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.

Today I was sad first thing in the morning, so I had coffee, turned on extra lights, stripped Henry down to a diaper to nurse him (skin contact helps), ate a muffin, put on lipstick–and then went to Target, my lovely, lovely Target. This is the kind of therapy that can backfire if children are whiny and demanding, but it went fine today. Elizabeth did keep saying, “Noooo! Noooooo! Noooo! Noooooooo! Nooooo!” for no apparent reason, but I just kept stuffing snacks in her whine-hole while I browsed. Photos of my haul:

Wrapping paper, 75% off: 87 cents – $1.24 per roll. I was especially glad to find the birthday paper, since William is going to a birthday party soon. Also, I like girly paper better than boyish paper, so I end up with 50 rolls of pink stuff and nothing to use for the boys’ birthdays. I think if I wrap Paul’s presents in floral paper even ONE MORE TIME, he is going to retaliate by wrapping mine in SpongeBob SquarePants paper.

Candy, 3 for $5.

Reusable drink boxes with flip-up straws. I think these will fit in the boys’ lunch boxes a whole lot better than the bottles I’ve been using, and the flip-tops will please William’s teacher, who recently mentioned that most first graders can’t handle screw-off caps so please send pop-ups. 30% off: $1.18 each.

[Edited to add: These bottles were AWFUL! One of my boys got to school to find a puddle in his backpack: the bottle was still closed but had leaked its entire contents. The other boy said his had not leaked–but when he unpacked his lunch things at the end of the day, the leftover water HAD leaked (bottle securely closed–I checked it myself). I threw them both out. It’s not worth the trouble to return them (I don’t have the paper label things anymore).]

Candles for my dad’s birthday cake. The candles spell out “O V E R T H E H I L L”
This is COMEDY GOLD, BABY. 75% off: 48 cents.

Ooooo, QUTE! This lil’ bottlekins has pancake powder in it. You add water and shake it up. Then you pour into a skillet. You get 6-8 pancakes. The bottle feels nice to hold in the hand. WANTED IT. 30% off: 72 cents.

Set of two pink gift boxes. 75% off: 98 cents.

Initial cards for friends. 75% off: 98 cents each set.

Socks for Elizabeth. 50% off: $3.14 for ten pairs.

Rose-scented lotion, talc, and body wash. They were in that aisle of specialty products where they keep lines such as Bert’s Bees. There were two other scent choices, but the gardenia smelled like coconut to me, and the other one (lavender? jasmine? lily? can’t remember) smelled like banana. The rose smelled YUM. 75% off: $1.68, $1.98, $1.96.

Today I’m going from 50mg of Zoloft down to 25mg; soon I’ll be weaning off it entirely. I remember from the last time I went off it that I had headaches, listlessness, lots of sadness, lots of “what’s the point of anything?” and “nothing is fun anymore” feelings. Since I knew to expect that, it wasn’t TOO bad: I just kept reminding myself that this was the medication-reduction talking, not my actual brain. And before long, I felt fine again.

So! I am looking for ways to combat sadness. Here are some of the things that work for me:

1) Caffeine
2) Turning on lots of lights
3) Nice smells (scented candles, scented soaps, scented shampoo)
4) Funny books (Dave Barry, Colin McEnroe, Jeeves books by P.G. Wodehouse)
5) Treats, especially of the warm cookie sort
6) Exercise (sometimes: this can also backfire on me and make me more tired and also discouraged and weepy)
7) Hot food, especially creamy-chicken-casserole things
8) Shopping, especially at Target

More tips?

I have been cleaning all this month (in preparation for the mother-in-law visit, and to keep things tidy while she was here) and I am so sick of it. With so many hours spent in mindless activity, I’ve had time to think about how sick of it I am. And I have come to a happy and convenient realization: it is not good for my emotional well-being to have a clean house.

Having a clean house turns me into a FRUITCAKE. I snap at everyone. I hate everyone in my family because all they are doing is MESSING UP MY CLEAN HOUSE. I get all weird about tiny little spots. Must! be! perfect! I feel frantic and overwhelmed all the time, like I’m trying to keep back the tide with my bare hands. There is so much to do! THERE IS A CRUMB ON THE COUNTER!!! The more I do, the more I see that also needs to be done: cleaning the sink makes me realize the cabinet fronts need work; cleaning the cabinet fronts makes me realize the floor needs mopping.

You’d think that if cleaning several hours a day makes me frantic at how much more needs to be done, I’d feel even MORE than way if I WEREN’T making progress. But no! That is the wonder of it all! There is no logic here! When I do less, I feel MORE in control of things! Trying to keep the house clean IS like trying to keep back the tide with my bare hands. But if I let things go, it’s not like it keeps getting worse and worse until we’re waist-deep in garbage: it descends to a certain level of disheveled, and it stops. And a Cheerio falls gently to the floor, and no one freaks out.

So. Um. I’ve had about nine Oatmeal Scotchies, so now I have the Scotchie Courage to tell you what I did about Zoloft.

What happened, if you remember, is that I started freaking out increasingly as the mother-in-law visit approached. My mind turned to the half-finished bottle of Zoloft in my underwear drawer, saved because I hoard things like that, and because when I was trying Zoloft it was a $40 copay and so I didn’t want to toss it out lightly, and then the years went by.

I posted that the medication was probably expired (although the expiration on the prescription bottle has to be one year or less from the fill date; the actual expiration date can be much, much later), AND I was nursing a baby, AND taking it would be really stupid without doctor supervision.

And you commented, and nobody said, “You idiot, I can’t believe you’re even considering it,” and some of you even said you’d know it was a bad decision but you’d take it anyway, and for all of this I was supremely grateful.

Backstory, since we’re here anyway. That Zoloft prescription was from two mother-in-law visits ago; that is, not this one, and not the one before it, but the one before that. I didn’t realize that I was freaking out because of her impending visit; I thought I was generically losing my mind. I went to the doctor because I felt like I was going to jitter right out of my skin. He put me on Zoloft and also made me see a psychologist AND a psychiatrist. My mother-in-law left and I felt SO much better and went off the Zoloft. I went off it gradually and afterward had half a bottle left over, which I didn’t bother to throw out. End backstory.

That backstory was because I am postponing telling you that I DID take the expired Zoloft, WITHOUT consulting a doctor. I think that was a Bad Decision, even though it worked out well for me–and so I didn’t want to confess it to you, and I also didn’t want to advocate it to the internet at large, as if I thought it were a good idea when I think in fact it’s a pretty crappy idea.

I did consult Dr. Google to make sure it was okay to take while breastfeeding, and I also greatly valued the emails I got from several of you telling me of your breastfeeding/Zoloft decisions. I was glad to know that I was not the only one who (1) felt conflicted about taking it while breastfeeding, and (2) chose to take it. I also checked to make sure it wasn’t one of the few medications that becomes stronger or changes effect when expired (it isn’t: it just slowly loses potency).

There were several reasons for my decision to take the Zoloft all vigilante-style:

1) I didn’t know what to say to the receptionist, if I called the doctor. It seemed like a long story, and I seemed too far away from the birth of the baby, and I couldn’t think of how to begin. I still can’t. And I don’t even know if I’m supposed to call the OB or my regular doctor.

2) Last time I went on Zoloft, the doctor said he only felt comfortable prescribing it if I ALSO saw a psychologist AND a psychiatrist. They didn’t help me. The psychiatrist kept trying to put me on stronger, less-tested medications I wasn’t comfortable with trying and saw no reason to try since the Zoloft was working fine. The psychologist kept trying to make me complete sentences such as “If someone doesn’t like me, I think I must be ______” (hint: opposite of likable).

3) Since then, the practice has changed around, and my doctor is gone, replaced by a new doctor I’ve never met. So I can’t even start with “Here’s what we did last time; here’s what I’d like to do this time.”

4) I only wanted to go on the Zoloft for about a month. And I had about a month’s supply already in the house. And it was way, way easier not to mess around with phone calls and appointments and babysitters and explaining things to the doctor and arguing against treatment options.

So. For eight days I took 25 mg/day, biting off half of one-half tablet (taste: slightly bitter, not too bad). Then I went to 50 mg/day. I’m going to stay on that for another day or two, until the aftershocks from the mother-in-law visit have faded. Then I’m going to go down to 25 mg. Then 25 mg every other day. Then every third day. Then off. I go off Zoloft VERY SLOWLY, because people have had trouble with suicidal thoughts while discontinuing it.

I am pretty sure it helped me cope with the mother-in-law visit. I still did freak out, but I think it was less. It is so difficult to say, because when I am on Zoloft I feel as if I am the same as I always am–but when I go off it, I feel different. I think it is possible that when I go off it, I will think, “WAIT! I want that back!” And in THAT case I will call the doctor and get a fresh prescription.

Hey, you remember how I ordered new dishes, and they arrived and they were “Made in Columbia” instead of “Made in England” as advertised, so I sent them back and got a replacement set, and those were made in Columbia too, and so I sent those back, and Amazon.com said they wouldn’t try again and so then there I was with no dishes, wondering if Amazon.com is selling counterfeit dishes or what? And basically I flipped the flip out? Remember that?

So a couple of weeks before my mother-in-law arrived, I went out looking for similar dishes. I liked the highly decorated kind I’d found before, with pictures on them. I thought that if I couldn’t find anything like that, I would just re-order the Made in Columbia ones, since they were basically perfect except for not saying “England” on the backs, and the only reason they “had to” be made in England is that (1) they were advertised that way and (2) I think of English china as The Best, and I wanted these to be The Good Dishes and (3) my mother-in-law’s visit was nearing, and that makes my brain twist into crazy knots of irrational.

I found dishes in a pattern by Johnson Bros. called Old Britain Castles. I got them at either TJ Maxx or Marshall’s, I can’t remember which. I like them even better than my first attempt at dishes: these are thinner so they seem dressier, and the colors are sharper. Plus, they say “England” on them. I’m still worried they’re fakes (mugs instead of teacups–surely that’s not right?–and they don’t say “MADE IN England,” just “England”), but I’m happy with them.

Here’s a picture:

Except, as I said, I have mugs instead of teacups/saucers.

We used them all through the mother-in-law visit, and they were a success. I felt HAPPY with them, and happy to be using them, and pleased with the pattern and how the table looked when it was set, and fine with the idea of the children loving them and fighting over them after I died. Now I’d like to get some serving pieces, but they didn’t have those at the discount store, so meh.

Next time I need to get Good GLASSES, too: I didn’t think of that, so we were serving meals off pretty dishes accompanied by colorful plastic cups. Dressy!

I apologize in advance to all of you who, like me, have so many new posts to read you are clicking and skimming, clicking and skimming, trying desperately to get the number of unread posts down to zero so you can relax–and meanwhile new posts crop up every time the RSS reader refreshes. But my plan of the day is this:

1) Put out bottomless sippee cups and crunchie bowls for the twins and let them watch TV all day long.

2) Eat brownies and drink coffee with peppermint mocha creamer until I wish I’d never been born.

3) Blog. Repeatedly. I have missed you–nay, LONGED for you. And so you may need to click and skim. I don’t know how many times I will post today. Does “legion” work for you as a rough estimate?