I have been thinking a great deal about something, and so I’m posting it up on a Sunday night (dammit!), even though as I recently discovered from a well-written site (that saw me race out and buy The Little House, because I remembered it from my childhood) that there are rules about blogging that includes writing only when people are reading and Sunday night isn’t likely to be one of those nights.
The Independent on Sunday (my newspaper of choice) – in line with a BBC series coming this week – has targeted as its main story the fact that feminism has hit 100 this year, courtesy of the first summit held in Copenhagen to launch a day to draw attention to the championing of women’s rights. I read this with great interest as I used to be a feminist of the militant variety in university, campaigning for pro-choice options, for women’s rights, and eschewing makeup for the natural look because dammit I was a woman, not a doll (although I still shaved. I was a woman, not a forestry commission. Standards and all that.) One of my senior thesis was a hate-filled diatribe against men which my newly divorced professor, still smarting from being left by her husband for a younger woman, gleefully granted me an A for. And this isn’t to say that all feminists are angry and hate-filled, but I certainly was.
Fast-forward to now. Have I been a victim of discrimination? You betcha. I have been told to my face that I was paid less because I was a woman. I was sidelined from large exciting projects after giving birth because “clearly my priorities had changed”. On the launch day of one of the biggest projects I had ever run I was the recipient of not one, not two, but three sexist remarks by senior managers looking to blow a little steam off by making me the subject of their crude humor. So yes. I have seen it first-hand.
But I read the 100 year stories with great interest. I think there’s been a mellowing to me, a “there are two sides” aspect. The papers state that as a nation, the UK is backwards because only 19.5% of all MPs are women. That’s as may be, but this country had a prime minister that was a woman, that surely counts as something in the stats there (although there are some that argue that Maggie wasn’t really a woman. I call foul on that one, too.)
I was talking about this with Alastair.
“It says feminists are celebrating 100 years of working towards women’s rights,” I said, reading the paper from the comfort of the living room couch. “That’s impressive.”
“It is,” he agreed, sipping his coffee. “But then what is a feminist?”
He wasn’t being flippant. He was being honest. The idea of feminism in Westernized countries (I’m not touching forced marriage, patriarchal lineage, the illegality of women owning property, working or voting or the true horror that is female circumcision. Let’s agree that those finer points are among The Very Worst of Mankind and are not what I’m covering in this post.) has changed. What was feminism? Well, if my university memory as augmented by wikipedia would state, it was the fight for equality for women, from the legal, financial, and societal perspectives.
But feminism is a thorny branch to touch. There are arguments that it’s ethnocentric (I’d agree with that one). There are arguments that it doesn’t address violence against women. I’d argue that rape isn’t anti-feminist, it’s a crime. Yes, women are raped. So are men and I have personally known one man who was a victim himself. Neither case is acceptable in the slightest. Violence against women is horrific, as is violence full stop.
If you say you’re not a feminist then you’re perceived to be a wuss created directly from your 1980’s Snoopy slushy machine who is busy trying to determine which apron best matches the shoes you’ve laid out for your husband. You think women should stay at home and take care of things. You should vote the way your husband wants you to. You don’t matter. And yet maybe women who say they aren’t a feminist have a reason – maybe (as some feminists think) there’s nothing left to fight for, that feminism in today’s society is irrelevant. Maybe you don’t see the point. Maybe you don’t agree and are happy with more traditional/historical values.
Saying you’re a feminist can often raise red flags amongst others, as it did with one of Alastair’s former colleagues. You couldn’t say “chairman” without her screaming “It’s chairPERSON!” and other didactic comments. He told me that everyone in the office – including the women – hated her because she was less interested in working, more interested in fighting. If you say you are a feminist then you’ll find a feminist more feminist than you. “You’re a feminist? But you have been married. You have kids. You bought into the misogynist system! You womyn-hater!”
(Don’t get me started on woman/womin women/womyn. It makes me aggressive. It’s a fucking word, people. It’s a historical noun. Move on.)
It’s painful when feminists turn on each other. It’s like not only are we trying to jockey ourselves into position in culture and society, but we have a cross to bear with the other women, too:
“You wear makeup! You’re clearly living by the sword sharpened by men to make dolls of us women!”
“Oh yeah, well you have a new duvet cover that I happen to know was created from a factory run by men!”
“Oh yeah, well I am a postcolonial feminist who can’t stand Germaine Greer!”
“No one can stand Germaine Greer, you think you’re special? You caved! I’m joining the ecofeminists!”
“The what?”
That’s right, I don’t like Germaine Greer who recently said “When the cuts come, public services will shed thousands of women’s jobs first. It doesn’t make sense.” And what statistics does she use on this? Is this based on the fact that women tend to occupy the catering/marketing/communications sides of things, and in rough times those are first to go? Is that against women, or just against areas of business that are expendable when the going gets rough?
On the reverse side I don’t like the ladette culture that’s led to binge-drinking and the rise of Katie Price. Katie Price recently came under fire for taking her toddler and giving her a make-over. Brilliant – let’s give a child the idea that being attractive is important. I got some (very good) advice on this website to not have glamour mags and the like around my daughter as she grows up, and I’m doing exactly that. There is more to life than long eyelashes and the need to be pretty, as I keep telling my dad through clenched teeth when he tells my daughter that she doesn’t have to be clever because she’s pretty.
I hate the idea that feminists are crusty non-sexual man-haters, and I hate the idea that you can title something “The Funny Side of Feminism because as a feminist I like to think I am funny, dammit. But I struggle a bit with the direction that feminism has and, indeed, the direction that feminism needs today. Is it really so bad these days (again from a Western perspective)? The pay gap has lessened substantially. In the company I work for I am one of a handful of experts in our field, and I am paid very competitively – in our field experience is the key and I am the youngest. I’d bet I am paid the least, but that’s par for the course. One of my peers is a woman, and I suspect she’s paid more than I am. She should be, she’s 10 years older than I am. My maternity leave wasn’t brilliant for EU standards at only 4 months, but I got maternity leave and I had a job to return to. I can vote, own property, a car (with lower insurance than my male counterparts) and have no other impediments based on my sex. What’s left, because I like nothing more than a self-righteous fight?
I read:
“I’d just had enough. A young woman I used to work with saw a man attack a woman in the street and she felt really powerless to do anything. So we decided to march to increase our visibility and to show that there is a way forward, a shared vision of a world without violence.”
Is that a feminist issue or an issue for that young woman? Because I saw a young man roughing up a woman in the streets a few years ago, I went over and screamed at him and intervened, ruining my favorite pair of shoes in the process. It’s not about feminism, it’s about what is and what isn’t acceptable. I was empowered in that situation and so was that young woman who was receiving the brunt end of her boyfriend’s shit, only she was blighted a bit by alcohol and couldn’t recognize it for what it was. Is the question about it being ok to be attacked, or being ok about stepping in and doing something about it?
And I read:
That is certainly what the historian Lisa Jardine believes. “Britain loves to think things are slipping back, but things are systematically improving for women – it’s just that we expect more. Women’s expectations will stop being ‘realistic’ when they reach absolute parity with men. I don’t know when it will happen, but it will happen.”
Bingo. That’s what we’re on to-feminism is extant after all. But while we’re so busy shouting down about the rights of women, if we’re expecting and wanting parity – and believe me, I am – then while we’re at it paternity leave should be the same length of time as maternity leave. Mums are important, and so are dads. In Sweden the maternity/paternity leave was equal, with a focus on family, none of this bullshit that you hear of in some countries where mum and dad must return to work when the baby is 6 weeks old (I’m looking at you, my mother country. Let’s sort this one out.)
And then I read:
Twenty per cent of people still believe it is sometimes acceptable for a man to hit or slap his girlfriend if she is wearing revealing clothes in public.
Yup. We still have work to do then. There are so many things wrong with that sentence I don’t know where to begin, however one question remains: Is the twenty percent of people in that quote male or female? Because I’m willing to bet that while a lot of women are prepared to march against that very notion, there are a lot of men who’ll march along, too.
I have been home two days now. We arrived in a haze of confusion and exhaustion on Wednesday morning. Melissa and Jeff went back to Sweden on Wednesday night, and we returned to work yesterday. I went into the office and fell headfirst into a massive programme that is going to drain the last drops of my soul and then lick the rind that’s left behind. It’s chaos, a freezing bathtub of hard work, but I am actually enjoying it and look forward to it (although I could do without one of the megalomaniacs that I will be working with, but then there’s one on every project).
So yes. Busy. Very. And I’m putting my stamp on things. I was told by one of my contacts that the customer expected us to be on-site over the next weeks to the extent that they would order in the takeaway in the evenings. The expectation was that we would be there at the crack of dawn, work 16 hour days, and go home after 10 pm just to have a shower, shag, and a kip.
I informed them that my team do not work this way. We are fully committed to the programme and we will absolutely be working long hours if needed to support this work, but that there is such a thing as a work-life balance. My team and I have homes and families, and we cannot and will not be spending such hours on-site. Ironically, I did not get the smack down I expected from the customer – they agreed, and we are instead structuring all of our work to within an inch of its life.
It’s been this way a few times already – I arrive into this new piece of work and immediately I am told I must be on a conference call every evening from 1715-1800, without exception. The babies get out of nursery at 5pm. They have dinner, we muck about, they have a bath, and are in bed by 1830 or so every night. This would then mean I wouldn’t see the twins every night, but would instead be on a conference call.
No. Not ok.
I said that right away. I explained that the nursery closed at a specific time and that while I accept sometimes people need to work later, that later work happens once the two go down for bed. If there was to be a conference call on a programme that I am running, that call would be done without me.
And they agreed and changed the time. I now have a call every morning from 0815-0900. This will be done on the way to work every morning, but it will be done.
One of the project managers assigned to work for me is a young woman. She has a lot to prove to herself and (in her view) to others. She starts work at 0700 every day after 45 minutes in the gym. She works the entire day, sending mails until 2300 at night. She has miles and miles of documentation. This is her first ever project and I am supposed to mentor her. She wants this, she wants to move up, she wants more. I recognize that. I remember it. I was her, once.
The map of my world sure has changed.
I stride around in suits and my Blackberry is within reach. I am identified by a badge which hangs from a lanyard around my neck – my photo is severe and I look pissed off in it (seeing as it’s a duplicate from my visa photo, it is a fair representation of just how fucked off I was that day). I have lists of work that needs doing and a number of people that need to be placated. I am thrown into the deep end with this programme but I can do it and I can enjoy doing it. And at the end of the day I log off, I shut down, I walk away, because whatever it is can keep until morning.
As an aside, as of yesterday I can officially apply to become a UK citizen now, thereby making me a dual citizen. I’ve finally passed that milestone. I can’t believe it – soon I won’t be collecting absolutely every scrap of paper that I will almost certainly need to send in for more visa work. I had been planning to send all of my application stuff in the day I was eligible, but they have a long wait and will take my passport, which I will need when we get married as we are going on honeymoon in Eastern Europe, and I will need my passport.
But still – I can soon be legitimate. I can’t tell you how nice it feels.
We’re now in Hervey Bay, close to Brisbane. We drove down from Airlie Beach today – it was a long drive and, as it happens, a dangerous one. There are many signs warning to stop and rest often, and we saw the result of it today – three cars in front of us on a long boring part of the Bruce Highway, we saw a grey SUV turn sharply and flip many times. There was a little Yorkshire Terrier on the road, but we ignored it as Melissa and I ran for the woman’s car while Alastair and Jeff called an ambulance. The woman was fine, but shaken. Turns out the Yorkie was hers and was thrown from the car when it was flipping over – I don’t think the little guy made it, and I feel bad for her. It was a big reminder that what I was carrying in my car was as precious to me as what was in her car was to her.
Now for a crap segue…
We had a lovely time in Airlie Beach. Yesterday I booked a catamaran for us to see the Whistundays on, because Whiteheaven Beach is one of the top five most beautiful beaches in the world. We showed up for our catamaran and saw the most purple catamaran in the history of Grimace-colored boating.
We all really enjoyed the catamaran.
Well, until the downpour happened.
Then it went to hell. We couldn’t make it to Whiteheaven Beach in the end, so instead we all went snorkelling in a local reef.
Yes, all of us.
OK, they didn’t snorkel, but we did push them around in the water using big noodles. It was lovely warm water and fabulous snorkelling, but they didn’t last long in the water and a small jellyfish sting I got meant I didn’t last long, either.
The boat was great – I spent a long time talking to a lovely travel writer from Melbourne who was 19 weeks pregnant with twins herself. The twins were popular, and well behaved. The weather was tragic, but the boat was great.
Except.
There’s an except.
The catamaran was relatively full but there were about 4 American girls on board. One of them stretched out and snoozed while the others flirted with anything that may or may not have had a penis (I’m not actually kidding about that, there were a few tense relationships on the boat after those women got started – ours was not one of them). Melissa and I titled them The Dumb Whores. When Snoozy woke up to go snorkelling, she threw a hissy fit – her bikini perfect body would not be seen in a stinger suit, which we were required to wear as it’s stinger season here, courtesy of some nasty little fuckers.
She skipped the snorkelling and decided to light into the open bar by shouting “Americans are wild!”
I think I cringed down to my very core.
She then proceeded to get fucking drunk with the other Dumb Whores, who returned from snorkelling and immediately started stealing liquor to drink at their hostel later (as they loudly procalimed). They were shouting, screaming, and flirting with anything that twitched and declared every other thing “Totally awesome!”, proving that Valley Girl liveth on outside of the 80’s. Snoozy came up to me at one point.
“Dude, are your twins, like, real? I mean, did you, like, have them all naturally and shit, or did you do treatment?”
Brilliant. A total twit who makes the entire boat hate Americans comes up to me and the first thing she offered was one of the few comments I hate.
“They’re natural,” I said with a chilly smile.
“That’s totally awesome!” she screamed predictably. “I totally want twins! I’d be all done with kids then!”
One of my other hated catchphrases.
The Dumb Whores wound up insulting and annoying everyone – they literally insulted a French family, a German family, and countless Australians. The captain, himself a calm, kind Aussie of few words even remarked to Alastair that “That one? She’s a noxious little tart.” You wonder sometimes why Americans get a bad name overseas. Then you meet people like this – ones who absolutely clinked from all her stolen booze on the boat – and you understand why. We have a reputation for being loud, obnoxious know-it-alls. The Dumb Whores didn’t help with that and I hate like hell that we get judged overall for bad behavior of specific individuals.
That aside, it was a lovely day. Really, really happy.
-S.
PS – don’t laugh. For the first time in my life, I own a bikini. And I have been wearing it. I confess I was a little nervous and hoped no one would laugh at me and point and make Moby Dick jokes, but no one did which is good as I’m a long way away from my therapist.
The flights weren’t great, but they weren’t nearly as bad as expected. Nora chose to watch the same episode of Dora the Explorer on the TV screen about 750 billion times.
Nick watched it for 5.6 seconds, and then we got to entertain him.
But Singapore Airlines were the business. I’m in love with Singapore Airlines and only want to fly them in the future. May limit my holiday options, but I’m ok with that.
The twins seem to be really popular here – people stop and pat their heads, smile, or (as happened on the plane) people want to give them sweets. They are awfully cute and all that, but it also transpires that there’s a correlation between twins and good luck within the Asian culture, so I’m going to have the two help me pick out lottery numbers. They have generally been happy little bunnies (and Nora’s hair curls just like her mother’s in warm weather).
We flew into Brisbane, passed out cold, and then flew to Cairns the next day, where we have been since. The two discovered swimming, courtesy of an infinity pool at our complex. They are mad for swimming, and if you hint at water they grab swim nappies, their one-piece swimsuits, and their inflatable rings for you, before shouting “Come on, Mama!” and racing for the door.
They seem to have no signs of jet lag at all, and can (and do) crash and crash hard.
We have been “go go go” the entire time – rainforests, walking, swimming, coffee plantations, animals. It’s always on the go here.
We’ve fed kangaroos.
Alastair flew in a microlight over a coffee plantation near Mareeba and he had so much fun that Melissa and I tried it, too.
Jeff has been spending the days doing his PADI Open Water dive certification, which he finished yesterday. So we all joined him for a dive, with one adult sitting out every dive to chill with the babies, who found the whole boat business fun.
But exhausting.
And as a family, we dove the Great Barrier Reef.
We move on tomorrow to Airlie Beach, making our way back down towards Brisbane. You won’t recognize us, as we’ve gone native.
And I am happy.
-S.
PS-irregular access, but I am uploading some photos to Flickr, which you can check here.
(Actually, they’re only halfway there. I am reasonably sure there is a bed under all that shit we need to pack.)
I’m ready to go.
(See the above refrain.)
I’m standing here outside your door.
(I’m really not, that’s kinda’ stalker-y and weird.)
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye.
(Because if you’re anything like me then sleep is more precious than gold and people who fuck with it need to be tarred and feathered.)
So kiss me and smile for me.
(I’ll settle for just the smile, thanks.)
Tell me that you’ll wait for me.
(Purely in the blogging sense, of course.)
Hold me like you’ll never let me go.
(If I’m about to fall off a 40 foot precipice, that is. Otherwise the holding is weird, yeah?)
Cause I’m leaving on a jet plane.
(Specifically an A380 with 853 other people, 848 of which will wish us dead when they see us board with twin toddlers.)
Don’t know when I’ll be back again.
(Yes I do. There is such a thing as web confirmations. I’m back in the UK on the 3rd of March.)
Oh babe I hate to go.
(I do hate to go in terms of the actual journey itself. I hate flying, let alone flying for 24 hours with a two hour break in Singapore – with four kids.)
Songs aside, I may hate the journey but I will love being away. I need a holiday and I love Australia. We’re packing and already I have prepared on-board entertainment for the babies. We got a prescription for Phenargen, which I am happy to report works (we had a trial run as sometimes it makes kids hyper instead of drowsy) and will be dosing them on the airplane. We have changes of clothes, treats, pajamas, and goodies. We have books, maps, cameras, and masks and snorkels. We have two very excited teenagers and two toddlers who love airplanes, so this should be good.
It’s fucking pouring it down in Queensland and forecast to continue to do so, but a holiday is on the cards.
I’ll be hit and miss on the web (we are bringing a laptop, mostly to entertain Nora on the plane. Nick is not much of a TV person.) but will be back on the 4th of March. I’ll post the odd photo or two on Flickr, and may or may not post (depending on jet lag, wifi, motivation, and my degree of twitchy from the travelling itself.)
The BBC recently had a link to something (relax, this one is not a rant) – a book called We Feel Fine. Alastair came home from work and mentioned it to me, would it be my kind of thing?
It would indeed.
So much so that I have a copy already, sent to me by the publishers as one of my photos from my Flickr account is in it.
(Also, if you are on Flickr – which is free to sign up for – and I know you, then you maybe want to do a shout-out as often I have no idea who is who on there.)
We have company tomorrow night. Jill, whom I have blogged about, is coming with her apparently hot and wild sexy boyfriend who is aptly named…Ralph. I call him Ralph the Wonder Stud, because the irony of being a hot babe magnet called Ralph is a little too much for my tiny brain.
Jill is Alastair’s friend. It is cool and I know that they are only friends and couldn’t/wouldn’t/shouldn’t be more. They go way back to childhood days and bumped into one another in Sweden, where she still lives. They have irregular contact but they are still friends and I support that because I think that friends = good (so deep, yeah? I may have stolen that from Eeyore, I really never know.)
And I still don’t like Jill.
I’m cooler about things now than I used to be – you don’t always have to like each other’s friends in a relationship, as I know that I have a friend that Alastair doesn’t like as well. You can’t be friends with everyone, people just sometimes rub you the wrong way. I get it. It’s less about jealousy and more about me just not caring for her as a person. I see a lot of how I used to be in her – she likes to be the center of attention at get-togethers, and I know that (unbelievably as I sometimes have paralyzing shyness now) I used to be like that in my early 20’s. She’s very liberal with her views on sex and I am fairly liberal myself, although I do think that she crosses lines that I wouldn’t be crossing with my kids. Once in a car her two daughters saw a man they thought was hot. No, scratch that, instead of hot it was detailed on how they’d like to fuck him and how amazing his ass would be. I should mention that her daughters were 14 and 12 at the time. Jill laughed at their responses. Me, I’m thinking some serious talking would be had because 14 and 12 is – in my own opinion and within my own family – far too young for shit like that. But that’s me being a judgemental asshole which I deplore when people do to me, and maybe laughing it off is her way of dealing with their early interest in sex.
A lot has changed in the dynamics of how Alastair and I work and I think that the visit from Jill and Ralph the Wonder Stud will be just fine. They arrive tomorrow night and stay one night in our flash new guest room, and leave in time for Melissa and Jeff’s arrival Saturday afternoon. I look at this visit with not so much dread, but interest at how all of the changes that we have been making within ourselves in this house, and wonder what we will feel, how it will be.
It’s always a learning process when you become a new you.
Last night I had two tubes up my front passage and one up my back and the disco ball wasn’t even spinning.
Lemme’ ’splain.
I had my final round of tests with the consultant last night to determine what the hell is wrong with my insides. The consultant is a really nice man – friendly, kind, I am very lucky. He is pro-active and doesn’t accept the diagnosis that I had been given, which is “sometimes things just suck”.
I had to turn up with a full bladder (something that is no real stretch for me) and have some tests done. I turned up last night at 1830 and the nurse took one look at me and said “You’re my next appointment, I can tell.”
“How’s that, do I look like a woman on the verge of wetting herself?”
“That’s it precisely.”
I was taken to an exam room, given a fabulous ass-baring gown and instructed to strip from the waist down and put the gown on. I did so when the nurse left the room, and when she came back she brought the doctor with her.
“You’ve kept your socks on,” the nurse pointed out.
“It’s freezing in here!” I protested.
“You may find that your socks will get urine on them,” she replied.
“I may get…what? What the hell kind of tests are you people planning on running?”
I soon found out. I had to sit on a majestic plastic throne and pee into a measuring jug on a scale, which measured all kinds of things like how fast my bladder emptied, how even the flow was, how much wee there was, and how much dignity I had lost. The doctor and nurse left the room while I deposited my liquid transaction and I had to ring a bell for them to come back when I was done. It was a very posh antique silver bell, and I picked it up and rang it wondering if they would come in and wipe for me, too.
No such luck. I had to stand up with a light drip on one of my thighs as they didn’t want me to wipe it off and, well, any lady can tell you that sometimes a lip gets a little stuck and the stream, she is affected. Talk about a brilliant fucking moment to not ensure there was no adhesion on the lady lips.
I had to get on a table and have a catheter inserted into my bladder, then another catheter inserted into that in order to fill the bladder. I am no stranger to catheters and so wasn’t phased. It was when he held up another tube with an expandable balloon on it that I got worried.
“Uh, doc? I’ve had sex and all, but my kids came out of the sunroof and not the birth canal, so please don’t think that’s going to fit in the front door with the other tubes. I mean, I’m not tight but I’m no clown car, I’m afraid.”
He smiles kindly. “I’m afraid this one goes up the rectum, Shannon.”
“Whoa, hang on there little buddy! The only anal I do is the retentive kind. You’re not serious?”
“I am. The bowel system often has an impact on the bladder. We’re going to put the probe – ”
” – Hang on, I’m not comfortable with this ‘probe’ word – ”
” – in and then inflate it a bit – ”
“- and I know for sure that I am NOT ok with riding the Hindenburg up my ass – ”
” – and see how it affects you.”
“I can bloody tell you how it will affect me. Negatively. It will be way negative.”
So he lubed up and tubed in and I laid back and thought of England. And they filled me with liquid and then had me stand up next to the table (but over the absorbent sheets in case I leaked urine, ergo the socks comment) and did their measurements. I couldn’t believe I’d had that many probes running into me and wasn’t even re-enacting a scene from Brazil. In the end, though, we had a conclusion.
I will be making an appointment in March to have the Mirena coil put in. At the same time, they will do a hysteroscopy and then surgery to repair a part of my bladder. Turns out there is something wrong but it is fixable via surgery and I will now live a life of teeny periods, a full happy bladder that is not constantly prone to infections and will spread that glee to my kidneys and stop infecting them, too. I have answers and I can be fixed, all courtesy of a doctor who didn’t give up on me, and I am so grateful for that.
As I left he handed me a box of antibiotics to use prophylacticly, with the comment – “Those tests we just ran? They’re likely to give you a bladder infection.”
Right. I don’t usually tackle topics of controversy on this site, simply because I did it once and it all went very pear-shaped courtesy of a right-wing hackjob who calls herself a journalist blogger deciding to ignore what was decent and simply direct her animals readers to my site and proffer threats the likes of which I’d rather not receive again, thanks.
A BBC Radio 4 programme was brought to my attention. It is a very serious and very controversial topic and it’s not one that I embrace lightly. But I sat at the kitchen counter last night listening to it on the iPlayer, shouting at the computer every 20 seconds. I was engaged in the radio programme. I was attuned to it.
I was livid.
There’s a woman named Barbara Harris who started a movement called CRACK, or Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity. I had a hard enough time with the stupid moniker, it made my teeth itch hearing someone butcher things like that. CRACK has been changed to Project Prevention, which has a basic premis: pay women addicted to drugs to be on contraception or – preferrably – to be sterilized. It’s as she stated using leaflets in poor and minority neighborhoods, “DON’T Let a Pregnancy get in the way of your crack habit!” She went on to state that the women who are on drugs who have children are no better than dogs. She battled in California legislation to get women who have children while on drugs to be put on long-term birth control. In her view, women should be forcably sterilized, a move which was seen by the International Criminals Court as a crime against humanity.
I can’t begin to tell you how uncontrollably angry this makes me.
Let me be clear on this – having children who are born addicted to drugs and must go through withdrawal is not ok. It’s despicable, it’s cruel, it’s neglect, it’s wrong on absolutely every level. My being a mum notwithstanding, I would never be ok with children born with the horror that drug withdrawal is, and I include fetal alcohol syndrome as another condition forced upon the innocent that they should not be bearing. Not ok. Not ever.
I fully support handing out birth control pills, which I know makes me diametrically opposed with those who spout on about abstinence. People will have sex, we might as well prepare for the results. I support free birth control for those who request it and would gladly contribute my tax money to support it (and, in the case of the NHS, I do). You want to run a type of planned parenthood targeted at drug addicts? Rock on. You have my support.
But forcing women to sterilization is not ok. Using their addiction as the lever to choices about their health that they are in no place to make is not ok. As recently as the 1980’s some countries have been forcably sterilizing citizens with mental illness, all as a type of modified eugenics (not to mention that Germany in WWII forcibly sterilized Jews, minorities, homosexuals, and political prisoners). People react with horror at the concept of forcible sterilization due to mental illness…yet drug addiction is listed in the DSM-IV as a mental illness.
I get the foundation of what Barbara Harris is trying to do – she wants to end children winding up in foster care and social services, she wants an end to children born to drug-addled mothers. I support and embrace that, too. What I don’t embrace is the idea of sterilization. She is peddling a permanent solution to women who have impaired judgement. They are making long-term and permanent decisions about their future while in a state that makes them unable to do so. They don’t have the best interest in mind for their children, but if/when some of these men and women clean up and sober up, they may find that they are now facing a lifetime without children, something that most would argue is a “biological right” (although yes, I do struggle severely with the idea that you need a license to drive a car, but not to have a child). Barbara Harris says if they clean up she’ll pay for the sterilization to be reversed and then they’ll be able to have children. I say: Like fuck it will, and this is something I know something about.
I also don’t embrace referring to these women as dogs. They are people. They are people with some serious fucking problems, but they are people. When I listened to her on the radio, I was irate. There she was, spouting her word as law. Her children, she said, she hopes will be on long-term birth control. She wants them to be a lot older before they become parents. She advocates that everyone is on birth control for a long time before children arrive. I see where she’s coming from on this one – I presume she simply wants to ensure that parents are mature and ready for kids, that they are mentally, fiscally and physically able to handle children. I used to think that, too, but one thing that blogging has taught me is that for every stereotype – a 20 year old mum who just wants to party and neglects her kid – there is something to break the stereotype – a 20 year old mum who is devoted and hard-working and is raising her child in a nurturing and able environment. It’s not up to us to judge. It’s not up to us to impose conditions. By all means, administer birth control pills and/or patches, I absolutely support that, but do it in such a way that you don’t take the human out of the equation. These men and women didn’t wake up one morning and say “Yessir, I choose to have a drug addiction!” Treating them like animals is unlikely to be a motivator to recovery.
She started her campaign as a way to save drug-addicted babies, four of which she has adopted herself. I absolutely agree that protecting the children is paramount, but surely there is a less dictatorial way to take care of this. Addressing this huge gulf of socio-economics, for example, in itself perhaps the biggest trigger to this vicious cycle in the first instance. I wonder if, upon testing positive for substances and a newborn testing positive for substances, that shouldn’t be considered child endangerment and the mother put into compulsory rehabilitation (in another location, to help give her the best chances of recovery, away from the environment in which drugs were made available) while the child is taken into care to recover from the addiction it has had imposed on it. The problem is that there is one tiny little victim in all of this, a newborn has to be subjected to something it shouldn’t, and I can’t figure out how to square that circle (which is my issue, as child abuse makes me uncontrollably angry). But I know that pushing legislation to forcibly sterilize women is not the way to do it. It’s a slippery slope – what’s next? Sterilizing people who have depression, because that runs in families and you don’t want to deal with children that will need medication and treatment to deal with the depression? Maybe we should tie the tubes of women who have a history of breast cancer in the family, go ahead and save a little money in the NHS? The problem needs to be sorted at the root cause, and yes I get that it’s hard as hell to do that ergo why it hasn’t been done, but this Project Prevention is simply a plaster over the serious wound that is the real heart of the matter. Social engineering should never be an option.
Barbara Harris says her heart is with the children.
So is mine.
And I imagine a world of social and medical engineering where people crack the borders and say: You have an illness and I am going to sterilize you because of it and I fear the worst.
-S.
PS-I can imagine this post may draw some serious debate. If you don’t agree with me or other commenters then that’s fine, but let’s keep it civil.
We leave in exactly one week for a 24 hour flight to Australia. I’m already trembling with fear about it (no really – did I mention that Nick has temper tantrums the size of Mexico City?) so hints and travelling tips welcome. I’ve prepared them each a brand new rucksack filled with wrapped things for them to open and play with on the plane, but any extra advice is good.
I realize that I haven’t done a long post about the twins for a while and since I’m supposed to be one of those newfangled mummy bloggers I should probably get my ass in gear, particularly as Friday last week was the three year anniversary of the positive pregnancy test that led me to my wonderful babies (yes I keep track of these things).
The twins are blinding. Yes, we have horrible tantrums (as I discussed previously), complete with throwing things, the complete inability not to be a jerk, and days when I am not 100% sure that I am going to make it out alive. But we also have a lot of fun. The twins are very aware of the other one, and I’ve found that while they sometimes act like cage fighters, they often are inseparable.
They like Ring-a-Ring-of-Roses.
They like to read books together.
They love their playhouse, which the weather was finally decent enough to play in for a while a few weeks ago.
They think plastic boxes are the business, so I am not sure why I buy toys.
And yet for all the things they love in common, like airplanes –
they are so different it is surreal. Which, I mean, of course they are because they are two different beings. But they’re dissimilar. Lemme’ ’splain.
Nora is a girly-girl. She loves pink. She loves dressing up – handbags, hats, ribbons, you name it.
She loves her baby.
She talks a mile a minute and knows all of her colors and shapes and body parts, which she likes to point out to you.
She is extremely sensitive – if you are sad (or if she perceives you are sad) then you get a cuddle. It’s not limited to being in person, either, because she can and will hug the TV, too, if someone on it is crying. She likes you to sit beside her and she will order you to do so. She’s charming and kind and throws herself at you with abandon when she wants a cuddle. She is very concerned with her brother and is known to chase him around the living room patting his back and asking if he’s ok.
She is a heart, and I love her so much you wouldn’t believe it.
People tell me that she’s beautiful and should be a child model. Yes she is expressive and gregarious and a little ham.
But the answer to child modelling is no. She is beautiful, but she is a child (actually I still think of her as my baby). This is the time in her life that should be about baby dolls, CBeebies and bath toys. It should not be about getting to appointments on time. If she asks to do modelling or acting when she’s older and can make decisions like that then we can discuss. Until then childhood is too short to live it via filofax.
(Sure, she looks like Bambi, but no one can wind up her brother with quite the finesse that she can.)
My son is a challenge, but he’s a little heart as well and I love him so much you wouldn’t believe it. He is very serious about certain things, there are ways of doing things. His shopping trolley is always absolutely loaded to the gills with toys and he’s very serious about doing it, it must be done in a specific way.
He also loves puzzles and is really good at them. They can occupy his attention for absolute ages.
He is obsessed with all things transport. Trains, cars, tractors, buses, airplanes…all of them. He will get down on the ground and inspect the motors of the wheels to understand how they work.
He also knows all of his colors, shapes and body parts. Prior to Christmas he was way ahead of Nora on the talking scale, but since then she’s caught up and overtaken him in terms of vocabulary. I’m aware that the two of them are stereotypical in some ways – she likes dolls and pink, he likes tractors and wheels. But we didn’t encourage either children one way or the other. All of the toys are in the toybox and both children are welcome to play with anything. Their preferences are their own.
Nick is cheeky on a regular basis.
They had their first taste of tarte tatin this weekend. Nora didn’t like it (neither do I). Nick, however, has found his own personal Jesus and it comes with a caramel coating.
(I love that photo.)
In short they are exhausting, exhilarating, frustrating, loving, hilarious, and perfect, as seen here in a Jack and Karen moment.
(I also love that photo.)
I love them and they love me. They also love each other.
We’ve told a few people (and our families) that we are getting married.
Because we are.
We have it booked up and everything.
Alastair and I have historically slightly differed on the wedding front – he wanted a great big bash with everyone piling into a hotel in a location somewhere for a weekend, all of our family, friends, and mates. I was more of the “let’s run away to an island and elope, just the two of us.” However, I accept that with four kids between us, it’s not really the done thing. And my father and stepmom would have been hurt to not be involved, as would Alastair’s folks and immediate family. And yet the big wedding do, it didn’t necessarily feel right and financially it wasn’t an option (hello, monthly nursery bills!)
We have arranged our day our way.
We are getting married in a simple, non-religious ceremony that will be attended to by family only. We then are all going out for what is called the wedding breakfast here (which is pretty fucking confusing, because actually we having a late lunch) in a restaurant that was built in the early 1400’s. The next day we are having a great big fuck off party at our house and inviting all of our family and friends. We leave 2 days after we are married for a very short honeymoon in Eastern Europe – we have a family and work to deal with, so none of this two weeks in the Caribbean business.
I love it.
We are aiming for simple. We are both divorced. We are not young. We’ve both had the big giant white wedding complete with limousines and bridesmaids and groomsmen and photographers and so on and so on. Neither of us want that, and neither of us wants the stress of it. We want the day to be fun and happy and about what’s important to us – family and laughter.
We’re getting married but diverging from some of the traditions – none of this confetti business, and there are no bridesmaids and groomsmen. I won’t be wearing white or ivory (in fact, my dress is a silver/grey – I’d show you but Alastair reads here, and while I am not traditional about this wedding stuff I do want that moment where he sees me and thinks: Garsh. She’s pretty.) It should come as no surprise to you (nor is it to Alastair) that I am not a virgin, and I am approaching this marriage with all of my years of experience behind me. When you wear white it’s to symbolize purity and innocence. I’ve had a rough old life, but it is wrapped about me like a thick shawl because it has made me who I am and has many layers that I cannot and will not forget, so important are they, even if it wasn’t always easy getting to where I am today.
I hadn’t thought about any of that hen night or photos or any of that business, but luckily I have the world’s biggest wedding fan on my side. She’s offered to make the wedding cake and as long as it doesn’t put her out I think I will take her up on it, because sweet mother of Jesus have you seen her skill? I hadn’t thought about any of these things she points out, I just think: I have a dress and things are booked up and the invites are out. The rest will come along. The stress levels, they are low, and it’s a good thing I have my buddy reminding me of things, and she does it in a way that makes me laugh (mostly because she is beyond excitable about anything wedding).
And people keep asking me, “Are you excited?”
And the short answer is: no.
It’s not excitement, it’s something else. It’s a feeling like this is what is supposed to happen, it’s how life is supposed to be. It feels more like a warm rosy color, a catharsis, an answer. I’m not excited, per se. It’s more that I’m exactly where I should be. My family is a family and I love it with all of my might, just like I love my partner who has become my partner, the man that I wanted and needed and have. I’m not excited – I’m part of something real, something whole, and I struggle to find ways to convey that I am happy without your monitor exploding with Pop-tart colored unicorns and fairy dust, so I’ll just leave it at that.
Oh, and you asked about the date? Right. We are getting married on
I really, really want to thank those who emailed me with similar stories and encouragement about my temper-tantrum son. From the bottom of my exhausted heart, I thank you. And consider this me passing round the virtual tequila.
I travelled up to London on Tuesday night, in the dark nightshade of the train and its cover. A hotel room booked to stay over in on the way up to Manchester the next day. A ticket to a play that night – Moliere’s “The Misanthrope”, which (apart from “Tartuffe”) is one of my favorites of his, and I had a ticket to see Keira Knightly, Tara Fitzgerald, and Damien Lewis play in it.
It was unusual from the get-go, as I tend to be a theatre buff and can safely say that most London theatre goers are dressed in jeans. Not so this place – the air was as thick with pretension as it was with the atoms of newly dispensed champagne. There were more dead animals draped around the shoulders of bejeweled women than there were presumably naked animals wandering around without their pelts. There I was in jeans, Converse, and glasses. I brought the class strata level down substantially.
I was given a brilliant seat (second row, center) and so made myself at home. I was surrounded by Sloane-y fuckers. I kid you not – the four behind me (the men straight out of Eton, the women straight out of an Abercrombie and Fitch ad) discussed in a bored tone why they were there. One of them agreed to go along because, as she said, she’s “a Leo, and my horoscope this morning said to expand my horizons. Whatever, I bought a ticket and came.”
Ok then. It got worse when the four early twenty-somethings behind me described Tara Fitzgerald as “that old woman from ‘Waking the Dead’”. Tara Fitzgerald is only 7 years older than I am. It made me feel old and, well, slightly stabby.
The play was brilliantly done, and I have all kinds of respect for the actors and actresses. Keira Knightly is without question the skinniest woman I have ever clamped eyes on (she also has The World’s Longest Neck). Those photos where she looks like she has bypassed skinny and went straight to skeletal don’t lie – she is about the size of a pencil. She’s also gorgeous. She’s also – contrary to the privilegeds’ opinions around me – really terrible at an American accent. I would know, I have one.
Apart from that, I had a lovely evening. The play was really well done and I had a good time, even if I did feel like I brought the class level down with my presence. I suppose there’s always going to be something about me that feels inferior – I am educated, I am a hard-working manager in a very reputable company. I have some posh clothes (gifts) and some gorgeous jewelry (also gifts). I took stock while sitting there – was it about labels? Because on me I had Burberry, Longchamps, Mulberry, Blackberry, and Gap (and Converse, but the Jimmy Choos around me somewhat overrode those). Is it education, because I have a degree and am returning for a Master’s later this year? Is it because I didn’t grow up with money (because I didn’t)?
I wondered what differentiated me from those around me, and the answer came rather easily – maybe the truth is that no matter what, I feel awed and privileged to have the life I have. I feel lucky all the time, lucky to have my home, family, life, house, health (mostly!), ability to see a London play. I mean for fuck’s sake, 10 or even 20 years ago the idea that I would be seeing a play in London whenever I wanted to? Not even a remote possibility.
What makes me feel even luckier is what I sometimes see at plays, and something that I envy – older couples. Women in their late 50’s looking cool and put-together with husbands that adore them and bring them wine during intermission. I want to be one of those women, women whose hands have stories and whose homes have traditions. I want to enjoy plays with my husband and enjoy a glass of wine during intermission.
And it looks like I can have it, as Alastair has agreed to come with me to the theatre from time to time, and he always brings me a glass of wine.
As for that other part, well that’s also coming true.
I talked to my colleague about it while standing on the train platform today.
I know that I am not alone. I know Statia is struggling. A link she linked to recently clearly is as well.
Nick has taken to temper tantrums that are colossal. He can be such a joy, as seen here with his new game “Running, running” (and when he says “no” here, that’s him saying “snow”. Easy to get them confused.)
(And why didn’t anyone tell me that my high-pitched voice makes people want to stab themselves in their ears?)
He can also make me want to cry. Observe today’s fun. The entire day’s fun. Play it at max volume and you may be heading towards the volume we’ve been living at.
(That’s me with my head in my hands in the background. Why didn’t anyone tell me that I occasionally sounded like a drag queen?)
His favorite word is “No”, which is uttered at decibels that break glass. It is his first and his immediate reaction to everything, and we now have started showing him that no means no. Cliché, yes, but it has consequences and he must learn them. If I hand him his sippy cup and he screams “NO!” at me, he loses the sippy cup. This then instigates a temper tantrum. I get that this is a battle of the wills – I must show him that I mean as much business as he means. But it hurts me more than it hurts him, I think. I hate seeing him do this to himself and to us, all because he’s simply flexing his newly acquired toddler muscles.
It comes on the heels of extreme tantrum-y behavior that he adopted from a few other toddlers at nursery that are going through this before he did. He’s become a fucking yob, throwing things, hitting kids, screaming “No!”. He’s not alone and (luckily) he’s not the first, and the nursery staff smile and pat me on the back and tell me that all the kids go through various stages of it, that it passes. I am sure it does. They tell me that Nora will go through it, too, and I’m sure she will, although right now butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth and she’s sweeter than candy floss.
Do you know how awful it is to feel like sometimes you just don’t want to be around one of your kids, this little person that needs you and loves you and whom you need and love?
On the weekends I spend my time catching up on house things that needed doing during the week and babysitting. Paula asked on one post who does the housekeeping, and the answer is Alastair and I. We can’t afford a cleaner, and I’m not sure I’d want one anyway (I’m not bourgeois, and I would want to clean before the cleaner came, because I’m crazy like that). On weekends Alastair battles on with the DIY because this house is in desperate need of it (this weekend he spent his time in sub-zero temperatures wiring up and weather-proofing our damp-ridden garage). And I, I deal with the babies. And it always transpires that I do the big grocery shopping at the weekend, largely because it means a trip out of the house and helps avoid a toddler meltdown.
That’s just it, though.
I spend my time hoping to avoid a meltdown and get through the weekend.
The twins are brilliant. I am completely in love with them and the thought of losing one or both of them makes me curl up into a fetal position. I am crazy about them both and am the luckiest woman in the world. I do not take them for granted, not for a second. The thing about all of this is, they never tell you that it’s This Hard All The Time. It’s This Hard to go through IVF and get pregnant. It’s This Hard to stay pregnant. It’s This Hard to give birth. It’s This Hard to get them to sleep through the night. It’s This Hard to get them through toddlerhood. Mostly, it’s This Hard to have twins. They’re gorgeous and golden, but you are aware that it’s a balancing act. In general, one twin is getting attention over the other. It’s true it swings – Nora had it during colic, Nick has it now – but you are aware, as a mother, that you may be letting someone down in order to deal with someone else. And you want to make sure that both children feel secure and loved by you, 100% of the time.
All of this liberally peppered with more advice – largely unsaked for – than you ever imagined. And if you so much as twinge at thinking: God I’m tired. I just need a break. then the masses descend. You’re ungrateful. You don’t realize what you have. You’re doing it wrong. You should do it this way. It’s easy, what are you stressing about?
But it’s not easy. Being a mum is not easy. I didn’t think it would be, I didn’t think it’d be cake walks and fairy tales all the time, I really didn’t. But I also didn’t imagine having days where you can see why people hit their kids (this is not the same as me saying that I condone it or that it’s ok, because in my world it isn’t). I would never. We don’t hit our kids – we were smacking the back of their hands as punishment for a while and then we realized that the twins were becoming quite smack-y themselves. We decided to stop all hand-smacking and simply use time outs only as punishment, and since then the babies are both significantly less physical. I can’t accept smacking or spanking my children, I really can’t (this is simply our household view though, and I accept that). But there are moments when you have a two year old scream “NO!” at top volume in your face for the 100th time in a day while throwing something and you think: I need to count to 100 or maybe even 1,000. Counting to 10 just won’t do. There are times when you physically hand your child over to their father and say “I really need you to take him away from me for a little while.” Experts would tell you that you’re handling this correctly, but it doesn’t stop you from feeling like a bad mother. A good mother wouldn’t need this distance, you think. A good mother wouldn’t want to cry or feel like she can’t take any more.
We do time outs. We explain afterwards why they were in time out, and we cuddle them. We are working on Nick’s frustration with him. We get that this is toddlerhood and it passes and it’s him exploring and testing his boundaries.
It doesn’t mean that it’s so exhausting that it makes me want to cry.
My mother used to tell me she wished she never had children. I am not sure if it was just a poorly executed joke or seriousness. I can tell you that I don’t wish I never had children – I’m proud and happy and overjoyed I did and don’t regret my two children even for a nanosecond.
Sometimes, though, I just wish it was a little bit easier.
-S.
PS-I’m going to close comments because I can see the comments I will be getting about “Just spank them” or “I’m going through treatment and would do anything for children don’t you understand how insensitive you are being?” or “All kids do it, mine did, and it passes” (all while stirring your cup of tea with the benefit of a hindsight I will someday have) and I can see who I’m going to get said comments from and yes, I am sure it will pass. Not that you don’t have a right to your view because of course you do – it’s just been a hard fucking day, and I really (selfishly) don’t want it added to just now, even in the full knowledge that this will pass. Because it will, I am sure of it. But until it does, it is sapping my will in absolutely every way.
UPDATED – I’ve gotten a number of emails from parents going through the exact same thing I am and without any advice/lecturing at all. We’re all in the same boat, I think. Those emails are very welcome.
On the radio this morning they were talking about a new theory in relationships. Because, you know, relationships are new and no one knows how to manage these newfangled things. They had a “relationship expert” on – this immediately is suspect to me as unless you’ve been in a convent all your life, if you’ve ever so much as twitched in the direction of the opposite (or same) sex then you’re already a relationship expert, if by expert we mean “Holy fuck what the hell does this button do?” The expert went on to say that there are three stages for the average woman when it comes to their spouse. Although she was talking about heterosexual couples, let’s expand it to same-sex couples as well, because there’s no reason why the “expert’s” advice doesn’t carry.
Basically she was saying there are three types of relationships.
1) The woman is waiting for Mr/Ms Perfect. You know the type, those of us who had endless entries into our teenage diaries swearing that we would just die if we didn’t wind up with Bobby/Peggy Sue/insert naff name from the 1950’s here. Mr/Ms Perfect would have perfect hair, perfect teeth, and a hint of flesh just below the collarbone to die for. They would anticipate our every need, they would never been in a pissy mood in the morning, they would never leave empty drinking glasses stacked on every possible surface and they wouldn’t think twice about taking the garbage out. All of this they would complete in time to make us a perfect meal and shag us senseless in the early evening so that we would have the opportunity to watch Mad Men and Glee in the evening.
2) Mr/Ms Not Perfect But Perfect For Me. Well come on, this isn’t rocket science, relationship expert. Of course almost everyone has this. You may look at someone you know and think “What the fuck is she doing with them?” without realizing they’re thinking the same thing about you and your choice of partner. You want your partner but you can see that it’s not perfect. Maybe they don’t take out the garbage. Maybe they leave hair in the shower drain. Maybe they hate Mad Men and Glee. Maybe they leave a trail of clothing from the door of the bedroom when they get home which you always have to pick up. Maybe they hate cheese (which, if this is the case, you need to dump them immediately.) Yet they know how to order what you want from any menu they come across. They scrape the ice from your car. They know that you are in a Class 1 Hurricane of PMS and they overlook it. They don’t care that you have so many books that shelves are literally groaning under their weight, because they know that books make you happy.
3) Mr/Ms Settling. And who hasn’t done that, too? I had an ex who was lovely. A lovely, lovely man. Kind, clever, generous, considerate…and yet he had a funny odor. It wasn’t unclean, he wasn’t unhygienic. It didn’t matter if he changed soaps or colognes, it didn’t matter if I used different detergent…it was him. It was the smell of him. I asked a few people if they noticed this smell, they said no. It was his smell to me that was an issue. I didn’t like his smell, it reminded me of potatoes, Playdoh and foreskin. Plus it’s never a good sign when you have sex and you think “Will you just come already because there’s no oil in me, you can stop drilling me now. And wipe your dick on the curtains on the way out, ok?” Yeah. That was settling. And it could’ve been borne out for life, yes it could’ve, but I would never have been 100% percent happy.
But all of this is common sense, surely. We have it all, from romance novels to the person we’re really with to that nice man who has a nice life and we’re all nice but it’s not like we really know each other. These levels exist and it’s nothing new. It’s ridiculous to me that you need a relationship expert to explain this stuff to us. Of course we know that there is a Mr/Ms Perfect out there.
It’s like that argument that lads’ mags are objectification of women. Of course they are. That’s the point of them. Do they subjugate women? In my view, if the women are doing this voluntarily then they know that they’re being subjugated. But it’s the same for women. In same sex relationships, don’t women objectify women? Like my lesbian friend Karen did, when she would tell me her fantasy was a tall blond woman built like a Swede with fingers that resembled planks of Spam (I’m thinking that this ideal might have been Karen’s alone, here.) Don’t women objectify men, too? When we fawn after Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome like Mr. Darcy (so really we’re fawning after Mr. Tall, Emotionally Unavailable and Cravat-ified), aren’t we subjugating men? Or when we dream about a certain someone bearing a certain sonic screwdriver, are we really focussing on his relationship abilities?
(Wait, yes. Yes I am. Anyway.)
If drivel like this can get published then I think I should write a relationship book. I’ll call it “How to Have the Right Relationship”. It’ll be subtitled “AKA, All of the Things He Won’t Need To Wipe His Dick On”.
A few weeks ago I had to make a run to the shops, as we were low on, oh, everything. I had picked the twins up from the nursery and they told me that Nora had been running a slight temperature and seemed quiet. I gave her a cuddle and a promise that the shopping would be quick. It would be – it had been a long damn day and I was exhausted and she looked exhausted and Nick was fairly seriously bored with the whole thing and none of us wanted to detour to the shops. But food beckoned, and since I was not feeling at my Julia Child best, I knew that I had to buy something for their tea.
Parked in a toddler trolley and me whizzing through the shops and near-lightning speed, I got the bare essentials of what we needed. Nora kept holding on to my hand and whimpering lightly. I kissed the side of her head and went to the checkout line.
“Mama,” she said softly, and then in classic comic film motion she opened her mouth and spewed vomit everywhere. She held her hand up underneath it in that classic child “I can catch it!” pose, which instead served as a font of stomach acid, splattering me, Nick, and the entire floor in front of the trolley.
Luckily since becoming a mum I’m never without wet wipes and nappies, so I cleaned her and Nick up as best I could. There was nothing I could do for the floor so I sidestepped it. We were nearly to the front of the queue and the damage had been done anyway, there was nothing to do but press ahead and pay.
Two women came up behind me with their trolley.
“Goodness, what is that stench?” one of them whittered.
“It smells like sick! Someone’s been sick here! How disgraceful!”
And they went on and on and on and yes it was gross that my kid threw up but she’s two and unlikely to have caused it on purpose. They clocked us, a veritable forcefield of stench. They opened their mouth to speak to me but the look on my face must have screamed “Sense of Humor Failure” and they let it lie.
I paid quickly and got us to the car. I raced home, the entire car smelling like a post-keg party. Two blocks from the house Murphy’s Law came into play, and once again Nora puked all over herself and her car seat. Nora burst into tears. Nick looked amazed. As soon as we got to the house I raced to get her out of the car.
We got inside the door and I took a look at my daughter – she was literally soaked to the skin with puke. I couldn’t get her shirt off without getting the vomit all over her head and neck, so I reached for a pair of scissors.
Nora looked up at me. Her lower lip trembled as she saw the scissors. Huge tears welled in her eyes. “Upsy Daisy?” she whispered.
And I twigged it – Nora was wearing her favorite Upsy Daisy shirt. If I cut it, she would be in bits over the loss. So I whipped the shirt off her head – covering her in vomit and likely leaving her mildly scarred for life – and off to the bathtub we went.
It was a long damn day.
*****************************************
Nick has been a real challenge. He screams “NO!” at you at absolutely every turn. Yet there are signs that this is just a phase. Last night I made naan breads, and I felt his warm form beside me in the kitchen. A little finger would periodically reach up to the kitchen counter and make a fingermark in the flour. I’d then hear a giggle beside me.
I could get used to baking help like his.
*****************************************
Nick and Nora have reached a stage where they say something and you must acknowledge it. It’s not enough to say “Yes”, or “Really?”, or any platitude of the sort. You must verbally interact with them because they will repeat it until the end of time until you do. It’s relentless.
On the drive home today:
Nick: Mama, black car!
Me: (not focussing on their backseat babbling but half-listening to the radio). Yes.
Nick: Mama, black car!
Me: Mmm-hmmmm.
Nick: Mama, black car!
Me: I see.
Nick: Mama, black car!
Me: Really?
Nick: Mama, black car!
Me: OK! I GOT IT! Black car, yes, that’s a black car Nick! Black car! Enough black car!
Silence.
Then:
Nick: Mama, blue car!
*****************************************
I drove Nick and Nora to nursery this morning, and Nick was dawdling and just being very dreamy and walking along with his head in the clouds. Nora kept urging him forward, and at one point offered a small shove to get him to keep walking. I told her off for it, and went about taking their coats off and putting their slippers on. I said hi to the nursery workers, kissed the twins goodbye, and headed for the door. I turned around for one last look and saw Nora standing there, looking incredibly sad. Usually she and Nick are headfirst into the toys, laughing and forgetting about me the instant I drop them off. I knew she was sad because she’d just been lectured, and I also knew that going to her would send the message of “Oh, it’s ok, go ahead and shove your brother”.
But I could not walk away.
I walked back into the room and kneeled down.
“Come here my darling,” I said, opening my arms. She flew to me and went straight into my arms, wrapping her arms around me and pressing her head into my neck.
“Mummy,” she whispered softly.
It’s a moment I will carry with me forever.
-S.
PS- Last week I bought a dress for £60, down from £350. It’s a beautiful dress and when I saw it I thought it was perfect. And it is. And it’s going to be my wedding dress.
Alternatively titled: A Post Brought To You Courtesy of Films of the 80’s
Yesterday I left work early for an appointment. I was offered a stunning haute couture gown to wear, complete with ties up the back that conveniently let my ass hang out for all to see. It was offset by a thick white robe of vintage style and a pair of thick woollen socks that I twigged only while changing into said Parisian fashion that I had put on inside out.
That’s right. I had some time booked with a paper sheet, some stirrups, and a woman holding probing equipment. I felt like rubbing my hands and asking when we all got our freak on.
They asked Alastair to wait in the waiting room and not be in the room, and so we both shrugged and he availed himself of the hospitals crap coffee while I went into the room. The technician sat me down, patted my knee, and looked at me with an expression of such sadness and sympathy I was immediately reminded of the nurse in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (the image was helped by the fact that the rack on the technician was impossible to miss).
“I’m afraid this ultrasound is a little different, my dear,” she said.
“Why, are you using sonar equipment? My uterus that big these days?”
“What?”
“What?”
“I mean, unlike the ultrasounds you had when you were pregnant, I’m afraid this ultrasound is internal. I will need to investigate your lady bits.”
“Oh please,” I said laughing and whipping my gown off. “I’m an IVF veteran. Half of Southern England has driven an ultrasound probe up my crotch.”
“Oh,” she said, startled. “Oh. That was why we asked your partner to wait outside, we know most women feel this is delicate and embarrassing.”
“We passed that hurdle a long time ago,” I replied grinning. “He’s seen more of my bits than I have.”
“I see! OK, well that’s why I came in to do this exam, instead of the other doctor, Doctor Andrews, who is a man.”
Hey, how come Andrew gets to get up? If he gets up, we’ll all get up, it’ll be anarchy! flew through my mind.
She went about readying things using, I noticed, obscene amounts of KY on the wand. I mean, come on – I know I can get a little dry in there, but it’s not like trying to ease the Titanic into a shoebox or anything. She kept pouring the goo on and all I could hear was Venkman saying “Someone blows their nose and you want to keep it?”
“You’ve had a C-section, haven’t you? I can tell by looking at the uterine scar on the inside of your womb,” she said while manipulating the ultrasound wand inside of my Dale Beaverman.
And if only I had a quarter for every time I’ve heard that.
Unlike my previous internal ultrasounds (which included things like me crying in hormonal puddles, me silently selling the fragmented parts of my soul to Satan, and me hoping I wasn’t going to fart while they were probing me), this time she had to jockey that bad boy around. And let me just follow it up with this – I’m never going to look at my rabbit the same way again. Because unlike previous exams where they simply count follicles, it cramps like a mother when they do other kinds of internal exams.
She twisted and turned the probe. “I’m just going to have to press on your tummy, I’m afraid,” she said. “I can’t find your ovary.” Right. Just call me Mr. Poppin’ Fresh.
“Yeah, I hate it when the little bastards hide,” I replied through my teeth. She jammed and twisted the probe and used her other hand on my stomach and unlike Mr. Poppin’ Fresh I didn’t feel even a little bit like giggling.
“Oh there it is!” she laughed a tinkly laugh. It fit right in with the stars I was seeing. “I’m just going to pin it to your pelvic wall with the wand in order to measure it.”
She typed in on the ultrasound computer with the previous stomach manipulating hand. “Oh dear, I spelled ‘right ovary’ wrong, aren’t I a silly thing?”
Right, I thought. I will buy you a fucking Speak ‘n Spell, just please for the love of God stop pushing on that.
She concluded the exam and pulled the wand out, leaving an oozy mess on the paper below me that made me wonder if the giant racing snail from Neverending Story had paid me a visit.
At the end, it transpired that my girly bits are ok. My hormones have changed and thus I am lining up for someone to scrape my uterus (Don’t listen to him, he just wants to scrape our faces off!) and then I will be fitted with a Mirena coil, although I do need to talk about the EDS with my nice doctor. I am genuinely pleased, that’s the menstrual cycles and breakthrough bleeding sorted. That said, my bladder and kidney bits aren’t sorted yet and so I will be going through more tests on those in February.
I have been busy with the new job. I click through the office in high heels and skirts, skirts several sizes smaller than I was wearing as the weight I dropped appears to be (apart from 1.5 kg) lost for good. I’m not sad. I like being several sizes smaller, actually. I feel like I fit me. I suppose deep down, no matter how much therapy you have, there is always a part of you that is married to an eating disorder.
I spent the morning over documents and charts with a customer. I spend my time away from the customer buried neck deep in spreadsheets. I know what I’m doing and I love having the opportunity to spread my wings and do it. This change was what I needed. This change was what was right.
Talking to a colleague this morning, I realize that where I started from and where I am now are two very different places. A degree in social sciences, $25,000 in student loans, and the only thing behind me the sheer determination to make something out of my life was all I had.
My first exam is this afternoon. It won’t hurt, and at least its baby steps towards finding some answers. My children migrated from their cots to Big Boy and Big Girl Beds on the same day that I wrote my post about coming to terms with the fact that there will be no more children. It was a bad day for me. I cried a lot and felt bitter and hollow inside and all I wanted to do was go back in time and scoop up my children as infants and breathe them in again and again and again and tell them that there will never be a time when they will need me as much as they did then but that I remain with a constant and unwavering need for them.
And I was taken care of that night, calmly and carefully, by my new partner. I say new because he is, as am I. 2009 was the worst year of my life bar none, and yet I learned things about myself that I could never have otherwise learned. Therapy finally clicked. I finally clicked. The opportunity to tear down generations of patterns showed itself. And the world changed, just like that. And this new world is a very beautiful place indeed.
I sometimes think that life is a series of events designed to show you that who you are isn’t really how you thought you would be.
When I was younger I didn’t want to live past 30. There was no real point, I thought. I was on a mission to self-destruction and that self-destruction was timed to expire on the eve of my 29th birthday. I didn’t need life to kill me, I was planning on encouraging things along that way anyhow. When you’re younger and broken and unable to raise your head above the parapet then you can’t know that there is anything worth seeing. There are times in my life when I look back and everything feels stretched tight as a dirty rubber band around a soggy newspaper. You need someone to give you a chance, you just don’t realize that that someone is you. You’re all elbows and attitude and ill-fitting clothing and you forget to look up and out from time to time.
And what would that have gotten me, I wonder. Dying before 30, I would have missed out on dozens of foreign countries. I wouldn’t have my home. I wouldn’t have my family (and the best part about me is you). I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to show myself that at the end of the day, the one who has to fight for me most is me.
I no longer walk the hallways feeling like a fraud.
I walk the hallways feeling like a person, with all of the fallibility that infers. And it’s scary and it will hurt but it is what living is all about. I don’t do resolutions at the New Year. Instead I make them when they come, and my resolution is to live.
I sit here and watch out the rolling window, watching a white landscaped world go by, and I remind myself that life can be extraordinary, if only you let it be.
Saturday morning at 9 am I had a visit to the gynaecologist specialist.
Nine o’clock in the bloody morning. On a Saturday. If a man is going to be flashing some lights up my cooch on a Saturday morning he’d better be calling me darling and pouring me mimosas on a bed with far too many pillows, not requiring me to shower beforehand and drive through the fucking snow just to get to his office.
For the past four months or so my body’s been slowing going downhill. Never mind dealing with relationships, my joints are going on strike, my colon has effectively told me to fox trot oscar, and my insides have decided to act like an asshole. Men, look away for this paragraph and then come back at the next one, ok? Right, so for the past four or five months, I’ve been getting a period every three weeks. Said period lasts five days and is so heavy that I’d like to roll up the Michelin Man and stuff him up the front passage to staunch the flow. As soon as the period ends I spend the next two weeks spotting heavily until the next period comes along. It’s a brilliant time, and part of the reason I jumped at the chance to buy 196 tampons on sale.
OK so – men are you back now? Right. I went to the specialist and found out he’s actually a urinary/gynae specialist. As someone who has spent her life dashing to the toilet every twenty seconds, this pleased me. Further, he felt my constant bladder and kidney infections were A Problem.
“But I was scanned and told my organs look normally shaped,” I replied.
“I don’t care how they’re shaped,” he replied calmly. “I care how they function.”
And that my friends is why despite my pinkness I can’t help but love private health insurance, particularly as it means a problem is going to be fixed this time.
We talked. I was examined. He seemed to think I would be upset about being examined, up until the point I explained I’d had five rounds of IVF. Then he acted like he was checking any motor car in the motor pool.
After the exam I swished my way back to his desk courtesy of the 450 litres of lube he’d used.
We talked options, some of them more frank than I realized at the time.
I am to undergo a whole series of tests, including but not limited to a hysteroscopy in the next month. The only good thing I have to say about all of this, besides hopefully finding an answer, is that at least I get knocked out for the hysteroscopy because seriously – that’s the kind of procedure that sounds like I don’t want to be there for.
He told me that if the biopsy he wants to perform is normal, then I am to be fitted with a Mirena Coil. Seeing as I’ve been long out of the birth control loop, I didn’t know what one of those was. Turns out it’s a type of IUD, and we covered the basics.
“You’re not going to have any more children, right?” he clarified.
I thought about my life for a moment there. I thought about my fantastic stepkids were back in Sweden but due back in a month. I thought about my two bouncing toddlers were at home with their father, likely bouncing around the house to Thomas the Tank Engine. I thought about how hard – how fucking, horribly hard – it was to get pregnant and have the twins. I thought about how I had been told that pregnancy and I, we would never be friends. I thought about Alastair and his approaching age of 48 and his wishes to be an active, youthful father. I thought about how each month our nursery bill is more than our monthly mortgage payment. I thought about how it’s important to me to have a stable, happy environment for the children, complete with whatever limited financial security we can offer. I thought about the fact that I am turning 36 in a few months and what that means for fertility. I thought about the needles and the IVF and the hell that you go through wishing and hoping and making bargains with various deities. I thought about how my lucky socks are in the post winging their way to another woman that I am quietly hoping and cheering for. I thought about how much I love my family, how much I love my children. I thought about how the idea of having another little baby in the house elicited both a sentiment of “Oh how wonderful!” equally mixed with “Are you fucking crazy, lady?”.
“No,” I replied finally. “No more children.”
Even before this appointment I knew that I would not be having any more children. Deep down, I knew. And now I am heading into this territory that makes it permanent. If the scans and biopsy are normal, I’m having a Mirena Coil surgically inserted. According to the specialist it will make my periods end. It lasts for 5 years, at which point another coil will be surgically inserted. After that they will check to see if my body has entered menopause. If I have, then…well job done I guess (and holy hell – am I that close to menopause? Fuck.)
And so here it is. My bladder and kidneys aren’t functioning normally. My womb (as he keeps calling it, which makes me feel like sniggering immaturely) is not functioning normally. And even though I have talked about and come to terms with the fact that Nick and Nora are the only biological children I will ever have, this is it. Baby Factory Closed.
Now I am going to be facing something which brings it home. While getting my periods under control which, believe me, I am delighted about, I will be riding out the last of my possible years as a mother with a little piece of plastic that releases hormones into me. It’s like the hammer, ending the auction. This is it. I feel a bit like a surfer, riding a wave to a shore called Menopause.
And it makes me feel a little sad, if I’m honest. Even though I am at peace with my choices, with my children, with our future as a family. I have the two most amazing, fun, happy, gorgeous children in the world (really, there’s no bias here.) I ran the fucking IVF race and I fell at two hurdles with two miscarriages, but I won the IVF lottery and have boy/girl twins, the alleged diamond in the IVF tiara. My situation is sublime by some standards, including those that I personally had in 2006.
But I don’t know why, but it makes me just a little bit sad, riding this last crest into the twilight of this phase of my life. This part of me, it’s over. It’s done. And I’m ready to let it all go but it doesn’t mean I’m not just a little bit blue over it.
For the first time in my entire life, I have an en suite.
En suite is a term over here for a bathroom attached to the bedroom. I’m thinking that’s called a walk-in bathroom in the US, but I wouldn’t know because I never had one (insert sob story here).
When I had the de-lurk post, it was lovely to see so many people say hi. I remember Frances commented that my house was “intimidatingly amazing”, which humbled me. It’s lovely to hear that, thank you, Frances (and I miss Plain Layne, too). But the while the foundations of the house were done by builders, Alastair and I have single-handedly tackled almost the entire interior (and exterior, actually – Alastair built the deck and my Dad and I painted the entire outside of the house). Ask someof thefolk who have been here, and I imagine they’ll tell you the house is far from perfect.
Right. So. En suite.
The en suite in our house started off its life as a study. Then came the twins and the ill-advised color scheme.
Then came the extension, and it got bricked up. The window, that is. Not the twins. This is not The Cask of the Amontillado.
Then the study became a real mess, as what was the built-in wardrobes got punched out to become what is now the en suite to the master bedroom.
While looking for photos I reviewed the extension photos. I can’t believe we survived that sometimes.
The front two-thirds of the study-cum-nursery became the family bathroom.
Since we had one working bathroom, the en suite became priority number 412 after all the other nightmares that fell under the umbrella of “The Extension”. We’ve since completed the wet room (aka shower room) downstairs, and so we have two working bathrooms.
The en suite languished as a project that Would Be Done At Some Point. I used the room – just a hollow plaster shell – to dick around with my photos.
We started working on the en suite. Due to the EDS issues, I was sidelined so I simply painted the room. Alastair did the rest.
He pulled up the floor to connect the plumbing.
Then he tiled the floor with these gorgeous tiles and installed the shower tray.
We even laughed over the inadvisable color we first chose.
It was called “Raspberry Diva”. A fun color but a little hard on the senses.
Yesterday it was finished (ok, we didn’t wash the windows and the skirting board needs updating, but let’s not split hairs over this, yes?). We have an en suite. It’s a tiny room painted a lovely blue and I am completely and totally in love and will never love again.
And I confess I adore the funky towel radiator that Alastair created.
We have an en suite conveniently located just off my side of the bed (otherwise known as She With the Tiny Bladder). It’s a bathroom just for us. I adore it in every way, shape and form.
The house is not finished yet. Next up – digging up and fixing the hallway, front door, and utility room. We need to paint and install a runner on the staircase. The master bedroom and nursery need a freshening up. Alastair has plans to build a giant structure in the garden that he’s tentatively calling “The Gold Miner’s Shack”, details to come and yes, sounds a little scary but involves lighting (naturally), a refrigerator, a brick oven and a rotisserie. Bring it on, End of the World.
For the first time in my life, I live in a house with enough bedrooms for people (us, the babies, Melissa, Jeff, and one guest room). We’re turning the study into a family room. And we have three bathrooms, one of them a pale blue that I love to bits.
And we did it all ourselves.
-S.
PS – remember that something cool I referred to in my post? It arrived today via the Royal Mail, who have only been here twice the past two weeks courtesy of the snow.
Do you remember the post I wrote where I referred to the lovely sparkly necklace that Loren Parry wore on University Challenge? I issued a task to help find the necklace. My fantastic friend Lindsay came in very close with a necklace that I ordered (and love). But it wasn’t quite right. Cue a few days ago, when a sudden very lovely yet startling email popped into my inbox.
Today a parcel arrived in the post.
Loren Parry stumbled across my (poorly written) post. She emailed me. The necklace she bought a few years ago and it’s no longer made.
I don’t have info on where to get Loren Parry’s necklace.
I instead have Loren Parry’s necklace as she sent it to me.
If you’re still reading, Loren, thank you very much. I love it. And I’ll be pressuring the twins to go to St. John’s College at Oxford from here on (and good luck on University Challenge semi-finals!)
It’s now over a week since I started my new job. I’ve made it into the office approximately 3 times – today is not one of those times. The snow that killed us before Christmas and then at New Year has hit again, and this morning it took me an hour to drive 2 miles. The distance to the office is 9 miles. I gave up and came home, where I am contentedly working courtesy of my Blackberry.
So far, I really enjoy the role. It’s strange being in an office. It’s stranger still being in an office that requires business attire. I haven’t worked in a place where people wear Proper Business Clothes since 1997. The clothes have changed – thankfully there are fewer shoulder pads and the big chunky earring phase has passed – but I have to say, there’s something to having to clean up for work. For several years I was based from home, so wearing anything apart from pajamas during the day was a stretch. The past 10 years in general I have worked in the more hardcore engineering areas, where it’s cool to be the most casually dressed as your technical status means you can buck convention. “Why yes, I AM wearing a shirt with Big Bird on it, however I can show you the network design so you shall therefore overlook the large yellow aviary on my apparel!”
Only now the company I work for is not only a little bit dressy, but I am a manager, too.
I find this has an impact into not only how I dress, but how I work as well.
I felt that old feeling again on Monday. On Monday I had to go into London for a meeting with a director (and Londoners, you don’t get to bitch about the snow any more. There was no snow whatsoever there. We still have over a foot of the damn stuff. We win.) There I was – high heels. Sheath dress. Jewellery and even makeup. Clearly something was all right, as two construction crews called out to me, so there’s always an occupation to be had servicing the lads.
But while walking to the office there crept that feeling, that ache that I have often had. There I was, walking to the office in a Burberry coat and Prada gloves (neither of which I bought but were gifts I feel nervous about wearing), while dressed in a dress from Next (which I did buy on sale for £30, because I am not posh and posh things confuse me). Clothes to fit the occasion, maybe, but not clothes that are things I am used to. I don’t belong here, something inside me said. I’m not qualified, I can’t do this. Not even in nice threads.
Rubbish, another part of me replied. You’ve been doing exactly this kind of work for 5 years now! There’s nothing new about this apart from the company name, you can do this! It’s not about your clothes, it’s about you.
I’m honestly a nobody, my insecurity stated stubbornly. I’m a fraud. I’m hopeless. What if I fuck up?
And my stronger, therapatized self jumped in again. Everyone fucks up. You’ve fucked up before, you will again. People make mistakes. You’re here because you can do this, someone believed in you. Don’t go down this route.
I know that at work I give off the image of being very tough, very doesn’t-suffer-fools-gladly, very decisive and organized and (so I’ve been told) very ruthless. All of those sound so unlike me, and yet maybe that’s just it – maybe we are different people at work than we are at home. I’ve been battling this view that I am one person while working and another at home, but maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be. We can’t spend our lives being dogmatic at the workforce and then coming home expecting the dictatorial styles to be supported with our spouses and kids (You want me to do the dishes? Then ask me, don’t pull out a sodding org chart that shows I am required to do this under the project terms and conditions!) Likewise, if I took all the mushy goo I have about the twins to the office, I’d be the laughing stock of my team, because the Softer Side of Sears does not a good manager make.
I stamped down my insecurities. They have their place, and that place is to remind me that I should not ever take this position for granted. And for the most part I don’t. Telecoms is an industry in flux, as the early part of 2000 showed. Put it this way – of Alastair and I and his brothers and sisters-in-law, 5 of the 6 of us worked in telecom. Of those 5, 4 of us were laid off and 1 of us had their contract cancelled. We’re all back in telecom with other companies, but not a single one of us take these roles for granted. We all remember being unemployed.
I am going to work hard at this job. I know this. I want to prove to the company and to myself that I am the right person for the job, that the insecure little girl who grew up with nothing has worked her ass off to get somewhere.
And in the meantime I’m going to accept that maybe many people have a work and a home persona and that who I am at work is ok, even if the pragmatism should be checked at the door when I leave.
-S.
PS – the lucky socks have found homes. One pair is off to Melody and the other pair off to Lani. I hope both of them keep us posted with their progress and at some point, send back the socks to go to the next recipient.
PPS – my girl who cannot spell things properly alerted me to the fact that my Twitter account – long dormant – had been hacked and I was apparently promoting designer handbags or some such shite. I’ve taken back control of my account and re-activated it, and can be found here, where I will be occasionally writing 140 characters or less about things that are amusing, since I am the kinder, gentler (hopefully more amusing) me.
1) Felicity asked how big the proposal billboard really is. Since Felicity is very nice indeed and she sent me info about an Elf-Along they had in Boston over Christmas, then Felicity gets her wish.
This is Nora sitting in front of it on Christmas Day.
Nick was too mesmerized by the lights to move.
2) If the weather holds (so far it’s not looking so good) then I’m off to a meeting tomorrow. I have also pinched a nerve in my neck, so I’m walking like Igor. This is bad news, as my laptop with the new company is brand new, but it is the size of a desktop. Seriously, if you were to wield this bad boy you could kill a man. If the pen is mightier than the sword, then this laptop is the fucking dog’s bollocks of modern warfare. So if you see a woman wandering around tomorrow looking like her ear is sewn to her shoulder, then why yes you can carry her bookbag, thanks.
3) Still waiting for my Something Cool item to transpire. If/when it does, I’ll mention it (I’m still moderately concerned I’m being done. I’m very gullible like that). But seeing as we only had post deliveries twice last week (and don’t get me started about the bin men – if they don’t come soon my OCD is going to go into overdrive), it’s too early to tell.
4) The something bad has transpired. It’s no secret that I have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS). When I was first diagnosed years ago, I was told I would almost certainly develop complications. Two of those complications have come to pass, instigated by EDS and kicked off by the cold. Last week my GP confirmed that I have Raynaud’s Disease. It’s ok, it’s mildly annoying but there’s fuck-all you can do about it apart from suck it up and disgust people with the white, unfeeling fingers. Brilliant. But I was also diagnosed with early onset osteoarthritis. It’s not too much of a surprise, I was told I would almost certainly develop arthritis and develop it early in life, what I’m surprised about is that I developed it quite so soon.
Oh yeah – and I also get to have a hysteroscopy (not from a joint doctor though. That’s a step too far for all of us.) It turns out my parts aren’t working right, and after all I have 196 tampons to use. They’re going to determine if my issue is gynaecological or hormonal, which if the problem is hormonal then my GP said I’d go on HRT.
“HRT?” I asked. “Hormone replacement therapy?”
“Yes,” he confirmed. “We’d probably put you on the Pill.”
Oh, the irony.
5) speaking of ironic fertility, about those socks…
We had a few ladies nominated for the lucky socks (there are two pairs at play here) from this post. I also got an email from a lovely commenter named Melody, who does blog but her blog is friends and family only and so she doesn’t blog about her IVF treatment. She sent me what I can only describe as an utterly charming email that made me want to adopt her, which I’m copy and pasting below, with some changes to protect her identity.
I’ll be on my 4th IVF cycle this January, and I’d love some mojo, so I’m putting my name into the hat for the chance to be a Lucky Sock Lendee. I have short toenails, I use Tide detergent – the vanilla lavender scented kind when I can get it – and regularly use fabric softener. I live in Minnesota, which is freezing cold and as dry as the desert during winter. I say this because I’m pretty sure if you send the socks to someone in a warmer climate, they will sweat all over the socks – I’m just saying. I am also proficient in darning, should there ever be a sock-related emergency.
As for whether I and my husband are deserving of children – well, is anyone? They seem to be a gift given or withheld on a whim, like falling in love or being able to fall asleep. Instead of trying to convince you that we deserve children (and imparting loads of guilt, as only a Scandinavian can), I’ll just give you a little info about us: I’m Melody (patient, calm and strategic) and I live in Minnesota with my insanely adoring husband Stephano (genius, passionate and respectful). He’s originally from Greece and I have spent my entire life here. We met late in life, marrying when I was 34 and he was 42. Now I’m 37 and he’s 44. This might be our last try for IVF (fresh cycles anyway – we’ll probably try to transfer whichever embryos we can freeze in the next year) – we’re getting up there and the chances of DS are starting to scare us. I have polycystic ovarian syndrome and produce many eggs (28 last time) and Stephano has motility issues (and I found you through googling those two issues together!). We’ve had good luck with the eggs fertilizing when ICSI is used, but we have yet for anything to implant and grow successfully. In the end, we’ll accept the answer that life gives us – yes or no – and do our best to choose to live a happy life together. Still, wouldn’t it be nice…
6) I’m leaning towards almost certainly committing to trying to go to BlogHer. I realize the wishy-washy nature of that statement is appalling. I would book it and my air fare today, but money this month is a bit short. Additionally, I have another issue at play – I’m worried I’m too much of a dork to fit in. No really, hear me out here – I’m fairly socially inept. Add in a rather paralyzing fear I have about being Billy-No-Mates in the corner, and I have a terrifying scenario playing in my mind. It goes thus:
I show up.
No one has ever heard of my blog, ever.
When I tell them of it they look it up and laugh, telling me I am a gross abhorrence to modern day blogging (which they will word as “Your blog is shit”, since no one says “you’re a gross abhorrence to modern day blogging”).
Once the laughing-that-turned-to-watery-eyed-hyena-laughing ends, they tell me to fox trot oscar.
Lather, rinse, repeat, until I am a sobbering and gibbering alcoholic mess in my hotel room, vowing not to leave my room until I’m 100% sure I can no longer hear the other women in their rooms, undoubtedly having pillow fights and doing each others’ nails, since isn’t that what we ladies are supposed to do?
I started my new job on Tuesday. It was a day full of induction that got called short due to the impending horrible weather. I don’t know if you’ve been following the nightmare weather we’ve been having here in England (and if you haven’t, then why haven’t you?) but we’ve had a bit of snow here. On Wednesday I couldn’t even get to the office as we literally had over a foot of snow. This may make those of you who live in snowy areas laugh, but we live in a part of the world (and in particular a part of the country) that gets very little snow. We have no snowplows and few gritters. So if it snows this much, we’re all pretty much screwed.
I got a new Blackberry (which was not ready and thus as useful as a chocolate teapot) and a laptop. Said laptop was not configured in the slightest so it was as helpful as a marzipan doorhandle (see how I worked those two similes in? Seamless. Totally.) My first call to the helpdesk went thus:
“Hi, I have a new laptop? And nothing’s working? And I’m not sure how to fix it?” (and yes, all of my sentences when calling help desks end like a question.)
“Right, is it turned on?”
“Yes. And that’s it.”
“You need to login via the intranet.”
“I’m snowbound at home.”
“Then there’s nothing you can do.”
“Can I use the laptop as a paperweight?”
“Have you reviewed the company’s health and safety guidelines?”
“No, where are they?”
“Online.”
“That’ll be a no then.”
And off we go. I tried to login as me, but apparently I’m not defined in the system as a person. Finally, my confirmation comes that I am indeed an android. At least the phone is up and running and the laptop, well, we’re working on it. I’ve met a few of my new colleagues but in general the office has been empty. I went in yesterday and today because nothing says “You hired a slacker” like the new person not showing up for work the first week, snow be damned. I also met a guy who promptly said this:
“Oh you’re American are you? All this economy shit is your fault.”
Brilliant! Day Two in the office and my first enemy!
Honestly, I think I really like the job. My kit’s not working, I’ve yet to meet my team, and on Day One of my role I found out that not only would I be managing a large key program but that I was also going to be a line manager. People actually will be reporting to me. I blew a synapse when I heard that and then simply decided to take it in stride. I will not only be managing a program, I’ll be managing 6 people too. This from a woman who’s been trying to teach her son to say “Dude” and her daughter to reply “Sweet”. The benchmark of maturity, that’s me.
The weather has really screwed everything up. I loved the snow for a while but I’m so over it now it’s not funny (she says, with a weekend of snow forecast). Melissa and Jeff were due to leave Wednesday night but their flight was cancelled. We’re now waiting to see if their flight tonight will go or not.
What made it all one million times worse is the fact that when the storm hit on Wednesday, I realized something huge:
We were low on milk.
We were low on bread.
We were low on eggs.
We were low on Diet Coke.
And the real horror unveiled when the truth was revealed: we were low on coffee.
I swear I nearly had a nervous breakdown. It was all I could think about. I know it’s completely ridiculous – apart from the milk (the babies’ needs) and the coffee (the parents’ needs) we have a laughable amount of food in this house. It’s absolutely unreasonable, but it’s just One Of My Things. I need milk, bread, eggs, coffee and the additions of juice and toilet paper (both well stocked right now) to keep my universe in check. It’s totally unreasonable, I get that, but it’s how I roll. Fortunately when Alastair made an airport run with the kids he came back with milk, bread and coffee and it literally was like a valium via staple form for me. I wanted to gather up the provisions and hug them and squeeze them and call them George.
It didn’t help that while he was gone it was snowing like a mother and the power went out.
Let me repeat – the power went out.
There I was, home alone apart from two babies who pass clean out at nighttime. The entire area plunged into darkness. You’d think my immediate worry would be the heating, but no. The babies were well-covered and would be fine, I didn’t spare a thought for the heat.
My first concern was the serial killers.
The dorky chicks always get it in the horror films. They never make it. Now I know better than to run upstairs when they come into the house, I know not to parade around in my bra and knickers waiting for someone to axe their way through the door. But still – one can’t help but worry.
They say on the news that people aren’t panic buying to which I say: like fuck. Our local shop today was out of bread, milk and eggs. You might think that would make me fall to pieces, but I took matters into my own hands. On Thursday, on the way home from work, I took a stand and went to the shops and sorted myself. I bought fruits and vegetables. I bought frozen food (if we lose power again, I’ll just chuck it outside). I bought 18 eggs. I did not buy alcohol, what do you take me for, an amateur?
I bought flour, so that we can make bread should Armageddon the oncoming snow snarl everything up again.
That’s seven cartons of milk right there. I felt like cackling gleefully as people battled over fresh milk, as here I was in a practically unvisited part of the shop buying long-life milk. Sounds disgusting but tastes fine and the babies, they need milk.
Of course I also bought two cartons of fresh milk.
I also bought 196 tampons.
OK, wait – the tampons I can explain. I’m not planning a massive hemorrhage or a home hysterectomy. The local shop had box after box of them marked down by 70%. Tampons – as any woman who bleeds will tell you – are expensive little fuckers. I wondered aloud why anyone would mark down tampons, as it’s not like they’re going to expire or anything. It transpired that the tampons are boxed under “the old advertising” and the maker of the tampons are soon launching a new design.
I excel at three things: hand jobs, risotto, and bleeding like a stuck pig. I bought every single marked down box of the uncouth tampons because I was never fashionable anyway.
There you have it. I am now calm and no longer shaking due to daiey/carb shortages and am able to meet the oncoming snowstorms square in the eye. And I’ve realized a truth too – should the end of the world come and I’m a survivor, I won’t have to worry about my total ineptness killing me off as well. The other survivors will absolutely kill me themselves, I’m that fucking annoying when it comes to end of the world scenarios.
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