OKAY. I have a WORKING THEORY, everyone.

Long have I puzzled over this: WHY OH WHY do I hear so many new parents saying things such as “No one told me it would be this hard” or “No one ever talks about postpartum depression,” when during my pre-parenting days I heard ALMOST NOTHING ELSE? Everywhere I turned, people were EAGER to tell me how crazy their children drove them, how little sleep they got, how painful labor was. In fact, if I hadn’t had a “populate the earth” gene that switched on in my early twenties, I might have been talked out of the parenthood thing altogether. And yet not just one person but LOTS of people were saying there was some sort of conspiracy of silence.

While I was doing the dishes tonight (Tessie wants me to tell The Story of How We Don’t Have a Dishwasher, but I already read you Goodnight Moon so THAT’S IT for tonight), I had a thought. I was very enthusiastic about having children, but many people are not quite so enthusiastic and maybe GIVE IT A MOMENT’S THOUGHT before springing into a state of life so SATURATED with children they can hardly sit down without squishing one. And what does the general public say, when people worry aloud about parenting? “It’s different when it’s your own!” “Oh, you can’t imagine that kind of love until you experience it!” “Children are such a blessing!” “You forget the pain!”

So my working theory is that the general public is contrary and argumentative: if you think you want children, they will try talk you out of it by telling you the bad things; if you think you don’t want children, they will try to talk you into it by telling you the good things. Thus, we get some people saying “No one ever told me I’d be so tired and angry and unhappy and that the baby would cry!” and other people saying “EVERYONE says that ALL THE TIME!”

And now that I have a hypothesis, we need to collect some data. These are the two things I need to know from you:

1) Were you enthusiastic and eager about children, or were you reluctant / conflicted / doubtful?

2) Did you hear mostly about how awful / painful / unhappy it would be and how you’d never sleep again, or did you hear mostly about how children were wonderful little miracles?

I am still completely absorbed in your excellent stories about how you found out you were pregnant. And Erica, my love, move your fingers and tell me your story, too. You might think that after 60-80 stories I would no longer be interested, but YOU WOULD BE WRONG.

Perhaps while I’m busy reading, you could go visit my friend Mairzy, who has a discussion going about charting. I know Mairzy IN REAL LIFE, as they say. And why DO they say “in real life”? It will come as a surprise to some, but this IS real life, what we are doing right here. I am actually writing this IN REALITY, and you are reading it IN REALITY. Both of us are REAL people. But I don’t know any good terms other than “in real life” to describe the people I know in a non-online way, so IRL will have to do. Maizy is my IRL friend, and she just started a blog, and she’s writing about a subject dear to my heart, so perhaps you could pop on over there and let me get back to reading your pee-stick stories.

I was talking with a friend of mine about how VIVIDLY we remember each positive pregnancy test. I may have to struggle to remember how old I am or whether we’re running low on flour, but I can tell you more than you would ever want to know about each time I discovered I was pregnant. I’ll try to be briefer than that.

With my first, I was charting, so when I hit day 16 after ovulation I knew I didn’t even have to take a test. I took one anyway. I leaned against the bathroom door, looking at myself in the mirror. My reflection didn’t know what to think, either.

With my second, I was charting but had gotten to be such an AWESOME EXPERT, I was only keeping track between cycle-start and ovulation. I was upset that month, because we’d totally missed our chance. Then one night at bedtime I was feeling crampy, and I thought, “Oh, yeah. I should be getting my period any day now.” I picked up my chart to count how many days there had been of this cycle. 32, 33, 34, 35, 36. I lay wide awake in the dark for a long time. I didn’t have to take a test that time, either, and I did anyway.

With the twins, we’d been trying for a few months, and I was already getting into the rhythm of living in 2-week segments. We’d hit it RIGHT ON for two months, and the tests were still negative. I didn’t have much hope for the third month. We were supposed to leave in a few minutes for an open house at William’s kindergarten, and I impulsively took a test—just to get it over with. I don’t remember anything about that open house.

With my fourth pregnancy, I had just weaned the twins and was waiting to get back on the Pill. I was supposed to start taking it on the first Sunday after my next period. I was waiting, waiting, waiting…where the heck is my period? It’s been 30 days. 31. Maybe it’s just interference from weaning hormones. 32. I took all four kids to the store so I could buy a test. An hour later, I was digging the twins’ baby clothes out of the donation pile and putting them back into storage.

Now I hope you’ll tell me yours. Feel free to use up as much comment section as you need. If you want to make a post of out it instead, leave a link in the comment section so I can go read it. I LOVE stories of Finding Out. I will read EVERY SINGLE ONE with RAPT ATTENTION.

Little girl shoes, 75% off at Target! It is hard to see in the TINY PICTURE, but there are three different kinds: a dark brown maryjane with pink flowers (“Jaye”), a medium brown t-strap with embroidered flowers (“Lolli”), and a lighter brown maryjane with pink flowers (“Kimani”). Normally I buy shoes only a size or two ahead, but what can I say? A gear slipped or something. I bought them in sizes 6-1/2 through 11, for $3.74 per pair.

None of our furniture matches.

We don’t have a bedroom set.

We have a small baby.

“Gimme More,” which is the kind of song that usually makes me feel old, instead makes me feel young because I keep thinking it sounds EXACTLY LIKE Britney Spears is BURPING the word “more,” instead of growling sexily as she intends. And thinking things are burps, and that burping is funny, is something I associate with the younger members of our household.

Because I started having kids earlier than what’s usual for my area, I’m often the baby of the group of moms.

Paul saying, “I finally figured something out. Whenever I see one of your friends or an actress you say is our age, I’m always surprised. I just realized it’s because I compare them to YOU, and you look so much younger, so they seem old.” Good stuff, Paul! Keep up the good work!

I’ve gotten interested in birds. I suggested to Paul that we should get a bird guide so we’d know what they were.

When I hear about a problem with teenagers parked in cars, I side with the police and the parents and the nearby homeowners.

I have lines like a child’s drawing of a sunshine coming from the outer corners of my eyes.

I wish people wouldn’t walk on our lawn.

I hate cars blasting music as they drive by.

I call it “blasting.”

Cars full of teenagers make me nervous.

The Boxcar Children now seems scary to me (those kids are ON THEIR OWN!! OH NO!!”) rather than thrilling.

The skin on my upper arms is starting to look…different.

Snow Days are bad news.

Some of the people in celebrity magazines look like children to me. Silly, full-of-themselves children, preening and damaging their characters by hearing about how “hot” they are.

I think about people’s characters.

I’m nearly the age my high school boyfriend’s mother was when I was dating him.

If I’d had a baby at 16, the baby would be able to vote in this year’s election.

If I had a baby next year, I’d be high-risk because of “advanced maternal age.”

Ug, you are all TOTALLY RIGHT: it is AWFUL to bring up some sort of huge emotional issue and then be a complete TEASE about it. I would HATE it if someone else did that. I’d be like, “Either spill it or shut it, sister!”

I’m sorry I ever brought it up at all! But trust me when I say it is the kind of thing where if you knew what it was, you’d just be like, “Oh. That.” It’s just one of a number of well-known issues people fight about and kill each other over: @b0rti0n, h0m0sexu@lity, what should be done about the envir0nment, cry-it-0ut p@renting.

It falls into that category of topics that pretty much everyone has a strong opinion on, and even if everyone loves each other and swears to be nice about opposing points of view, it’s basically impossible. It’s no one’s fault, it’s just a topic people really, really care about, and I myself have been known to hit the ceiling if I read even one of the “nice” remarks that tries to be diplomatic. It’s such a dividing topic, people THINK they’re being fair and understanding about it, when actually they are demonstrating a TOTAL LACK OF UNDERSTANDING ABOUT EVEN THE MOST BAS—–

Sorry.

I will TRY not to tease anymore. I know it’s dreadful, and I hate when other people do it.

I’m so angry, I have a horrible adrenaline feeling in my throat, and my hands are cold and trembling, and my mouth is dry. And part of me would love to vent about it, but it’s on my (short) list of topics to never, ever talk about. Every time I slip and talk about it anyway, I’m very, very sorry. It’s one of my own Too Hot Issues.

Do you know how to find your own Too Hot Issues? I’ll tell you how. It’s when everyone on the other side of the issue seems like a raving, drooling moron, and you want to strangle every single one of them.

That’s not compatible with my usual life outlook, which is that it’s fine and natural for people to have different opinions, and that different lives are right for different people. Do I think you should be married, have five children, live in a raised ranch, and drive a minivan? Only if you want to, and there are a zillion other good lives if that life doesn’t appeal to you. But do I think you should be on the same side of the Too Hot Issue as me? YES YES YES AND IF YOU’RE NOT I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT. See? Incompatible. I can’t even tell you what the Too Hot Issue IS, because you might tell me where YOU stand–and even if you don’t, I’ll IMAGINE you telling me. It’s TOO HOT for me to touch.

This leaves me with a problem. Usually, talking things out is one of my best tools for getting over a grouse. I was a roiling mass of acid over the Target Christmas tree until I told you about it, and after that I felt released from it: I went and cheerfully deleted all the correspondence I’d been keeping for my imaginary lawsuit, and I stopped thinking about it every time I thought of Christmas, and I stopped composing mental scripts for my imaginary service desk confrontation, and I just felt BETTER, you know? It was as if I did $25 worth of venting, and now I could let the wasted $25 go. I mean, I still resent it, but I can see it as a blip rather than as THE END OF ALL JOY.

Well, you know what ELSE helped with the Christmas tree crabbiness was shopping the 75% off section at Target. Which is what I did to try to deal with today’s useless rage, especially since I’m not talking it out—even with PAUL, who is on THE SAME SIDE (but he draws the line at strangling the opposition, and if you are not FOR me you are AGAINST me). Anyway. I got something new at Target. Want to see? I finally found a Countdown to Christmas Calendar thingie I like, and it was 75% off:

Many such calendars are one-time-use, or they have not taken into account that a person might need adequate storage for FIVE little surprises each night before Christmas. This unit is of iffy quality (I found seven of them at two different Targets, and four of the seven had missing doors), but there’s room in each little cupboard for more than one item.

One of my favorite tasks between Christmas and New Year’s is choosing a calendar. I wait until they’re 50% off, and then I choose whatever appeals most. This year it was Beatrix Potter. Last year, it was Patience Brewster. The year before that, Fun with Dick & Jane.

For this coming year, it’s a mistake: I bought what I thought was a vintage ads calendar, but what I failed to notice is that the ads are actually inspirational messages. I don’t like inspirational messages. Inspirational messages make me want to HIT the person who wrote them, then give him a screaming baby and a toilet brush and stand over him hitting him some more and demanding to know how he feels NOW about “cherishing every moment.”

I would be interested to know how you choose your calendar each year, and what you’ve got lined up for 2008. I seem to be back in the market.

You guys = hilarious. I felt so much better reading all your funny remarks about my boyfriend.

For this year, we used our old, non-pre-lit fake tree, which fortunately I had not yet donated as I’d planned. The old tree is much smaller and didn’t have room for all my ornaments. Also, it had to have lights put on it, which fortunately Paul handled, perhaps remembering last year’s weeping and swearing.

For next year, I don’t know. I suppose my heart will heal with time. Especially if I see a nice fake tree at 90% off, as I did last year. I wish I’d bought my tree THEN, since then I would have lost only $10 instead of $25. But there is no sense dwelling on the past.

Today my boyfriend brought over a big old heart-shaped box of 75%-off clearance prices. (Which one is better: the one I used, or “held over his head a stereo of 75%-off clearance prices”?) My mom and I went shopping at TWO Targets, and I couldn’t help but be mollified. I bought:

Some pretty ornaments. The fluffy one clips to a branch.

A baby’s-first-Christmas ornament for Henry. Could I photograph it without it reflecting my GREEN SHIRT and PINK HAND and GREY CAMERA and BLACK CAMERA STRAP? No. The ornament is actually plain silver, and the bow and shoes are light blue. The child is not mine; her photograph came with the ornament.

Pretty tissue paper, gift tags, and a bag.

A box of chocolate peppermint cookies. Oh dear, an entire stack of cookies is missing! I, um, should have checked more carefully before buying them!

Two rolls of wrapping paper. Usually I wait for 90% on wrapping paper (because there’s usually plenty left, and because I already have too much), but I was feeling feisty.

Some cloth ribbon, in case I want to try the idea I saw EVERYWHERE this year about wrapping presents in reusable pieces of fabric. (My friend Mairzy thinks the idea was in Family Fun magazine.)

I also bought some paper plates with Christmas birds on them, but I forgot to take a photo of them before storing them in the little cabinet over the refrigerator, which is so difficult to get to it might as well not even count as a cabinet. And I bought some tape, but I thought you could take a pass on seeing that.

Different Target stores do their markdowns on different days, so yours might still be at 50%. I’m planning to keep checking for 90%, which is the best serenading-outside-my-window of all.