I can get so discouraged when I come upon another example of HOW MUCH CHILDREN HAVE TO BE TAUGHT. Why do my children not know that you have to wash between your toes? Why don’t they know that powdered laundry detergent has to be mixed with water before you add the clothes? Why do they think it’s okay to drink dirty sink water? Do I have to tell them EVERYTHING??

Occasionally, though, I discover a childhood lesson I myself failed to learn. Here is one I am hoping you can help me with.

1) You wake up in the morning.
2) There are cookies in the house.
3) You do not eat them for breakfast.

I don’t see how this works.

My dears, did you catch in yesterday’s comment section that Pann has started a new website for when you have something to say but can’t say it on your blog? It’s called Rant Haven, and the way it works is you send her an email (from an anonymous email address, if you want) and you get an anonymous account on the site, which you can use to post your rants.

HELLO! Obviously this is what we need. I have already subscribed to it in my RSS reader, because I want to read ALL of you who say you can’t talk about [Insert Mesmerizing Topic Here] because your family reads your blog.

Also, I think we need to make lists of what would be in our “Burn This When I Die” boxes. Here’s what would be in mine:

1. My NaNoWriMo novel.
2. One folder and two college-ruled notebooks full of poetry.
3. Photos I took of myself in the mirror to send to an ex-boyfriend years ago. They are not racy, but I am looking Intense and Posed in a way I find excruciating now. Except I also think I look kind of cute. And there are so few photos of me at age 24. And I don’t know where the photos are, because I hid them somewhere.
4. My diaries.
5. A book called The Script : The 100% Absolutely Predictable Things Men Do When They Cheat, which I thought would be handy thing to know ahead of time in case it ever came up, but I only got partway through the book because it seemed so dumb and obvious I lost interest. (“Is he getting phone calls and hissing ‘I told you never to call me here’ into the receiver? Are there charges on the credit card bill for flowers and hotels?”) I should just get rid of it, but I feel like I should finish reading it first.

I’ve been wanting to tell my brother about this blog, but I haven’t trusted him since the day we came down on different sides of a hypothetical situation. The conversation was a year ago, shortly after I’d finished my NaNoWriMo novel. A NaNoWriMo novel is a novel you write in one month. The emphasis is on quantity, and there’s no time for quality. I was explaining to my mother and brother that although I had not burned my novel YET, I certainly didn’t want anyone to (*shudder*) READ it, and I was worried now about dying unexpectedly and having the novel discovered among my possessions.

Anyway, my mom and I started envisioning a “Burn When I Die” box: you’d use it to store all the things you don’t really want your relatives finding unexpectedly through their tears: feti$h magazines, documents related to your secret marriage and subsequent secret annulment, novels so gaggingly awful you fear people would be relieved the author was no longer with us, etc.

My mom said, as I knew she would, that if I had a “Burn When I Die” box, she’d burn it for me without hesitating or peeking. I knew this would be the case: when I was a teenager, I had the only mom in the universe who would walk past my open diary in a deserted house and actually move a little further away because she didn’t want to accidentally see anything.

But my BROTHER said that he would NOT burn the box. No. In fact, he would in good conscience make a deathbed promise to burn it, and then consider the promise meaningless when the person had died, and he would root through the box right after the funeral–or perhaps before, if it was an afternoon funeral. Dead people don’t have valid contracts, was his point of view.

You see, perhaps, why I am not sure I can let him go rummaging around in my blog. The blog in which I might want to complain about my brother, or talk about S-E-X, or discuss my plans to steal his half of our inheritance.

But I’m finding I have to constantly talk around the blog: I’m always monitoring my Next Thing To Say to make sure I’m not about to say something about one of our discussions. More than once I’ve had to say, “Uh…I read on someone’s blog that…” when I want to mention my own blog. This is getting silly.

So I’ve told my brother and my sister-in-law about the blog. But! Now I need to do a big edit. A biiiiiiiiig edit. Imagine you’re talking on the phone to your best friend, and no one else is home. Now imagine your husband is in the room. Now imagine your husband AND your mother-in-law are in the room. With each new person, you have to think more carefully about how what you say will be received, or who might be hurt by it.

It is hard to decide where to draw the line. At what point is it so edited, I’ll need to start a new secret blog so we can still have our private phone conversations?

Breakfast:
coffee
ten fun-size Mr. Goodbars

Mid-morning:
fun-size Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup every 15 minutes

Lunch:
skim milk
ten fun-size Kit-Kats
five fun-size Mr. Goodbars

Mid-afternoon:
coffee
carrot stick
handful of “caramel” candy corn (whuh?) (also: bleah)

Dinner:
skim milk
creamy chicken casserole
broccoli

Evening:
skim milk
nine chocolate-chip cookies

It’s not a DIET, it’s a LIFESTYLE CHANGE.

I expect to be fun-size any day now.

I did diaper usage reports for months three and four, month two, and month one, too.

Halfway through this month, Henry switched from size 1 diapers to size 2 diapers. So the first 15 days of the month he was in size 1 diapers, which are $10.60 for 112 of the Target brand we use; and the next 16 days of the month he was in size 2, which are $10.60 for 96 Target brand diapers.

Size 1 diapers are 9.46 cents each ($10.60 divided by 112 diapers in the package). Size 2 diapers are 11.04 cents each ($10.60 divided by 96 diapers in the package).

When he was outgrowing the size 1 diapers, we went up to an average of 7 diapers per day. When he switched to size 2s, we went back down to our usual average of 6 diapers per day.

So for the first half of the month, he used 105 diapers (7 diapers a day times 15 days). Those diapers cost 9.46 cents each, which comes to $9.93.

And for the second half of the month, he used 96 diapers (6 diapers a day times 16 days). Those diapers cost 11.04 cents each, which comes to $10.60.

That’s $9.93 for the first half of the month plus $10.60 for the second half of the month, for a total of $20.53 to keep Henry in disposable diapers for a month.

So Shannon and Shauna want to see wedding photos, and Shannon particularly wants to see the wedding shoes. Well, all right. I guess I can make things anonymous enough to suit my nature.

Here are our wedding outfits, which we did indeed wear to other people’s weddings:

I don’t think we would choose the same outfits if we were getting married now, but, you know, TEN YEARS AGO. We felt pretty cute at the time. Also: we look a lot taller with our heads on.

You can also see some of the parlor-type thing we got married in, because this photo was taken by our justice of the peace.

The shoes kind of blend into the carpet, but when I was looking through my journal for a photo that showed our outfits, I found a catalog clipping of the shoes I ordered:

These are the announcements [Edited: I edited the photo to make it more clear that this wasn’t my personal info]:

Before you think, “Hey, her real name is Janet???,” I will tell you that this is a photo of the sample announcement we got during the decision-making process. The announcement is white, embossed with white flowers. The writing was purple on the sample, but we ordered black.

Here is our car, decorated for our drive:

The end.

Have I ever told you about our wedding? It was ten years ago, in fall of 1997. We got engaged, and we were married two months later. Estimated percentage of friends and relatives who expected a baby to be born within six months: 75%.

We’d been living together for two years, intending to get married but not finding any reason to do it at THIS time as opposed to THAT time. Then we decided to have kids, and that we’d prefer to be married first. Our favorite season was autumn, and we wanted to get married in autumn. We realized our autumn wedding was either two months away or a year and two months away. We opted for two months away.

Our plan was to work fast. We’d chosen a date, so we thought we’d invite people immediately, then buy nice dressy clothes, get some platters from the deli and some napkins/plates from the party store, and have a nice city hall wedding followed by a pleasant cakey-and-punchy-and-snacky reception in the large formal room available for free at our apartment complex. Get a stereo and some mix tapes and some champagne, and WHO’S a cute little married couple, WHO is?

We told our parents. MY parents were happy with the plan, and started looking into plane tickets.

But Paul’s parents. His mom said it didn’t matter to HER, of course, but that OTHER people were concerned that we weren’t getting married in a church, and Paul’s grandmother wanted to know did we realize our marriage wouldn’t be valid In The Eyes Of The Lord? His mom said she would have to stay in our apartment for two weeks after the wedding, because otherwise she couldn’t afford to come. His mom said she was sure MY mom was disappointed we weren’t having a bigger wedding. His dad didn’t know if he’d be emotionally able to attend at that time.

Did we want to go on our planned weekend honeymoon to a nearby city, then come home to two weeks of Paul’s mother in our apartment with us? No, we did not. Did we want to go to a lot of trouble and expense, only to hear how unsatisfactory our efforts were? No, we did not. Did we–now that we thought about it–even CARE if we had a wedding-wedding? No, we did not. We wanted to be married, but we were only half-interested in the party part of it.

So we made a list. What did we really want, in terms of nice-but-unnecessary wedding accessories? I wanted special outfits–ideally outfits we could then wear when we attended other people’s weddings. I wanted rings. I wanted to order pretty announcements or invitations, and I wanted matching stationery for thank-you notes. I wanted studio portraits. I wanted to drive around in a decorated car so people would honk at us and be happy about marriage. That was what I wanted.

What did Paul want? (1) minimal fuss; (2) someone else to choose his outfit; (3) not to have to wear the outfit for too long; (4) no pictures of us gazing moonily into each other’s eyes; (5) the rings not to be too girly.

We hired a justice of the peace, a retired minister who wanted to keep doing his favorite part of being a minister, and we paid him ten bucks extra to bring his white-haired wife and sister to be our witnesses. We got married in the parlor of the apartment complex, where we’d planned to have the reception. I wore a pretty green dress and fancy black velvety maryjanes with little heels, and Paul wore a white dress shirt and tan dress pants and a leaf-patterned tie. Then we drove to the post office and dropped off huge white heaps of beautiful white-on-white embossed wedding announcements, the square kind that require fiddling around with extra stamps. Then we drove to a studio and had our picture taken.

Afterward, we changed into jeans, decorated our own car, and drove a long way on the highway, waving at all the people who honked and waved and held up their own wedding-ringed hands. We had dinner at a steakhouse we used to go to all the time when we were first dating. We went to a large bookstore and browsed, and we each bought a few things. We drove home. We washed the car.

It was a great day. I was worried I would regret giving up the flowers, the reception–the other wedding accessories. It’s been ten years and I don’t regret it yet. It was a great day.

I do enjoy going to other people’s weddings, though, and thinking, “What color table linens would I have chosen?” and “Ooo, I would have MY bridesmaids wearing non-matched dresses!” and “I love this yummy buffet!” and “Lots of bottles of wine, that’s the key,” and so on. Wedding stuff is fun.

Symptoms of Zoloft withdrawal (for me) (so far) (this is going from 50 mg/day down to 25 mg/day) (are we going to have a list of symptoms here any time soon?):

• Headaches
• Feeling like “What’s the point?”
• Thinking “Everything’s a mess”
• People keep asking what’s wrong even when I don’t feel like anything is
• Longing for the medication; tempted to take larger dose (not stupid, not going to)
• Tired
• Crabby
• Weary of everything that needs to be done
• Eating eating eating, especially sugar
• Hm, this is not so much different than usual
• But it is, you’ll just have to take my word for it

What I’ve been doing:

• Going to Target, breathing in the Target smell, finding little fun clearance things to buy
• Buying a million sale lip balms at my friend Lee’s Avon site (she gave me a free shipping code; I’m not sure how long it’s good for, but it’s REPFS). I got another Slick Tint* Glossy Wine, because I LOVE that thing and use it every day now, and for 69 cents I think I can spring for a second one for my purse. I also got it in the other two colors it comes in. Plus I got candy cane lip balm and holiday-decorated lip balms for stocking stuffers. Plus some flavors like marshmallow and jellybean and butterscotch. (Have I mentioned how much I love lip balms?) And two lipsticks at $1.29 each, and two eyelining pencils, and a 59-cent nailpolish, and a new moisturizing face cream.
• Drinking coffee with Peppermint Mocha creamer
• Eating creamy chickeny recipes, especially with potatoes and sweet canned corn
• And then having ice cream with fudge sauce afterward
• Or warm chocolate-chip cookies
• Or both
• Reading People magazine and US Weekly magazine
• Wearing perfume
• Re-reading Jeeves books
• Watching discs of My Name is Earl
• Squeezing Henry, snuffling his neck, kissing him, dressing him in warm fleecy outfits so he’s a cuddly snuggaroo
• Lying down and letting the twins climb all over me

* “Slick Tint” is such a bad name. “Slick” makes me think of getting my hair stuck in lip gloss. “Tint” makes me think “level of color appropriate for 8-year-olds.” Slick Tint is more dry than a lip balm, and in fact I have to put lip balm on over it. I like it because I put it on and it is just the amount of color I want: it makes me look fancy, but not too fancy to be wearing jeans and a t-shirt. And I don’t have to blot it: it soaks into my lips so I don’t feel all waxy-lipped and careful (“must…not…touch…lips…”). It’s lip-balm-shaped and lip-balm-sized, which makes it easy to manage. And it’s 69 cents (even at full price it’s only 99 cents) so it doesn’t trigger my hoarding impulses (“must save for special occasions!”). Hm, that is a little more than I would ever have imagined I could say about a tinted lip balm. To summarize: It’s not glossy! or slick! and I like it! a lot!

Hello. Did you know the Red Sox are so awesome, I ALMOST paid full-price for a Red Sox t-shirt this weekend? True story.

Here are some of the things said by my children this past week (I realize they are also Paul’s children, but if I say “our children” when I’m talking to you, it sounds like I mean the children belonging to you and me–and, unless I am very much mistaken in my memory of the details, that’s misleading) (I’m not saying I think you would actually go, “Wait–those are MY children too??”) (anyway, now I’m going to type what the children said):

• “The Red SOX play SOCCer, right?” (Me: “No, they play…”) “Do they play BASKETBALL?” (Me: “No, they play baseball.”) “No they don’t! I remember that it’s NOT baseball.”
• “Do they actually wear red socks?”
• “Wait. I thought ‘socks’ was ‘s-o-c-k-s.'” (Me: “It…”) “Is ‘s-o-x’ ONE sock?” (Me: “It’s…”) “Do they wear ONE red sock?” (Me: *swigging wine*)
• “Series of WHAT?”
• “What are the other choices for Best Team?”
• “So they beat EVERY TEAM IN THE WORLD?” (Me: “No, they…”) “But it’s the WORLD series.” (Me: *headache*)
• “Who’s Matt Sooie?”
• “The Red Sox think outside the SOX. The Rockies think outside the ROCKS. Get it? Get it? Think outside the ROCKS. Get it? Get it? Mommy, get it?” (Me: “No.”)

I think that our family is gradually breeding out more and more athleticism as we keep selecting instead for computer ability and for cuteness in glasses. We are now not even good at WATCHING sports.

I’m getting so behind on blog-reading. So when I can, I read blogs while nursing. This means I can’t comment much (typing one-handed makes Homer go crazy) (Simpsons reference, though it also makes Henry go crazy), but I’m hoping to play the “5 kids” card on that one–if that card isn’t too worn out from me using it in the Housecleaning slot.

The computer is tucked away in a back room, so if the twins are up and I’m the only adult, I can’t be in there. If Paul is home, I can. BUT: I’ve been noticing that if I’m nursing while at the computer, he starts getting really crabby in the other room. He does that thing where one parent clearly wants the other parent to hear how burdened he is and how frustrating it is to be doing it ALL BY HIMSELF. (River-crying in progress.)

It shouldn’t make any difference to him: if I’m nursing in the living room, I’m just sitting there with a book, not doing stuff with kids. But it seems to me that it DOES make a difference–like he feels the way he’d feel if I were just on the computer when I was NOT nursing. NOT THAT THERE’D BE ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT, I might point out. But since I AM nursing, it seems to me that it doesn’t matter what I’m doing at the same time: he’s on his own with the other kids either way, so what does he care if I’m reading in the living room or reading at the computer?

So when we had a peaceful moment I said in a pleasant, calm voice, “It’s been seeming to me that if I’m on the computer while nursing Henry, that makes you feel crabby.” He SIGHED and said nothing. Tone of sigh: “You are bugging me about something stupid.” I said, still pleasant and calm, “Is that the way it is?” He said NOTHING, and left to go to the library.

Um, HELLO. Everyone (magazine articles! TV shows! movies! books! psychologists! counselors!) is ALWAYS saying that the key to a successful relationship is to have open communication. And men are always trying to pull that “I’m not a mind reader–you have to tell me what you want” line (as if it takes SUPERNATURAL POWERS to see that the teetering trashcan needs to be emptied). So I try to tell Paul when something is amiss.

But I get NO REPLY. Or else he gets mad. Those are the two choices: he ignores me (literally doesn’t respond, and either leaves the house, leaves the room, or goes to sleep) or he gets angry. We’re both confrontation-avoiders, so usually we work out our problems with minimal discussion, and that works for both of us. But I don’t like feeling crabby waves coming toward me when I’m not doing anything wrong.

So what am I supposed to do? That’s rhetorical, since I guess there are two answers: (1) Say to him, “I’ve noticed that when I bring up a problem, you either ignore me or get angry,” and then he’ll either ignore me or get angry, or (2) Go back in time and marry someone else.