Pink Prickly Pear

Cry me a river...a fast moving river swollen with snow melt.

I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be able to do this year's LIFE is Good conference justice with a blog entry.  I will say that I managed to take a couple of steps outside my comfort zone* and it made all the difference for me.  My family loves this conference, but until this year, I felt like the emotional roller coaster was a little too intense for me.  Way to make it all about you, Mama.  Bah.  I know it's not all about me, but at a certain point - like after Ronnie's excellent talk, which raised more questions for me than it answered, but in a most helpful way - one realizes that if one doesn't focus on oneself, everyone else is going to get shafted anyway, and possibly in a big, ugly, soul-crushing way.  Which is an obtuse and long-winded way of saying that while I've played everyone else's lay-therapist for years, it's really time to dust off the skeletons long banished to my rather insufficient closets and get my own house in order.  

At some point, I'm sure I'll write something substantial about the conference, but not yet.  I did feel prompted to write a treatise little something about the elusive nature of joy (whinge) this morning, but it's nowhere near ready for public consumption.  Maybe it never will be.  There's a reason I keep it short and snarky.  Harumph...and the like.

^{* Why is it called a comfort zone?  I'm not sure most people's comfort zones are particularly nice or comfortable, hence the need to step out of them.}

No, this isn't an announcement.

Part of getting old is realizing that if Mr. Pear left me for a woman half my age, it would be a legal, if lecherous, move.

poo.

i waited too long to sign mini-pear up for her class and now it's full. she's going to be none too happy.

i had to assert myself this morning.  i hate having to force someone to just shut up and do the right thing.  no, i'm not talking about anyone in my family.  they are already under my mind control.

and i hear i'm late to the party.  you're not supposed to double space after periods anymore.  there's a habit i'm not going to kill myself to break. 

My day sucks. How 'bout yours?

8 a.m. Roll over.  Realize I took the last daytime Alka Selzer Plus packet yesterday.  Also realize that using up said meds, putting on a smiley face and not canceling our play date at the pool yesterday probably fell under the category of Too Much, Too Soon/Overdoing It and has a lot more to do with my grogginess this morning than I'd care to admit.

8:30 a.m.  Someone is cutting their nails in the bathroom and it is so loud.  [Cue Bitchmother stage left].

8:45 a.m. Refridgerator repair company (hereafter referred to as RRC) calls to say they will be here between 1 and 3.  Yes, our fridge is broken.  Yes, it's a total pain.  Yes, now's the time to stock the freezer with easily reheatable meals for after the baby is born.

9 a.m.  Tea magically appears at my bedside and I'm sufficiently awake to call our landlord to let him know when the RRC is coming.

9:30 a.m. Wobble into the living room to email my doula.  Must cancel afternoon appointment with her.  Our house must be crawling with germs and she does a lot of post-partum night time work with tiny little newborns who do not want this nasty cold.

9:45 a.m. RRC calls to say they could come now instead of later.  I call landlord.  He's moved his schedule around and can't come now.

9:47 a.m
I call RRC.  We'd like to keep our original appointment. 
Dispatcher tells me that all six calls scheduled prior to ours have cancelled, so their guy would like to come now so he can have the rest of the day off. 
I commiserate, but it's not my problem.  1 to 3 is what works, so let's just stick with that.
I'm told 1 to 3 is no longer an option.  He could come on Tuesday.
I patiently explain that I am very pregnant and need someone to look at the fridge before Tuesday.
I'm told that as I'm the one refusing a newer, earlier appointment time, I'm just going to have to be a little more patient.
I ask to speak to a supervisor.
Supervisor adds a layer of untruth.  Our repairman is having a family emergency and has to go home early, so this is why they need to reschedule.
I count to ten.  Actually, I've already been informed that he'd rather take the whole day off than wait until 1 pm, so why invent some "family emergency" excuse.  BTW, here's my family's emergency:  I'm very, very pregnant and I NEED A WORKING FRIDGE!

By 10 a.m the supervisor at RRC, hereafter referred to as BOMFC (Bunch of Mother Effin' Clowns), has by now tried to bamboozle me with all sorts of untruths, culminating with an offer to diagnose the fridge over the telephone and so will order the parts for me and thus make "everybody happy".  She also tells me I'll only owe $95 service/diagnostic fee as the repair is covered by the manufacturer's warranty.  I explain that our honest friendly neighborhood appliance repairman already told me that we will not owe any service or diagnostic fee (because our particular problem is covered by the manufacturer's warranty) and to be very wary of any company that implies I need to do so.
Much waffling on her end.  Lots of over-explained untruths and attempts at general bamboozlement.

As I pace my kitchen, I suddenly remember that this is not my fridge.  I wash my hands of whole situation with BOMFC, give them my landlord's number and instruct them to call him and work something out.

10:15 a.m. Ask mini-pear to get dressed so we can go acquire more Alka Selzer Plus.

10:30 a.m. Ask if she's dressed yet, or just trying on different outfits.
She's trying on different outfits.
I use a bad word or two.  Pull the "Mommy's head is literally going to explode if she doesn't get any medicine" card.

10:31 a.m. She's dressed and in the car.

10:38 a.m.  We walk into the drugstore.  An employee with a huge bandage wrapped around his nose asks if he can "hep ooo".
Try to keep all inappropriate laughter muscles under control while asking where they keep the nasal decongestants.

10:40 a.m.  We're walking out of the store.  Mini-pear asks how the cashier knew I was pregnant.
"You're kidding, right?"
"No, how'd she know?  Because you don't really look pregnant, just kind of chubby..."
That kid is lucky I love her to pieces.

10:41 a.m. I plonk 2 disks into the plastic cup I've brought along expressly for the purpose of taking medicine a.s.a.p.  Reason that by the time we reach the grocery store, I'll feel well enough to get in a couple of things for us to eat (because, as you know, we have no fridge! and hence, need to shop for just a couple of items per day - which really works when you've been sick...for days).

I have no idea what time we got to the shop.  Medicine not working yet.  I haphazardly throw chard, sweet potatos, grapes and an english cucumber in our cart.  I know better, but I also grab some just add water soup bowls and some of those yogurt/green onion potato chips.

11:15 a.m. I call my landlord.  BOMFC have not called him yet.  I give him all pertinent phone, model and serial numbers and tell him I'll just leave all this unpleasantness in his capable hands.

And now?  Now it's 11:50 a.m. and I'm just going to go and lay somewhere like a lump.

Hold my calls.

I want to be all done now.

This is what a good portion of my living room looks like at the moment. Re-organizing and purging our paper files is something I've put off for years.  I keep our file boxes in my bedroom, but foolishly thought that if I worked on this project in the middle of the living room, I'd be more inclined to complete said project in a timely fashion.

Ha!

Will someone please come and clean up for me?  Pretty please?  I've never seen so much shredded paperwork in my life.

what i'd like to be doing today...

We had a quiet long weekend.  Oh, wait, it's Wednesday already!  Weekend's long gone. 

At any rate, I did not feel much like leaving the house and mini-pear had a little sniffly/scratchy throat thing happening.  As she was looking forward to day camp at the humane society this week, I thought maybe hanging around the house and resting up was a pretty good idea.  Mini-pear was not so sure.  She likes her running and jumping and climbing time at the park.  We managed to get a little of that in, but not for hours on end (as is her preference).  Our faux-Kapla blocks made an appearance, and that is always a good way to while away the hours.  We bought a set of 100 at IKEA a couple of years ago, and they are the coolest blocks ever.  Except now they've stopped carrying them, and if we wanted to add more to our collection, we'd have to buy the real Kapla blocks which are significantly more expensive ($45 for a 100 piece set, as opposed to $6 or thereabouts for the IKEA version).

So as I said, mini-pear is at camp all week, and I'd hoped to organize the house a little, find some way to manage the ever growing stacks of artwork and other mini-pear output, sort through some baby clothes, etc.  I'm doing a little tiny bit of that, but mostly I've been "ponderous", as Mr. Pear puts it.  I feel like I have so much on my mind, I might explode.  We're updating our home study for our adoption, and so I've been scheduling appointments and organizing paperwork.  It feels a little odd to be gathering all that information at the same time as I'm trying to reconfigure my prenatal care. 

That's where my "ponderous"ness comes in.  I'm compiling a list of questions to ask my new OB, but I'm also interviewing midwives and having a good long think about all my options.  So think-y!  I am not the type of person who enjoys this sort of decision making.  It overwhelms me, and being in a state of indecision wears at the old brain.  I sometimes find I rush the decision-making process, just so I can breathe a sigh of relief, "Well, that's all decided..."  I also don't have all the information I need yet.  I can't really decide until I actually meet the OB and see what he's got to say for himself, and I need to meet some midwives in person.  Not having enough information, and wanting to make a decision sooner rather than later is burning holes in my skull.  Patience is not a virtue I've spent much time cultivating.

I need a break from it all.  It's a little grey here this morning.  Perhaps a good day to knit in front of some deliciously bad television-streamed-over-the-internets.

Bring the house lights down.

Mama's about to get serious.

I dumped my obstetrician yesterday.  Actually, that's not quite true.  I haven't officially informed him, although I suppose all I'm really going to do is send a short notice requesting he transfer my files to my new obstetrician.  I doubt he'll be surprised.  Twice now, he's dramatically slammed the cover of said files closed, announcing, "You can always go somewhere else..."  And we had a somewhat awkward telephone conversation, where he yet again proclaimed that I could just vote with my feet - although he quickly followed that with scary admonitions about how I'd have a hard time finding another doctor who would support a VBAC (Vaginal Birth after C-section, for those of you not up to your eyeballs in birthing lingo) this late in the game.

Truth be told, I've sort of enjoyed our intellectual sparring.  I'd go to an appointment.  He'd inform me about something we'd be doing.  I'd go home and research it to death.  Then I'd go to the next appointment with my (often contradictory) findings and we'd argue about it.  It was like debate club, except I was half naked and he had a flashlight strapped to his forehead.

However, it's getting close to a certain someone's birthday.  At a certain point, our arguments, stimulating as they were, would cease to be theoretical.  And, while I will almost happily argue until I'm blue in the face at a routine prenatal visit, I'd rather spend my labor concentrating on something else entirely.

So, I've had my doubts and my nocturnal freak-out sessions, but I also have remarkable ability for burrowing my head in the sand (a completely useless, not to mention potentially dangerous, talent).  Sometimes, I need a little nudging, or perhaps a professional opinion.  In this case, I was interviewing a doula.  The interview was going very well, until she asked who my obstetrician was.  I told her and she became very quiet.  Then she apologized and said she could not work with him.  I realized that I wasn't altogether surprised by her response.  Her reason?  I'll paraphrase, but this is very close to her own words, "It's my responsibility to protect you, to support you and to help you achieve what you want with this birth.  I can not do that with this doctor, so I cannot work with him."

Yikes.  She can't protect me from him? 

We discussed my options.  Certain long buried truths resurfaced.  Fears confirmed.  She recommended another obstetrician.  At this point, this is probably the 7th or 8th time someone has recommended him to me, but he's also extremely sought after and overbooked and at some point in time, an internet search misinformed me that he delivered at 3 different hospitals, which led me to conclude that he might not reach me in time for my delivery.

In actual fact, he only delivers at one hospital - the one closest to my home, the one with the WHO baby-friendly designation, the one that will actively support co-sleeping and breastfeeding and active labor.  And he can see me next week.

It's strange.  I thought I'd feel a huge sense of relief and I suppose I do, but it is unfortunately overshadowed at the moment by a huge sense of...shame?  Or maybe shame is too strong a word  - it's something like that though.  I mean, I've known all along that something wasn't quite right.  Many somethings, actually.  And yet, I made no move to change things for the better.

Maybe the relief will come when I actually meet the new doctor.  He's supposedly the stuff of legends - a "midwife in disguise", someone who "really believes in natural childbirth", an "empowering presence"...I half expect him to greet me with a sparkly rainbow halo and miniature golden unicorns prancing on his shoulders - every time he farts, a fairy gets its wings sort of thing.

I'm a bit discombobulated, I think.

In which I place blame upon the wacky pre-menstrual dreams

Dear Feeling of Overwhelming Tiredness,

Kindly piss off already.

Yours,
Triple P

****

Last night I had a dream so scary it woke me up.  I was all sweaty and tense.  So tense that I had to lay quietly slowly willing my individual muscle groups to relax.  Last to go was the tightness in my chest.  My shoulders still hurt and I woke up 17 hours ago.  There was no sleep after that.

And then two nights ago, my dream was totally weird.  I can't remember if I invented it, or if I was just delivering it (UPS uniforms were involved in some way), but I was shilling an ovulation predictor.  Not that there is anything inherently weird about an ovulation predictor (they exist, right?), but when they are shaped like a little "thumbs up!" and inserted in one's rectum until it pops like a little turkey thermometer, that's just a whole new flavor of weird.  I don't think there's a market for the butt plug/ovulation predictor combo.  Not a whole lot of overlap there.

Just watch someone else make a whole lot of money off that one...

What's my motivation?

I haven't made one of these in ages.  Out of blue, I had a needle case to construct and get in the mail to a customer.  It's pretty, but for whatever reason, there's nothing like a little cash for craft to make me completely unmotivated.  I procrastinated on this like nobody's business.  I scrubbed toilets rather than puttering about on this!  How weird is that?  Actually, I have a long history of failing to follow through on requests for my artsy fartsy skill set.  I guess not being extrinsically motivated isn't the worst thing in the world, but a little income on the side would be nice. 

There's the inside - lots of pockets for your needles and crochet hooks, etc.  I should make one for myself sometime.  I keep my needles in an old biscuit tin and my notions in an old zip up case from a Burt's Bees gift set.  Yeah, that's the Queen Mum celbrating her 90th birthday.  Glamorous, no?