Tiffs and Tats are common among married folk.  Heck, just this morning, Tim and I had a little spat about a slight miscommunication.  Well, in my book, he pretty much fucked up, but I’ll let him think I was just a poor communicator.  Because, I understand, it’s entirely possible — nay, probable, to hear “Can you please plan on attending Zoe’s performance on Friday morning so that I can go to work and she’ll still be supported” and reasonably translate that to “I think it’s a fantastic time to schedule some vital and important conference calls for Friday morning.”  Yeah.  That’s totally reasonable.  Totally.

I digress.  But only a bit.

So, I’m pretty understanding that these moments of real but not-so-earth-shattering stress are common, and, in fact, necessary for the health and well-being of good, strong marriages.  It wasn’t a surprise, then, when I was speaking to my dear friend  to be witness to one of her marital spats.  She, too, is a doula, and was unexpectedly called this morning to a birth.  She was ironing out some details with me for an unrelated issue, but mentioned that her husband was only slightly thrilled at being called unexpectedly to be stay-at-home-dad for the day.  Honestly, we really do understand their sacrifices.  And we’re empathetic. So that’s why, when her husband got all pissy about his unexpected task for the day, both my friend and I totally understood.

But he really crossed the line when he said “We’re planting that tree today whether you’re here or not.”   That was just too much.  Both my friend and I were incensed, our sympathies completely stretched.  And I was entirely on board with my friend when she replied bitterly, “You will NOT plant MY placenta without me!”

Yeah, your normal garden-variety marital spat.

One of the few casualties of the recent fire in my home was a beloved teddy bear fashioned from an antique quilt belonging to my grandmother (and, most likely, her grandmother as well.) When she passed away in 1985, an old pink and green quilt was unearthed among her belongings. It was in rather poor shape in several places, and, perhaps to the horror of many quilt-o-phile, it was divvied up in the form of four teddy bears, one each for the four granddaughters. The seamstress who made the teddy bears took pains to creatively use the pattern of the quilt within the structure of the bears, making distinct patterns on the bears’ arms, legs, bellies and faces. Truly, each bear was a remarkable, and loved, piece of history. Mine has proudly been in my possession for the better part of 20 years, and I cherish it.

Unfortunately, in the chaos of the fire restoration, I neglected to identify the bear as needing “TLC”, and it was mistakenly assumed to be “just another teddy bear.” It was tossed in the wash along with all of my kids’ stuffed animals. When I unpacked it in January, tears flowed as I found much of the bear in tatters. Well over 100 years old, the fabric simply could not withstand the stresses of the wash. It was ruined.

I half-heartedly investigated having the bear restored. I took it to a quilt restorer, who said she could do it, to the tune of a thousand dollars. While the insurance company and the cleaning company were technically responsible for the cost of the repair, it was difficult to justify such an exhorbitant cost on purely emotional grounds. Besides, I knew a replacement for the fabric would have to be found, and, despite being able to locate a suitable vintage fabric, I felt a sense of irreplaceable loss at the prospect of bastardizing the bear’s original make-up. It simply wouldn’t be the same. I had come to the realization that the bear was a loss. A sad end to the story.

It’s funny, though, how stories can seem to write themselves after they appear to have been written off.  My mother was approached today by a woman toting a plastic bag full of quilt scraps — scraps from the very same quilt used to make those bears more than 20 years ago.  You see, my home town isn’t too terribly big, particularly when you have a mother who’s very sociable and tends to make friends with even the trees.  The seamstress who fashioned the teddy bears 20 years ago had heard through the grapevine of the great bear tragedy, and it seems as though she’s a bit of a pack-rat.  She rifled through her great, grand stash (and it has to be, to have included items this old), and sought out my mother to return the improbable treasure.  And so it appears this bear isn’t so lost after all.

It’s hard for me to imagine how the fates lined up on this occasion.  An old quilt.  A bear.  A grapevine.  A bag of scraps.  Twenty years.  And Serendipity.  Indeed, there’s just a little magic in this story, and I’ve no doubt I haven’t seen the end of it.

When I said I was handling all this fire stuff with aplomb? I lied.

Folks, this pretty much sucks.

I’m living in a two bedroom extended stay hotel with my husband, my two kids, and, as of this afternoon, an 80 pound dog — who’s name, by the way, has been changed to Firestarter.

Yes, folks, Calvin the dog appears to be the lead suspect in the fire investigation. A few bags of miscellaneous “stuff” brought in from the car and placed, ahem, upon the flat stove-top (really, it just screams “treat me like a countertop!”), appeared to strike his fancy. We believe he reached up on the stove-top to investigate, and, upon sliding back down, turned on one of the stove’s eyes. Poof! That’s all it took.

As it stands, we’ll be out of our house for 4 to 6 weeks. During that time, the contents of our house will be packed up, shipped to a special facility, cleaned and ozonated. Every single wall and ceiling in our home will be painted. Our hardwoods will be buffed and recoated. Our carpets will be replaced. A wall will be rebuilt.  A floor will be repaired.  Our kitchen cabinets will be replaced. A new stove, a new microwave, and possibly a new refrigerator will be installed. New countertops will be installed. And the pantry will be entirely re-stocked. Spring cleaning on steroids, it is. Except, as it stands right now, I’d take a dirty house over this hassle pretty much any day.

And, despite trying to be up-beat about it all, I’m still stuck inside these veryclosefourwalls, and eating out nearly every meal. I’m making my case now for the insurance claim to cover the weight-loss program that will be necessary at the end of all of this.

So, forgive me if I’m not at my most thoughtful and introspective these days. Sure, I’m certain one day I’ll look back and, well, at least not cry, even if I don’t laugh. But, for now, I’m going to do my share of whining. In the far-more-insightful-than-she-realizes-words of my daughter, “Why did the fire have to pick us?”

I sit here typing this on one soot-covered Macintosh in a pair of pants and shirt that I bought just yesterday — the only clothes I have at the moment.

Yesterday morning, while with my daughter on a school field trip, I received a call from the Fire Chief. “Ma’am, we’re at your house. There’s been a fire.”

In all honesty, things really aren’t that bad. I don’t have a kitchen, every.single.thing. I own must be removed from the house and cleaned, and I’ll probably be “homeless” for 4-6 weeks. But, no one was hurt, nothing precious was lost, and, well, some things are just out of your hands.

I’ve really handled most of this with aplomb. Sure, I got a little shaky on the drive to the house after receiving the call — imagining the worst, of course. And a quiver came to my lip when Evan’s dear, sooty “Gerald” was brought forth from the house. I even was up a little last night doing some extra tossing and turning. But, beyond that, I really have been “ok” with it all, keenly aware that it could have been much, much worse.

And when I look at the soot-covered and singed — but still salvagable — Wicker Chicken sitting atop the one cabinet still standing in my kitchen, I know it will be all right.

Three years ago, when I was, oh, about 7-and-a-half months pregnant, we were in the process of moving out of our home, moving into temporary quarters for a month, moving out of temporary quarters, and moving into our newly purchased home. In addition to all this moving, there was the matter of working full time, caring for a 20 month old, and, oh, managing close to 13 contractors doing work on our new-to-us-but-oh-so-not-new home. Siding, painting, HVAC system, countertops, hardwoods, fencing…these were just a few of the things we had going on. This doesn’t even include all the work we did ourselves, including painting the entire interior of our home — including trim — in the afterhours of the day. And for each decision made, there were at least three estimates, contractors, and products reviewed prior to the decision. In short, it sucked.

So, when it came to the kitchen sink, which we both hated, the prospect of selecting a single sink and faucet among seemingly thousands offered from the special order catalog proved to be just. too. much. Simply, I couldn’t do it. I could not make another decision. And, so, the ugly sink stayed. For three. long. years.

I cannot begin to tell you how often over those three years I’ve said — out loud — I hate this fucking sink. Its shallow bowl and split-sink design were annoying, and the faucet was nothing short of ugly. It’s hard to believe one could hold so much disdain for a drain, but I did. And my husband did as well. Yet, we did nothing about it.

Until this week. This week, we cashed in some of our credit card rewards points and purchased a sink and three faucets. We only kept one faucet, mind you, but it took two poor choices and two trips to the fixture store to finally get it right. Third time’s the charm, I guess.

I’m happier than a pig in slop these days. My sink and me? We’re best friends. Doing dishes has never been more enjoyable. Certainly better than sliced bread, and frighteningly close to better than sex. I loooove me my sink.

Of course, I have to add that this project took one more trip to the home improvement center than already mentioned. We had to unexpectedly replace some of the plumbing, which would have, under any other circumstance, been reusable. You see, it appears that there was a sneakingly minute amount of food left on the drain, and you have to know what that means. Yes, folks, my dog has now eaten everything — including the kitchen sink.

It used to be, I was a morning person. I would wake up at about 6 in the morning, spring out of bed, shower, dress, grab something to eat, and be out the door to work. Most days, I was at work by 7 am, and I liked it that way. I was the picture of efficiency. I found the early hours in the office to be among my most productive, the calm quiet providing a medidative start to the day. And I scoffed at the folks arriving one, one-and-a-half, even two or more hours later. How hard can it be, I thought, to get oneself to work each day?

Then I had kids.

Funny thing, those kids. Even though you wake up even earlier than in your childless years, your start to the day is ever so much later. There are breakfasts to be served, bodies to be clothed and shoes to be found — all in addition to my own. My 7 am arrivals quickly slipped to 7:30 and then 8. Now that I’m home, we’re lucky to get out of the house by 9.

I caught a little taste of my old life yesterday. My husband’s office is being relocated, so he’s off for a couple of days. I’m particularly busy at work, so I thought I’d take advantage of the situation and head out to work early, free of the responsibilities of getting kids ready for the day.

The alarm rang at 6. I hopped out of bed, showered, dressed, grabbed something for breakfast and was out the door. As I was driving to work, on schedule for a 7 am arrival, I couldn’t help but remember those days from years ago. I was buoyed by the unencumbered start to the day. I was excited to get to work and hunker down for the day. I felt efficient. I felt free.

And then I pulled into my office parking lot and discovered that my badge — the only way to get in to the building at that hour — was in my car. My car, as in, the car that I’d purposely left at home because it had the child safety seats in it.

These kids, they have arms that reach farther than you think. Free? No, not free at all. Not at all.

It started off innocently enough.

“You know, Kristy,” she said, “You could host your own blog on its own domain.  Wordpress is really cool, and it would only take a little tweaking.”

The wheels started spinning in my head.  I know she probably meant it would only take a little tweaking on her part.  But, I figured, why not get my hands a bit dirty?

Step 1: Install Wordpress.  Easy Enough. Done.

Hey, this isn’t so bad.

Step 2: Tweak the skin.

So I don’t know CSS.  So, I don’t know wordpress’ template tags.  Hell, I don’t really know much, but, c’mon…I used to be technical.  I can do this! I will do this!

Hours later — far more than I care to admit — I’d made decent progress hacking my way through the jungle that is wordpress and CSS, but I just couldn’t figure one last thing out.  I pinged on Julie (thank goodness for IM), showed her my progress (”OH. MY. GOD. You Rock!” was her response), and asked her for a hint.  Graciously, she gave me a hint, and I went off trying to solve my puzzle.  A few more hours (again, more than I care to admit) later, I gave up for the evening, utterly spent.

Bright and early the next morning, I was back at it.  With my apologies to those who truly suffer from the disorder, my own tendency toward OCD was rearing its ugly head.  With an additional tool at my fingertips (Thanks again, Julie!), and a little more reasoning on my part, I finally figured it out.

Skin.  Done.  So what the “little tweaking” was really a major effort.  So what the “little tweaking” was really a massive time suck on my part.  So.  I got it done, dammit.

Step 3: Import from Blogger

“Well the good news is,” my mentor encouraged, “importing from Blogger is a snap.”

What she meant was, importing from old blogger is a snap.  Importing from Blogger Beta? Not so much.  A recalcitrant bitch, she is.  A day and a half of Google searches later (using Google, who owns Blogger, to wiggle myself out of the quagmire that is Blogger?  Now, that’s some Internet Irony), I found the answer.   Hot off the press — as in, literally posted the day I found it, the product of some enterprising individual’s time, and a self-described kludge, was to be my answer.  If only I could get through it.

So what I had to manually extract each month’s worth of archives.  So what I had to manually install an old version of WordPress on my server.  So what I had to upgrade the old version to the new version after I’d run the import.  So what I had to export the WordPress database.  So what the export only produced a 146k file on my Mac, truncating 9/10ths of the data I needed.  So what I spent hours trying to figure that problem out, only to find out I could do it on my PC with no problems at all.  So what, once I got the data extracted and went to run the import, the data included all sorts of duplicates that had to be manually corrected.  So what.  I got it done, dammit.

Now there’s the matter of categorization (yes, I’m going to manually categorize 500+ posts), and the matter of relinking (yes, I’m going to relink all blogger links to my new domain), and the matter of importing images.  These things?  C’mon, they only will take a little tweaking.  And the likelihood that I’m going to get down and dirty in the database, making raw data updates on my own?  Very, very high.  And I might even do it without backing the database up!

This stuff?  I love it.  It’s been years since I’ve worked in a strictly technical capacity, but it’s nice to know I still have it.  Sort of.

My
husband and I have rather purposely not raised our children under any
particular religious doctrine. Matters of faith, we think, are too big
to be dictated; One must choose what they believe on their own. Our
goal is to raise thoughtful, inquisitive young adults who find their
own answers to questions of faith, or, at least, find a place of
comfort in not knowing the answers. If that place of comfort, that
place of knowledge is within an organized religion, so be it. That will
be their decision.

It appears as though we’ve made great strides in paving the path of that journey.

“I’m
going to ‘merca,” Evan said to me this morning. His annunciation still
leaves a lot to be desired, so often there’s a little sleuthing to be
performed. He is quite sure, however, of what he’s trying to say, so
anything that’s repeated back to him incorrectly will be thus rejected.

“You’re going to America?” I guessed.

“No. I’m going to ‘merca,” he tried again.

“America?”

“Nooooo.” Clearly he was getting frustrated with his mommy’s inability to simply hear him. He raised his voice so as to be heard more clearly. “I GO TO MECCA.”

“Mecca?” I asked, clearly intrigued.

“Yesssss. Mecca!” At last! Someone was hearing him!

“Mecca,
huh? You’re making the Hajj?” I expected my addition to reveal his
obvious confusion. Surely, he did not yet know about Islam.

My expectations were not met. His response was an emphatic “Yes! I go to Mecca.”

Choosing his religion — at the age of three.

“Come on, Evan, let’s have fun cleaning the house this morning.”

“Yeah!”

“We’ll clean the bathrooms, vacuum the floors, and dust the furniture.”

“Yeah! Cool!”

“First, we need to get a dust cloth.”

Pause.

“What’s a dust cloth, Mommy?”

My most humble apologies to my son’s future wife. I’m just so very sorry.

Every one I know who says they’re done having kids is very adamant about it. “I’m done. Our family is complete,” they say with confidence. My husband is among this crowd.

I’m not so sure, myself. It’s not that I definitively want another child, but I definitely cannot say with confidence that I don’t want another child. By some obscure reverse reasoning, then, I’m left with an open door that I cannot seem to close on my own.

My husband is trying his best to shut it, though. Slam it shut.

“I’ll let you have a cat, but not another baby,” he said the other day. He’s been the biggest resistance to adding another living thing of any variety to our family. My pleas for a cat — of the tortoise variety, to match my dog, of course — have fallen on the same deaf ears on which my maybe-pleas for a third child have fallen. I suppose he decided relenting on the lesser of the two evils in his eyes would shut me up on the other.

Hearing his offer, I figured if he was willing to make a concession in our friendly stand-off, I would surely be smart to agree. I know, deep in my heart, that a third child is not in my destiny. I might as well, though, milk my position of influence for all it is worth. If he feels he must placate me, by all means, I will let him. “Be careful what you offer, Tim, I might just take you up on it.”

“Anything,” he said, “to get you off that baby kick of yours.”

A few days later, as I was vacuuming all the pet hair rolling around like tumbleweeds on my hardwood floors and lamenting at how completely incompetent my vacuum cleaner was for the task, I remembered yet another family acquisition my husband has been resistant to. I quickly picked up the phone to call him at work.

“Tim, I’m trading in the baby — not for a cat, but for something else. I want my Dyson.”

I realize this speaks volumes about my true feelings on another child in this family. Willing to trade a wee one in for a cat or a vacuum? Clearly, I have many issues to deal with. Not the least of which is: which one should I choose? Rest assured, though, the ultimate decision will not be without careful thought and consideration. For whatever creature comes to rest in this family — a cat or a vacuum, for clearly the child will not be — I have already put much deliberation into the question of its name. He or she will be called, quite simply, Omega.