Awhile back I talked about bone marrow donation. I mentioned that the cost of getting on the registry might discourage people from signing up, but that if you were willing-but-moth-walleted you should contact the National Marrow Registry about the various opportunities to sign up for free. For example, I signed up for free when a local boy needed a transplant and there was a big drive paid for by his church and family.

Anyway, Tessie has drawn my attention to their current drive: from now until May 21st, it’s free to get on the registry. Go over to the National Marrow Registry right this minute and do it. It’ll save you $52+, and it’s a good thing to do.

Good morning! Two weeks and three days left! I’ve gone from feeling as if it’s too early to do things to feeling as if it’s too late to do things. I’m so tum-heavy and immobilized, what I work on now is the exhausting task of finishing all the ice cream before the baby gets here. I only have three more appointments left: one more routine OB appointment, one pre-op with the OB, and one pre-op with the anesthesiologist. And there are three half-gallons of Breyer’s. I think I can make it.

Last night William was up crying and saying his ear hurt, so this morning we’re headed for the pediatrician. I hope he does have an infection, because that means we’ll have to go to Target to pick up the prescription, and I can do a little shopping while we wait. Also, the other possibility is that he has so much wax in his ear it’s causing him pain, and that’s grosser, harder to fix, and more seemingly indicative of neglect and filth, so I’m voting for the infection and the cruising of clearance end-caps.

Thank you to everyone who gave input on the 2-in-1 shampoo/conditioner issue. I’ve bought five different kinds, and I’m trying each one for a week; I’ll do a report when all the results are in. I recommend this experiment to anyone waiting out the last few weeks of pregnancy. It’s fun and it’s distracting, and it leaves you with a bunch of 2-in-1s for after the baby is born and you feel like you have about 30 seconds to shower before the baby’s crying drops you to the floor in a seizure.

You know what else I recommend for the last few weeks? EARRINGS. From the neck down there is nothing to buy: it’s not worth it to buy more maternity clothes at this point, and shoe shopping is pointless if your feet are larger, wider, or puffier than you hope they’ll be after the baby is born. But earrings! You can still buy and wear pretty earrings. Target has about a zillion pretty pairs that cost in the $6 range. I’m trying not to go completely nuts.

Mother’s Day sure is a busman’s holiday, isn’t it? I was reading blogs last night and this morning, and so many of us spent the day collecting our paper cups of dandelions and then doing laundry and wiping down the counters. I discovered that my little Mother’s Day gift to myself was getting to do today everything I didn’t do yesterday. I read a column a few years ago by a mom who wrote, basically, screw the sweet little cups of weeds, I want to see some WORK done around here. She got such negative feedback from people saying she should appreciate the loving gestures, but I get her point: sometimes the way to show love to a mother is by not expecting her to do all the crap work.

Happy Mother’s Day, all you mothers!

Happy nausea, shortness of breath, needing to pee every five minutes, heartburn, stretch marks, permanent tummy softness, permanent rib expansion, and let’s not discuss labor and delivery.
Happy doing it again a year or two or three or more later.

Happy not knowing why they’re letting you just take the baby home from the hospital when you have no qualifications whatsoever and probably can’t be trusted to do anything right.
Happy on-the-job training.

Happy worrying that the baby isn’t breathing.
Happy waking the baby up checking.
Happy feeling like a Reader’s Digest joke about motherhood.

Happy worrying that you don’t love the baby.
Happy worrying that you no longer love your husband because you love the baby so much.

Happy thinking you’ll go insane.
Happy thinking you already have.

Happy cleaning up poop.
Happy cleaning up barf.
Happy not minding it as much when it belongs to your own child.
Happy still gagging.

Happy feeling like you’re doing everything wrong.
Happy feeling like you’re figuring things out.
Happy feeling like no, you’re still doing everything wrong.

Happy wondering if you should be worrying more.
Happy wondering if you should be worrying less.
Happy wondering if there are things you don’t know you’re supposed to be worrying about.

Happy toddler years.
Happy teenage years.

Happy first day of school, waving goodbye, crying all the way home, fretting all day.
Happy first day back the next year, thanking god the summer is over.

Happy crayon drawings all over the refrigerator.
Happy finger prints all over the walls.
Happy learning more about cleaning supplies than you ever wanted to know, between this and the whole poop/barf thing.

Happy never being able to hear bad news about children again.
Happy feeling like you have an automatic bond with all other mothers.

Happy worrying about dentist bills, orthodontist bills, glasses, sport fees, new clothes.
Happy investing in the future of no one you’d rather spend money on.
Happy still wishing there was more money and that children didn’t use up so much of it.

Happy crying at weddings. Happy crying at births.
Happy moving up from mom to grandma. Happy watching it start over again.

Happy Mother’s Day.

I remember learning in a high school psychology class that the average person can keep about seven things in mind at the same time. Add an eighth and one of the first seven gets knocked out.

I’m reminded of this when Paul seems able to retain only a very small number of household instructions. If I say, “Do not put food down the sink. We do not have a garbage disposal,” he will stop putting food down the sink. If I say, “Please take out the trash when it’s full, rather than standing in the trash can to compress the trash so tightly that it can no longer be removed without ripping the bag,” he will start taking the trash out instead of stomping it. But then if I say, “You can’t just rinse a cup when you’re done drinking out of it and put it in the drying rack, you have to use actual soap and washing motions,” he will wash his cup–and then scrape food off his plate into the sink.

I am not sure I can adequately express how frustrating this has been over the dozen or so years Paul and I have shared a household. It isn’t as if I’m a difficult, controlling person making up complicated, arbitrary rules. I think the things I ask him to do are intuitive, or at least easy to remember once mentioned. I think a normal person should be able to retain the information that if you put sticky brown soda in a cup and then you put your germy mouth on the edge of that cup, a little swish with cold water is not “washing” the cup. I think a normal person should be able to remember that information even if I then add new information, such as that if your shoes track huge clumps of mud down the hallway, you should clean that mud up rather than leaving it there.

But apparently he can’t. Before we were married, I got as far as calling around to find out the cost of studio and 1-bedroom apartments, thinking that probably I shouldn’t stay with a man who was going to drive me so crazy. After we were married but before we had children, I wondered if I should be willing to help him pass on his genes. Post-children, I’ve again and again felt despair, like I’m shackled permanently to someone who would whistle in a clean-conscience way as he peed into a kitchen sink filled with dishes. (In the interest of fairness, I should say that he does not in fact do this. As far as I know. But then again, I didn’t realize until recently that he wasn’t washing his cups.)

There comes a point where it is useless to continue trying to change someone. I think I reached this point ten years ago or more, but I can’t make myself stop trying. It just seems so REASONABLE that he should learn these things, and so UNREASONABLE that I should have to keep mentioning them in my kind and patient and trying-hard-not-to-be-shrill-or-naggy voice.

I have realized that I am in a pickle if I want to leave the house after the new baby is born. I have a double stroller. I have two toddlers. Where does the small baby go?

I could put the infant car seat in one of the two stroller slots, but then I have a walking 2-year-old. I don’t know about your 2-year-olds, but my 2-year-olds are not of the sort who trail behind me placidly like Mary’s little lamb. Mine are the sort who need complicated restraint systems, and, in a perfect world where such things were not so unfairly frowned upon, muzzles.

So the toddlers will go in the stroller, and then I suppose I need a frontpack carrier for the new baby. I have tried frontpack carriers with every baby so far, and every time I have been sorry after about 5 minutes. My back starts aching, and soon it is the predominant sensation in my universe. Perhaps it is because I am tall? Perhaps it is because I am “long-backed” (a nice way of saying “short legs for her height”)? Perhaps it is because I have crappy posture? Whatever the reason, frontpacks have, to date, been a failure. But I don’t see any way around it other than (1) buying a triple stroller, which, no, or (2) not leaving the house.

Whenever I mention frontpack infant carrier failure, people mention the Baby Bjorn. It’s wonderful, they say. It doesn’t hurt your back, they say. It is comfy-comfy-comfy, they say. It makes you coffee in the morning and brings it to you in bed, they say. It is well worth the eighty-for-god’s-sake-dollars, they say.

This is where you come in. Are you a Bjorn Againer? Or do you recommend a different frontpack? Or have you found they’re all terrible, and you personally would vote to put the new baby in the stroller and put a muzzle and leash on one of the toddlers?

Sorry to spring a Christmas song on you like that, but it’s going through my head incessantly and I want company. Besides, I’ve thought of it as more of a back-to-school song ever since I heard it in that commercial where the parents are springing through the store tossing school supplies into the cart while the children drag sullenly behind.

The song is going through my head right now because for me, this is the best part of the whole pregnancy. Every time I look at the calendar to see what appointments I’m forgetting today, I can see “PRE-OP” and “C-SECTION” way at the end of the month. I bought the car seat this weekend, and it struck me that I did that none too soon. When Edward is on the changing table, I sometimes crick the drawer open a little to peek at those teensy sleepers waiting for the new baby. I could pack my hospital bag this very afternoon and no one would accuse me of jumping the gun; in fact, a few of you are probably thinking, “She doesn’t have her bag packed yet??”

I’m tired and I’m sore, and it takes serious resolve for me to do an errand. When I stand up, it takes me half a dozen steps before my body remembers how the walking thing works. I change positions often, and none of them let me breathe normally. But the whole pregnancy has had its discomforts, and at least these discomforts are accompanied by the thought of only 3 weeks and 1 day left to go, as opposed to, for example, the morning sickness at 7 weeks, which was accompanied by the thought of 32 weeks left to go.

Earlier in the pregnancy, I tried not to think too often about how much time there was left. Now I think of it many times a day, with relish. “Three weeks and one day!,” I thought this morning. This is the Christmas Eve of pregnancy, and for me it lasts from 30 weeks until the c-section at 39 weeks. Next up: Christmas, which is on May 31st this year. Then: the post-holiday blues, which start the day I get home from the hospital.

One of my favorite games to play during pregnancy and child rearing is “A Year Ago Today, A Year From Now.” I made that name up on the spot. Great, yes? You’d better agree, because I am too tired and pregnant and sore to think any better than that.

I will demonstrate how to play. Let’s say you are not pregnant right now. Assuming current ovulation and a fast conception and also that you are female and of child-bearing age (this game allows all such assumptions), one year from today you could have a 3-month-old baby. A baby who doesn’t even exist as you think about it now! Isn’t that crazy, that you could do that, that you could change your life so much in a year?

I was thinking of this tonight as I was looking at the calendar and realizing that the next time we turn the page, I’ll have a fifth child. One year ago, I wasn’t even pregnant; in fact, I was almost five whole months away from missing my period and taking a pregnancy test. I was still breastfeeding the twins, who hadn’t yet had their first birthdays or started walking; they were still babies. How can things have changed so much in just one year?

One year from now this baby will be about to have his first birthday. He’s not even born yet as I’m typing, but in one year he’ll already be shedding babyishness like summer cat fur.

Hey, this would make a good question for a mini-essay comments section, wouldn’t it? Or you can do your own post and link to it in the comments section. Where were you a year ago, and where do you think you will be a year from now?

Here is something I have noticed about my mother-in-law, and I am wondering if this problem is universal: she expects ME to handle all the communication between our house and hers. If she feels she hasn’t heard from us recently enough, she complains to ME. If she thinks we’re going to forget to send a relative a birthday card, she reminds ME. If she wants to ask ridiculous questions of the “Has the baby been born and you just haven’t told me?” variety, in order to highlight her pitiful state and our shameful neglect, she asks them of ME. Paul is totally in the clear, totally exempt; for some reason she considers it the daughter-in-law’s responsibility to handle these things.

That’s stupid, obviously. But I can understand why she leans on me for this, since if Paul had his way we’d be totally estranged from both his parents. It is in fact my own fault in some ways that this situation has come about, but I couldn’t stand watching Paul fail to send birthday cards, Father’s/Mother’s Day cards, Christmas gifts, or letters/emails of any kind–and so I started doing it. I see it as a kindness to them that I am willing to handle that communication, and I think she should be grateful to me and pissed at him. Instead, she not grateful, and in fact she is pissed at me for not doing more, and he retains Perfect Child status. In fact, the only thing that makes him less than Perfect is that he married an insufficiently dutiful wife who doesn’t take care of her in-laws as she should.

What I hate most about the work/home so-called “mommy war” is the very fact of its existence. Well, that and the stupid term “mommy war,” which is as condescending as “mommyblogger.”

I’ll bet most of us believe that there are lots of good choices on the work/home spectrum, and most of us could imagine making different choices than the ones we made. I’ll bet most of us don’t think that other people should necessarily make the same choices we made, any more than we think other people should get the same haircut. Sure, there are a few people who think there’s only one way to do things, but we don’t like those people, do we? Nor do we care what they think. Losers.

But then some stupid new study comes out, a study that will probably be overturned within a year. Or somebody abrasive gets on the radio with an all-the-way-to-one-side point of view. Or there’s a TV special designed to get people all upset because it’s so very good for ratings. And here is the part that surprises me every time: women line up on one side or the other as if obeying the command to fight at the sound of the bell. Women who felt attacked raise up their defenses. Women who felt vindicated get all smug.

Dumb! All of it is dumb. Here are some things I think we can all agree on: We don’t want to be told by other people how we should live our lives. Right? We don’t want people shoving their way into our houses and saying that the choices we’ve made are stupid or wrong. Right? We don’t want to be told that the only way to do it is someone else’s way. Right? And we don’t want to fight about this stupid topic anyway. Right? So why do we turn against each other when those study/radio/TV people open their fat yaps? Why don’t we instead turn as one whole united body and give those fat-yapped people the finger. New study? The finger! Abrasive radio personality? The finger! Television program pretending to be concerned and unbiased? Two fingers! Then we can turn away, a solid row of backs not interested in anything as stupid as a war we didn’t start and don’t want to fight.

As the end of the school year approaches, I am turning my mind to the subject of teacher gifts. I enjoy buying gifts, but usually I know the teacher only in her teacherness–nothing personal that would tell me what she might truly like for herself. This means I buy the “hostess gift” type of present: things that most people like or can find a use for, such as candles, soaps, chocolates. I try to go for good stuff in those categories: Yankee and Crabtree and Lindt. But my goal is “nice treat” as opposed to “compensation for year spent with room full of brats”: I aim for about $10 per classroom teacher, $5 per assistant teacher.

Here are a few things I never give. (1) Plants. I don’t like giving someone something they have to take care of. (2) Any gift such as an ornament with the child’s face on it, a craft made by the child, or a framed piece of the child’s artwork. These are thrilling to parents only. (3) Teacher-themed gifts, such as wooden apples with “#1 Teacher!!” painted on them.

Other people might be avoiding the things I choose, for equally good reasons. A teacher might be diabetic or dieting. A teacher might not be able to use scented items, or might not like the particular scent. A teacher might have sensitive skin and only be able to use particular types of soap. I think of my ideas not as “safe” but as “safer”: they may still fail, but they’re a better bet than the 8×10 glamor shot of my child’s face, and they’re easier to regift if they’re not right. On the other hand, one year I was looking online for ideas and I found a teachers’ message board where teachers had written things like, “I have all the scented bath crap I can ever use!” and “Yay, more candles.”

I’m always looking for more “do” and “don’t” teacher gifts, so weigh in. You don’t have to have school-aged children to give an opinion on this. If you’re a teacher, do a whole post on it! Even if you have to hurt my feelings a little with words like “scented bath crap.”