one step forward, two steps back

So, this morning i left a long comment about jealousy etc. on Catherine's blog and then went on to read my work email. (Why, yes, blogs are more important than work email!) So perhaps, since jealousy is the subject of discussion, it was inevitable that i should recieve in the email a short note from my colleague F.

F., who i used to consider a friend, gets my vote for 'female aquaintance who treated me the worst when Nicolas died', though there is B. who was a very close second. The brief details are that F. never emailed when she heard the news, even though we were working together on organizing a session for a conference that summer. When eventually she *had* to email about said conference, she wrote that she 'didn't know what to say' (not, like, i am sorry for your loss or anything). Just a thought: she *might* have said 'oh and the next time you see me i will be 5 1/2 months pregnant' but, umm, apparently she didn't think of it. Well, that was a lousy conference for a wide variety of reasons anyway, not just that it was only a few months after Nicolas died.

Anyway so F. sent me this email, with a quick question about a citation, and a picture of her 2 kids. I thought to myself, i should not open this picture, so of course i did it anyway -- and i am still depressed over it. All *her* kids are beautiful and healthy, and yes of course -- alive. (And she has tenure too. Ouch. )

The thing is, when i saw her at another conference last summer, she showed me pics of her kids, and i was happy to see them. Her little boy G. (yes it was a boy she was pg with that summer) is an absolute doll, he is so cute. He is what, 2 and a half? A bit younger than Nicolas would be. I was honestly happy to see her beautiful kids growing up. And i was pleased that i was happy, i thought that was a big step for me. Well, okay maybe it WAS, and i am going backwards now. Which also sucks.

A former student of mine just dropped by my office holding a bucket of wooden geometric solids.....included in which were some hardwood conic sections! It was SO COOL! Hardwood conic sections!! MUST HAVE hardwood conic sections!! I immediately spent half an hour tracking them down & ordering them on the internet, ooh they will arrive in a few days, i am so excited!!

I'm a hopeless geek, aren't i?

You would THINK....

....that i could leave dh in charge for a few slim hours, right? So, Saturday morning i went to an inservice about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome at the pg center, i was gone for 4 hours. (as an aside -- it was interesting but a bit annoying -- the lady doing the presentation was all about how OH MY GOD we cannot even have the smallest sip of wine during pregnancy or breastfeeding if we want to have a healthy baby because we DON'T KNOW how much alcohol exposure will cause brain damage etc. Ok true enough and it's not like i drink when i am pg but eventually it got to me, especially when she said that she thought you should stop drinking alcohol 3-6 months before TTC. Okay come ON lady. I mean we ALL know that you can do every damned thing right -- and i DID, except i did drink before i knew i was pg with Nicolas, so, uh 2 weeks -- and still end up with a dead baby. So let's not have a freakout fit about a glass of wine, eh? Sheesh.)

When i got home:

(1) Boo was completely missing. We could not find him anywhere -- apparently he was under A's bed when dh got the really intelligent idea of vaccuuming in that room and totally scared him. Then he ran out, yowling, completely freaked out C and disappeared. Later in the day dh found him hiding in the corner of a closet, but found him how? By taking a stick and POKING around in the closet until he poked something that moved. He really has it in for that cat. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!" i screamed but it was too late, the cat got poked. Someone page the kitty psychiatrist.....oy.

(2) The cat food was missing from the bowl. "Where's the cat food?" i asked. "well, i had to take it away because C was eating it", said dh. Enough said.

(3) This one is the scary one. Apparently noone had been watching C and she had climbed up the ladder all the way to the top of A's bunk bed. This is *really high*, it is 6 feet or thereabouts. He is supposed to take it down when he is not in the room, because she is prone to try this stunt. If she had fallen, she could have been killed. It still makes me nauseous to think about it.

I will never leave the house again.

This week's maternal advice

"Don't kick your mother in the head"

Pictures of work -- Nicolas' sweater

I don't know if this picture shows up decently -- i can hardly see it on my lousy screen but that means nothing. (I requisitioned my new laptop a good month ago, so maybe it come soon? HA) So, if it doesn't show up, i will take the picture again.

Anyway, this is Nicolas' sweater, though originally it was meant for my nephew L, who managed to grow out of it before i finished it. So, i finished it anyway and decided it would be for the next baby in the family (it is all boys in the family -- C is the first girl). So i had it almost ready for Nicolas, all it needed were the buttons which i had went and bought just two days before he died. Apparently i bought too many because i have 4 buttons and only 3 button holes. I never sewed them on but i placed them on here so you can see them. They are little bees, or beetles, or something.

The only thing i actually made for Nicolas, (rather than this hand-me-down) was a little hat, after he was dead, and for his funeral (which was after the autopsy so i had to have something to cover his head). I had no double-pointed needles so i had to make it on straight needles, without a pattern, (plus i was bawling my eyes out) so it was a total mess-up. I mean really, a complete embarassement. But i can't think anybody noticed but me. It was a really nice yarn, though -- a red cashmere/merino blend that i had bought in switzerland, that was supposed to be meant for a scarf for dh.

Boring blog

I got my seeds yesterday! **happy dance**

It occurs to me that this has probably been rather boring of late -- talk of cats and seeds and whatnot. I'm kind of in a slump and am going to be staying there for awhile, i think. So it is easier to babble about the mindless flotsam and jetsam of life than to try to tackle any *real* issues. I just don't really have the energy for the real issues. I am doing OK, i am holding on, i will be fine. But it is a difficult time of year.

Now i have to go give blood, oh good fun.

never mind

He's back under the cabinet again....sigh. Oh, and his official name is Boo. Which, i do admit, rather fits him LOL.

progress

The cat, pictured here under the kitchen cabinets, has now moved to living under A's bed.

jealous

I got home this afternoon -- after a long day of lectures in calculus, committee meetings, worthless phone calls to the bank, filing paperwork, students failing their tests, etc etc etc -- to A on the first day of his week-long 'winter break'. Apparently he spent it in his pajamas, in bed, drinking soda and eating snacks, reading some good sci-fi novels.

Okay, now ordinarily nothing would induce me to consider being 13 years old again, but man i could really use a day like that....

Let's just name him Erwin

Oh, did i forget to mention i am now the proud owner of a cat? Indeed, i wanted a dog but i have got a cat. The way this happened is the following:

There is a lady in our neighborhood who takes in strays and finds them home. A good year+ ago when we bought our house, my dh told her that he would take 'at least one', and picked the one he wanted -- an attractive black one with white paws. So this cat has been living with the neighbor since then, she has been saving him for us. Since she currently has 9 (yes NINE) cats in her house, her pleas for us to finally take him to live with us have become rather urgent. However, my dh had made the blanket statement that no pets of any sort would be allowed until the renovation was complete and we were living in the main part of the house.

Ok, says D (the cat lady), but maybe the cat should just come over for a visit, while dh is gone, just to get used to you. So i said, fine whatever, bring him over on tuesday, i'll be around all day.

So, she brings over the cat. Upon finding himself in a new place, a new very noisy place (read: hardwood flooring going in) with new very noisy people (read: C), the cat immediately makes a beeline to...a tiny hidey-hole underneath the kitchen cabinets. And stays there -- we cannot dislodge him no matter what, he will not come out! He has been in there 4 days, and finally has ventured out in dead of night to use the litterbox (a great relief to me), but that is it. D. has come over several times to coax him out to no avail. So i guess that means he is ours for good.

Anyway, so i emailed this little fiasco to dh -- i mean really, it smacks of some female plot to introduce the cat under the radar of the man of the house, eh? But in fact it was just a bit of bad judgement....he was not amused...

However i do admit that the cat is no trouble whatsoever, seeing as you can't see him, you can't smell him, you can't do anything with him. You don't even know he is there. Dh said it was a bit like Schrodinger's cat...and in fact it is very much like that, except there is no mechanism for instant cat death under the cabinet....

C is totally confused about the whole thing. She can not really see him under there, but everybody keeps talking about the kitty. So she puts up her hands in this totally exasperated gesture of "*I* don't know, stop asking me!!"

definitions of self

The other day i ran into the guy who works in the booth at the parking garage. He used to talk with me all the time, when i used to drive in to work, and when i was pregnant with C. Then i was on maternity leave and then we moved into the new place, and now i walk to work -- so i never see him. I do not think i have seen him since before C was born. But he still remembers me, and said hi when he passed, and asked about the baby. I got to say 'she is 18 months old now and is doing well!'. And when i walked away i said under my breath, "Thank you God, that i did not have to tell him that she was dead."

I just mention this story because later that same day, i was killing time reading some infertility blogs. Normally i don't read IF blogs, because i am kind of a fertile myrtle myself, so (a) i feel bad and (b) i can't really relate. But i have been in such a funk lately that whenever i do manage to have time for myself, i waste it away doing nothing on the internet -- and one afternoon i changed my obsessive lurking on grief boards to an obsessive reading of blogs aplenty. And on this particular IF blog there was a post about 'why do fertiles read (and comment upon) IF blogs?' with like 50 associated comments. And one of them was an exchange which went kind of like 'some of the IF blogs have now become parenting blogs', and a comment about that a little after saying 'even though i have had a child i am still infertile, infertility changes you. So it is still an IF blog'. Ok i am paraphrasing all of these comments, to what i remember.

And it struck me from my exchange with the parking guy that not only was that true of grief and loss (which yes we ALL know that), but it also makes it difficult for me to truly define myself in a way which is consistent with the world's view of, or definition of, me. Nothing marks me, outwardly, as a grieving mother. Most people who know me, including those closest to me like my dh, would not define me that way. OK maybe they would have in the spring and summer of 2003, but not anymore. And no, Nicolas' death alone does not define me. It is part of who i am though -- and it just recently struck me how invisible a part that is. After 3 years, *nobody* sees it anymore -- except other 'sisters in sorrow'.

Heck, i can't even define the contents of this blog. Is it a gardening blog (which was the original intent) or a loss blog? Or even a craft blog, if i keep posting pictures of my work -- how about that? Or does it even matter? It matters only insofar as it relates to the larger question...

Distraction is good....

Well, this is the first time in like 6 years i have had a vegetable garden, so maybe i went a little over the top. But hey, i am starting from scratch, nothing to save from last year! I ordered my seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds and Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. I ordered:

-4 kinds of tomatoes ( Cherokee Purple, Yellow Bell, White Currant, Rouge d'Irak. The first two i love, the second two are new to me. I will also probably get some other more common varieties from the local garden center, like Yellow Pear or something)
-2 kinds of eggplant (Turkish Orange & Rosa Bianca. I have terrible luck with eggplants, the bugs love 'em, but i was unable to resist the pictures in the catalog. Anyone have any suggestions for growing them, except for pouring pesticide all over everything?)
-2 kinds of cucumbers (Mexican sour gherkin & White Wonder -- the white wonders make completely scrumptious refrigerator pickles)
-3 kinds of lettuce (black-seeded simpson, something called merveille des quatres saisons, and roquette)
-carrots (for Chloe, since she likes the book 'the carrot seed'), leeks (for the heck of it), swiss chard (rainbow chard, so pretty!!)
-watermelons. I got a yellow variety called 'petite yellow', we will see. Bad luck with these too but it was Alexander's request. Wonder if i should start them inside in peat pots, to give the melons time to ripen? Even in Virginia they never seemed to have enough time to ripen somehow...
-green beans. Well, they are purple, actually.
-herbs (basil and dill)
-flowers (sunflowers, zinnias, hyacinth bean for the vine application discussed in a much earlier post)

probably i have forgotten stuff too, since i don't have my garden plot plan in front of me. But that gives you an idea. Now, 40+ dollars later i am anxiously awaiting the arrival of my purchases....

synonyms

I think i have entered my spiral downward towards Nicolas' birthday in March. Though it is kind of early, i have like 6 weeks before his dates hit. So maybe there will be some dip upward. But, it won't be in the near future. The following is an excerpt from an email to S. that i sent earlier today -- unfortunatly it describes things rather well, and in fact the day just got worse...

Anyway i am still totally wigging out over small events. This time it was the lady at the bank who told me she couldn't tell me how much i owed on my mortgage because my name was not on that account? Uh, NO? Okay i guess i won't pay it then!!! But seriously it made me nearly cry and i am still hiding in my office. In an effort to resume normlacy i went to Starbucks for a chai and ran into someone from the department, who introduced me to some other guy and i forgot to give him my name and then i realized this after they left and was even more...crap what's the word? Almost overwhelmed but not quite. Ooh, check out this online thesaurus thing! Why there are a multitude of synonyms for 'overwhelmed' which completely describe the state of my life! Afloat! Agog! Bested! Bewildered! Confounded, confused, dismayed and dumbstruck! Done for, done in (no, not quite that bad yet) overcome, overwrought, panicked, puzzled. Stupified, even...How about stupid? It's not on the list...i like worsted, but isn't that a kind of yarn?

Hey, i ordered vegetable seeds this weekend! Thinking ahead for spring...March is nearly upon us :(

This week's maternal advice

"Smart girls don't eat soap"

D

Ok, so A. got a D in language arts. All A's & B's for the rest. As usual (last semester it was a C in social studies) the real root of the problem is that he failed to complete some assignments, claims he did not know about them. He has a 'homework planner' but fails to use it.

Anyway, so this morning i was talking this over with my friend M. who has a son in 6th grade (A. is in 7th). She said her son had been doing similar things in the 5th grade but now they have a handle on it. What she said was essentially this -- i need to sit down with him every day, go over each homework in each class, check it off on the homework planner. I need to check the homework for correctness. I need to remind him in the morning to turn his homework in, and ask him when he gets home if he turned said homework in. She said in 3 months, he would learn to do this himself -- get into the habit. But if i don't do it, he will go to high school, it will snowball and get worse and he will fail there. And he will then really be screwed, and "it will be all your fault". Direct quote. "i know you think you don't have time", she said, "but this is really important, this is his life, and you need to make sure he can do it -- you will have to get your husband to help you, and let something else go."

THIS is what people do with their children? Noone ever did that with me when i was growing up. And i never did it with A, and is that why now at 13 years of age he cannot remember to do his own work?

And what should i let go, exactly? The laundry, the housework, watching C? The bills and paperwork which are mounded here? Driving A. to his activities? My own teaching which i barely get done, or my research which is a joke, i have not looked at it for so long? Let's not even mention that one, it makes me want to puke.

What i REALLY want to know is, when did this happen? When did it ALL become the woman's job -- not just taking care of house and kids, but also the bills and the career -- working full time too? (Not to mention the house renovation) And whose fault is it when a crack appears, when something doesn't get done, when something is not balanced right? That's correct, you got it, it is MOMMY'S fault.

I know i am in a snit, because my dh is away(he usually *does* help alot) and i have to deal with everything, but really don't you think it is too much that in addition to every other damned thing on the face of the planet, i am expected to ask my 7th grader if he remembered to turn his homework in EVERY DAY?

Right, so i am going to go throw in a load of laundry, mix up some green paint to the right color, and grade a huge pile of calculus tests -- hopefully i can make some headway on that before C wakes up and i have to go pick up A...crap, i forgot to take a shower AGAIN....oh well.

pleasant surprises

The people from the RV sent me flowers, with a card that said 'Thank you for your hospitality!' I thought that was rather nice of them! I guess they realized it was, well, kind of pushing the boundaries of reasonableness...

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My colleague B. invited me for lunch. He is the reason i have this job, he essentially recruited me and convinced the committee to hire me. He is from Russia and has lived in this country 20+ years. Back in 2003, before we moved here, i came for a week to find a place to live. It was 4 months after Nicolas had died and one of the first things B. asked me is if i was 'over it yet'. I unfortunately burst into tears when he said this -- i was pretty thick skinned by that point but the jet lag had put me over the edge that day. Anyway back then i decided to forgive him this comment, on the basis of perhaps his english was not quite good enough to understand that it was truly offensive. In fact he communicates quite effectively despite his heavy accent, so it was a little leap of faith on my part to decide to believe that.

So anyway today we were having lunch, and he asked me if i could explain the word 'embarassed' to him. And then i realized that i was right, his english really *is* bad -- it's just that we usually talk about math or the weather or something and you wouldn't notice in that context. Because a word like 'embarassed', okay it is a long word but it is a basic concept and after 20 years you would expect the guy to know a word like this. So not that it was a surprise really but it was nice to know that i got it right 3 years ago. Sometimes i think i make too many excuses of people, that i forgive too much. But in this case, i was right to forgive.

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I had been planning on leaving my kids with the sitter tomorrow night to go shopping with a friend -- there is some special event at Victoria's Secret and she was all hot to go, so to speak ahem. But then my sitter called, her 3 year old is in the hospital (!) with respiratory distress and some kind of virus/stomach flu/dehydration etc. it is not good. So evidently she cannot come, and certainly i was not really upset even, as her son is far more important than my shopping trip anyway. But then my friend asked her hubby, and he will watch my kids & hers, and we will go! So that was very nice! I really hope T's boy is better though.

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After a series of mishaps and screwups, the tile in my bathroom is done! It in fact was not even supposed to be done because there were some pieces missing but he was able to get them and was able to finish today. I even took pictures to post them but blogger is so slow for me now that i don't think i will try..... maybe tomorrow!!

"just a few friends in an RV"

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Huh, maybe Lauralu was right about me needing some boundaries? Naaaahhhh....

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Actually, it was not as bad as it looked, at first anyway. Though the RV is admittedly the size of your average bus, this was very amusing to C who loves buses. Grandma came in a bus! The bus is in front of our house! We can go in the bus! The bus has a queen size bed and a full kitchen inside it!? At this point she became kind of confused....

There are really only 4 people, 2 who are sleeping in the RV (M and R, who have rented the RV for the weekend, they do not own it) and the MIL and T, who are staying in the house with us. They feed and amuse themselves for the most part, all i have to do is make coffee in the morning. So that was all fine, and i was not even perturbed by it...until the puppy entered the picture. I know, a puppy? like it wasn't strange enough before!?

First of all let me say that these RV people, M and R, are total strangers to me. T is a family friend -- in fact she was at Nicolas' funeral, when my own mother did not come. And she always remembers Nicolas and talks with me about him. She is a huge Steelers fan, so i am happy to have her here and i am happy that she got to go to the game. But these people M and R, i don't know them from Adam.

I told my MIL that while they were here, of course they could borrow one of our cars -- there was no need to drive up with the RV *and* a car. But i meant, borrow the car to tool around town...not borrow the car to drive 200 miles to buy a puppy. Which is exactly what R. did first thing this morning. I just hope he left me with a full tank of gas...

Apparently it is difficult to find the breed they like, Welsh terriers i think they are....very cute puppy, too. He is 12 weeks old....so R. gets back with this puppy, around noon. He showers, they change, and they leave for the game/pre-game fun. That's right, now i am babysitting their new puppy!

Okay, i gotta be fair. Actually MIL was truly the one stuck with the puppy. She didn't end up going to the game, you see. She is the one sitting out in the RV with the puppy now, at 11 pm, waiting for them to come home (i am going to go to bed as soon as i am done with the blog). She was the one who was responsible for the puppy since 2 pm or so...except when i did it. Basically i would have to say we all watched the puppy -- me, MIL, A & C. We were all naturally very curious where he was going to pee next! (he preferred the kitchen floor to the newspapers....three times) We could not take him out for a walk -- M and R had neglected to bring anything like a *leash*....or any doggie toys for him to chew on....luckily i found an old sandal of A's that he really took to. Because before that, of course, it was the plants and the furniture.


C had a great time playing with him, though. In fact it seemed like they were really the same age, it was funny. One would rip up a tissue, then the other would rip up the tissue...they got along very well, until they started to disagree. It was good fun watching them....i really do want to get a dog....

Well, tomorrow morning they are leaving, anyway, if they can pull out of the driveway without breaking anything (a logistical feat)!

Pictures of work (newborn pic)

Okay, i have just a few minutes here, just long enough to show off ;)

Okay Catherine, here is C at 1 week of age or thereabouts wearing her fancy sweater. It is not a great pic of the sweater but i don't have another one that i can find. What i should do is dig out the sweater and take a picture just of it, then you would see. That will happen, well, probably never. But what it is, is that the light brown is silk (100%) and the white that goes around is angora (100% and yes it cost me quite a bit, i thought i only needed one ball but i used 3) and the sweater is japanese-inspired so it is one of those little kimono-type deals with the ties on the side. Also the sleeves flare out and the end of the sleeves are also angora, but they are rolled up because they are too long for her. And it was boring looking when i finished it so i embroidered those pussy-willows onto it. In real life they actually *do* look like pussy willows so that is a minor miracle seeing as i can't embroider worth crap...it has matching booties but i never managed to finish the matching hat. The pattern is a adaptation (rather wide adaptation) of something in the Debbie Bliss "Baby Knits" book. More later...

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