her toddler climbed out of his bed, but they're not ready to transition to a big bed yet. I was all, "yeah, the kid did that at about this age and so we switched to a regular bed but baby E hasn't done that. Not once! It's great. Yay for us. Yada, yada, yada...".

And then, well, I bet you can guess what he did within the next 24hrs. Three times. Just to teach me a lesson. Oh yes, he did. He escaped the crib. Now, if he was just climbing, well, I'd be like whatever. His crib is low to the ground (max 30in from top tail to ground) and he's a super climber. The chance of him hurting himself that way, well, is realistically pretty small.

But, no. That's not what my toddler did. He flipped out. Like he does in gymnastics. As in, belly on the rail, flipping head over tail and landing on his feet. Now, I have no flipping (ha - like how I did that?) idea how he's not decapitated himself with this maneuver. Somehow, he's not. Yet.

I'm not ready for him to move out of his crib. I don't think he's ready for that either. He's still not a great sleeper and that's been even worse since the holidays started. It had gotten a bit better, but then he didn't get a nap one day last week and he's been, uh, stereotypically toddler-ish since then. We're back to using Melatonin at night and I so hope it helps. So, I really don't want to do anything that could potentially make sleep even more challenging right now. You know, like switching to a new bed.

Some people have mentioned putting him in a sleep sack. And that would be great. You know, if he was climbing out. But he's not. Flipping would be just as easy in a sleep sack. And potentially more dangerous in the landing.

Sigh. What to do, what to do...


Today's Lessons: Parenting... just when you feel like you might have some kind of a handle on it, it changes. Also, gymnastics apparently teaches kids acrobatic tricks. But not rules about when it's appropriate to use those tricks.

Friday, January 11, 2013

Dear Spammers - Go Away!!!

Hey friends. Back tomorrow with a longer post. Or maybe the next day, you know, being realistic. But just wanted to let you know that I'm having to turn on the hated (by me) captcha thing. I have been getting crazy numbers of spam comments and it's kinda pissing me off. I've seen other bloggers say they, too, have been getting more of late. Wondering what's going on with that. At any rate, hoping that with some time, they will die down and I can take it off. 'Cause I really hate it.

Hope you all have a great weekend! I'm looking forward to several days off work to spend with my boys. Thankyoubabyjesus!!!!!


Today's Lesson: Spammers suck. That is all.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Conversation with My (Boy) Toddler

I raccoon.
You're a raccoon?
Yes, I raccoon.
Well, what are you up to little raccoon?
Raccoon eat.
What are you eating?
Raccoon eat lunch.
What does a raccoon eat for lunch?
Eat crackers.
What else?
Eat a smamich.
What kind of sandwich?
Bwue smamich.
Ah, blue sandwich, okay. What is that? Like almond butter, or ham, or...?
No, bwue smamich!!
Okay, blue sandwich it is. And what else? What does a raccoon drink?
Raccoon dwink juice. Lotsa juice.
Okay, juice. So, is the raccoon having anything else for lunch?
No. Raccoon haf a penis. Raccoon go peepee ou-sigh.

And we're back to that. Always back to that with boys.


Today's Lesson: An imagination is an amazing thing. And certainly something to be encouraged. Even in boys. Maybe even particularly so in boys.