Weasel Of Doom

Still blah, though, and not really in the mood to post anything. Sorry :-(

So, a quick update:

• kids are really enjoying their grandparents

• parents are talking to me again

• BelovedSpouse’s mom is psycho

• haven’t accomplished anything around the house yet – no time

• not in a holiday spirit

Got into a fight with my mom at Pick’n'Save. She wanted to buy meds for Dad, who has a bad cough. Mom wanted to buy the stuff that’s available in Russia for it – pieces of paper coated with mustard that you put on people’s chest to heat it up. As far as I know, THEY DO NOT SELL IT HERE. Of course, Mom kept ignoring me. Ignored me telling her Icy-Heat was not it. While I was trying to figure out what Vick’s vapor-rub patches are for, she kept asking me what they were, and when I snapped that there were no instructions on the box, Mom got pissed off. Yelled at me that I care only about myself, that I don’t give a damn about my father who is sick, etc, and stormed off. And haven’t said a word to me since.

And you know what? I don’t give a flying fuck that she is upset anymore. Yeah, I should have been more patient. On the other hand, she should behave like an adult, too. I know my parents don’t like me (love, yes; like as a person, no). They have an idea of what a daughter should be, and I am not it, that’s been made very clear over the years. I am so close to just telling them, “If I am such a big fucking disappointment, disown me and get it over with. I will never be what you want me to be, and I am sick and tired of trying.” Of course, then Mom will just tell me how selfish, melodramatic, and pathetic I am, how I over-react to everything, and what a difficult person I am to deal with. So I am not even going to bother.

I’ve been feeling depressed lately. No good reason to be, so I am blaming hormones. CAN’T get motivated to do anything. CAN get annoyed at everything. Woe is me, and all that.

We had winter snow advisory and ice storm advisory today. A beautiful snowfall. GIANT snowflakes coming down. On a more prosaic note, lots of snow to shovel. Once again, we were saved from the real hard work by the neighbor across the street (I shoveled twice, in the morning to get rid of the light and fluffy overnight accumulation, and when I got home, because the plow has come through, with predictable consequences; he cleared our driveway in the afternoon, after the heavy snowfall). I made a half-hearted start on decorating for Christmas; the nets of lights on the bushes are half-covered by snow. Real icicles are taking place of icicle lights for now, because all of mine are only half-working, and I need to figure out which bulbs to replace. Fortunately, I have a string I can cannibalize.

My parents are coming on Thursday. I can’t wait, yet I am terrified that it won’t go well. Think I am creating my own problems here…

“So, do you think our kids are weird because of spending nine months in my womb? Or is it your sperm that’s so screwed up that even nine months in my uber womb can’t repair all the damage?”

(we actually had this conversation today, after a particularly trying couple of hours)

… and I am not even very good at it. *sigh* Boring post about our day below.

Busy day today. BelovedSpouse’s work throws a Santa party for the kids every year, and it was today at noon. However, BelovedSpouse also had aikido testing at 9:30 or 10:30 am, and the logistics dictated we attempt watching him test as a family. Of course, the kids got into a squabble right as it was time for adults to test. Fortunately, the dojo shares an entry way with a game store, so there is a shared foyer, and that’s where I hung out with the kids for the next half an hour, hoping and praying their screams (and my threats) did not penetrate the heavy door :-) Spouse passed, by the way.

Onward to the Santa party. Squeektar attempted to become a fixture around Santa’s chair (possibly a rug), but when it came to actually being held by Santa, he got freaked out a bit. We got DemonChild to ask Santa to pick him up (he did ask, but beforeSanta could do anything, DemonChild ran right back to us). He went willingly for the handing out of gifts (a dragon, oooh), and afterwards even said good-bye.

Squeeker napped on the way to and from the Santa party. DemonChild only napped on the way back. Once we got home, both boys decided they wanted to be up. The firstborn watched “Curious George,” the secondborn followed me around as I attempted to do laundry and dishes, and sleep-deprived spouse crashed out for a couple of hours.

Once BelovedSpouse was up, he took over kid-watching; while he fed them and bathed them, I vacuumed the house. At 7:30 or so we went to a Christmas Party at grandma-in-law’s. It started out well with Squeek being sleepy and cute and DemonChild being hyper and cute, but then lack of sleep caught up with the latter, and he started to work on an impressive meltdown. We were planning to leave by 9:30 anyway, so that was good timing.

Got home at 10:15. I finished laundry, we culled some more toys from the playroom, and then I cleaned up the kitchen. Now it is 11:45. This adulthood thing is so totally over-rated! Nobody ever said that by the time you have some time for yourself you are supposed to go to bed! And I used to think how much easier things would be once I finished college. Hah! Oh, to be able to go back in time and be little again. I swear days had 48 hours in them and summers went on forever. Now you blink and it’s another week. Not fair :-(

Squeek, incidentally, had a screaming meltdown around 11:15, so we are in for a typical night of periodically screaming child(ren) and trying to sleep on a papasan pillow in their room. At the rate we are going, I am not sure we can survive until my parents get here…

Yesterday on the freeway, I passed a semi with “S & M Trucking” proudly emblazoned on its side. And of course my mind executed a dive into the gutter, and made me wonder how THAT name came about. Really naive co-owners, Smith and Murray? Or does the company actually truck around S&M stuff? And if so, what kind of S&M stuff requires a semi? Mobile torture chamber, perhaps…

Nothing major, but you’ll see first names of people in my family replaced by initials (and then nicknames; see suggestions below). I don’t want to do this, but it’s probably a smart course of action (and a good thing that all our names start with different letters, hehe). The main reason is that I don’t want powers that are to find this blog and use it against me. Alas, finding it is easy. And unlike Dooce I am not going to be able to make a living from my blog. I want to be able to speak about my problems with the church denomination we nominally belong to, about sex, about depression, parenting frustrations, etc, without fear of being called in and told to “watch how what I write reflects on the place you work.” To speak more freely later, I am going to try for some more anonymity first. In a sense, this is going back to the roots of this blog – I started it so I could vent about work anonymously, but it morphed into a blog about my life, and I don’t want to start yet another blog, and I do want to be able to write whatever I want, so, as much as it galls me, I am initiating “Operation Anonymization.”

So, what do you think about “DemonChild” for Child the First and “Squeek” for Child the Second? SpermDonor for Beloved Spouse? Or BelovedSpouse for Beloved Spouse, which has the benefit of abbreviating to BS and thus offers more than one potential meaning? ;-)

And as long as I am asking questions – now that I am blogging semi-regularly, if any of you want to be removed from the notification list, just let me know. We are all about customer service here :-)

Well, judging by our children’s performance yesterday – Squeeker was screaming unconsolably every hour or so, and when he took a break, DemonChild piped in – we are so doomed. I remember when DemonChild was going through can’t-sleep-unless-there-is-a-parent-within-touching-distance-of-me stage, and it was, shall we say, not a lot of fun. But at least DemonChild did not scream loud enough to wake the neighbors. Squeeker seems to think it is his duty to make EVERYBODY within hearing distance as upset as he is about waking up in the middle of the night.

I took a day off, because ye olde eyes were not staying open. Only reason BelovedSpouse went to work is because he stayed home sick yesterday.

Oh, and right on cue, I hear Squeeker starting to cry (and so are the neighbors, I am sure, the kid does not waste time building up to a good cry, he goes from whimper to ear-splitting in less than 10 seconds. I timed it.). Sleep, who the hell needs it?

(yup, more of my boring whining)

I forgot to call my cousin on her birthday. That’s with the Outlook calendar giving me reminders about it every day for two weeks. I called three days later, and it was obvious that my apology was not cutting it. Turns out a lot of people forgot to wish her happy birthday, including our other cousin, her husband’s family, and many friends. We talked for a little bit, but it was quite clear that her heart wasn’t in it. Our connection was bad, and you could almost hear her relief in her voice when she used that as an excuse to end the conversation.

I know I am at fault here. I fucked up. And it seems like yet another step backward in the “one step forward, two steps back” relationship that we have.

Julie and I grew up together; she is four months older than me. Kate is three years younger than us. So always, it was “Julie is the eldest, do what she says.” When we became teenagers, Julie was a social butterfly, while I was socially awkward. Guys flocked to her; they only wanted me for the copies of my homework. She was fun and pretty; I was neither. She would rather hang out; I would rather read a book. She had a sunny and caring disposition, I was moody and spoke without thinking first. If adolescence is a song, “Why can’t you be more like Julie?” was a refrain in mine. And I resented that.

We came to America. Julie’s host parents liked her; mine tolerated me for the monthly allowance they were paid. I stayed in Wisconsin to go to college; she transferred to California after two years. I liked hanging out with people older than myself; she once asked me, “Don’t you have any friends who are NOT retired?” She had sex with her boyfriend; mine told me he was gay. I struggled with depression, and across the ocean you could hear my parents thinking, “Why can’t you be more like Julie?” And I resented that.

BelovedSpouse and I got married. “Never thought you’d get married before I do,” said my cousin. My parents came to America for the first time, and we were not getting along at all. “Why can’t you love me for who I am?” I wanted to know. “Why can’t you be more like Julie?” they said. And I resented that.

So it went. Julie got married. We talked a once a month or so. When we saw each other (usually in the company of my parents), the contrast was inescapable. Julie, the perfect hostess. Me, the clueless one. Julie, sweet and caring. Me, passive-aggressive. “Why can’t you be more like Julie?” I saw the question in my parents’ eyes, and I resented that.

Julie and her husband started trying to have a baby. She’d tell me that we should try, too. I was already pregnant with DemonChild, but we did not want to tell anybody until the second trimester. When I finally told Julie, she was hurt that I did not tell her right away. I felt bad, but what could I do? To make matters worse, Julie’s attempts to conceive kept failing. She was diagnosed with unexplained infertility. Mindful of past mistakes, we told her right away when I got pregnant with Squeeker, even though it felt like twisting the knife and putting salt on wounds. I offered to be a gestational surrogate for her, but I doubt they will take me up on it.

Which brings us to the present. BelovedSpouse and I are trying for baby #3. I haven’t told Julie about it. When we do talk, our conversations are either so good that I wonder why I don’t call her more often, or so bad that I wonder why I bothered calling at all. Julie is a very nice person. She is sweet, caring, and loyal. She is a great friend. She makes people feel loved. I will never be more like her, but at least I stopped resenting that. Maybe I am finally growing up.

Yesterday we got our first big snowstorm, and this morning the driveway was covered with a couple inches of thick heavy cold stuff. After waking up screaming around 3 am, and finally ending up in our bed, the kids let us sleep in (that is to say, they played peacefully in their room while we caught up on sleep uninterrupted by screaming or kicking) until 9:30 or so. Of course, that meant we got a late start to the day, and the driveway looked awfully daunting. Fortunately, our neighbor across the street saw me out there and came over with his snowblower, clearing everything out in 15 minutes or so. I took Squeeker and DemonChild out to watch, one after another, and they had a great time.

So, saved by the neighbor with the snowblower, I managed to take a shower and run to Target to buy gifts for our friends’ twins, whose 1st birthday party we were invited to attend this afternoon (if you are getting the impression that I am disorganized as hell, that would be a correct one). Brian & Erica used to live 20 minutes away, but now are in the Green Bay area, 2.5 hours away. BelovedSpouse, myself, the kids, and Jen braved the light snow/sleet/rain and arrived at the party only 45 minutes or so late (which is pretty good for us).

We had a very good time. It was nice to catch up with friends. DemonChild, despite being very excited about going to see Emily, developed a case of shyness once we got there, and actually wanted us to be in the room while he played. Squeeker, though also clingy at first, soon felt at home enough to start getting into everything. By the end of the party, he was stealing other people’s sippy cups and attempting to push the long-suffering dog around. DemonChild found a string of red beads and proudly wore them the whole evening. Erica trusted me with taking photos of the twins as they dug into the birthday cake. I hope at least some of them turned out good! Of course, I forgot my camera, so we don’t have any pictorial evidence for future blackmail :-)

Well, we survived NaBloPoMo. Hard to believe, but true :-) So, shall we attempt Holidailies now? I mean, I must punish the internet just for being, right? *evil grin*