Damn it, if I keep doing this Pilates floor stuff, I’ll have to vacuum, and am I not suffering enough already? I hate to vacuum–HATE IT–and I can’t tell you the last time I did it. Actually, now that I think about it, I can tell you: I bought the vacuum cleaner in October 2005 before my mother-in-law came for a visit, and I used it once and then chucked it in a closet. I use a dustbuster for spot-vacuuming, and that’s it.

Some of you are appalled, I can see it from here. You’re picturing snowdrifts of pet hair and hillocks of Cheerios. But I swear it isn’t like that. I read blogs by people who say they vacuum every day or every other day, and I wonder–are your vacuum cleaners possibly sneaking out at night to litter your floors with tidbits, just so they (the vacuum cleaners) won’t be out of a job? or because they’re lonely for your company?

Or, perhaps your eyesight is better than mine. I’m telling you, the floors look worse every day for a week, and then they don’t get much worse than that. Periodically I go around with the dustbuster and vacuum the edges of the room where things accumulate, and the centers where the Cheerios are. That’s good enough.

But today, with my sweaty palms on the carpet, I felt differently about the whole issue. I don’t know why anyone buys lint rollers, when a sweaty palm will attract every cat hair and cracker crumb in the entire house. Seriously, vacuum cleaner salespeople could take me with them door to door and have me do Pilates/yoga on people’s carpets to horrify them with how much stuff their current vacuums leave behind.

After I finished half an hour of the DVD (I didn’t do the entire thing because I didn’t want to, and because my hands were grossing me out), I crept downstairs to hunt the vacuum cleaner. It’s been allowed to run wild in our house for two years now–could it still be domesticated? I brought it upstairs cautiously. Several minutes later, I located the cord, which was secreted in the creature’s hide, and pulled it out. I plugged the cord in. I warned the twins, who were looking in astonishment at this foreign tableau: “Don’t worry: this is a ‘vacuum cleaner’! It’s going to make a loud sound, but it’s okay! It…’cleans the floors’!”

I figured out that the line inside a circle must mean on/off, but not until after mistakenly pressing the cord-retract button. I turned on the vacuum cleaner–and wooo, look at me, I’m vacuuming, just like a housewife! Wooo! Forward and back and forward and back and SMILE and forward and LOOK HAPPY and back!

And gradually I remembered all the reasons I hate to vacuum. I run out of cord, or I get tangled up in it, or the vacuum cleaner does. The floor is too covered in furniture to be vacuumed. There is too much crap scattered around, and periodically I hear a “clink clink!” that probably means I’ve vacuumed up something important. The handle is too short (no, I am not “too tall,” it is too short), so I have to stoop, and my back starts hurting. The little attachments keep popping off the handle and keep popping off the handle and keep popping off the handle until I want to cry. The canister gets caught on something, and when I yank on it to free it, the cord comes out. And as soon as I start, the “change bag” light comes on–even if I have just changed the bag. Goddamned vacuum cleaner. Hate you.

Anyway. I did the living room carpet, and the living room hardwood. I did the kitchen linoleum and the little kitchen throw rug. I did the hall hardwood, but then I stopped because I ran out of cord, and when I went to plug it in somewhere else, I was overcome with despair at the thought of doing even one! more! minute! of vacuuming. Besides, I didn’t want to go too far on what is after all only our second date.

Now I’m all skittish about the floors. After the twins’ lunch, I was carrying Edward down the hall for his nap and I noticed he was shedding crumbs off his shirt and I was all, “Noooooooooooooooo!” and whipping out the dustbuster to get every last one off my clean, clean floor. I think this is the problem with regular housework: if you do it, you get into a constant struggle to keep it done. The best it can be is right after you do it, and every other minute of your life you’re aware of it looking not-best. Whereas if you don’t do it, it always looks pretty much the same and you’re free to concentrate on other things, such as baking brownies or watching episodes of Angel.

You guys. You are killing me recently with all the hot hot hot baby news ‘n’ names! We have to spread this out, okay? One at a time, or we’ll use up all our fun stuff at once!

First Jen’s baby needed a name, and now El-e-e is letting us help name her baby, too. Oh me, I do love baby name discussions. I’d like someone to use the name Oliver, please, and someone else should use Ruben. For girls, how about Millicent or Beatrix? Or, okay, fine, how about Annabel? Genevieve? Elodie? Imogen? Brindle? Clarissa? Meredith? Celeste? Penelope? Fiona? I have so many favorite girl names available! Please, take what you need–The Fates thought it would be amusing to give me four boys to name, and only one single solitary girl.

If all that baby-namin’ weren’t enough, there are two new surprise pregnancies in our midst: Giselle (who will have a 4.5-year-old and an 18-month-old when the new baby arrives), and Devan (who will have a 3-year-old and a 13-month-old when the new baby arrives). Congratulations, you two, and thank you, because there are few things I like better than surprise pregnancies–even my own, which, one year ago, was still several days from occurring and three weeks from discovery. The nice thing about other people’s surprises is that I don’t have to contribute to the barfing or the worrying, and I can fully concentrate on the screaming and the whooping and the “OMG YOU ARE KIDDING ME!!!”

The Swistle Channel would like to issue a retraction of a statement issued earlier today that the 2ish-year (infant/toddler combo) spacing is the most difficult. The statement should have read that all spacings are equally impossible, and that the real question is why anyone would want to have children at all. Thank you.

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled procreation plans.

Mayday, mayday! Send backup! This sucks!

All summer, I said I thought things might actually be harder when the boys went back to school, but I didn’t mean it. I was saying it like I could say things might actually be worse once I lost weight (saggy skin, over-amorous husband, needing to come up with money for new clothes, etc.): sure, there’d be downsides, but obviously it would be better overall. But NO! It actually IS worse. WORSE! To have FEWER children!

The mornings last FOREVER. I feel like I’m running a daycare. Somebody’s always crying or whining. Nobody can be left for TWO SECONDS without there being permanent marker on the furniture. I get to my absolute limit of the boredom-frustration cocktail–and I look at the clock, and it is 9:00 a.m.

AND, I am trying to keep up with the exercise thing, but I’m about to lose my mind trying to fit it in. And while I’m doing the workout DVD, the twins are yelling and Henry is blowing out of his diaper and the cat is meowing to go out and FOR THE LOVE OF PETE CAN’T I HAVE TWO SECONDS HERE TO DO SOMETHING I HATE??? Like that.

But I’ve been wondering: Why IS this so difficult? It was not this difficult when the twins were born, and Henry is a nice easy baby as babies go. I have given this a lot of thought in the long, long hours of the workday and worknight, and here is my conclusion: there is something magically difficult-licious about the combination of toddler and infant.

This would explain why I remember the days of Toddler Rob and Infant William as a time of chanting “This can’t be done, this can’t be done, this can’t be done,”–but I don’t feel that way about the days when I had double the number of children, two of whom were newborns. Because when the twins were born, I had a 6-year-old and a 4-year-old, not toddlers. They were old enough to understand and follow instructions. The 6-year-old could make cereal or sandwiches. They could both take showers. They could both get themselves dressed and undressed. Neither of them spent much time crying, or shouting things I couldn’t interpret, or asking for what? what? oh my freaking stars above, WHAT DO YOU WANT???

I am re-thinking my views on baby spacing. I have been thinking all along that the “Toddler Rob and Infant William” time was difficult because it was hard to go from one child to two. I still do think that was a big part of it–but now I am thinking another big part was some sort of nasty chemical reaction caused by combining toddler and infant. In my experience, a close spacing pays off later–but it is not “later” yet, and the comparative joy of the wider spacing is still fresh in my mind.

It seemed like this was a particularly brilliant week for all your blogs. I kept reading things and thinking, “I have to SHOUT THIS FROM THE MOUNTAINTOPS!!”

Black Sheeped‘s post “Post in which I finally discuss my feelings on baby-making” reminds me so much of my own thoughts before I had children.

Bub and Pie‘s post “My Family Values” is probably one a lot of people are going to link to. The “my job”/”not my job” format appealed to me, and I felt like the post focused some of my unfocused thoughts about parenting.

Amazing Trips‘s post “Calgon, Take Them Away” made me literally laugh audibly (LLA), and captured some of the crazy I’ve been feeling around here lately.

Learning to Love Life in a Tiny Town‘s post “Funk” made me wonder if we’re all in sync because of the moon or the season or a blogging virus or something.

Hello, Self‘s post “Kiddie Coaster” reminded me of the great fears of pregnancy, and the longing for a little window so I could peek in and see if things were okay.

Messing With Texas‘s post “You Are Smart; I am…Not Intelligent: Version 1 of…??” made me LAUGH, and also made me remember the one time I went on a plane trip with a child…*shudder*

MO Mommy‘s post “Unforgivable” brings up a very important design flaw. I mean, WTH?? They must be doing it on purpose, but why oh why? Is it that they HATE us?

Ms. Congeniality‘s post “This Too, Shall Pass” made me hope that 1985 will sit down and have a little talk with my children, too, when the time comes.

Purple is a Fruit‘s post “Damning Evidence” is like every time we go to the pediatrician. Elizabeth refused to WALK at her 2-year check. Edward started screaming when the nurse marked his height on the paper with her pencil, and he didn’t stop until I was writing a check for the co-pay.

Under Construction‘s post “Blocks, compliments of our cherry tree” blew out entire circuit panels in my differently-craft-abled brain.

And I’ll bet I thought your post was totally amazing, too, and the only reason I didn’t include it is that it was after 1:00 in the morning and I didn’t know what the hell I was still doing up. So go ahead and include a link in the comments section to the awesome post I didn’t include because I was asleep.

I can’t believe that with all the baby name fans around here, practically no one is leaping on the opportunity to tell Jen what to name her baby.

I was lecturing my childless sister-in-law about baby names, explaining bossily which names she may and may not use for her hypothetical future children, and then anxiously explaining that I was kidding and actually thought that people should use the names THEY want and not let other people boss them around, and then going back and saying, “But seriously, don’t use _____.” I was hoping she would give up the goods on her favorites, but it did not work. She holds her cards close, my sister-in-law.

At one point during the discussion, she said, laughing, “Braden is a NAME?” Well. YES. And in fact, if you were to combine all the spellings (Braden, Brayden, Braeden, Bradon, Braydon, Braedon, Bradyn, Braiden, etc.), you’d see it was in fact a fairly common name, and getting more common all the time. But it was the first my sister-in-law had heard of it.

This reminded me of the times I’ve heard people say, “When we used the name we didn’t know ANYONE with that name. But then suddenly EVERYONE was using it.” I think the trouble is that most people don’t pay much attention to baby names–and don’t know many babies–until they start having babies themselves. Then during pregnancy they hear a name that sounds so fresh and new–oh, BRADEN! what a great name!–and it’s just the cutting-edge sound they were looking for. And then it’s a surprise to find so many Bradens out there already. Even if you DO know a lot of babies, you might not know the ones being named Braden.

The other problem is that as a culture we all tend to turn toward the same names at the same time. What sounds fresh and new to one person is likely to sound fresh and new to a whole lot of other people, too. When William was in preschool, there were two Emmas, two Abigails, and two Isabellas in his class. Also: two Williams.

I am very interested in baby names, and I’m a big fan of the Social Security baby name site (you can track the rising/falling popularity of a name for each year since 1992 [edit: thanks to Lucy who pointed out it goes back way farther than that now: back to 1880. Pardon me while I go play on the site all day]), so finding a second William in William’s class was no shock to me. After all, the name hit the top ten the year William was born, and had been headed steadily in that direction for years. But the mother of the other William was upset, saying that when THEY used the name there were NO Williams but NOW there were Williams EVERYWHERE. The mother of one of the Isabellas told me the same thing about Isabellas.

Here is what I’m wondering: how many people does this happen to? Did it happen to any of you? Did you choose a name thinking it was highly unusual, and then find out it was common? There’s nothing wrong with common names: I like them for many reasons, and in fact I deliberately choose them (I liked the name Henry back when I was pregnant with Rob, but wanted it to be more common before I used it). But I would think that if what you wanted was something unusual, it would be upsetting to find it wasn’t.

And here’s my second wondering: Has it happened to any of you more than once? Or was it “once bitten, twice visiting the Social Security name site”?

Good thing we like common names, or we’d have been a bit peeved about the “Henry” thing.

Okay! *brisk clap* New exercise goal! The new plan is to continue to exercise three times a week for about half an hour–but to gather a selection of choices so I will be less bored/discouraged. I’ve got jogging/walking as one possibility (not “to 5K” anymore, but just jogging and walking for half an hour), and then I added a Tae Bo DVD, and this morning I tried a new DVD: Crunch Super SlimDown Pilates Yoga Blend With Ellen Barrett. Sounds like a cereal, doesn’t it? Or a trail mix, maybe.

I’d never tried pilates, and in fact I was saying it “pie-LAY-tees,” so saying “pih-LAH-tees” feels like saying vahz instead of vase. I’d tried yoga only once, and quit after about 5 minutes of irritating music and irritating spacey white chick who was clearly under the mistaken impression that getting in touch with her ancient spiritual side made her less of an irritating spacey white chick. Um, no offense, irritating spacey white chicks!

This DVD was way better. The instructor is nice, and she didn’t irritate me, and her instructions were clear and had to do with the exercises rather than anything I was supposed to be doing with my mind or anything I was supposed to be “becoming one” with. You know how some instructors seem as if what they’re saying and doing represents the entire contents of their brains? Ellen Barrett seems more like this is her job and even her life’s work, but that she could probably participate in other activities or say other words.

The difficulty level was perfect: I couldn’t do all of the exercises, but I felt reasonable hope that I’d be able to if I kept working on it–and I could do enough of them that I didn’t feel like I’d wasted 30 minutes squinting at the screen trying to figure things out without getting any actual exercise.

I would like to point out that I am awesome for persevering with this, especially since my weight! it continues to climb! This is so wrong! I am clinging to what Black Sheep said in the comments section of the post on weight–that exercise is still good, and that it is still making my heart and lungs happy, even if it is making me spit death at the scale. Fie on you, scale! Pistols at dawn, you bastard!

Have you seen any of this Signing Time with Alex and Leah stuff? It is a huge gigantic hit at my house. I’d never heard of it, but when I went on a trip back in June, I needed something for Edward to watch on the hotel TV in the morning while I was getting ready, and I turned it to old reliable PBS, and this show was on–and pretty soon I wasn’t getting ready anymore, I was watching the TV with Edward.

I don’t know what it is about this show, but it’s so mesmerizing, and its characters so likable, that our entire family is now learning sign language signs. Elizabeth has a speech/articulation delay, and the signs have saved us from several difficult situations already. She doesn’t say the “ck” sound in words (she can say it separately), nor does she say the “r” sound correctly, so a word like crackers comes out more like “ah-ahs.” She was working up to a blue fit over it until she learned to knock on her elbow while saying “ah-ahs”: now we understand her immediately.

But that’s not really the main reason we’re learning it. The main reason we’re learning it is that it’s fun. Paul and I once tried to learn sign language (long ago, before we had kids), but we got so bored, and we didn’t retain the signs very well. This show is different, and we find we remember most of what we learn. Well, especially because the kids want to watch the DVDs a billion times.

The show isn’t on all the PBS channels yet, but the Signing Time site has a link you can click to see if it’s in your area. You can also order the DVDs, either on the Signing Time site or on Amazon.com. BE AWARE: the first three DVDs have been re-released to match the later DVDs, so make sure you get the “revised edition.”

My mom has a set of the flash cards and she says they’re GREAT: glossy and wonderful and easy to use. Our library has three of the board books and they’re great too: large for board books. I like the DVDs best, though, because I think the show is magic (um, not to oversell it or anything). The books and flash cards are good for reviewing what you’ve learned on the show.

Edited to add: the show/cards/books all use ASL (American Sign Language). Many “baby sign” programs use made-up signs and aren’t intended for use after the child is talking competently; the Signing Time stuff teaches real ASL, the kind a deaf person would actually use. Children can talk baby talk in sign language just as they do in spoken language, but the show teaches the real signs and then shows a bunch of kids and adults doing the sign various ways, from a babyish version to a kid version to a grown-up/master version.

Also, the show teaches mostly individual words, not sentences.