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.”

William came out of his room this morning and said, in the voice of a child who has just realized there is a surprising gap in the chain of what he knows, “What starts the baby inside? I mean, it starts from nothing!” He did a lightning-bolt clap to emphasize the word “nothing.”

At the time, I was trying to persuade the twins to eat their breakfasts rather than using them to test the theory of gravity, and I was responding to Rob’s third polite request from the couch where he is nested in with a fever this morning, but this is one of those drop-everything moments when the question at hand is too important to let slip by. Also, it was just a few days ago that an anonymous commenter asked if I’d do a post on this very topic, so secretly I was delighted to get more material for what had been looking like it would be a skimpy post. The anonymous commenter speculated that I had a lot of experience with this, but in fact I’d only discussed the Whole Scoop with Rob so far.

I’ve read funny anecdotes about parents who panic and tell the entire story, complete with tangents about the Kama Sutra and birth control options and sex for love / not for love, only to find that the child wanted to know something more like “Babies are usually born in hospitals.” So my approach when a child asks a question is to answer it in a distant, general way and work toward specifics as the child keeps asking. The first time Rob asked me a question, what he wanted was reassurance that the baby was not growing in the same tummy where food went, and when that matter was settled he was contented. The next time, he was curious about how the baby grew, but he was looking for information about the umbilical cord and the breathing/dining/peeing conditions, and wasn’t yet looking for specifics about conception. I think he was five when he wanted access to the classified files.

William has been present for some of my conversations with Rob, but I wasn’t sure how much he’d listened to. He’s six years old, and I think of that as old enough to hear the whole truth if he wants it, but it’s still young enough that he might not want to know yet. I asked if he remembered about sperm and eggs, and he said he did but I reviewed it anyway at the “sperm comes from the daddy, eggs come from the mommy, and a sperm and an egg combine to start a baby” level to see if that was all he needed, but no. He said, “But how DO they GET to combine?” and that’s when I realized I was going to have to use words like penis at 8:00 in the morning.

I have a book I like to use to brush up on the basics before I explain it to a child. You’d think all this information would be clear to me by now (unless you were one of the many people who greeted the news of this pregnancy with a cautious “You know how this keeps happening, right?”), but it can be helpful to review it in simplified terms. This is the same book my mom used when she was explaining the truth to Young Swistle: Where Did I Come From?, by Peter Mayle. The illustrations show the whole naked thing, but in a friendly way that isn’t too embarrassing for those among us who might feel a little embarrassed. It’s a good book to use for your own education before you have to explain elements of the process, and a good book to read aloud to a child who’s ready for the whole story.

For older children like Rob, who can read to themselves and might be starting to feel embarrassed about asking questions, I like It’s So Amazing!, by Robie H. Harris. This book goes into a lot more detail than Where Did I Come From?, including topics such as adoption, different kinds of families, and good/bad touches. It sticks mostly to boy parts and girl parts and reproduction, though. The format is comic-book style, with a bird and a bee who have different feelings about learning more about this topic (the bird is interested, the bee would rather not know). There are some good diagrams of internal reproductive systems; I don’t like to admit it, but I learned a thing or two myself.

My mother-in-law just emailed me to remind me to get my rest now because I “sure won’t get any after the new baby arrives!” Thanks, mother-in-law! Because as everyone knows, it’s really easy to rest and relax and put your feet up when you have only four children! Also, I certainly wouldn’t have anticipated that I’d get less rest after the baby arrived, so it’s a good thing she warned me! She had two whole children, so I guess she’s the voice of experience guiding the newbie daughter-in-law on this mothering path!

I’m in a super crabby mood today because guess who’s home sick? Why, yes, it’s Paul! Yes! He has a headache and feels chilly! So he’s going to stay home from work! He’s like those children who see a sibling stay home from school and suddenly they’re sick and need to stay home too. And although I am technically up and around, I spent most of yesterday lying down whenever I could, and feeling sick when I couldn’t, so I’m not really prepared to play Nurse Swistle around here. And then Edward woke up with red cheeks and a cough, so it’s beginning to look as if I’m going to have to take things out on my mother-in-law. “YES,” I’ll write to her; “I WILL get lots of rest while caring for my ENORMOUS AND SICKLY family at 8 months pregnant and still on antibiotics! Thank you for telling me to or I might not have done it!”

(long gap of time)

Elizabeth woke up, and I went down to get her, and she’d thrown up in her crib. What do you think is next, boils or locusts?

I bathed her, and cleaned up her crib, and put all the barfy stuff in the washing machine with some baking soda, and got Robert off to school with the muffins he’s bringing for the Teacher Appreciation Week buffet, and now it is just past 9:00 in the morning and I am about ready to call it a day.

Okay! *brisk clapping* Let’s find something to talk about other than the sickness hovering over my household like some dark dooming cloud!

Oh, I have something good! It’s the first day of May! And the c-section has been scheduled for May 31st! So we are in the month the baby will be born, and that is happy news. I saw the OB yesterday and he wasn’t worried about the infection or about the amoxicillin or anything, and he’s a big worrier so it made me feel better to see him so casual about it. I also asked him a bunch of dumb questions (dumb in that I knew the answers but wanted him to tell me again) and he didn’t even flinch. He’s a nice OB.

And let’s do some follow-ups. First, the sandals. I hope it will not be disappointing that after all that fuss, I didn’t get either pair. I think the story here is that although I love the whole idea of Dr. Martens, the sandals are not in fact my style. Granola is delicious, and hiking is good for you, but who hikes in sandals? You’d get ticks between your toes.

Second, remember my dilemma about those earrings I got from Target and then found hadn’t been rung up? I didn’t want to get all goody-two-shoes about it, but on the other hand I thought that if I just kept them I might have an icky feeling every time I wore them. I came up with a solution that some of you wisely pointed out could turn Seinfeld-esque: I was going to sneak the earrings back into the store, then casually purchase them with the rest of my stuff. And many of you kindly offered to bail me out / send me a nail file / testify as to my innocence if the store security caught me with the earrings and thought I was shoplifting them. Anyway, the plan went fine, no pratfalls or unlikely explanations: I brought them into the store tucked under the diaper bag, and then I bought them on my way out. Whew.

Now go say congratulations to Shannon, who had her new baby girl on Sunday! Shannon was supposed to wait and have her baby on the same day I was having mine, but apparently she abandoned our agreement for the sake of the baby’s health or something. Whatev. Congratulations, Shannon and baby Elise!

Do you know where I’ve been this weekend? Sick in bed! That’s right: actually in bed, sick. I had a bad cold last week, and then Friday night things went downhill fast: chills, fever, burning throat, hurting all over. On Saturday morning my parents took all the kids, and Paul took me to the urgent care office that has weekend hours. “Upper respiratory infection” does not seem adequate to describe how crappy I felt and still feel, and so I’m not sure there has been a correct diagnosis, but I am willing to give it a little time. After all, on Saturday morning I wasn’t sure I could wait the one hour until my appointment, whereas today I am sitting at my computer complaining, so clearly things have improved.

I haven’t been this sick since I had strep throat several years ago, and that time was a real bummer because Paul had it too, and so neither of us could stay in bed. Since then, Paul has been “sick enough to stay in bed” (that is, run-of-the-mill headcold) about a zillion times, and I have been “sick enough to stay in bed” (that is, sick enough to stay in bed) zero times. So this was an interesting opportunity for me to see just how things would run without me, and how things will run without me when I’m in the hospital having the baby.

Here is what happens. Paul does a good job in general: children are dressed and fed and alive, and they have fun. But even though I think of myself as a crappy housekeeper, it is clear from even two days’ absence that I must be doing certain levels of cleaning that keep things from falling apart. After two days without me, the kitchen floor is covered in crumbs, and there are chunks of food that fell under the high chairs without being cleaned up. Dishes have been done and even put away, but they are gritty and/or greasy, and they are in the wrong cupboards. My pink-and-white spring towels have evidently been used to clean up some sort of industrial accident. The twins’ teeth haven’t been brushed. They had pizza one night and no one’s clothes have been stain-treated. Rob and William played outside in the mud twice, and their caked, muddy clothes are sitting in the hampers, chunks of mud sifted all the way down through the rest of the clothes. Saturday’s mail is sitting on the counter. Elizabeth had a dreadlock that took me fifteen minutes to pick out this morning, because that’s what happens if her hair isn’t combed three or four times a day.

But I did get to stay in bed. And there were only about two total interruptions of the “Where do we keep the…?” variety. And there was not one single “Oh, do you want to go in there to be with Mommy?” And those are valuable things indeed.

In some ways it’s nice to know that things don’t go perfectly without me. It makes me feel as if the work I do for the family is important, useful work that improves the quality of our lives. On the other hand, it’s irritating to see how quickly so many things fall apart if I don’t handle them, as if I’m somehow the only person equipped with the magical powers necessary to hang up wet towels. I remember this being the same in the workplace: it’s nice to be missed, but annoying to come back to piles of work that no one else seemed able to figure out how to do–especially the things a hamster could have done.

Also annoying, both in the workplace and in the home: having to congratulate co-workers or a husband for managing to do even a small fraction of what you usually do. I made it a point to thank Paul several times for handling everything. My intent was to set a good example for the next time HE stays in bed all weekend and I have to handle everything. It is hard to tell, though, when I’m “setting a good example” and when I’m “reaffirming that all of this is my job and he’s a total hero to handle anything at all.”

I hate to admit it, but I’m starting to find “standing up in the shower” over-tiring. I’m looking for ways to reduce the time I spend in there, and with my pregnancy-oily hair, it’s the daily shampoo/condition that’s bugging me most. Is there any such thing as a worthwhile “2-in-1” shampoo/conditioner, or do they all have problems? I don’t think I’ve tried one since high school. (Pert Plus!)

When I posted the other day about girl clothes, and about how much fun I was having buying all these cutie little mix-and-match things from the spring clearance sale at The Children’s Place, there were requests for photos. Another post about baby clothes? You don’t have to ask me twice.

First, a photo of most of the haul. I’ve put an x over a skirt I returned. Do you know what that skirt was made of? Linen. I ask you. LINEN. Across what is roughly the top row of the haul, you can see a pink striped polo shirt (I later also bought it in blue), a white crochet-trim bodysuit, a pink floral hoodie, a blue embroidered hoodie, a round-collared white shirt, and a round-collared blue shirt (I later also bought it in pink). Across what is roughly the bottom row you can see a pink floral skirt, yellow pedal pushers, pink pedal pushers (I later also bought them in denim), a blue crochet-trimmed body suit and blue floral skirt, blue tights, a pink-and-white striped cardigan, and the returned linen skirt. If you look carefully you can also see in the lower right hand edge two little baby hands about to start yanking things off the bed. And if you are very sharp-eyed indeed, you will notice that my white-shirted tum makes a guest appearance along the bottom edge.

Clearly we need a runway model to show a few sample outfits. Here is Elizabeth wearing the striped polo in blue. She is wearing jeans because it was too cool that day for pedal pushers, but you get the idea of what the shirt would look like with the denim pedal pushers or with denim shorts:

Here is Elizabeth wearing the round-collared shirt in dark pink, with the pink floral skirt:

Here she is in the pink-and-white cardigan:

And finally, in the blue floral skirt and the blue embroidered hoodie:

I’m so pleased with all the purchases. Everything seems made for a toddler who wants to PLAY. The floral skirts have built-in shorts underneath, and the whole skirt/shorts unit is made of a stretchy material. The shirts, too, have some stretch to them, so they don’t bind her when she tries to move around. The hooded sweatshirts have nice big zippers and the polos have nice big buttons, so I’m not messing around with eensy little things. The round-collared shirts have flower-shaped buttons, which I think is a nice touch.

And everything was $2.99, $3.99, or $4.99, plus I had a 15% off coupon. Nice. I’m kind of thinking I might buy some of my favorite things in bigger sizes for next year, but I’m not sure if I’ll enjoy repeats or not.

I want to draw your attention to Linda’s post about bone marrow donation. I’m already on the registry, but realized after reading her post that I hadn’t updated my address information with them for years.

I’m planning to be an organ donor later on, but what I like about bone marrow donation is that you don’t have to be dead to do it. It’s not even like donating a kidney, where you have a spare but might feel nervous about losing it, in case you need it later. Your body will make more bone marrow, and meanwhile you can save somebody’s life with something you can easily manufacture more of.

It’s a great idea, and a great way to do a lot of helping without having to donate, say, tons of time or bushels of money. And it isn’t as if they’ll be calling you ever other week for more marrow: as I understand it, matches with non-family-members are rare. You register just in case you could be a one in a million for somebody else. Follow the links in Linda’s post for more information, or go directly to The National Marrow Donor Program.

One thing I’m afraid may talk some of you out of it is that there’s a fairly substantial fee to get on the registry: the site says it varies from $52 to $96, and that’s a nice chunk of change for a lot of us. [Edited 2014: it now says $100.] They mean it, though, when they say that depending on where and when you join, some or all of your costs may be covered. When I joined, there was a local boy who needed a transplant, and his church and community raised multiple tens of thousands of dollars to cover the cost of anyone who wanted to join the registry, so my joining was totally free. I believe they also have certain limited funds to cover the costs of people who want to join but can’t afford it, or can only afford part of it. [Edited 2014: I don’t see anything about that on the site anymore.] I hope you won’t let it be a hurdle, because my guess is that there are ways around it and that it would be worth contacting them to ask them to direct you to those ways.

Bleah. Yesterday I had a tickle in my throat, and today I’m sick. I kept waking up all night, feeling hot and sweaty and sore, and then trying to cough out my ribs. If there were any fairness in the world, pregnant women would be immune to illness. Don’t we have enough physical misery as it is?

This illness has come at a bad time, since it was only a day or two ago that I thought, “Okay, NOW I’m getting uncomfortable.” Turning over in bed takes planning. Getting out of bed is tricky. It’s harder to breathe. If I drop something on the floor, and there are no children around to pick it up for me, I can nearly weep. Putting on my socks and shoes takes mental preparation and strength of character. My legs feel like they’re going to pop right out of their ill-fitting sockets. And now I’m sick, too. That is your cue to say something sympathetic—perhaps involving the imminence of your arrival with cookies?

I have tried to explain to the two resident toddlers that they need to take it easy on me today. Just as newborns need a “wait 5 minutes” button, toddlers need a “give me a break today” button. Instead, they have been particularly trying, and it is only 8:30 in the morning. At breakfast, they’d hold out their bowls to me, making fussy “take this away from me” noises; I would take the bowl and they would scream; I would give it back and they would go back to the “eh! eh! ehhhhhhh!!” and then throw the bowl overboard in frustration so that cheerios scattered in a wide arc across the kitchen floor. I had planned to give them some freedom time after breakfast, but instead I put them in their playpen and switched on Blue’s Clues and ran away into the computer room.

The happy thing is that today I am 34 weeks. When I was pregnant with the twins and worried about premature delivery, the OB said that 34 weeks was a “magic week” for babies–that starting at 34 weeks, the chances of serious problems were getting so low, a “happy outcome” was very likely indeed. So hitting 34 weeks is another of those pregnancy milestones I look forward to.

Even if it weren’t a milestone week, EVERY week is a milestone week at this point. It’s 34 weeks! That means there are only 5 weeks left! Holy crap, 5 weeks! That’s 35 days! A month and 5 days! …Okay, that’s starting to sound long again. It’s 5 WEEKS! It would not be too early to address baby announcement envelopes! It would not be too early to launder eensy little blue outfits, and little side-snap shirts, and teeny hats, and pack them all carefully into bureau drawers alongside the tiniest diapers ever! Maybe I will work on one of those tasks this morning. (*sound of toddlers fighting*) Or maybe I will hide out in here all day.