Meltdown
I had a post about the babies being 9 months old today, complete with photos and all, but that'll have to wait as I go into a complete and total meltdown, complete with sobbing and shouting and hysterics. What finally pushed me over the edge wasn't the chicken pox or the plasterers or my broken vanity or Angus' bad moods or my 3 week old cold or money or work or the miserable fucking weather or the bat or anything remotely resembling something that looks like anything. It's the fact that tomorrow is Independence Day where I come from and courtesy of building it's going to be just another day of hellish renovations and stress.
I've hit my proverbial wall and can't take another day of this.
Be back shortly.
-H.
Hang On
The cavalry arrived last night to help, which is good because between builders (Helen and Angus? Yeah. We need the bathrooms tiles this weekend, the bedrooms painted so we can lay the floor down, and the sockets fitted. Good luck!), plasterers (who thoughtfully broke the mirror on my Edwardian vanity, but are paying to replace it and have gifted our home with that fabulous new plaster scent, which is somewhere between burnt hair and mildew), workload gone mad, colds, chicken pox, and my PMS, I was rapidly heading towards a meltdown.
Still no sign of the pox on Nora, and we're beginning to suspect it's what Rose commented yesterday - Nora's going to catch them from Nick, and she's in the incubation period, so we'll have several solid weeks of hell. The good news is, Nick has had no new spots appear in 24 hours, so we are hoping this means an end is finally in sight.
Be back tomorrow.
-H.
Heart - Stopping Moments
You know in the movies when the heroine is confronted by something truly horrifying? Like those slasher flicks where she throws open the closet door - because she was curious about the heavy breathing coming from her cashmere, presumably - and you have that heart-stopping second of pure adrenaline fear as you wait for the knife? And then you see it and your body gets dumped with chemicals as your brain tells you to jump and shriek?
I've had one of those before. Years ago on an archaeology dig that I worked at, a colleague and I went to collect some water. It was a very hot Texas summer and the water pump was underneath a silver trash can lid. My colleage lifted the lid.
There, curled around the pump, was the single biggest Bull snake that I had ever seen in my life. It raised its head at me.
And I screamed in tones that my throat had never before utilized.
It was one of those heart-stopping moments, where my body was flooded with adrenaline and I lost control of myself. I wasn't the only one. My colleague was so shocked by the snake and my response that she wet herself.
Like I said - heart - stopping moment.
On Saturday I was run ragged. Angus is reaching levels of stress so high that I am no longer counting to 10 or even 100, but am reaching new levels of counting to keep myself calm. Nick's chicken pox are such that he is literally covered in hundreds of spots. He has them on his tongue, in his ears, and on his eyelids. He has them on his man bits. He has them everywhere. He's also got accompanying runny nose and diarrhea, and to top it off he's teething. Nora hasn't come down with them yet, and I am so desperate to ensure they both just get it overwith that I'm tempted to rub them both together like sticks starting a fire to see if we can get her to come down with them. Hi! Mommy loves you so much! Now get sick, will ya?
On top of all that, Melissa's new bedroom is ready and our master bedroom is heading that way. Our to-do list was a mile long this weekend as we have to ready the rooms to get the floors in this week and we have to ready the downstairs for plastering and drywalling, which meant long hours of cabling for Angus (our house is being wired so that no cables are visible, everything is buried in the walls). We worked 16 hour days on Saturday and Sunday just trying to get it all done, taking care of infants in the duration, including one who is definitely not feeling very well.
On Saturday Angus took a happy bubbly Nora to the hardware store to get some needed items. Pox Baby and I stayed home, and I gave him an oatmeal bath (which he seems to enjoy). I carried him into another room and settled him in a bouncy chair, then went back to drain the tub.
There on the floor of the bathroom was a large brown leaf.
I looked at the large leaf.
The large leaf raised its head and hissed at me.
Heart- stopping moment number 2.
"Christ!" I screamed. "What the fuck!"
I backed out of the bathroom, falling on any number of paint pots, extension cables, and various other building detritus. Once I landed painfully on my ass I stared into the bathroom, unsure what to do. The leaf continued to hiss at me.
A bat.
We had a bat in the house.
This is probably where I should admit my true and utter geekdom to you, even though a number of you will read this, realize how tragically uncool I really am, and never come back. The truth is that I absolutely love bats. No really. I think they are seriously cool and amazing, and I remember spending loads of time in The Seychelles just staring at the fruit bats overhead.
I think bats are great.
I don't want them in my bathroom, however.
I walked into the bathroom and stared at the little guy. Wounded, shaken, scared, he continued hissing. I felt that surge of adrenaline pour through my body. I looked around - the bathroom is a disaster of newly plastered walls. My hands were covered by paint. Bruises went up and down every part of my body, highlighting the new thick dark scars on my leg, courtesy of that dishwasher incident. My carpal tunnel - a gift from my pregnancy - made it so that I could barely move my thumb. Angus would be back soon and he was not in a stellar mood. Nick set off wailing in the other room. And now a bat.
I started laughing hysterically. I had reached The Point. You know the one, The Point is that place where you are either going to crack or make it. I cracked. I sat down on the step and howled with laughter.
Then I wiped the tears off, went and got a yogurt pot, and collected my hissy fit little friend.
I contacted the Bat Conservation Trust, who came out on Sunday to collect him after I'd placed him in a dark box by the compost, which sees a number of insects. It was clear he was injured, and like I said I do like bats, so I wanted him safe. Not to mention that bats are protected in this country, and so messing with them is a real no-no. I wanted to be above board about the bat, and see that the rules were followed.
A man came out to collect him as soon as I got in touch with a local contact on Sunday. Said man - whom we naturally nicknamed Batman immediately - was a real fan of bats. Seriously. He even collects guano to try to identify bats. I took Nora outside and we handed over the bat, and we got chapter and verse about bats. I was mostly interested, but aware of how much work needed doing in the house. Nora was interested in the bat for a bit, but soon went from "Interesting little brown thing, Mommy" to "I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm so bored I'm about to make your life hell" mode.
Batman collected the bat, letting us know that he was not optimistic about his chances - the bat had a fractured wing, and he had puncture wounds from being caught by a cat. That one startled me - it turns out Maggie, whom we'd previously assumed couldn't catch a cold, caught the bat and brought him in during the short time it took for me to take Nick out of the bathroom and into another room. We're sure the bat's not from our house as we had a survey done, and if your home has bats you can't remove them. But the bat is from somewhere local, anyway.
I like bats.
Just not in my bathroom.
And I think I lost a few years off my life on Saturday. If you haven't read into this post that I'm stressed to fuck, then lemme' just assure you of it outright.
No more heart - stopping moments, ok?
-H.
A Pox Is Upon Our House
We have the pox, of the chicken variety.
Nick developed them late last night. This morning? They're everywhere, including on his tongue. Any minute now Nora - who currently has double ear infections and laryngitis - will come down with them.
I'd laugh and do the "I told you so dance" but I'm saving my energy.
-H.
Relationship Testers
They say that travelling can be a good test of a relationship. Or spending the first holiday together, where you alternate between families and have inadequate fumbles on your lover's mother's living room shagpile carpet. Or perhaps it's the arrival of a new baby, that's supposed to be very hard on a relationship (and ours is a testament to the troubled waters that can be found on that particular sea, I assure you.)
I think everyone's wrong. The greatest test of a relationship is home renovation. Nothing in the world makes you feel closer together, just as nothing in the world makes you want to take the IKEA catalog and ram it down your beloved's throat.
We knew it would be difficult going into this. What we didn't know was that I would spend the beginning of the build utterly depressed and he would spend the middle of the build utterly depressed. The noise! The dust! The snap decisions needed! The vetoing of said snap decisions by the other party! Did I mention the dust?
We had to make some rules around here, otherwise there was a good chance that the BBC would shortly run with the headline "Man found buried up to his neck in spackle." One of the new rules was the banning of the phrase "Do you want to do this right or not?" by Angus. I think it was midway through tiling the kitchen floor, on hands and knees covered in muck and dust and bruises, that it took every ounce of willpower I had not to get up and scream "No! I want to do this half-ass. I love half-ass, it's my most favorite thing in the world!" when he asked me said beloved question.
Instead I counted to 10 in my head, took a deep breath, and explained why I would prefer he not ask me that question anymore, but to use the basic assumption that I wanted things done right. He agreed to remove that question from his inventory. I'm not sure if it was my slightly unhinged way of asking him that did it, or the fact that I was holding a large crowbar. Whatever it was, it worked. And it was the last time I counted to 10 in my head. Now I'm counting to 100.
I think it's safe to say we're reaching new levels of depression regarding the house.
The entire house is covered in layers of dust. Seriously. The plasterers, the dry-wallers, the brick builders, the demolitionists, the carpenters, all of them have turned the house into a walking example of the dust bowl. You have to wear shoes in every single room of the house now, and the only places you don't wear them are in bed and in the babies' cots. It's that bad.
And this morning they started tearing down the wall to our WC, so we're down to a house with just one toilet now.
Clearly this was the wrong day to face after having taken two laxatives. No, this is not me returning to my purging days. It is, however, me confronting being plugged up like a Thanksgiving turkey and courtesy of my previous abuse of laxatives, just one won't cut it.
Of course, it's not so nice knowing that if you gotta' go, you gotta' go with a view.
That hole in the wall is now a window (the bathtub was then filled temporarily with a dust cloth when they knocked a hole in the wall. I failed to see the point of that, but whatever), as the room is being turned into a single bedroom, which will be Jeff's domain. But we're now showerless until the bathrooms are built up, so we sit in the bathtub and use the handheld unit to wash. It's big fun.
We're spending the weekend cleaning and dusting the place, as at least the demolition is done and the dust should be subsiding. We just can't take it anymore. We feel like the most slovenly people on earth, when the truth is we just gave up on dusting and vacuuming because more came every day. Now there's an end to the mess in sight, and we can't wait to stop feeling so gritty.
The kitchen is still on hold until other parts of the house are done, but at least it's useable now.
There is an end in sight. The two new upstairs bedrooms are done with drywalling and are being plastered. One of them - the room that will be Melissa's - is even done with plastering, and the floorboards go in it on Monday.
This means I get to spend the weekend painting it, first with a watered-down solution and then with lots of white. We're just flinging white paint around everywhere so that we can get moved in, we'll worry about painting rooms colors later.
The master bedroom is about to get plastered today (and not in the good tequila kind of way, either). It will also get painted this weekend, and floorboards go down on Monday.
Know what that means?
It means we can move into these rooms by mid-next week.
And not a moment too soon, because we're really going crazy. Wouldn't you, if your room was like this?
-H.
PS- I reviewed The Fertility Journal: A Day-to-Day Guide to Getting Pregnant in May, and the book sits unused on my shelf. I would like it to go to someone who can use it, so if you're trying to get pregnant or going through IVF and think you can use this journal, let me know and I'll send it off to you.
UPDATED - just to note, the washing machine is only in the kitchen temporarily, the utility room isn't finished yet (or even plumbed in for that matter), but once it is the washing machine moves out of the kitchen.
It's a Funny Sort of Plan
I'm off today for an overnight conference in London. I've been putting it off and putting it off, but there's no longer any chance for escape. I really, really don't want to do it, largely because it will be the first time I am not just away for putting the babies to bed, but away for getting them up, too. I hate that. And I don't like sleeping away from Angus - cheesy Disney sappy, but it's true.
But a small part of me is looking forward to this, too.
You think I'm meeting up with old friends? Going to a bar? Maybe a little Mexican food and some dancing?
Not quite.
See, it's an all-day conference and then a dinner, then back to our respective hotels for sleeping. But I'm skipping the dinner part. I'm going to the meeting all day, doing what needs to be done, then I'm going back to the hotel. I'm going to have a long hot bath, and then I'm taking a sleeping pill. And not just any sleeping pill, I'm taking one of those Good Ones. I had a Good One once and found that they hit you like a trainwreck - it was so good I woke up the next morning and found my vibrator was still in my hand, no less (I can't be the only one that's happened to.) I'd completed the money shot, switched it off, fell asleep instantly and didn't move all night long.
I'm so excited about taking a tablet and getting loads of sleep not brought on by sheer exhaustion and aching renovated house muscles and then not waking up to builders and bottles and bitching that you wouldn't believe it.
I'm 34 years old, going to be in London overnight, and all I plan on doing is going to bed by 8pm, whereby I plan on getting almost 12 hours of sleep, something I haven't done since before I was pregnant.
I'm not even bringing the vibrator.
See you Thursday.
-H.
Mary Poppins?
A quandry.
The babies have been attending their nursery since March. It's a nice nursery, a good nursery yes? Yes.
Will now be singing Fiddler On the Roof songs for the rest of the day.
Anyway. The nursery they attend is several villages away from where we live. It was the only nursery in the area we could get the babies into, it's got "Outstanding" on the Ofsted ratings, and apart from the odd biting incidents, the babies seem to get on well there. It's been a real learning curve, and it can get frustrating since most of the carers are quite young and not so experienced with babies, but in general the babies' have really thrived there. Nora is a real favorite amongst the staff and when Nick goes down for his naps Nora - who is more of a nighttime snoozer than her brother - gets carted around and visits the older kids' rooms.
The problem is that not only is this nursery quite a drive from the house, but it's expensive. Shockingly, eye wateringly expensive. Even with a company discount and childcare vouchers, we are hit very hard by the cost of nursery fees. Luckily I chucked my entire bonus in a savings account last year, and despite the row that move caused, I've been glad for it - it's helping fund the monthly childcare cost.
There is another nursery in the picture now. Closer to the house - on a nice day even within walking distance - we've been trying to get into it for ages. It got a "Good" rating from Ofsted, but it's run by the county council and is not a for-profit nursery like the one the twins currently attend. What's even more of a driver for us is the fact that the nursery bill will be slashed by £950 a month. £950. I don't know what your monthly incomes are like, but that £950 is a huge relief, and means the difference between being able to pay the nursery bill out of the paycheck instead of hitting up a savings accout that's getting so thin it's nearly anorexic.
We toured the new nursery on Thursday to make sure we were happy with it. We showed up during a juice break, and the kids were all gathered together and were singing and such. Everyone seemed happy. The nursery was clean, stocked with all kinds of arts, crafts, and toys, and the baby room was a happy cheerful place.
We agreed this is what's best for the family as a whole. The babies will be happy and safe, our nursery bill will be slashed dramatically, and the nursery staff were older and more experienced. We turned in our notice at the babies' current nursery.
And then.
Harriet is a young woman who is currently the babies' primary carer at their nursery. She absolutely adores the twins, and they respond well to her. She's level-headed, firm, and doesn't have a problem dealing with toddler tantrums.
Harriet pulled me aside on Friday and asked if we would consider hiring her on as a nanny, instead of putting the babies in a new nursery.
We didn't see that one coming.
We'd originally elected to not use a nanny as we felt they cost too much, and since we both work from home we worried we would interfere. Just the term "nanny" to me feels like some kind of posh realm that I have no right inhabiting. Nannies are for people who have their shit together, not someone like me who couldn't for the life of her find a rubber band this morning. Nannies are for the upper class. They're for people who jet off to Monte Carlo for the weekend and attend movie premieres with their boobs held in with special tape and get Botox every 6 weeks. They're not for people who prefer a nice bowl of macaroni and cheese while in their boxer shorts watching downloaded episodes of Brothers and Sisters.
But the more we thought about it, the more it sounded feasible. The idea that the babies were just a room away. Harriet said they'd still get socialization as she'd attend baby and toddler groups with them. She's really keen.
And now we're weighing up our options.
I'm in foreign territory here - I don't know how to employ someone. What happens if she wants a career change? Or if she gets pregnant - do we pay for maternity leave? If she decides not to nanny we're screwed - the new nursery the babies will attend is full until June 2010. We wouldn't be able to get a new place there, let alone two new places. What is a relationship like that like, employer to nanny? How are holidays handled? Taxes? Where'd I leave the remote?
Harriet is coming round to see the house later this week and talk with us. I think she'll be warned off just by seeing the state of the house, especially considering the fact that all of the bathrooms now have windows in them, and until the two new bathrooms are ready it means we're furtively peeing as fast as we can. Don't even get me started on the flashing that goes on when we shower now.
I'm maybe getting worried over nothing. It's most likely we'll continue with the plan of going to the new nursery, as it will likely come down to money. I wish it wasn't the case, and I'm not sacrificing the babies for the allmighty pound as all of the options we're weighing have been prioritized for their safety (although if I could find a pack of wolves who'd not only watch the babies for a fiver but would ensure the twins have access to all the bananas they want to eat, I'd consider it) and happiness, but the financial drain of the nursery they're in now is dramatic, and has to change.
Advice gratefully received here (unless you're going to tell me that I should take the babies out of nursery, quit my job, and stay at home. Don't go there.)
-H.
PS - Teresa was right. The "N" word is a word we all know, but one that I don't like being used here or anywhere else around me. If we can steer clear of that word, that would make me happy. That, and please don't use the word "ginormous". Ginormous is not a word and it pisses me off.
PPS - How did I handle that guy last week? I'll be honest - I wanted to blow up and let my inner sarcastic bitch run ragged over his ego. But I feel the industry is in flux, and that perhaps any day now I may wind up working for him (even though I won't. No really.) So all I did was smile sweetly in my voice, and reply "You think so? I've been told I'm many things, but vulnerable is not one of them. Now about the plans..." It made him stop talking to me in that soft voice of his, anyway.
Why I Sometimes Feel Like Wile E. Coyote Standing There With an Inadequate Umbrella
I'm having a bit of an issue at work, a small power struggle going on for the drinking bird project. What the chap doesn't know is that I won't fight him for the project, there are a lot of things to do and many projects to work on. He wants it? Fine. There are one hundred variants of drinking bird projects to work on, I'll just take another one.
Said chap said something to me on the phone yesterday - while discussing project structure and generally enjoying him throwing his weight around and doing "The Big I Am", he asked me about my background. When I explained bits I felt were relevant, he replied in sotto voce "I see. You're very vulnerable, aren't you?"
Wow. I am not sure I have ever been so patronised in my entire life.
While the truth may be that yes, I might be vulnerable, I am an entirely different person at work. As I understand it, in general I come across as a tiger. I actually have people afraid of me (me! Afraid of me! Preposterous, and very cool from an ego perspective.) I am one of the few people who you would describe as vulnerable at work.
I know why he said it. He did it to unsettle me, to make me feel insecure, to make me question myself. He failed at that, all he did was piss me off on a scale I hadn't been weighed in some time. He said what he did because I am a woman, and I have no doubt about that. Can you picture a man saying something like that to another man? "You're very vulnerable, Bob." "Thank you for empathizing Tony, I have long felt exposed and unappreciated."
Right.
It took me immediately back to The Handmaid's Tale, that piece of work that I still feel as a tingle in my toes. It was such a massive, amazing book that I wish I could un-read it just to read it fresh. It's a book which, at its core, is based on the subjugation of women (an issue close to my heart). It also is based on dystopia after some form of Armageddon, also something I find interesting as a general theme (which is why I like Stephen King's The Stand. A big bad happens. End of world nearly occurs. Few people survive and those that do get to pick their house of choice and start all over again. Hey we survived and we can get new curtains!)
Subjugation of women seems like a remarkably easy thing to me not just for society to overlook or accept, but as something that can reappear as a societal dictate at a moment's notice. I honestly always feel like we are one catastrophe away from being pinned down under the mighty thumb of men. Nuclear holocaust? Back to the kitchen with you. Some kind of religious war? Spread 'em and procreate, as whatever religious deity we follow intended. Insurrection? Ladies stay home, too dangerous out here for you with your delicate little feet. Hollywood tends to show women as being armed to the teeth and fighting guerilla-style should some kind of end-of-the-world kind of scenario come around (although pretty much without fail - Ripley and Sarah Connor excepted here - the women bite the dust. Usually while talking into a headset, face painted with green oily facepaint, and screaming the words "Keep going!") I don't buy that, though. I think if the end of the world kind of situation comes around, women are gonna' get it.
Maybe I feel there's some kind of latent blame still hanging around. "We gave you the vote and you turned around and stabbed us in the back by working your way up the corporate ladder." Or "We let you wear trousers and you reward us with a little thing called child support. Nice." I somehow feel that we're just one bad turn of world events away from being sent back to the opinionless world of being a woman (some have already beat us to it.)
We get the blame a lot. I think it started with Adam and Eve and went downhill from there.
Adam: Hmm. I'm bored. Think I'll take a rib - we'll just call it my rib, shall we, mustn't shock the children - and make a babe to keep me company. She'll be the first version of the fembot, here to make me happy.
Eve: Hello Adam. Wow, I love your hair like that.
Adam: Damn! She's opinionated. Something went wrong somewhere.
Eve: What?
Adam: Nothing. I'm hungry.
Eve: I feel an instinctual drive to feed you.
Adam: Where do I find food?
Eve: Do I have to do everything around here?
Adam: And can you tidy up around the tree here, too, it doesn't look nice?
Eve: Why can't you clean?
Adam: Woman's work.
Eve: How do you know that?
Adam: I'd explain it, but it's complicated. Involves ribs and all that. You wouldn't understand.
Eve: Oh look! A snake!
Adam: I don't like it to be called that.
Eve: Oh ha. The snake says we can eat these apples. Since you created me, my master, I only want to make sure you are properly fed.
Adam: No we can't eat those apples.
Eve: Yes we can.
Adam: No.
Eve: Yes.
Adam: Oh all right then.
Eve: Willpower not really your thing is it, Adam?
Adam: What can I say, I've been lonely. *Crunch* Holy crap! We're naked! Look what you did, woman! You tempted me and now I'm all ashamed of my, uh, well let's just keep calling it a rib, shall we?
Eve: Bite me, Adam. You get shame. God just chucked pain in childbirth at me as my punishment, let's assess who got the worse deal, shall we?
Adam: Curse you woman! It's all your fault!
Eve: How is this my fault?
Adam: You made me eat the apple!
Eve: I didn't make you do anything, you bit the apple of your own volition.
Adam: What's volition?
Eve: You're exhausting. You ate the apple by choice, oh husband of mine. I had nothing to do with it.
Adam: Nuh-uh. I asked God. He totally sided with me. All your fault.
And so goes the first of the blaming of women.
But of course it kept happening throughout history.
Joan of Arc: Milord, I have heard from God and he wants me to kick the fish and chip eating hoards out of our beloved country.
Charles VII: Wow, you are one crazy bitch, you know that?
Joan of Arc: Lemme' prove it to you.
(Joan gallops off, eyes rolling crazily, and leads amazing battles, gets wounded herself, generally sounds like a bit of a nutter, albeit a talented one, and returns to court smelling of blood, steel, and Camembert.)
Joan of Arc: You see milord, now you are King of France again and I shall continue my IM with God.
John of Lancaster: Women cannot lead battles. Women can definitely not beat me, it makes my rib look bad. I need to teach her a lesson or two. It's her fault that Henry VI isn't in charge. Also, she made me run my tights. She's to blame, hand me that lighter there and let's make an example of her.
Heaven forbid a woman actually eschew having a man around to lay blame on her. Elizabeth I, who did a lot for her country actually, is forever saddled with the image of being the white faced Virgin Queen. Apparently it's more relevant to associate her with her intact hymen, as opposed to her defeat of the Spanish Armada. She's viewed as a power hungry egomaniac, which I suppose isn't helped by imprisoning her sister, but seriously - how many of us haven't wanted to imprison our sisters? Maybe Mary Queen of Scots was an annoying bitch, who knows?
I may seem blasé about women getting knocked back to the medieval years, where we enjoy a pleasantly gruelling life as chattel less valuable than the average egg-producing chicken, but I'm really not. I just don't know how to tackle this. Education? What, do I say: Hi! I'm paranoid that Armageddon will occur and you'll subjugate women again! How about we not do that, m'kay? Where're you going with that syringe of thorazine? Shall I stop thinking this way? I would do, only I honestly feel that bubbling just under the surface is that constant threat that our roles and rights will be taken away until we're just considered Breeders. Or Unwomen, if you're unable to have children properly, like me. Fear does that to people - instigate something unpleasant and chances are a scapegoat is needed. Why not return to that which was already so comfortably normal for so long anyway?
It's easy to blame us, I think. Since we have to tote our goods in a nice tidy purse tucked up inside of us, we are viewed as somehow lacking in having cojones of our own. While great strides are constantly made I still feel like we are standing on a fragile shelf, and that any day now mankind will coming running towards us shouting "Takeback, takeback! Tag, you're not it! Now step into that corset and chastity belt because it's back to a life of menial servitude, deference, submission, and painful childbirth. Now go make me turkey pot pie."
-H.