Put a vaporizer in your bedroom. I prefer the scalding-hazard (warm mist) kind over the mold-hazard (cool mist) kind, but either kind will work if it makes a gentle bubbling sound, the sound of someone taking care of you when you’re sick. Paul said last night, “Can’t we just use the sound machine?,” but I prefer the illusion that a magical sleeping mist is floating out into the room. Also, the moisture seems like it would be good for pregnancy congestion.

Do a Sudoku puzzle while lying in bed, just before turning out the light. I find they distract me from anything my mind might want to turn over and over and over and over, without being the kind of puzzle that might add to that churning mill–for example, the kind of puzzle Paul sometimes does, which can leave both of us lying awake thinking, “What the hell is a 5-letter word for ‘he ignited their hopes’?”

Turn pillow sideways from its usual orientation, then fold in half. I like to have the fold near my neck and the ends toward the top of my head, but it can also be nice to have the ends near your neck and the fold near the top of your head. This is good for pregnancy congestion and also for pregnancy heartburn.

Use lavender-vanilla “sleep” lotion from Bath & Body Works. Not lavender (too sharp), not vanilla (too sweet), but lavender-vanilla, from the aromatherapy section. Put it on your collarbone/breastbone area as if it were Vicks VapoRub, and tell yourself you’re inhaling something with magical sleep-inducing properties. Try not to lie there in the dark suddenly wondering whether this might be one of those dangerous herbal things.

If you are feeling icky in no particular way, just icky, especially if it’s “wake up in the middle of the night feeling icky,” do this: (1) pee, (2) chew two peppermint Tums, (3) drink a cup of water, (4) brush teeth, (5) pee again if you already need to, and (6) go back to bed.

If it’s on your medical provider’s approved list, take a Benadryl.

Window-shop online. I think these would make really cute birth announcements, don’t you?

Have sex. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! See? A good laugh can relax you, leaving you more ready for sleep.

Before bed, have a mug of hot milk. It sounds repulsive, but it’s yummy if you add a little vanilla and a little honey. Don’t overheat the milk or it really does get repulsive; heat it not to boiling, but just to “nice and hot.” Sip it down, then brush teeth and go right to bed.

Blog. At least you’re getting something done, since you’re not sleeping anyway. And it would be a shame to waste a quiet house.

I have a sleeper here (it’s William’s, not mine) with a zipper that has come un…threaded(?) on one side. That is, the zipper pull is sliding up and down freely on one of two zipper…ladders, but without being connected to the other ladder. The zipper doesn’t appear to be broken (no zipper teeth missing, no splits in the ladder), just disconnected. Can this be saved, or is it toast? I mean, I’m not going to replace the zipper; I’m wondering if it can be rethreaded so that both ladders are in the pull, and if so, how, or if I should toss it out. I tried to cram the disconnected ladder into the pull, but it looks like the ladder is too thick to go in like that. It’s a brand-new sleeper, and I don’t know if the zipper was like this when we bought it or if William unthreaded it the first time he was putting it on.

Today’s Digging Ourselves Out project is to go read Sundry’s post about hiring a housecleaning service and also read the comments, and then spend the rest of the ten minutes thinking about doing the same thing. If it isn’t something you can afford, just daydream. If you already have a housecleaning service, think about how awesome it is and how smart you are for having it.

Then, if you can, answer the question I left in Sundry’s comments: If you have a housecleaning service, do you feel weird having someone else in your house? Because for me, that’s one of the main problems. I’m not worried about someone stealing, I’m worried about someone, you know, being in my house. It makes me feel invaded just thinking about it. What I want to know is, is that something most people feel but you get used to it? or is it that if you feel it, you’re probably not going to get over it and should just scrub your own kitchen floor?

Also, a comment I didn’t leave but want answered: What does a cleaning service do if there is clutter coating every service? How can they dust the coffee table if they can’t get to it?

It’s Day One of school vacation week, and I was going to get you all to feel sorry for me about that–but then my parents came and took all four children out to lunch with them, and here I am alone in the house, and how am I supposed to make you feel sorry for me now? I’m going to go back to working the school vacation week angle. I can always delete this first paragraph, and you’d never even know I had this time By Myself In The House.

School vacation week makes me wonder why I ever had children in the first place. Of course, if I hadn’t had children, I’d be at work right now, probably doing twice the work because I’d be covering for all the people who had children out of school, and I’d be wondering why I hadn’t had any kids yet and oh my god I’m in my THIRTIES and TIME IS RUNNING OUT.

I took everybody to Target this morning. Smart move, dumbass. I was thinking it would be fun to let Rob and William each choose something they don’t usually get to have (fruit snacks shaped like Legos! thrilling and bound to disappoint!) to celebrate school vacation week, and also we were running low on diapers. I did get the diapers, and the gummy Legos, but I also felt like everyone was noticing how poorly I was controlling my roiling cloud of children. A clerk I didn’t recognize said, “Hey, you’ve got an extra kid today!,” which made me realize how often I use Target as an escape. They probably all know me there: the woman with twins, who can’t seem to keep it together and is always buying tons of clearance crap and candy, and is so distracted she never even looks at the clerks’ faces. “Did you see her today?,” they probably say to each other in the break room. “Does she not understand about birth control or what?”

We also bought a 10-pound bag of bird seed. I’d mentioned casually to Rob and William that you could put peanut butter on a pinecone and then roll it in birdseed and then hang it on a tree like an ornament, and that the birds would come and eat from it. To me, this was an interesting story about crafts that happen to other people. To them, this was the most amazing idea they ever heard and CAN WE DO IT RIGHT NOW?? So when I saw a sack of wild bird food at the store, I bought it. But now we have a problem, and it is pinecones. I am not even sure this is the right time of year to find them, or if we have pinecone-shedding trees in our area. Now we are going to have to go on a walk to find pinecones. Hey, can this craft be done with something other than pinecones?

Edited to add: I forgot to tell you about my gigantic find at Target! Simply Shabby Chic sheets, 75% off. I bought three sets of twin and one set of king. I would have bought more king, but it was the only set left.

The children have worn me out. William says everything ten times, and in a silly voice, and it seems as if he never ever stops talking. He follows me around the house, flopping. Rob keeps asking if we can talk about something, can we spend some time together, can you play with me now? It’s pitiful and annoying at the same time. Elizabeth hasn’t taken a nap in the last two days, and she won’t leave her shoes on, and she gives back almost everything I offer her to eat. Edward keeps getting into the diaper pail, the electronic equipment, the pencils–anything gross, delicate, or stabby. Lifting two heavy toddlers in and out of their high chairs overwhelms my tired body and my sore tum. Both twins are sick with colds that have turned into fevers and coughs. Their noses are double-double the disgusting.

Paul and Rob needed haircuts, so they went downtown and got it done. I started thinking about the cost of five boy haircuts every two months, plus Elizabeth’s and mine, and I started feeling like we can’t really afford all these children after all. We will have to donate several of them to Goodwill. I am not sure that will be tax-deductible.

The thought of haircuts led me to the thought of braces. Glasses. Car insurance for teenaged boys. What about our retirement? What were we thinking, having even ONE child? Oh, sure, “they’re worth it.” I’ll tell myself that when I’m living rough, eating out of dumpsters, having given all our worldly goods to pay for the needs of our throng of children. At least we won’t have to worry about the cost of extracurricular athletic programs: this morning William referred to something he saw in a book as a “hockey bat.” It was a golf club.

I don’t know why I thought this was a good day to balance the checkbook and work on the bills. Now I am agitating about our electric bill and our heating bill, and how much worse they will be when we have five children taking showers every day. What will we do about the bathroom situation? We have one small bathroom for seven people. This is not going to work out, and we are foolish to attempt it. The boys will need to start peeing in the shrubbery. I will give them showers in the driveway, with the garden hose.

Earlier, when the twins had been running free and the living room was trashed, and the twins were both crying because I’d taken them out of their mess, and I was cleaning it up even though most of it was on the floor and it’s uncomfortable to bend over like that now, I had this sudden vision of what it would be like to add a newborn to this. A fussing newborn who wanted to nurse for a leisurely hour while the twins were tantruming. Am I some kind of idiot, that I would allow this to happen? FIVE children? FIVE?? We can’t even come up with a name for this new child, because we have named too many children already.

Also, speaking of five, just five Reese’s miniature peanut butter cups (“serving,” my ass) have 210 calories. What kind of world do we live in, where this can be the case?

Can anyone who has read Stephen King’s new book Lisey’s Story tell me if there is any reason to continue plowing through it if I have become bored and exasperated after 50 pages? My sister-in-law says she once heard someone say, “Stephen King wouldn’t be a bad writer if he had an editor,” and I think that is accurately reflecting my current feelings. He wrote in 50 pages what should have taken 5, and he is really overdoing his parenthetical italics again. But if you tell me it is worth it, or that it picks up soon, I will give it another shot.

Last night Paul got out a drill and finished the drawer-pull-replacement project. On one hand I am grateful to him for fixing a problem. On the other hand it is so typical of him to come along for the fun part at the end: he didn’t just drill bigger holes, he also installed the new pulls. Installing the new pulls is the best part.

Well. Moving on. Here is the bureau first with the old pulls (white, black-screwhead center), and then with the new (brushed antiqued coppery brown metal):

An unanticipated happy thing is that the new pulls coordinate almost exactly with the frame of a mirror we have above the bureau. But I am still not certain these are the Right Pulls. They seem small. I like them better than the old pulls, but maybe big loopy rings would be even better?

This morning I have been doing very boring tasks indeed. First, Elizabeth broke the household record for “how soon after getting dressed will Mommy have to change an item of clothing due to pee” by being soaked through when I picked her up out of her crib and cuddled her. So both crib sheets got changed, and both twins got baths. Then as I was dressing the babies, I noticed I was using the last diaper, so I refilled the bin. Then I thought I’d better make more diaper wipes, considering we’d been out of them since yesterday and I was starting to push my luck. YAWN. This motherhood gig: so rewarding, so fulfilling.

Those of you who would have need of a homemade diaper wipes recipe have probably already run into this one. Nevertheless, I will post it here. When I first encountered this recipe, it was presented not only as a way to save a few pennies, but as a way to custom-make your own wipes if your baby happened to be sensitive to commercial wipes, or if you wanted to better control the ingredients. I grew to prefer them, and so even though they’re a small hassle to make, they’re worth it to me. But I also keep the commercial kind on hand for times when I’ve run out of the homemade kind and don’t get around to making more right away, and also for in the diaper bag.

First you need the right container. I bought mine at Walmart. It’s a Rubbermaid Servin’ Saver, 3 quart. It’s a squarish cylinder shape. I have four of them, because it’s less trouble to make these wipes if you make a bunch at once.

Next you need the right paper towels. Apparently they have to be Bounty Big Roll. I tried a couple of other kinds (I was assuming that the recipe was put out by Bounty, and that the kind didn’t actually matter) and they turned into pulp. I get the regular sheet kind, but maybe select-a-size would be good, too, I don’t know. Depends on how customized you want your diaper wipe experience.

Use a big sharp knife and cut the roll of paper towels in half so you have two short rolls. Wiggle and twist the inner cardboard tube until it comes out (it usually brings part of a paper towel with it in a little tufty fountain; that’s fine). In the container, combine 1 tablespoon of baby oil, 2 tablespoons of baby shampoo, and 2 cups of water. I don’t think exact measurements are crucial. If I’m in a hurry, I just pour in a slog of baby oil and two slogs of baby shampoo, then put in two bathroom-sink cups of water. Swish it around with your hand to mix it, then put a half-roll of paper towels in. Put the lid on, wait about 15 seconds, turn the whole thing upside down, and let it sit for half an hour or so. Then turn it right side up and use wipes by pulling them out from the center.

Cost information: Around here, a 2-pack of Bounty Big Roll paper towels sells for about $3.30. Each roll makes two containers of wipes, so a 2-pack is enough for four containers at about 83 cents each. Each container is 90 wipes. Then you’d have to add a little for whatever the cost is of the oil and soap you use. I like to use store-brand baby oil, the kind with something nice like aloe, and Johnson’s Baby Shampoo or Baby Magic. Choosing those parts is the benefit of this recipe as far as I’m concerned: it’s nice to choose a scent I like (Johnson’s lavender baby shampoo is nice), and it’s nice to be able to add more oil in winter, or more/less water if the wipes seem too dry/wet.

Something that raises the cost in our household is that Paul can’t seem to wrap his mind around the “paper towels” concept, and instead thinks of the wipes as toilet paper. He pulls out a big long loop, maybe five or six wipes in a big handful, and uses that for a diaper change. If he needs a second wipe, he takes out another big handful. He claims this is because it’s “impossible” to rip off a single sheet, but I can personally testify that it is indeed possible, and that once you get the hang of it you can easily do it one-handed.

Today’s assignment, for those playing along at home, is to find a small home-improvement task that you’ve been putting off, and do it. I’m talking about something along the lines of what I chose, which is to finally replace the drawer pulls on the bureau. You could also spackle nail holes, or touch up a teeny paint job, or hang a picture, or pick stickers off the wall–something like that.

I bought the drawer pulls a year or two ago, but when I brought them home and tried to take the old drawer pulls off, I discovered that each one had a nut on the back of what I’d thought was a screw, and that when I tried to unscrew the screw-that-must-in-fact-be-a-bolt, the nut was tightening. Instant despair. Instant giving up. I explained the problem to my dad, who, after a pause in which he was probably wondering where he’d gone wrong with my upbringing, explained that all I had to do was grip the nut with pliers while unscrewing the bolt. Here’s how I heard it, though: “All you have to do is…[static]…[some sort of tool]…[something I’ve never done]….[static].”

This morning I tackled it. I went downstairs, found a tool that brought to mind the word “pliers” (“Does it look like I could pull out a loose tooth with it?”), found a screwdriver, and removed those drawer pulls. It was not easy: those things were installed well over 30 years ago, and they did not want to evacuate the premises. One–probably the one I tightened and tightened and tightened before realizing about the nut–chipped mightily before finally coming loose. But they were out!

And here let us pause along with our brave worker, as she realizes that she has closed each drawer after removing the pulls–to get it out of the way and because it looks tidier that way. Let us turn discreetly away as bad words are uttered. Let us return after she has figured out a method of using screwdriver and pliers to gently pry open each drawer.

And let us turn away again as she realizes that the bolts for the new drawer pulls are much fatter than the old bolts, and that they will not be persuaded to fit no matter how much she clenches her teeth and tries to force them. In fact, let’s allow a curtain to fall gently over this whole scene: drawers sloppily open, nuts and bolts and old drawer pulls in a heap on the previously tidy bureau top, new bolts and drawer pulls abandoned in their too-fatness, ten minutes long since over. We will return tomorrow for part 2 of this particular project.

The freezer! It arrived! The delivery guys only dropped it once! Paul immediately put an entire box of Pop Ice in there, to see how long it would take it to freeze when it wasn’t spread out into sheets that slide out of the freezer every time you open the door. We also seem to be storing the energy-usage information in there for some reason. I need to go to the grocery store so I can fill up the rest. Isn’t it the loveliest thing you’ve ever seen? All that shiny white space.

I am anticipating another delivery today: a baby name book I pre-ordered back in October when I found out I was pregnant. It’s the new book by Satran and Rosenkrantz, who also wrote Beyond Jennifer & Jason. I really need it, too, because we’re stuck on names. Henry is the frontrunner right now, but I happen to know that my parents hate that name, and so even though I know they’ll get used to it, I’m reluctant to use it. We’ve pretty much knocked every other name off the list.

Alienbea tagged me for a meme! Yay! I tag Black Sheep.

1. What is your main cell phone ring-tone? It’s a ringing sound. It’s boring, but it gets my attention. I had it on music at first, but then I’d just be humming along to it without realizing it was my phone.

2. What is your default avatar? My…what?

3. What station is your car radio permanently tuned to? We have six pre-sets. The one I always try first is an alternative station, the kind with a disrespectful DJ and a limited playlist. Then I have two stations that play more popular music, and sometimes they’re good songs and sometimes I’m sick of them. (The other three pre-sets are Paul’s, and I don’t like any of them.)

4. What is your computer desktop image? One of the twins’ one-year portraits. Look at those toesies!

5. Is there something you wear every single day? I wear a uniform, practically: jeans, maternity shirt, hoop earrings.

6. I wish I had a tracking device on: Rob’s shoes: every morning it’s a hunt. Also, William’s stuffed platypus: every evening it’s a hunt.

7. What page does your internet browser open with? Google.

8. This item never leaves my car/purse: Maybelline Cola Slushie lipstick. Well, it leaves my purse when I’m putting it on. But then it goes right back in. Lipstick, I’ve noticed, tricks other people into thinking you’re pulled together, even if your hair needs washing and you have baby snot on your shirt.

9. What TV show do you never miss? We’re doing TV on DVD right now, because we always miss all of them.

10. What phrase do you hear yourself repeating too often? “Did you HEAR me?”