The Count

16 weeks pregnant:

• Spontaneous belly touches: 2
• Comments about how freakishly large I am already: 3
• Follow-up queries as to whether or not I'm "sure," or if I might be carrying twins: 2

When it's people I like who touch me, I generally don't mind. But the "My, how big you're getting!" comments are going to wear thin very soon.

One great thing about pregnancy: ability to pretend that all that tummy fat is baby and comfortably wear stretchy, high-waisted pants for several months.

One of many, many not-so-great things about pregnancy: people feeling quite comfortable talking about how "huge" you are and asking quite personal questions about weight gain, etc. I am much less tolerant of all this when it's a stranger who's asking.

I'm for Josh Blue!

I am particularly bad at blogging when we have people visiting, even when I have all the possible advantages: a laptop and wireless internet access. It doesn't get a lot easier than sitting on the couch with my computer on my lap, each evening a little further away from me. By the time this child is born, I'll need go-go-gadget arms to reach my keyboard.

I'm 16 weeks along, and all is well. My blood pressure is 110/70 and New Baby's heart rate is a leisurely 135. All you believers in the old wives' tale may now predict comfortably.

We've had people here at the house for the last couple of nights because, contrary to Ameren's best promises, chunks of the greater St. Louis area are still without power. So my friend Lisa, her husband, and their adorable kid stayed here for a couple of nights. This was great fun for the children. I'm pretty sure that "Ollibear" was the first name of another child that Ellie learned, and that "Ellie" was one of Oliver's first words, after other critical terms like "baaa" (ball) and "mo" (universally: more).

You are more than welcome to come back tomorrow night, folks, if your power's still out. And I promise that it won't be one of those kinds of slumber parties that we were speculating about earlier.

Still, it's nice to have a quiet evening at home tonight. I'm all caught up on the email on my new computer (I'm pretending that all the email on my old computer doesn't exist. I'm about 200 messages behind.) The answering machine is empty. My work email is only at half a screen of actionable items. Sure, there's laundry to do and there are groceries to buy. But the house is neat and Ellie's asleep and life is good.

So I think I'll finish watching this episode of Last Comic Standing, my one reality show indulgence, and head off to bed myself. !Buenos Noches!

Fizzle, Melt, Chill

OK, here's what happened.

Paul's parents arrived on Friday night and stayed until Wednesday noon. I worked a little longer than usual that afternoon, while Paul stayed home with Ellie (who had a cold with fever). I got home and heated up some dinner while Paul gave Ellie her bath.

We'd just sat down to eat when we noticed that there was lightening to the north. Then the trees to the south went flat. Then the power went out. Then the storm struck. It was a quick Midwestern thunderstorm, didn't seem too unusual. We spent a little time in the basement with the hurricane lamp when the tornado sirens were going off, then opened all the windows as the rain passed and went to bed early.

On Thursday morning, as the outside temperature climbed higher than the inside temperature, I closed up the house and made plans. Both of Ellie's therapists cancelled her home visits, so we went to Walgreens (power!) the Post Office (power!) the gas station (power!) and the mall (power!). I was really glad to have air conditioned places to hang out, but I think it's pretty annoying when all the local homes are without electricity while the local businesses are lit up like football stadiums. Stadia?

Ellie fell asleep on the way home from the mall and took an uncomfortable nap in her bed. After that, no air conditioned businesses or cars were enough to make her happy. She was hot and she was pissed. This matched my mood nicely. My mom stayed home, glued to The Weather Channel all day, and called me regularly from Indiana with updates.

"Now they've called in the National Guard to help evacuate the elderly and people who can't get out on their own!"

I called Paul. I called him again. I left messages. He was very busy at work, where there was plenty of air conditioning. When he got home, he found two very hot and cranky women who were half-packed, sweaty, and ready to leave town.

So we took off for his family's annual reunion in rural Iowa a day early, and spent a cool, rainy night in a hotel in Kirksville, MO. With air conditioning.

Our electricity came back at some point over the weekend. Wahoo! And, somehow, the fish even survived. (Lizzi the pug came with us.) But, as usual, I was frustrated by having to throw away all the food in my frig and freezer, especially the huge box of boneless, skinless chicken breasts. The frig hasn't been this clean since, well, since last August's big 3 day power outage.

I used to love thunder storms as a kid. Now they make things really uncomfortable. Or deadly. And Parents magazine tells me that I should take my children inside as soon as I see the first silent bolts of lightening in the distance, not letting them go back out to splash in the puddles until well after the storm has ended. It's amazing I've lived this long.

I Like My In-Laws

This morning, I was falling asleep during a meeting about our European Dentistry publications. I stepped out to buy myself a cuppa coffee and a bagel as an energizer, and had my first embarrassing pregnancy question. Last week I had my first spontaneous belly touch, so I suppose it's time for the questions.

"How long do you have left?" the cashier asked.

"Quite a long time, actually. I'm in my 4th month."

"You're kidding me!"

No! And I'm nothing on my friend Jeni, who has a toddler Ellie's age, 1-year-old twins, and is due in December with #4. Her poor little body has been pregnant for most of the past 3-1/2 years, and she looks about 7 months along already. Her back already hurts. It's going to be a long 5 months for her, I think.

But I did "pop" a bit this weekend. It was Saturday and I felt awfully uncomfortable. I didn't eat much. I went to lie down in my room. I started feeling better, so I got back up and put myself together to rejoin society. Ugh. Other than getting vertical, what had I changed? Ah.

While I was lying on my bed, I'd unfastened my shorts. It seems that they are suddenly too tight. It looks like I might be almost ready to jump from clothing two-sizes-too-big into maternity pants. Already! But the large, shapeless maternity things and the kangaroo pouch pants are too big still. Bah humbug.

Ellie's been feverish, congested, and up at night coughing again. We're headed down to Children's later today to make sure that her pneumonia is gone. (I hope so I hope so) But in the meantime, there's no school today for the recently feverish. It's worked out very nicely that Paul's parents are here visiting this week. Right now, I'm at work (waiting for my internet connection and email to come back up so that I can work), Paul's at work, his dad's installing a new vanity in our guest bathroom, and his mom is watching Ellie. Perfect!

That's not why I love them, it's just an example of how thoughtful they are. What do you do for summer vacation if you live in the beautiful Wyoming mountains? Apparently, you drive to muggy, hot St. Louis to help out "the kids." And the kids will appreciate every minute of it. Especially the cooking and dish washing and the no-longer-dripping faucet. And the Ellie watching.

Big Sister

May 7 (from the journal)

We told Ellie pretty much right away. We knew that we'd be talking about the pregnancy a lot and wanted to make sure that she was in the loop as much as possible.

As with any will-be-three-year-old, I'm sure that the reality of a new sibling will be a shock to her. But she seemed to get the idea right away.

I bought a book at Borders and she asked me to read it twice in a row, then looked through it herself. Later, she had Paul read it to her again.

The parts that seem to interest her most are:

• The drawings of baby in mommy's tummy (growing larger each frame!)
  
• Grandma and Grandpa coming to visit when the baby comes
  
• Helping Daddy give Baby a bath and put on its diaper

She also seems really interested in the parts of the story about "when Ellie was a baby" and the idea of bringing all of Ellie's baby things up from the basement for her little sibling. It doesn't seem to bother her at all that "Ellie" is a brunette boy and none of the other characters look anything like the rest of us, either.

They Gleam and I'm Content

My big goal for tonight was to get the bathrooms cleaned. They were in desperate need of a really good cleaning. While I was nauseous for weeks and weeks the last thing I wanted to consider was scrubbing bathroom gunk, so we had to make do with the occasional Clorox wipe over the surfaces. And that is not cleaning in my house. Except when company's at the door. Then it can do in a pinch.

But we have a system for this. Paul lowers the barrier to cleaning entry by preparing my bucket of water and Pine Sol, using the precise recipe that I share with him every time. I have to remind him of the chemical formula, because his natural tendency is to believe that to be effective warm water and Pine Sol should be in a 1:1 ratio. And last time he tried that, I ended up locking myself in the bedroom with the ceiling fan going and the window open, still with a big pregnant headache from the reek hours later.

So he prepares the bucket, I remove everything from the bathrooms, clean the sinks et al first, then the toilets. When I'm not pregnant, I do the tub and shower in between. Toilets go last, of course, with their own sponge. Then Paul comes in and scrubs the floors by hand. Lately, he's doing the shower/tub too because I'm lazy.

Tonight he threw off the rhythm by deciding to go downstairs to the basement and clean his own bathroom. That room is nearly a year and a half old, and I'm not sure it's ever really been clean. Now it is! Stunning.

Anyway, while I waited for him to finish cleaning downstairs, I laid on the couch and read Parents. And my stomach felt weird. I usually try to ignore this type of thing, but I was procrastinating so I decided to focus on it. And I realized that I was feeling . . . movement. And not, I think, the bowel kind.

It's a whole different experience this time around, with a male OB. For one thing, he's nice and has an actual bedside manner, unlike my last doc. For another, he actually asks me things, which still surprises me. At my last visit, he asked if I was feeling the baby move.

"Oh! Sometimes I think I am. But I figure that I must be wrong because it's way too early, right?"

And he told me not to worry if I wasn't feeling anything yet (it is early) or if I don't feel anything regularly for a while. But he's heard patients tell him what they feel at this stage, and with not-first pregnancies, some women say that they are feeling movement this early and he believes them. He believes them! The women!

I believe I was feeling the baby move tonight while I was lying on the couch reading quietly. It felt great.

I didn't call Paul upstairs to share the experience, though. For one thing, it's totally cool that his bathroom is clean. For another thing, it will be many many weeks before he can feel the movement himself.

If I recall correctly, his ability to feel the baby move through my abdominal walls happens sometime after that strange minor miracle involving my little layer of soft belly fat.

At some point in the midst of pregnancy, the softness that waxes and wanes but is always on my gut no matter what I weigh or how many sit-ups I do disappears. It doesn't vanish from my body, but it migrates South for the winter and spends some months hiding at the nadir of my distended abdomen, where it's easily hidden and I can't see it no matter what I do.

During those months, I'm prone to lifting my shirt and allowing people to pound on my belly. "Hard as a rock!" I cry, as proud as if I'd earned a 6-pack at the gym.

Pizza, Pizza Daddio

Sears came to steam clean our carpets at 8:00 this morning.

I always dread the cleaning absolutely everything in the house before the carpets can be cleaned part. It seems, at times, in our toy and paper and clothes cluttered house, like an impossible task.

But I'm wrong. The cleaning up goes quickly. It's cake compared to the next part: living on wet carpet with a two-year-old when it's rainy and humid outside. Oh, yeah, baby, that's a challenge. And the soles of my feet itch; I'm trying not to think too hard about what's in the "carpet protectant" they sprayed all over everywhere before leaving.

I try to ignore it when Paul rubs the soles of his bare feet then doesn't go immediately to wash his hands. I can't ignore it when Ellie decides to suck on her toes as I'm trying to rock her to sleep. Yuck.

This evening, for the first time all day, Ellie seemed interested in a brief session of independent play. Wahoo! I sat down on the couch with the end of my novel for a few minutes. (Friend Elizabeth, the only reason I am not going to beat you with this book next time I see you is because you're not my sister Jessica, with whom I'm been having the same fight for about 15 years. She too loves to give me books where every conceivable horrible thing happens to the characters.)

I heard Ellie move from the front room into the kitchen, making her way through the obstacle course of miscellaneous chairs, benches, and tables cluttering our small kitchen until the carpet dries.

Suddenly, she was beside me, leaning casually against the couch, and I looked at her. She was eating a slice of mushroom pizza as if it were nothing out of the ordinary. (I ordered a pizza for our dinner tonight and we ate it outside on the patio, probably tracking back in sand and dust, dammit. Cooking in the "kitchen" seemed impossible. The remains of the pie were out on the counter. I often top half the pizza with mushrooms as a big NO BOYS ALLOWED sign for my husband.)

I know she's getting to be such a big girl, but it amazed me to see her walk right up to me (over the clean wet carpet!) with a slice of pizza she'd procured herself, holding it by the crust and eating from the tip just like I would, like most grown people do. We're still at the stage when an adult provides Ellie with most of what she eats.

How big is Ellie? So big!

I guffawed, which startled her into dropping a piece of saucy topping onto the carpet.

Still Here. Also, Thanks!

Blogging! I used to blog regularly. 5 days a week, in fact! But lately . . .

I do still have things to say, I think. And I have some actual journal entries to transcribe, from when - at Paul's request - I wasn't blogging about my pregnancy. (And that made it very hard to say anything here at all, I might add.)

But lately I find myself less willing to push myself past exhaustion, and instead I often go to bed at a reasonable hour.

Also, I'm working on a thing. A piece of writing. Creative nonfiction. Perhaps, hopefully, one day, a book length thing. A book. About being pregnant and finding out about Ellie's diagnoses, and deciding to continue the pregnancy and what that was like, and about the heart surgery and what that was like, and starting her therapies and what that was like for me. A book. About my life.

To my surprise, I've found that when I'm writing about me there, I have less of an urge to write about me here. But I want to keep doing both; I think the daily habit of sitting down and writing about my thoughts each day is important. So I'll be back. I might just be a little sporadic until I fall back into the daily rhythm.

Ira Sukrungruang has a word for the practice of sitting down in the chair and just writing: Assitude. I like it.

It Takes Two to Make it Outta Sight

I sound just like my 2-year-old, or she sounds just like me.

"Hey, baby! Hey, baby!" she says, with her head to my stomach.

"Hey, Baby, hey, Baby," I say, almost inaudibly, my arms wrapped around myself.

I am 13 weeks pregnant, due on January 10th. The new baby is doing well: the appropriate size for its age, growing at a nice rate, apparently all the necessary parts in place, steady heartbeat. And the typical number of chromosomes in its cells.

I am the sort of person who needs to know as much as possible, to be as prepared as possible, to control as many variables as possible. I am the sort of woman who believes in the appropriateness of available prenatal testing for those who, like me, need or want to know.

Now I know, just like I knew last time, but earlier and differently, though with the same result:

I'm still pregnant, I'm still scared, but I'm also excited. I can't imagine what it will be like this time. It's a whole new world. Two children!

Sparkle

One of my favorite things about Ellie right now is her generosity. "May I have a hug?" or "Why don't you give Mommy a kiss?" is almost always enough to pull her from whatever she's doing and send her running for the appropriate person to give generously of her affection. And once she's started sharing her love and gotten such positive feedback, she often feels compelled to continue around the circle, hugging everyone or giving every creature - Lizzi included - the chance to participate in a few bars of "Row Row Row Your Boat."

Ellie enjoyed the community fireworks display we went to see on Sunday night, after we had a BBQ with a few friends over at our house. We spread out our blanket on the ground, and she happily sat on it, looking up at the fireworks exploding just across the street. She moved to lie against her daddy, then to cuddle in my lap, then with just her head in my lap, then leaning against her diaper bag, legs curled demurely beside her, then, finally, lying on the blanket with her head on the bag, completely relaxed, enjoying the show, enjoying the people around us.

She fell asleep in the car on the way home, and when Paul went in to check on her later, he found her sitting up at the foot of her bed, fast asleep.

Yesterday, we went to the Webster Groves Independence Day Parade, and Ellie enjoyed that too. We liked pointing out the firetrucks and the police officers, the marching band and the horses. Paul had to name the soldiers for her, because as soon as the first marines rounded the corner in their desert fatigues, I got choked up.

It is, alas, an election year, so the parade was a bit of a campaign event. Ellie didn't mind; she happily accepted stickers and flags, pamphlets and buttons from candidates from both parties (some went directly into the bottom of the stroller as soon as she was done with them, others were affixed to her shirt until she was ready to remove them).

Last night we attended another BBQ, and again Ellie fell asleep on the way home, this time as it began to storm. Paul and I spent a quiet evening at home while the rain pounded our house; we're hoping for a chance to see more fireworks tonight, after the rain delay.

Sure the fireworks and parade we saw were kind of lame, by adult standards. But it's amazing to enjoy them all by watching a 2-year-old who's experiencing these things through eyes that are too young to be jaded. As a gift of her diagnosis, perhaps her joy in these simple pleasures will never end. And I let that be a lesson to me, whenever I think of it. She causes me to think of things like that every day, every day.

But is it really True?

I was in the Creative Nonfiction workshop at the Summer Writer's Institute. There's often confusion about what, exactly, Creative Nonfiction is.

"If it's creative, how is it nonfiction?"

Our workshop leader, Kathleen Finneran, explained to us that the "creative" part comes in how you tell your story and in the writing itself. Does your life story look like an encyclopedia entry, just a straightforward listing of facts? Or can you pick important episodes from different parts of your life, and, juxtaposing them, create an even more compelling narrative?

Creative Nonfiction doesn't have to be memoir. The genre comprises essays, opinion pieces, blogs, biography, autobiography, food writing, travel writing, oral history, reviews, literary journalism, and on and on.

Basically, Creative Nonfiction is anything that tells a good and interesting story, while still being true. The creative part refers to the way the story is structured and to its writing, not its veracity.

Different authors draw the line in different places, of course. Some stretch the truth to tell a better story. Some lie. There are not yet any hard-and-fast rules for the genre. The current thinking is that as long as you're honest about what liberties you've taken, then you're OK.

Finneran published an essay called Lying in the Land of Memoir: straddling the Line Between Fact and Fiction suggesting that there are three acceptable ways to bend the line between fact and fiction:

1) Make up dialogue: but carefully. The writer must remember that the conversation really took place, have some memory of what was discussed, and how the conversation ended. Then she (or he) can carefully recreate the conversation as closely as possible to how it probably occurred.

2) Conflate time: gently. Perhaps something that really took place over two nights looks like it took place in only one night in the piece, so that the narrative flows better. Personally, I'm a little uncomfortable with this one.

3) Leave stuff out. Well, duh. It boggles my mind that people cry, "That's not what really happened!" just because the writer doesn't mention that Jim Bob was also in the room. I mean, perhaps Jim Bob isn't really a major character in this story, he didn't contribute anything meaningful, so it would just be confusing to bring him up for no apparent reason. In a history textbook, the author would mention that he was standing silently in the corner all night. In Creative Nonfiction, the author has the freedom to choose whether or not his presence is significant.

Other authors take much greater liberties. In her "memoir," Bitter is the New Black, Jen Lancaster admits that she has left out the names of places she worked, changed the names of the characters, altered the timeline to move the story along, and combined some characters together, all in a story about how long she was unemployed and why. That, in my opinion, is a thinly fictionalized novel, based heavily upon the author's own experiences. Ditto with James Frey's A Million Little Pieces.

Ira Sukrungruang also takes liberties in his (fun!) creative nonfiction. One scene in his first memoir is bookended with what's happening on The Crocodile Hunter on TV. The TV was on, Animal Planet was on, The Crocodile Hunter was on. But he doesn't really remember exactly what was happening in the show while he was having this particular conversation with his mother; he filled in the details to bring the story to life. That, too, is further than I'm willing to bend the truth, but I respect that he's honest about what he's done.

So, that's creative nonfiction, and I guess I'll write about Kathleen Finneran and the workshop participants tomorrow.

Like Me?

The biggest mistake I made at the Summer Writers Institute was to try to keep working (a little) throughout. I went in to the office for a few hours at least a couple of evenings a week during both weeks of the workshop, and that was exhausting.

Even without trying to split my focus in yet another direction, I was trying to complete coursework for a 3 credit graduate-level course in two weeks, which sounds insane. (I have one follow-up book to read and paper to write, as well as a revision of some of my previous work, then I'm all done.) Many nights during the second week, I passed out, exhausted, well after midnight without having completed quite all of the required reading. The first week was much the same, except that my stamina was greater and I always finished everything. Next time I hope to go away for a workshop, so that my focus is not at all split.

It worked like this: The Institute comprised four workshop groups: Fiction, Advanced Fiction, Poetry, and Creative Non-Fiction. Every morning, we met in our individual workshop groups for 3 hours, then broke for lunch. After lunch, we met all together to hear speakers and have panel discussions.

The morning sessions varied depending on which "class" you were in. Some groups workshopped every day; mine didn't. We watched a fascinating documentary, did in-class writing exercises, discussed published pieces (the nightly reading assignments) and had class-type discussions every day. 3 days a week, we also workshopped each others' work.

We spent 1/2 hour on each workshopped piece, and we each had a piece workshopped once each week. I spent about an hour reading each piece and preparing my thoughts for every workshop, and I think that was probably typical.

The level of participation in my group was quite impressive, and I'll talk about that more tomorrow, including who led the workshop, who else participated, and what sorts of things they were writing.

The afternoon sessions were fascinating. We had published writers talk about Craft, we had writers reading from their own work, we had a panel of literary journal editors (all men, all white, all in their 30s /early 40s, a highly representative sample). We had a notable publisher from an academic press, we had a food critic from Sauce magazine, we had a relatively useless talk about creating an author website (useless because none of the panel participants understood even basic web design). The directors of the MFA programs at Wash U and UMSL spoke, as did a couple of instructors.

Perhaps the most useful thing of all, especially with the afternoon sessions, was that I was surrounded by writers, real writers, all of whom kept referring to all of us as writers, real writers. And that was really something to contemplate.

Dolls Do It Too

I'm back! The Summer Writer's Institute was amazing, and I'll be posting about it for the rest of the week. But in the meantime . . .

In retrospect, I should have guessed what was happening.

Ellie was playing by herself in the front room on Saturday afternoon, and, frankly, I was thrilled. I was still exhausted from my 2 weeks of writing-working-not sleeping and was grateful for a few minutes to read lazily on the couch in the family room while Paul, who has been doing most of the childcare around here, took a shower and rested briefly.

My angelic young daughter walked back into the family room, picked up her Miss Piggy potty book (Bye bye diapers/Bye bye smell/Bye bye cold wet wipes as well) and her favorite Dora doll, the one that talks and sings and lights up and absolutely cannot go through the washing machine.

"Ellie, would you like me to read you that book? Do you need to go potty?"

"No. Bye bye mama!" She headed back into the front room and played happily for several more minutes.

Then she brought Dora back into the family room and put her on the potty.

I came over to help, and to encourage Ellie to take a turn on the potty. I noticed a couple of things simultaneously. There was a gritty brown substance all over (in the potty Dora was sitting on, on Ellie's cheek and legs, on the floor around them) and something smelled really really bad.

The phone rang, and I grabbed it while trying to wrestle Ellie out of her clothes to see if she'd had a messy/leaky diaper. She did not.

"PAUL! Could you come out here and help a bit, please! I need you to take care of Ellie while I answer the phone and try to determine what stinks in here." I was not using my patient voice.

I went to the foyer and looked into the front room and immediately knew what the problem was. For the first time in many months, Lizzi had decided to use the front room as her own personal patch of grass. And she had been prolific.

Ellie had spotted the pile and taken advantage of it, putting Dora on top of "her" poop, then showing her how she should have gone in the potty.

I told the friend on the phone that we'd meet up with her a little later, rather than sooner. Paul took Ellie to the bath, then the two of them gave Lizzi a bath. I cleaned up the poop, vacuumed the floor, used a strong chemical spot cleaner, then used our little Bissell to wet clean the floor, then vacuumed again. Then Paul and I each changed into clean clothes, washed our hands, and we went out to dinner instead of staying in our recently disgusting house.

I worked on Dora with Shout wipes to no avail; she still reeks.

Time for Bed

My sister's bridal shower in Valparaiso, IN was perfectly lovely this weekend. It was a "times" shower, where every guest was assigned a time of day. I had "afternoon," and my card said,

For afternoon or any other time . . . but not for work

I got her a lovely nightgown and matching robe, in translucent antique white. Very wedding night. She blushed satisfactorily.

My Writer's Institute starts tomorrow. So I might not be writing much here for the next couple of weeks, or I might be in a writing frenzy and posting daily. Time will tell.

Regardless, have a lovely June!

And, Elizabeth, I might not have mentioned this, but I hate the phone. And I really don't want to intrude right now. But I'd love it if you feel like calling me sometime to let me know how your week's going. Just call at home, because anytime I'm at home it's a good time. I hope you're having a wonderful time. I hope you're too busy to call, and way too busy to be reading blogs. And we should start Yoga again soon: Paul says that my posture sucks and I'm tense.

Foot in Mouth

I am fantastic at fitting my entire foot in my mouth.

If I start dishing about a co-worker while out to lunch, her best friend is likely to be sitting right behind me. If I'm talking to a friend who is dealing with infertility, I can't seem to stop myself from talking about babies babies babies.

I used to work with a woman my good friend didn't like (long story). We had company bulletin boards where you could post stuff you wanted to sell to other coworkers. Once I "replied" to woman-I-didn't-like instead of "forwarding" her post along to my friend. With catty commentary, of course. Oops.

Here's one that still bugs me from about 10 years ago. Especially since this couple is in our extended group of friends and we see them not infrequently. In fact, I just went to their baby shower a couple of weeks ago.

My parents never talked about money and my mom doesn't wear much jewelry. I was out of school, working at my first "real" [read: career-track] job, and lots of my coworkers talked about rings and diamonds and stuff like that. I myself was in a long-term committed relationship (Hi, Paul!) and decided that I was interested in learning more.

I went to the library and checked out a large, full color, beautiful reference book on diamonds. I rechecked it a few times and read the whole thing cover-to-cover. (I'm sure that the book's presence on the coffee table didn't bother poor Paul at all.)

One night, I was out drinking at a favorite bar with friends, including buddy S, when his brand-new fiance came in.

"Congrats!" I said with excitement. Then it all went downhill. "Can I see your ring? How big is that diamond?"

I still cringe with embarassment whenever I think about it. At the time, I really wasn't thinking. I didn't have any friends who were engaged or married at the time, and my interest was purely academic. I wanted a benchmark. "Oh, so that's what size X looks like." But, man, was that ever inappropriate. And I sure think about it whenever we see them.

A few weeks ago, Ellie and I went out to brunch with a friend. We ran into a family from church at the restaurant and ended up all eating together. This is a really really nice family. The husband had just gotten a new job, and he ended up paying for all of us, which makes my episode of verbal diahrea even worse.

He was talking about his new job, and how his coworkers were all Christians, Presbyterian, in fact!

And even as I watched myself with horror from behind my imagination's sheltering hands, I found myself pontificating on the differences between those Presbyterians and us.

(In this case, it's not too late to fix it. I've written a carefully crafted apology disguised as a thank you note for the brunch. I just need to get their new address and mail it.)

Maybe someday I'll grow up and out of this. But maybe not. I've got a friend and former co-worker - and you know who you are! - who once replied to an email from Human Resources announcing FREE KRISPIE KREMES in all the breakrooms with a two-word email: "YOU B*TCH!" Sans asterisk. Reply to All. Yes, whole office.

I think the best solution, since "think before you speak" is never going to work for me, is to cultivate a reputation as "a real character" so that things like this are expected of me. Or I could just get really really rich. The extraordinarily wealthy are allowed to be "quirky."

BMOC

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Paul started a new job this week. He's at his same company, in the same group. But, as he puts it, his hair just got a little pointier.

I'm proud of him, because he got the job over several qualified applicants. And I'm happy for him, because he's really excited about it. And I think he should be flattered that a Sr. Director at his company said, "I'd invest in your career if I could." How cool is that?!

Did I mention that he's 29? Congrats to Paul!

Bookends

When I was in elementary school, I had a friend named Tikisha. Tikisha had the most beautiful mother in the whole school. She'd walk to the school to pick up Tikisha and her little brothers, and everyone would watch her. She was gorgeous! She didn't look anything like a mommy.

And, of course, she was very very young to be the mother of a child as old as Tikisha. But to a young child, a grown up is a grown up - no age distinctions.

When we started 5th grade, Tikisha and I both chose clarinet to play in the band. We sat next to each other, playing clarinet, for the next 6 years. I worked hard at it. I practiced lots and I took private lessons. By the time I got to high school, my dad was driving me to a nearby college town once a week so that I could take lessons with a professor there.

Tikisha rarely even took her clarinet home, but she always sat next to me, second chair. I strongly suspect that she threw chair tests because she knew that being first chair meant more to me than it did to her.

Tikisha had a really relaxed view about a lot of things. She was smart, but grades weren't important to her so she didn't really stand out in the crowd academically. Or athletically. Or musically. Or socially.

But by high school, Tikisha was beautiful, just like her mother. Sharply tilted gorgeous eyes. Quiet intelligence, quick humor, relaxed, comfortable attitude: who wouldn't love Tikisha?

One particular upper-classman drug dealer sure did.

By 10th grade, Tikisha and I were not as close as we used to be. The high school was a much bigger place than our little elementary school and we'd drifted into different groups.

She told me about the dealer. She didn't do drugs, that wasn't her thing, but she did really enjoy the spending money he'd give her. She just had to have sex with him, which she didn't mind, and he wouldn't wear a rubber. She wasn't too concerned.

When my family and I moved away toward the end of that year, Tikisha was pregnant.

I never talked to her again, but I often think about her and wonder what happened to her. And I wonder why I didn't speak up louder at the time, why I didn't make an effort to reach across and stay closer friends with her, why I didn't try to insist that she take care of herself.

I clearly remember thinking, "This is stupid, this can't end well, but this is her decision."

I just looked for her online. I am thrilled to see that she is married, with three kids, has a bachelor's degree, and a good job. And her favorite hobby is reading.

She was a better friend to me than I was to her, but I bet if we met again today we'd be friends. I love the Internet. Just not enough to actually write email and keep in touch with people.

More No, Please

Today at school Ellie was . . . much like she's been at home for the last couple of days.

"Ellie was . . . I don't know how to describe how Ellie was today. Chatty! But mostly she just said, 'no!'" said Ellie's teacher when I stopped by to pick up Ellie from preschool.

"She went poo poo in the potty, but then she stood up, looked right at me, and reached her hand into the toilet! Later, when I was changing her diaper, I had to use the safety strap on the table because she just wouldn't lie still. Then she crashed and wouldn't even wake up for lunch until just a few minutes ago."

We're now in the stage of the antibiotics process when she will no longer tell me when she needs to go to the potty, or when she's gone in her diaper, because the cleaning up hurts so much. But the not-cleaning-up makes the problem much worse. So there are many tears. 3 more days of this . . . and lots of yogurt: yogurt in her oatmeal, yogurt in her dinnertime milk, yogurt for an afternoon snack . . .

We see her doctor again tomorrow, though. I'm going to ask her if it's possible that this hyperactivity and rough behavior is a symptom of the medication, or even of her illness itself.

Maybe she'll also be able to tell me why Ellie sometimes holds her arm to her chest and cries, "Arm! Arm!" like she's in terrible pain. Nursemaid's elbow? But no, she's inconsolable for a while, and then she forgets all about it in half an hour and uses both arms normally again. Odd.

It's shocking how quickly I've become accustomed to my walking, talking little Ellie. It's inconceivable that I wondered when she'd begin to talk. It's impossible that a mere 7 months ago I wondered if she'd ever be walking around the house or to and from the car independently. Amazing.

Reckoning

Today we got a little hint of what life must be like for some other parents.

See, Ellie didn't get to go to school all week last week. And we weren't out doing exciting things, either. She was sick, and we kept her (mostly) quietly at home. By today, she was climbing up the walls.

The morning began with a crash: she broke a lovely blue glass vase that we got for our wedding. The vase began a trend of people giving us blue glass presents, and my blue glass collection has moved as both it and Ellie have grown. From the dining room table to the bottom shelf of the tall cabinet Paul's grandfather made for us, finally to the top two shelves of the cabinet. Eye level for me. Ellie reached it by standing on the arm of an easy chair and yanking the beaded, tatted cloth that some of the pieces were resting on.

A little later, as I was changing a disgusting, antibiotics-related diaper, she reached out and grabbed it. My fault: I left it within reach. But she doesn't usually do that. Poopy hand.

See, when other people bring their children to our home, they start moving things around and noting obstacles. Our house isn't perfectly child-proofed. But it's child-proofed for us. We know what Ellie gets into and we've addressed those things. Mostly. When we started putting locks on cabinets, we did it one-at-a-time, as Ellie became fascinated by each cabinet in turn rather than exploring all at once.

But back to today.

When I needed a few minutes alone in the bathroom, Ellie laid down on the floor outside and started kicking the hollow-core door, hard, with both feet. Shod in sturdy Stride Rites and orthotics, natch. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

She got into cupboards she's not usually into and got out appliances she's not usually interested in.

She removed the cushion from the rocking chair in her room, climbed up on it, and pushed her floor lamp over. Then she climbed up onto her bed to better examine and dissect the workings of the lamp.

She decided to drink from the dog's water bowl.

She unplugged every cord she could find.

She went to Paul's dresser and pulled the top drawer down. Only her hyper-flexibility saved her from being crushed by it.

She was fascinated by the (gas!) stove while we were cooking.

She "climbed" down out of her booster seat by herself at dinner.

She broke the door off a wooden bench/cabinet.

She climbed up on the arm of a sofa to reach the cherrywood secretary, removed one of the drawers, and got out the stone coasters I'd "hidden" inside.

What's so disturbing is that one or both of us was right beside Ellie as she did nearly all of these things.

"There's no way tonight doesn't end in a trip to the emergency room," Paul said.

Now she's sleeping like an angel. No trips to the ER today. But I am so very glad that she's going to preschool tomorrow! She still has a cough and her energy level isn't back to normal - she crashes earlier for her nap - but she needs this outlet. And so do we!

As we were finishing up dinner, Ellie was playing quietly in the living room. She'd excused herself from the table earlier, as you might recall, by sliding out of her seat. She walked back in as we were finishing up, with something in each hand.

"CD?" she asked us politely. She'd thoughtfully opened the cases and obtained a CD for each of us. A Dr. Seuss album for me, and Ani Difranco's Reckoning for Paul.

So Lucky

I sometimes take my childhood for granted. I often forget how lucky I am.

Tonight I went to the grocery store after Paul and Ellie went to sleep. This was a mid-week run for things we are out of, like milk; luxury items I wanted, like the brand of disposable diapers that hold in Ellie's antibiotics-related diarrhea; and expensive, brand-name packaged foods that tempted me. Pickles? How about crisp dill Claussens from the cooler? Yummmmmm.

It was 10:30 on a school night, and I was surprised by the number of children there. There were a lot of children there.

I know that dealing with 3 young children, limited funds, and a workaholic husband was not easy for my mother. But she kept us on a regular schedule and we had predictable, ordered lives. We were always well-rested and fed for school in the morning, whether we wanted to be or not.

How might my experience have been different if I had been going to school after spending a good portion of my should-have-been-sleeping hours out running errands? Waking up with cartoons and junk food? I can imagine. And it makes me feel a bit less proud of my accomplishments: I had a huge leg up.

In the checkout line, the young Asian man two people behind me was nervously buying a corkscrew and two long-stemmed light pink roses. The middle-aged blond man in a gray Nike t-shirt just behind me was picking up Soap Opera Digest.

And the woman just in front of me, shopping with her two-year-old, used her bank card to buy a single sippy cup. She had to run her card through several times, watching the screen oh-so-closely to see the "Approved" pop up. Then she had the cashier ring through the rest of her order separately: 5 cans of formula with a WIC certificate casually lying on top.

I had been smiling at the mom and waving to the little girl. After I noticed what they were buying, my eyes kept straying back to the huge pile of packaged, brand-name foods on my side of the little plastic bar.

Physical pain.

So often, I think of the things that I want but don't have.

So often, I intellectualize poverty, or try to forget it altogether for a while.

Because thinking about it, really thinking about it, and thinking about how I myself benefit from it and contribute to it, hurts really badly.