It seems almost too SOON for a contest, doesn’t it? We JUST HAD contests. We are still a little WRUNG OUT from contests. Nevertheless, we are having another contest! Because I won Jess Loolu’s pay-it-forward contest, and now it is my turn to send a package!

First, let’s take a look at the awesome package Jess Loolu sent me:

That is a polka-dotted terry sundress for Elizabeth and a set of extremely cool gift-tags (I’ll use one on the package!). Both items from, as Jess puts it in the pretty card, “your boyfriend Target.”

It will not be easy to measure up to the glory that was that package; I love BOTH items SO MUCH. But I will try! And as I mentioned in the post about my date with Paul, I have one item, an item PAUL-APPROVED for cuteness. It is this tube-shaped pencil tin:

I think you can see it larger if you click on it. Inside the tin are a dozen colored pencils with those same little pictures on the sides—and the pencils are rounded-triangular, so they don’t roll away. ALSO, the cap has a lion’s face on it! Oh, it is so cute! Do you see in the photo how my hand is sort of CLUTCHING the tube, like I am unwilling to let it go? THAT IS NO ILLUSION.

And that is just the START of the package I am assembling! Who knows what else I will put in there? WHO KNOWS?

So now let’s talk about the rules, and how this thing goes. If you want to win the contest, you will leave a comment in this post’s comment section before Tuesday, May 20th, noon, United States Pacific Time. You don’t have to say anything in particular. You can say “hi!” You can say, “I like squirrels.” You can say, “Roses are red / Violets are blue / I want to win this contest / So let me.” It does not matter what you say—and there is no sense either kissing up or working the pity angle, because I’ll use a random number generator to pick someone, and the random number generator’s mathematical heart is unswayed by kissing-up and pity. UNSWAYED!

And! If you win! You must pay it forward! In this context, that means you must assemble a package and mail it to someone else.

Now go comment if you want to be entered. If you need help deciding what to say, why don’t you tell me if your face is dry, oily, or combination?

Elizabeth and Edward asked Paul to read them a book, so Paul read Henry to them: he folded Henry in half, then opened him up flat. “Once upon a time, a baby’s head. Then, the baby’s tum. Finally, the baby’s feet. The end!” (*closes Henry*)

Henry was some kind of MESS last night. He kept waking up during the evening, which was perplexing because he doesn’t normally DO that. He’s got a molar coming in, so I gave him a dose of tylenol and put him back to bed. But he kept waking, like every hour. And his nose was running and he was rubbing his eyes itchily, so I thought, “Allergies?” So I gave him some benadryl. But he kept waking up!

So at our bedtime, I took Henry and a big blanket to the recliner, and I rocked him and rocked him, and soothed him and sang to him, and put him in different positions that seemed cuddly and/or comfy and/or good for stuffy noses. He would settle in and start dozing, so I’d start dozing, and then he’d wake up and cry some more. For two and a half hours. I kept trying to move him to his crib when he was dozy, and he would cry the most pitiful cry you have ever heard, and we would go back to the recliner.

I mean, what the heck, Henry? I nearly called the 24-hour nurse line, because this was so out of character for him I wondered if something might be Seriously Wrong. But at around 1:30 I thought, “He seems MORE dozy than the previous dozes,” and that time when I put him down in his crib he stayed down.

And then Edward was up at 6:00, so let’s just say I am a few diapers short of a jumbo pack this morning. In lieu of content, I will leave you with THIS, which Paul has started USING in our CONVERSATIONS (our computer desks are next to each other).

Option one: Start watching The Hills and American Idol.
Option two: Cancel my subscription to US Weekly.

Last night Paul and I went on a date, the main goal of which was to research a piece of computer equipment. So we got the boring task out of the way first, and then it was WOOOOOOOO PARTYYYYYYY!!!!! by which I mean we went to Chili’s and then browsed for awhile at Border’s. That’s our favorite date.

At Chili’s we ordered the Fried Cheese appetizer, and why oh why do they make us SAY that? “Would you like anything to start?” “Yes, we’d like the FRIED CHEESE.” The FRIED CHEESE never comes with enough dipping sauce, which is a constant heartache to us. We ask for a double serving of dipping sauce—but really, even a double serving of dipping sauce is not enough dipping sauce. We need more like a VAT. We always end up morosely dipping the FRIED CHEESE in salsa.

I tried something new: Firecracker Tilapia. I love fish and never cook it, and Paul hates fish, so it’s an excellent thing for me to have at a restaurant. The Firecracker is a CRAZY FLAVOR. It’s spicy-hot (“actual discomfort to mouth” level), but also tastes like…..cinnamon roll? It’s sweet and also hot and also a very peculiar flavor. I really, really liked it, and I really liked TRYING it. I tend to stick to the two chicken dishes I know I love (the Monterey chicken and the Cajun chicken on penne), but trying something new was surprisingly…..fun.

We talked for awhile about something Paul is trying to figure out at work, by which I mean HE talked and I tried to look bright and affectionate so no one would be using US as an example of the sad married couple with nothing to say to each other anymore. He was explaining a computer concept that sometimes eludes the people asking for a task to be done: he says it’s like, one woman can make a baby in nine months, but that doesn’t mean nine women can make a baby in one month.

And I don’t know what else he said, because I was busy inside my mind thinking OMG WOULDN’T THAT BE GREAT??? The worst things about pregnancy are that (1) it takes so long and (2) it TAKES so LONG. If nine of us got together (and in my mind I was already assembling a team) and each of us were pregnant for one month for the first person’s baby, and then had a little break, and then another month to give the second person a baby, and then a little break, and so on—well, I’m just saying. I think he should be working on making THAT happen, instead of working on whatever little “project” they seem to think is so important.

I kept bringing up how agonizing certain things would be if we were on a first date (the way the FRIED CHEESE strung wayyyyyyyy out long after a bite; I dropped my fork and it spattered sauce; the silence that fell at the end of one topic; the time we couldn’t understand what the waiter said), and Paul kept saying, “I don’t even want to think about the horror that is dating.” So I cheerfully picked a shred of broccoli out of my teeth, even going in with the floss when we got to the car, and he went right ahead and burped in the open air, and we held hands which felt weird because usually we’re holding kid hands.

At Border’s I bought another copy of this journal, which I think is so cool/fun and which they only had one copy of left. I figured I’ll give it as a baby gift or a wedding gift or a birthday gift or something.

We also bought a dinosaur ABC book for Elizabeth’s birthday (it has a pronunciation guide in the back, which is crucial), and I bought something for the pay-it-forward package—more on that later, probably Monday, but I will say this: it is SUPER CUTE, and I want to keep it for myself, and I might! Even PAUL agreed it was super cute, though he declined to use that specific adjective.

Then we drove home arguing vigorously on the same side of an issue: we think those electronic book-reading things should be usable at LIBRARIES. That is, you should be able to check out an electronic book that then disappears after 2 weeks. This way, we could all read Harry Potter at the same time, and maybe without having to actually drive to the library. Libraries struggle endlessly with an approaching-infinite number of books and a not-even-in-the-universe-of-infinite amount of space, and this way they could have ALL the books without taking up space. We think this is GENIUS, and now we are going to sit back and wait for it to happen. We don’t want to hear about profits: libraries give out books NOW without charging, so we see no difference if it’s electronic, except that it’s easier and costs less to taxpayers and works better.

We got a little heated on the topic. There were lots of “I KNOW, RIGHT?”-type statements. Then we thought, actually this could already be a fully-realized dream, and we just don’t know because we’re a little behind the times. (For scale: we have not yet seen Juno. Or Titanic.)

Swistle, age 2. Baby powder.

Edward and Elizabeth, age 2. Powdered sugar.

Oh. I guess I should have posted about Mother’s Day today, and done the psych clinic tomorrow when we were all about to take our Mother’s Day feelings and turn them into inappropriate actions.

Well, how about Mother’s Day post ALSO, since one of my presents for Mother’s Day is more computer time while Paul watches the children?

Paul always asks me what I want for Mother’s Day, which is very wise. I wanted more time by myself; I wanted to make mint brownies (Paul said he’d make them, but I like baking and it’s something I miss when I don’t do it); and I wanted drawings/cards from the kids (Henry was excused this year on account of smallness).

You might think I’m all sacrificial about not wanting a big gift, but I don’t want to have to think of a gift on Father’s Day. I want instead to train our children to buy me things later, when they’re grown and rich. I read aloud to them from People magazine articles in which rich young singers buy houses and cars and nice cosmetic surgeries for their mamas.

Paul also asked if I wanted him to make tacos for dinner (yes) and if I wanted him to download another episode of that show you guys recommended, Big Bang Theory, which I think he was hoping would have cuter, buffer, cooler guys in it—I mean because there was the strong implication that he resembled those guys.

Rob’s card says: “Dear Mom, I hope that you have an awesome Mother’s Day and that you know how much it means to me when you do the following things. (A) Buying and cooking food for me (B) Keeping our house cleen (C) Taking care of me when I’m sick and (D) Helping me get ready for school every Day. Happy Mother’s Day! Love, Rob”.

Ha ha! First of all, “the following things,” with a list. Second, the touching obliviousness of a child: Paul does the grocery shopping and almost all the cooking, and since when is our house clean? Oh, wait, he says “cleen.”

William’s card says: “My mom is special becaus she plays with me. She bakes with me. She goes to store with me.”

That does pretty much sum up my life. It’s nice of him to refer to that as “special.”

Edward brought me three pages of scribbles, and Elizabeth said hers wasn’t ready yet so she wouldn’t give it to me, but I’m told it says “Uncle Erik” on it (her own idea).

Mint brownies are in the oven.

Here is what I like about Mother’s Day: it comes before Father’s Day. I think of it, in fact, as a TEMPLATE for Father’s Day. Is the father in your household being kind and solicitous today, and taking your various wants into account? Is he making the children behave the same way—ideally far away from you? Did he keep them quiet so you could sleep in? Is he looking at you with affectionate eyes and not letting you do the dishes? Then keep that in mind when it is his turn for a day of appreciation. Is he instead clearly trying to fill the Mother’s Day Obligation slot with the minimum required item so he can move on to his usual Sunday schedule of napping and messing around on the computer? Then keep THAT in mind for June.

I was talking with some of my friends about something, and it turned into a really interesting discussion so I thought I’d bring it up here.

My contention was that there is “having a feeling” and there is also “acting on a feeling.” I think sometimes the two things get confused: someone has a feeling and then says or does something that hurts or angers other people, and then wants to get away with it by saying they “can’t help the way they feel.” I say it’s not an issue of “how they feel” but rather of “what they chose to do about it.”

This is not to be mistaken for repressing or denying a feeling. No one is saying you can’t fully appreciate all your feelings in all their glory. What we’re talking about here is the decision to TAKE ACTION: saying how you feel, or acting a certain way because of the feeling. The action should sometimes be repressed or denied, if it is a wrong way to behave. You might feel like slamming someone to the ground, but you can fully experience that feeling without (a) slamming someone to the ground or (b) telling someone you feel like slamming them to the ground—both of which are actions, not feelings.

I thought we could come up with some more situations that contain examples of when it’s “Feeling a Feeling” and when it’s “Acting on a Feeling”—and when those actions are the good kind or the bad kind.

One of my friends came up with an excellent example about a baby shower she was invited to—that was taking place two weeks after she (my friend) had had a miscarriage. Another friend came up with another excellent example about her husband, who thinks they should share ALL their feelings with each other, in the name of “being honest.” And my example had to do with venting about a friend’s parenting method.

So let’s look at all three examples, broken down into segments: The Feelings, some examples of actions that are appropriate ways to act on those feelings, and some examples of actions that are NOT appropriate ways to act on those feelings.

Baby Shower After Miscarriage

The Feelings: extreme sadness and disappointment over the loss of your baby; having a hard time focusing on anything else; jealousy of someone whose baby did not die; anger that your baby died; anger at people who are complaining about pregnancy symptoms; worry that this will keep happening

Rightly Acting on the Feelings: the friend it happened to had the good idea of not attending the shower but sending a gift (it isn’t normally necessary to send a gift if you don’t attend a shower, but in this case it’s a particularly excellent gesture because it communicates that the staying-away is not from resentment of the other woman’s happiness or a desire to reduce it); crying and talking with a friend you aren’t angry at (that’s a good way to filter for the ones who would be injured); crying and talking with your spouse; writing in a journal or talking to a therapist

Wrongly Acting on the Feelings: (1) attending the shower and spending the whole time slumped in a chair, non-smiling, running out of the room in tears, making everyone else feel terrible, sucking all the attention to yourself, or (2) not attending the shower, as in the “Rightly” section, but telling many, many people, including all the other shower attendees and also the guest of honor herself, allllllll your feelings on the subject, including the parts about being angry at pregnant women and resentful of their happiness

The feelings of jealousy, sorrow, anger and even the feeling of “not being able to be near someone else’s happiness” are all normal, totally normal. The problem comes when people use those feelings as weapons to break down someone else’s happiness or to draw attention belonging to others onto themselves. But of course talking about it with a spouse, or with a close friend who would not be injured (that is, NOT a pregnant friend, for example), or with a therapist, or with a journal–those are all good and appropriate ways to work through the feelings. And not attending the shower is not only perfectly understandable to anyone with half an empathy clue, but also a good way to prevent bad behavior.

Next example.

Friend With a Different Parenting Method

The Feelings: frustration when someone close to you has a radically different way of doing things; anger at a friend for saying things that seem critical or illogical; frustration at not being able to change a situation; frustration at a smug or critical attitude; frustration that your own point of view is misunderstood and/or considered inferior

Rightly Acting on the Feelings: ranting to your spouse; writing in a journal; talking with a friend who has a similar parenting method to your own; thinking things out and reminding yourself that there is no sense trying to change someone; reminding yourself that the situation can be seen differently from different angles (for example, your methods may be equally frustrating to your friend); reminding yourself that different methods work for different families; keeping the peace by keeping your mouth shut; realizing that arguing will go nowhere and will only make things unnecessarily unpleasant and you will be very sorry you said anything at all

Wrongly Acting on the Feelings: taking your anger at your friend and flinging it outwards in an attack aimed at everyone who uses a similar parenting method; venting your frustration publicly in a way that makes people who don’t agree with you feel like they have to agree with you because you’re “just venting”; saying hostile things that apply not only to the person you’re actually angry with but also to many who are listening; acting as if it’s okay to say hateful things just because you feel them when you’re worked up; implying that the other person’s method is wrong just because it disagrees with yours

Next example.

Sharing All Your Feelings With a Spouse

The Feelings: irritation; frustration; intense anger; occasionally wondering if you married the wrong person; occasionally feeling like you don’t love your spouse anymore; occasionally wondering if you would be happier if you got a divorce; in moments of extreme agitation and anger, wanting to physically hurt your spouse

Rightly Acting on the Feelings: talking about it with a friend or therapist; cooling down; going for a walk or going shopping or going to another room; going to bed and seeing how things look in the morning; trying to solve the problem by saying what you’d like changed; telling your spouse you’re so frustrated and angry about whatever it is; reminding yourself that marriages have ups and downs; blogging about it on a blog your spouse and his friends and relatives don’t read

Wrongly Acting on the Feelings: physically hurting your spouse; telling your spouse you feel like hurting them; telling your spouse you wish you’d never gotten married; telling your spouse you want a divorce (when you don’t literally want one); saying you don’t love your spouse anymore; saying you hate your spouse; saying you wish your spouse was dead; telling your spouse’s relatives or friends about the fight in the hopes of getting them on your side; blogging about it on a blog your spouse and his friends and relatives read

To sum up!

The FEELINGS are natural and normal. The ACTIONS are separate from the feelings.

The FEELINGS don’t have to take other people into consideration: you don’t need to think, “I shouldn’t feel this way” or “I should feel this other way” (though I do think it’s a good idea to keep a grip on how feelings relate to reality). The ACTIONS do have to take other people into consideration: you should think, “How is what I am about to do/say going to affect other people, and is that the effect I want, and is that the effect I should try to create?”

The FEELINGS are what they are. If you feel bitter and angry and hostile and resentful, you can try to talk yourself through it, and you can acknowledge where it’s not rational, but that’s about it. This is when the concept of “owning the feelings” comes into play: we can (and I think should) try to realize it when a feeling is irrational or unfair or not based in reality, and we acknowledge that and try to move on, and/or we wait for time to pass and dull the feelings. The ACTIONS can definitely be changed or modified to fit the situation: we should not use our feelings as an excuse to hurt other people, nor should we confuse “can’t help the feelings” with “can’t help the actions.” We should not excuse our actions by saying that the actions are our feelings. They are separate, and we are responsible for our actions.

We are not responsible for our feelings. Feelings HAPPEN. We ARE responsible for what we DO with the feelings, and for how we EXPRESS our feelings, and to whom we express them, and in what context. We are responsible for how much we milk it. We are responsible for how much damage we do to others in the pursuit of making ourselves feel better.

Yay, psych clinic!

The last few days I’ve been so tired and weak-limbed, I actually Googled “weak limbs” to see what disease I might have. I imagined how I’d break the news to all of you that I would soon be in a wheelchair: I’d be gentle and clear, resigned and stoic, and you would all admire my poise in the face of tragedy. I would become The Face of Whatever It Was I Had. It turns out that the main reason for weak limbs is “tiredness,” and the second reason is “stress,” and probably I will not need a wheelchair (or A Face) for either of those.

Today I was so tired, though, I lay down for awhile during naptime, and I would have gone to sleep except I had a wakeful companion who wanted me to read her dinosaur books and discuss our respective barrettes. And I thought to myself, “I must be really unusually tired, because I NEVER lie down during the day. Well, except when I’m pr–…………….” *long, calculating pause*

This is the kind of time I am so happy to have my cheap pregnancy tests. Sometimes even just having the tests in the house and knowing I could take one immediately is enough to remind me that the statistical chances of a positive are very low. But if I DO feel anxious to have an answer, I don’t feel as stupid if the answer is “no” when I’ve only spent 80 cents—whereas I DO feel stupid, TREMENDOUSLY stupid, when I’ve spent 7 dollars. (Of COURSE the answer was no.)

I think one reason I’ve been so tired and frustrated this week is that Elizabeth has stopped taking naps. Some of you have wondered how I find so much time to blog, and one of my main time sources is that all three housechildren take a 2-hour-minimum nap at the same time each day. That’s at least ten hours per workweek right there. But now Elizabeth has outgrown naps. And although she is a pleasant, perky, cheerful little grown-up of a companion, she is persistent about her interest in interacting with me Every! Single! Second!

Can I get even ONE SENTENCE of blogging done, even after setting her up in a comfy chair with her stuffed elephant and her pool noodle and her tiny chickie and her stack of dinosaur books and Mommy’s Favorite Blanket and her green dinosaur socks and her pink fluffy hat? NO. Because she wants to discuss what she is reading, and she wants to ask questions, and she wants to confirm that that is an apatosaurus, and she wants to talk about how I got all those things for her, and she wants to talk about how we need to be quiet because the little boys are napping and about how she is a big girl now who does not take naps. So she and I have been doing things together, and it IS nice to have some one-on-one time with her, but this is having a cumulative effect as if I were working 13-hour shifts every single day with no lunch breaks—OH WAIT.

And then my third-grader lectured me for flushing an ant down the toilet (the toilet was flushing anyway, and I efficiently tossed the ant in), saying that the food chain depended on ALL species, and what if ants were endangered, and how did I KNOW they weren’t endangered, and what if they were endangered NOW because of ME killing them? It was around 5:30 p.m. that he started this conversation, and that’s when my mental fortitude is low and I am just barely able to concentrate on breaking off chunks of banana for Henry, and I am not prepared to discuss the significance of alternate food sources for species higher-up on the chain. Rob then mentioned panda bears and polar bears and how THEY were nearly extinct from people killing them, so I promised that if either a panda bear or a polar bear came into our house, I would refrain from flushing it down the toilet.

This reminds me of when I was babysitting a 5-year-old girl who told me that coffee was poison. Cute. Go to bed early, then, and maybe I won’t need to poison myself in the morning.

Well. In happy, productive news, I got the two Swistle Care Packages mailed off to the prize-winners. Ha ha: I’ll bet they think I was KIDDING about emptying the contents of my junk drawer in there! But I used flat-rate boxes and I had plenty of space, and I saw the opportunity to jettison a whole BUNCH of crap. Bye-bye, crap! Have fun in your new homes! Bye-eeeeeeeee!

And tonight I’m making fudge for the Teacher Appreciation Day buffet tomorrow, and I’m going to watch Gilmore Girls while eating half of the double-batch I’m making, so I don’t see how this bad spell can persist.

We’re watching a TV commercial in which people are eating fast food in the car, and the TV asks us: “When did THIS become a sit-down dinner?” Paul answers the TV: “The assumption in your question is unwarranted. UNWARRANTED!”

Paul is teaching the kids The Binary ABCs: “Zero, one. Now I know my zero ones! Next time won’t you sing with me?”

Paul puts Elizabeth into her pajamas, then says to me, “Exoskeleton installation complete.”

He’s teaching the children to “robot dance”: “Shake what your manufacturer specified!” “Shake it until you require service!”