Rob has suddenly outgrown all his clothes and for the last week or two has been going to school looking like a child whose mother doesn’t love him: pants revealing two inches of sock, coat revealing two inches of wrist. Usually I buy things on clearance ahead of time, and so then all I have to do is open the box in the closet and there’s a whole new size–but this time it didn’t work out that way, and he has two pairs of pants and no coat. I’m going to have to do a little full-price shopping, I guess, which makes me feel a little excited and a little crazed: when you are accustomed to 75% off, full-price is like dressing the child in woven diamonds–but on the other hand, it’s thrilling to get a full selection of colors and styles, and thrilling to buy something for now rather than for some time in the future. Plus, it’s not like I’m talking $100 pants here–I like Old Navy and Target.

I am large of tum and sore of back these days, so I was shopping online last night, and I found an awesome sale over at The Children’s Place (click in the red “Spring Sale, $4.99 and under” box at the bottom of their page). Apparently everyone else found it, too, because the site was sooooooo slowwwwww. I actually got a BOOK so I’d have something to do between clicks: I’d click on an item I wanted to see, read for a minute or two until the page loaded, click on the order button, read for another minute until it showed that it had been added to the cart, click on the back-to-shopping button, read for another two minutes, etc. It was frustrating, too, because the page would finally load and the item would be out of stock, or I’d choose the size and click to add it to my cart, and I’d get the “sorry, out of stock” message. I think I did very well not to rip up the keyboard with my teeth.

Meanwhile, it was getting closer and closer to the time I really have to shower and go to bed, so that was affecting my decision-making skills. I was tempted to ditch the whole order in a panic. Instead, in a sudden spine-straightening burst of practical impulsiveness, I glanced at the cart, thought, “Yes, I want everything here,” looked at the total, thought, “Yes, that seems reasonable,” and just clicked the button already.

I was worried that–as with many late-night impulse decisions–I would feel remorse in the morning, but no! I woke up with a song in my heart, thinking of that package on its way to me. I was almost spraining my shoulder patting myself on the back for being so clever as to override my natural tightwad instincts and place the order. And, lest you notice that ominous past-tense verb and think it means I’ve since had reason to regret it: No! I have not! I am still happy!

In fact, the only downside of this entire story is that there is not one single thing in the order for Rob. No, it is mostly for the twins, with a few things thrown in for William. I couldn’t find anything in Rob’s size that (a) I liked and (b) was in stock in his size. Good sale, though.

Are you guys reading Tending Violet? The link is in my short list to the right; a new column comes out on Friday nights or Saturday mornings. Joyce has a daughter Violet who’s just a couple of months older than my twins, and I think Joyce writes about this age perfectly: the ups, the downs, the charms, the frustrations. This week’s column is especially right-on, I thought, and also brings up that feeling a lot of us have sometimes about how we’re shedding options like winter fur as we spend these years bringing up our children–and how it might be even worse later on when we’re not bringing up the children anymore. Geez, I made it sound like a real downer–way to plug, Swistle. I just mean she Gets It: she doesn’t oversell the joys and wonders, and she doesn’t downplay them either; and she’s thinking of now, and Before, and also Later, and I like to think of those things too.

As I anticipate the little newcomer, I like to re-read Joyce’s older columns from when Violet was just born–like this one that helps me remember what it’s like to have a newborn, or this one that does the same thing but in such a funny and tender way it makes me feel all emotional: weepy and also laughing and also just about dying from the baby cuteness. Some of the columns can be hard to read because they can bring back so vividly those crazy feelings a new baby seems to bring home from the hospital in a package for you to open gradually over the next few months; others will make those of you who don’t have children want to go out and get knocked up right this very second. I’ve been enjoying the mix for nearly two years now, and wondered if you might enjoy it too.

Last night I was plagued with bad dreams (do you suppose it had anything to do with this?), and finally, about an hour before my alarm would have gone off (assuming the twins would have allowed me to sleep that long–a very bold assumption indeed), I gave up and got up. The dreams were bad enough that everything was looking grim and scary to me (Our shower–MENACING! My toothbrush–DISTURBING!), and as I was wetting down my hair and getting dressed, I realized I would need to pull out the big guns: blue chrome eyeliner. But blue chrome eyeliner doesn’t look right on a “natural look” (“lazy about make-up”) face, so I added blue eyeshadow. Nothing says “everything’s fine now” like a little daytrip to the ’80s.

I was crabby all yesterday, and I couldn’t explain it to Paul. Everything was fine. No one had done anything to piss me off. In fact, I’d had a good day, industrious and successful. I was just crabby. I didn’t know if it would be adequate to say to him, “It’s the third trimester, that’s all.” Especially since I’ve spent six months saying, “It’s the first trimester, that’s all,” and “It’s the second trimester, that’s all.”

Speaking of trimesters, this past weekend we finally got around to doing something we should have done months ago: we rearranged the kids to make room for the new baby. Before, Rob and William were in the two small bedrooms downstairs, and the twins shared the large bedroom (which doubled as their playroom) upstairs. We moved Elizabeth down to one of the small bedrooms–because as the only girl she’s the only child who definitely gets her own room–and we moved William up to the large bedroom. The new baby will move in with William and Edward.

It’s not one of the arrangements we originally considered, but it’s the one that involves the least moving things around. We put bunk beds in the large bedroom, so when Edward is ready for a Big Kid Bed he can move into the bottom bunk and the new baby can move into his crib. (The new baby has an up-to-30-pounds bassinet he can use until then.) When the new baby is ready for a Big Kid Bed, we’ll need to reconsider arrangements again, but this gives us two and a half years or so before we need to think about it.

Elizabeth needed her own room anyway: she’s the one who wakes up at the slightest sound and cries for 45 minutes before going back to sleep. Rob values having his own room, and really didn’t want to share, and we hoped we’d be able to let him have his own room as much as possible: he’s the oldest, and needs a place to go where he can shed all the younger children clinging to him like adoring, staticky socks. We’d worried that William wouldn’t want to lose his own room, and wouldn’t want to share with babies, but he was happy about it. He hasn’t really enjoyed his own room: he gets lonely and sad. Also, Edward is his favorite sibling, and he refers to the new baby as “Edward 2,” so apparently everyone’s happy.

In the meantime, this gives me an empty bureau to move freshly-laundered teeny tiny baby dressings into, any time I feel like it! And it gives me a GIRL room to decorate! Heady stuff. Too bad I’m barely able to go up and down stairs anymore. No wonder I’m crabby.

Dr. Martens canceled my sandal order, which I thought was mighty decent of them considering it says all over the site that orders cannot be canceled, that it is impossible to cancel orders. That unfortunately, once placed, an order is returnable but not cancelable.

I feel relieved and disappointed, both, which just goes to show you how difficult I am to live with. I was in a blind panic when I discovered the sandals were men’s sandals, but after Nance said in my comments section that they’d be the right size, I felt happy about them. I mean, clearly I like the sandals, because I ordered them. I’m glad to have the mess tidied up (and what if they were too wide? or too mannish after all?), but sad not to have the sandals.

Also, it’s still bothering me that the sandals look so girly to me. I didn’t even look to see if they were men’s or women’s, even though I was doing that routinely with all the sandals, because that’s how unmistakably girly they looked to me. I’d like your input on this. Don’t worry that I won’t love you anymore if you say, “Um, those are definitely men’s sandals”: I want your real opinion. I will put a photo of the sandals below, and you tell me honestly if you would think they were men’s, women’s, or either.

Note the little heel. The cute curve of the sole. The pretty stitching. But no–don’t let me influence you. Tell me what you REALLY think.

Here is what happened. I went to the Dr. Martens website. I found some cute sandals on a great clearance. With joy in my heart, I ordered them. I went back to the product info page so that I could copy the url and send it to everyone I knew, announcing my shopping triumph. That’s when I saw the one little word that, if I were a cartoon character, would have sent my eyes baROOOOOOOOOONgah-ing to the screen: “Mens.” I know, I know, they should put an apostrophe between the N and the S, but that is not what made my eyes do that thing. And guess what? No such thing as order-canceling: they claim that the order goes directly to the warehouse, and that they have no contact with the warehouse, nor do they even know where the warehouse is, or if it even exists.

So here is what I am wondering, wise and worldly readers. Are UK sizes the same for men and women, unlike US sizes? That is, will I be able to wear these sandals, with only you and me and the entire Dr. Martens community knowing they are technically for men, because a UK women’s 7 is the same shoe as a UK men’s 7? Or is it like US sizes, where a women’s 8 and a men’s 8 wouldn’t be even close to the same size, and now I will have to pay the return shipping?

I am wringing my hands anxiously, awaiting your reply.

Shelly at Scenic Overlook tagged me for this Three Things meme. I do what Shelly says. She is one fierce-looking purple M&M chick.

Three Things That Scare Me:
1. house fire
2. choking
3. deep water (it’s the “me dangling above” part and the “things below” part–not the fear of drowning in it)

Three People Who Make Me Laugh:
1. Roz Chast
2. Mitch Hedberg
3. Sundry

Three Things I Love:
1. postcards
2. L’Artisan perfume
3. babies, and the naming of them, and the buying of clothes and equipment for them, and the taking pictures of them, and the snuggling and sniffing of them, and the anticipation of them, and the planning of them, and the not-planning of them

Three Things I Hate:
1. W@lmart
2. insurance problems
3. morning sickness

Three Things I Don’t Understand:
1. why my mother-in-law thinks I should cook breakfast for her every morning when she’s visiting
2. what the word “ironic” means
3. what our homeowners’ policy DOES cover, and why it goes up so much every year considering we never make claims on it and considering it keeps covering less

Three Things On My Desk:
1. Chapstick Lip Moisturizer
2. an empty cup that once held ice cream
3. someone’s very nice pen–who did I accidentally steal it from?

Three Things I’m Doing Right Now:
1. agitating about something minor and stupid that doesn’t matter
2. listening to a Schoolhouse Rock album
3. thinking about when I’m going to eat those Cadbury Creme Eggs (I went into the other room after typing that to see if it was “creme” or “cream,” and the answer turned out to be “eating one right now”)

Three Things I Want To Do Before I Die:
1. have lots of grandchildren
2. help someone deliver a baby who arrives unexpectedly and is totally fine
3. write the kind of detailed will that assigns small, thoughtful items to people important to me (“My diamond stud earrings to my dear friend Lee, who…”)

Three Things I Can Do:
1. make fudge from scratch
2. swim
3. chart my cycle like a trained professional

Three Things I Can’t Do:
1. use a sewing machine
2. play an instrument
3. put on mascara without my eyelashes feeling unpleasantly sticky with each blink

Three Things I Think You Should Listen To:
1. Blink-182
2. Consumer Reports
3. the nagging feeling that maybe you’ll regret saying something you’re about to say

Three Things You Should Never Listen To:
1. media personalities who drive your blood pressure up
2. interviews with authors or actors whose work you admire
3. anyone trying to scare you about something they also happen to be selling the expensive solution for

Three Things I’d Like To Learn:
1. how to put up the goldanged Christmas lights evenly
2. how to stop agitating about things that don’t matter
3. which things are worth saving in large boxes in the basement for years and years, and which things aren’t

Three Favorite Foods:
1. pizza
2. “chicken in a creamy sauce” dishes
3. Pong Wok chicken, eaten at China Express and never found anywhere ever again

Three Shows I Watched As A Kid:
1. Sesame Street
2. Mr. Rogers
3. 3-2-1 Contact

Three Things I Regret:
1. not dating Jonathan
2. being too scared of the CPA exam to try for it
3. buying so many 39-cent stamps (I was celebrating finally using up all my 37-cent stamps)

Three People I’m Tagging (no pressure, just if it seems like fun to do):
1. Shauna at Pass the Chocolate
2. Trena at You, Me and a Baby
3. el-e-e at hello, self

I mentioned a few days ago that I was agitated about an email from my father-in-law. Paul’s parents split up when Paul was in college; evidently it was (a) a relief and (b) a long time coming. I’ve met Paul’s dad once, and he’s….he’s a…he’s a difficult man. He’s in his sixties now, but pretty much all he does is self-analysis. His only topic of conversation is how his journey of self-discovery is going, or why it’s everyone else’s fault that his life turned out the way it did. He even has a theory about a childhood illness that he claims made him into a different person than he was “supposed to be.” There’s no reason to believe he ever had such an illness, or that he was ever anyone other than the asinine idiot he has carefully nurtured over the years.

The first evening I spent with Paul and Paul’s parents (they’re divorced, as I said, but amicable enough to get together for an evening when Paul and I visited briefly on our honeymoon), Paul’s dad sat in silent state of what turned out to be self-pity–the entire evening. Paul and his mom were prepared: Paul’s mom knitted, and Paul had a book. I’m still angry with Paul (it’s been nearly ten years) for not preparing me. There I sat like an idiot, trying to fill the silence with perky remarks no one responded to. I should have wished everyone good night and left the room, but I was too paralyzed by the intense discomfort of the situation.

Paul’s dad contacts us once every year or two. Sometimes it’s a one-time email/call, sometimes there’s a flurry of them. Then they cut off abruptly, and we don’t hear from him again for another year or two. He doesn’t respond when we let him know about the birth of a new grandchild. Sometimes he’ll contact us six months later to complain about how bad he feels for not responding. He’s made no contact with any of his grandchildren, or shown any interest in them at all. They are not him, so he’s not interested.

Every time I’ve had to talk to Paul’s dad on the phone, I’ve ended up sickened by his excuses and his self-pity. He talks ONLY about himself. He takes EVERYTHING personally. When we had newborn twins and sent out a general email to the whole family and all our friends saying that we were going to let the answering machine pick up calls because it was too hard to talk on the phone right now, he professed himself “very hurt” by this, and said he felt “rejected.” He feels so very, very victimized and sorry for himself over the break-up of his family, even though it’s clear that he was the main problem. He says he shouldn’t be held accountable for his bad behavior (he used to disappear for hours or days; he would give everyone the silent treatment for hours, days, or weeks; he would be “emotionally unable” to either work or help out around the house; he had at least one affair), because he “wasn’t emotionally able” to deal with marriage and family. Whatever, jerk.

ANYWAY. He got in touch again last week, by email. This time he tells me that the reason he’s not in touch is that he doesn’t know who he can “trust.” He says that when he gives updates on his life, they get “twisted” and people put “spin” on them to make him look bad. I don’t know what the hell he could be referring to. He says that he would like to have a relationship with Paul, but feels rejected by Paul. He explains the various elements of his personality that make it so very hard for him to keep in touch with his own children unless they jump up and down saying “Yay! Yay! You’re talking to me, I’m so very very excited and grateful!” He explains once again that his IQ is very very high, and that a psychologist told him he functions at a lower level than his IQ, and that there “must be a reason for that.” Note: I’ve never noticed that he seems particularly intelligent. Mostly he seems paranoid and mentally unstable.

He didn’t send this email to Paul, only to me. It is clear from the email that what he wants is for me to comfort and reassure him. He wants me to tell him that I totally understand why he’s chosen to estrange himself from his children and grandchildren. He wants me to tell him he’s totally wrong and that Paul is LONGING for a relationship with him, and that I will talk to Paul and explain his dad’s actions in another light so that reconciliation will be possible. He wants me to tell him that yes, he’s very very smart and such a good boy in every way. Well, screw that. He’s a total loser, and I can’t stand him, and at this point I don’t even want him to have a relationship with the kids because that would be so much work for me and would involve so many explanations to the children about why Grandpa suddenly dropped out of touch for a year. And also, he’s right: Paul doesn’t want a relationship with him.

I worked really hard on my reply email:

Hey, Pinehole Dear Phil,

Surely you must realize I’m not going to tell you that you did the right thing by choosing to estrange yourself from your children and grandchildren for what appear to me to be purely selfish reasons. Surely you must realize that at this point, nobody cares what you do or what you say. Your family doesn’t waste breath discussing you one way or another, and if you think people are “spinning” your words to “prejudice others against you,” I suggest you get your medication adjusted. The only prejudice people have against you is the prejudice you yourself have inspired with your words and your actions. I barely know you, and no one has had to “spin” anything for me to understand what it means that you drop out of touch for years at a time. And don’t try to get my sympathy in any way: I may be only the daughter-in-law so you feel safe talking to me, but those are my babies and my husband you’re ignoring, and they matter infinitely more to me than you do. If you think I’m going to take your side over theirs, you are seriously whacked. I’d give up your life to save one of their fingers.

You’re so worried that everyone is saying bad things about you, and you consider yourself “out of the loop.” In your needs-more-medication imagination, Paul and his mom and sister dance happily in a field of flowers holding hands, while poor poor Phil is all alone through no fault of his own with no one to care about him. Leaving aside the issue of who it was who left his family behind and then chose to rarely contact them ever again except to explain how bad they make him feel, I can tell you that Paul doesn’t contact his mother or sister, either. I’m totally in charge of all contact with his family. You can imagine how much I love this, considering what a bunch of crazies you all are. You imagine, I suppose, that I’m constantly emailing Paul’s mother and having long cozy chats with her on the phone, while sending you only the “bare minimum” of a huge monthly pile of photos of the grandchildren you don’t show any interest in, plus every two weeks a long chatty email keeping you updated on our lives which you also don’t show any interest in. You will be glad to know that the emails and photos I send to you–the ones you never acknowledge in any way–are the exact same ones I send to Paul’s mother. There, do you feel more “in the loop” now?

You talk about how bad you feel for being out of touch, but then you immediately start making excuses for it. All the excuses end up being about other people. Listen, pinehole, I couldn’t care less if you were in touch or not. In fact, I prefer it when you’re out of touch. When you call or write, I am agitated for days, wishing I was the kind of person who would say to you after a long period of listening to your complaints and excuses, “Hm, no, it sounds to me as if this is all your own fault, and that you’re being a total jerk as usual.” Instead I say, “Mm-hm, mm-hm” which I think implies that you’ve found a sympathetic ear. Then I’m angry at you and at myself. I have thought more than once that it will be a relief when you die and I no longer have to wonder if I should send you yet another Christmas package that will go completely unacknowledged.

Because you are a difficult and probably crazy person, I’ve had to come up with an actual formal policy regarding my willingness to communicate with you. After years of thought, and many times considering if I should just break off communications altogether because you’re not my father and I don’t see why I should have to carry the burden that is you, I have come up with a policy that keeps me from going quite so nuts. It is this: As long as you keep us updated with email address and mailing address changes, my intention is to continue sending you the exact same emails and photos and cards I send to Paul’s mom, just as I have been. I’m the daughter-in-law, so I don’t have any emotional stake in whether or not you’re in touch beyond the necessary address updates. Frankly, it’s easier for me if you’re not.

You are way too old to be talking deeply about your journeys of self-discovery. This is appropriate during late nights in high school and college, and maybe even into the early twenties, but then never after. Not only does no one care this much about another person’s psyche, you don’t have a very interesting psyche to begin with. In fact, it appears that all you have in there is a big tangle of psychological analysis: you’ve been self-analyzing for so long, that’s all that’s left of you–if there was ever anything more than that to begin with, which my experiences with you have led me to doubt.

You say you feel that various things have led to you not living up to your real potential. You know what? I think your real potential was pretty limited to begin with. But certainly at this point, it is too late to be worrying about it. It’s too late for you to do anything “when you grow up.” It’s also too late to care about your IQ. Your IQ might have been an interesting test result when you were in elementary school, but it’s meaningless now. Your incessant bragging about how high it is only makes me want to argue with you and make scoffing noises and show you many bullet-pointed charts that demonstrate how little evidence there is that your IQ was even high to begin with.

You made your choices during the time you were with your family, and you’ve made your choices since then, and it is useless to try to blame the results of those choices on other people. Oh, you feel like Paul and his sister don’t want a relationship with you? Quelle surprise. Who WOULD want a relationship with someone as self-absorbed and as self-pitying as you? Considering your only topic of conversation with your children is why they can only blame themselves for your departure and why they can only blame themselves for your lack of communication since then, and considering you only have this conversation with them every two years or so when you choose to contact them, and then you sulk because you don’t think they seemed happy enough to hear from you, what the hell would make you believe that anyone would want a relationship with you? You’re a total waste of apartment space as far as I’m concerned.

Normally, I like to believe that most people do okay as parents: some may be better than others, but there aren’t many failures. You, though, are an actual failure. Yes, I mean it: you are a failure as a father. You failed. You did more harm than good. You set a terrible example of adulthood. You did not take care of your children, and you interfered with the care others tried to take. It is a tribute to the strength of the human spirit that your kids came out as well as they did. I mean, there are times when I get very frustrated with Paul, but he’s a normal human being and my frustrations with him are on that level. My frustrations with you run more toward a knife and a scary ee!-ee!-ee! sound as you take a shower.

If you want my opinion–and from experience I know you don’t want it unless it confirms your own sense of rightness and wrongedness–I think you could benefit from a several step program. (1) Go see a psychiatrist. Tell him or her your worries about people twisting your words. Tell him or her your philosophy about family relationships. Get some good medications for a change. (2) I usually don’t like it when people say “Get a life,” because they seem to mean “Get one more like mine,” but in your case I think the instruction could be applied to mean something less critical and more elemental. Stop thinking about yourself all the time. Stop wondering about your feelings all the time. Get out of your Mire Of Phil and do things that matter to people other than to you. Get a job, maybe. Get some friends who aren’t taking you on purely as a charity case. (3) Stop being such an ass. We’re all sick of it. (4) Give up on a relationship with Paul. People say “it’s never too late,” but they’re just being starry-eyed dimwits: there is a point of “too late,” and you’ve passed it. You’d have to change more than humanly possible for him to think you’re not a total waste of time. (5) Stop bragging about your IQ and your potential. Nobody cares, and nobody believes you. You wasted your life; too bad. (6) Stop asking me to support your unsupportable decisions. I don’t like you any more than Paul does; and in fact, considering I have no conflicted familial feelings, I probably like you a whole lot less.

Be sure to leave instructions in your crazy-person apartment so that someone will contact us when you die. Other than that, I don’t see any reason we need to hear from you again.

Sayonara, Loser Love, Swistle

***

Some of you may have noticed that I had to do some subtle editing to my original email before sending it. Most of the editing was because I realized I didn’t want to engage with him in any of the areas he wanted to engage in: I didn’t want to talk about how he thought other people were saying bad things about him, I didn’t want to discuss whether his children would want a relationship with him, and I didn’t want to talk about how I understood his lack of contact or response over the years. Nor did I want to get an email back from him in response to any of those topics. It’s not as if my opinions on the topic are going to make him realize the errors of his ways and become a better person. All I’d be doing is creating strife and unpleasantness.

All I really wanted to communicate was two things: (1) I send you the same stuff I send to your ex-wife so don’t imagine you’re missing out, and (2) I don’t really care if you’re in touch or not. On a read-between-the-lines level, I hope that my lack of response to the rest of his email communicates that I don’t care about his IQ, his excuses, or his justifications for his bad behavior.