Paul is getting sick again. He told me about four times over the course of yesterday evening that he was feeling funny, and then he said in a pathetic voice that he sure hoped he wasn’t getting sick, and then he asked me to feel his forehead and see if he had a fever, and then he went to bed an hour and a half early, and then he called out in a small weak voice asking if I could bring him another blanket, and he shivered as I put the blanket over him. At 3:30 in the morning he woke up his pregnant wife (that’s me, but I’m disassociating to lessen the emotional impact of the experience) to ask for acetaminophen. This morning he chose not to go to work (all together now: “Must be nice”), and now he’s moping around, drinking Gatorade (to replace all the electrolytes he lost by sleeping, presumably), lying down on the bed and groaning, and seeing if he can possibly choke down two of the muffins William and I made this morning. Sometimes he manages to bravely drag himself to his computer.

He’s been sick more often than the kids this winter, and this is my fourth pregnancy in which he’s spent almost the whole 9 months expecting sympathy FROM me without giving any TO me, and keeping me awake with his snoring and his groaning. As I understand it, there’s an “in sickness and in health” clause in our marriage contract—but as I also understand it, there’s an “until death do us part” loophole.

I had my 30-week OB visit today, and now I’ll be going back every 2 weeks instead of every 4 weeks. The nurse is going to call me tomorrow with my c-section date. They’re scheduling the c-section. Scheduling the c-section! I’m not sure you heard me: they’re scheduling the c-section. That means we are getting seriously close now.

I had to get up and go to the kitchen to look at the calendar and make sure I was right that I’m 30 weeks tomorrow. At 30 weeks, things start going very quickly for me. I was chatting with another pregnant woman who said she has the opposite experience: in the beginning it feels like she’s flying along, but then the last couple of months are an eternity. For me, I think it’s a matter of how big a chunk “one week” is of the time remaining. When I go from 8 to 9 weeks pregnant, I’ve reduced my remaining time by about 1/30th. Whoop-dee-do. When I go from 33 to 34 weeks pregnant, I’ve reduced my remaining time by about 1/5th. That’s significantly more exciting.

Listen, don’t quibble with me about my math. It’s nearly 11:00 at night, and I’ve just spent twenty minutes trying to figure out if I was supposed to make the fraction out of the 33-week-mark “time remaining” or out of the 34-week-mark “time remaining,” and I have furrowed my brow in vain because I still don’t know. Furthermore, I no longer care. I am pregnant and I am crabby, and you do not want to correct my calculations while I am still holding this well-sharpened pencil. Let’s just agree that I’m right in spirit if not in actual mathematical fact.

When you must go to the grocery store with toddler twins and a kindergartner and a huge round tum, because you are out of milk and have been out of milk for two days and things are getting desperate now that the bananas are gone too, it helps to know that the Dove ice cream bars are on a really good sale. And so are the Dove ice cream miniatures, which they should not advertise as having “only 60 calories each!” because that seems like a lot for such a small yummy bite, and also it is too easy to multiply by, for example, ten.

My mom has a good rule of thumb for deciding whether to go back to fix a store error in your own favor: if you would have gone back for the same error in the store’s favor, you go back; otherwise, you figure it balances out in the end and it’s not worth the confusion and trouble.

I like this rule of thumb because it isn’t too tight-assed. I’m not in favor of mincing back to the customer service counter to give them back the extra nickel and wait for my parade, nor do I feel as if every mistaken penny is a black mark on my conscience. I routinely let errors in the store’s favor slip past because it isn’t worth it, and so I am glad to see errors in my favor making it all even-steven.

In this particular case, I think the amount of money involved is very close to being right on the line, and so other things have to be taken into consideration in order to make the decision. If W@lmart had made this mistake, I’d be rejoicing that I was finally getting some payback for all the times the shelf price said one thing and the item rang up much higher, because they are always screwing me over, not to mention putting huge pallets in every possible throughway, and, if they run out of pallets, having clerks stand in the way, since the clerks are never running enough registers and never know the answers to customer questions and so have nothing better to do than stand in my way looking sullen.

But I have two Targets I go to regularly and both of them are completely awesome: great clerks who all seem like they’re working there part-time for the love of the job while double-majoring in business and helpfulness, customer service people who take back anything in any condition with the attitude that they totally agree with your decision to return it and don’t even need to hear an explanation, and so few wrong ring-ups I hardly bother to check my receipt anymore. So I have this feeling of wanting to do good by them, and that makes my decision for me: I WANT to give them the money for the earrings.

I still feel like a suck-up going to the customer service counter with this problem. I’ve worked a few different retail jobs, and every so often you get someone who wants you to correct an error in their favor and then, presumably, issue them a halo and thank them tearfully for renewing your faith in humankind. I wish there was a way I could pay the $3.74 without coming across this way.

And so I came up with a genius idea. What if I snuck the earrings into the store and then put them with my other purchases when I was checking out? That way if they did ring up at $14.99 (and you guys have me a little freaked about that possibility now), I could just not buy them. The only downside is if somehow I was caught with those earrings in my purse or something, it would look like I was shoplifting them, and my truth would not sound even one bit like actual truth. But I usually get a cart while I’m still in the parking lot (hard to lug twins without wheels); I could put the earrings in the cart at that point, semi-concealed by the diaper bag or something.

This plan solves all the problems: It allows me to handle this the next time I go to the store, without having to make a special trip. It means I don’t have to explain the situation to someone who’s going to look at me funny. It lets me avoid the whole “I’m so awesome to be doing this, please give me my medal now” problem. It dodges the “Oops, the earrings are $14.99 now” possibility. And it wipes away the potential bad-memory taint from the earrings. Perfect? I think so.

Two minor domestic triumphs:

1) Located Source of Mysterious Bad Smell. First thing this morning, I started encountering little air pockets of Bad Smell, mostly in the kitchen but also everywhere else. The usual culprits proclaimed their innocence: twins’ diapers were clean, kitchen trash seemed fine; the diaper pail, while not exactly springtime fresh, was within normal limits. I kept smelling something, though. Then, as I went to wipe up the twins after their breakfast, I found the problem: a nasty washcloth. A washcloth can turn on you like that. I spritzed the hell out of it with Febreze: when a washcloth smells that terrible, I like to do prep before it goes through the wash.

2) Used a $10 Off Coupon at Target. The challenge was to spend the necessary $100, but on things we would buy anyway. A coupon for $10 off $100 is good, but if I buy a bunch of pretty-sparklies and dishes and baby clothes we don’t need, it’s only 10% off—that’s hardly even a sale. If I buy diapers and dish soap and cat food, it’s a free package of diapers. I came home with the world’s most boring Target haul (paper towels! light bulbs!), but I used that coupon.

Hey, ethical dilemma: The other day when I went to Target, I got a pair of earrings that were 75% off—$3.74. When I got home and was looking at the receipt to see if I needed to save it, I noticed that the earrings were not on there. They were in my bag, but unpaid for. On one hand, it’s only $3.74, and I’m going to feel like a major kiss-up dork if I go to customer service and insist on paying. On the other hand, it doesn’t sit well with me to just let it go. Usually I wear new earrings the very next day, but I find that when I look at them, I think uncomfortably of how I—totally inadvertently—“stole” them. What would you do? I’ll tell you later what I’ve decided.

I really liked the suggestion some of you made about getting a DVD player for the trip I’ll be going on, the one where I will be trying to contain a toddler for hours and hours and hours and hours. I’d had it in my head that the only way to have a DVD player in the car was to buy a car with a DVD player already installed. Then, when you guys mentioned purchasing the DVD player sans vehicle, I looked into it and found that hey! you can BUY these things! Furthermore, my dad thinks he might be able to rig his portable DVD player somehow, and he has made it his mission to make something work. So—thanks! I don’t mind telling you I’m a big fan of television, especially in its child-muzzling capacity.

Anyway, this got me thinking about children’s DVDs, and what I could stand to be trapped in a car with. There are certain children’s shows that would motivate me to fling myself out of the moving car, thanking the gods of momentum and gravity for the privilege. The first few notes of Barney, for example, make me run for the remote yelling “LA LA LA LA LA LA LA” to keep any sound from entering my brain. I don’t care if he does have the best clean-up song ever, he’s horrible, and so are those child actors. Someone must be holding those children’s parents at knifepoint right in front of them to elicit such strained and vigorously cheerful performances.

And Caillou. I don’t think I have ever heard such irritating whining. And Maya and Miguel, with their whole “He thinks with his brain! She thinks with her heart and with her sparkly twirling ponytail! Because she’s a silly girl!” And the newly-formatted Sesame Street, with “Journey to Ernie” and “Elmo’s World” taking over all the good stuff.

Well. I enjoy anything that gives me an excuse to buy things I’ve been wanting to buy anyway, and I was thinking this trip would be a good excuse to buy those “old school” Sesame Street episodes that have started coming out on DVD. I might also buy some Blue’s Clues. Do I have to specify that they’d be the ones with Steve? Of course they’d be the ones with Steve. We have a bunch of Blue’s Clues episodes on videotapes that are totally legal, legitimately purchased, not at all taped off the TV—but we have nothing on DVD. I wish there were more than just a couple of episodes per DVD, though. If someone were to tape onto their own videotapes, for example, they might get more like 15 episodes per tape. I’m just saying IF.

Successful and non-irritating DVDs we already own are:

1) Baby Bach, Baby Mozart, and Baby Beethoven from the some-good-some-bad Baby Einstein series. These are good because the background sound is mostly just classical music, rather than hyper piping voices or “the FISH song! Fish-fish-fish! fish-fish-fish! fish-fish-fish-fish-fish!” And I can look away from the screen when Little Miss “I Think of Myself as a Hand Model” is on, or when they’re doing the not-exactly-Jim-Henson-quality puppetry.

2) Schoolhouse Rock! I never saw these as a child, but Paul did, and I’ve really been enjoying the 30th Anniversary Edition he insisted we buy. It has all the songs, and you can watch them by category (grammar, government, etc.) or you can put it on shuffle mode so it plays them in random order. I’ve never been so close to understanding how our government, circulatory, and banking systems work. It’s way too old for a 2-year-old, but our resident nearly-2-year-olds don’t seem bothered by that—they like the animation and the music.

3) They Might Be Giants have a kid DVD called Here Come the ABCs, and it is great. We bought the DVD/CD combo pack so we can listen to the music in the car and watch the DVD at home. The kids like it, we like it, everyone’s happy.

Okay, tell me the children’s shows you hate, and the ones you love. My credit card is itching for action, and I have such a good excuse for using it.

Hey! Hey, I just swayed as I walked down the hall. Houston, we have waddling.

One of my strengths as a parent is Talking. I can talk at great length with a child who wants to know why we wear dark dressy clothes to funerals even if we’re not sad about the person who died, or why thank-you notes are crucial and how they should be written. I can even handle “What happens to us after we die?” and “But how did the baby START in your tummy?” and “WHY do we have to zip up before we come out of the bathroom?” Rob and I do particularly well as a parent-child team: he likes to repeatedly talk every subject into the ground and I am happy to oblige.

With William, I have more trouble. When we were making muffins this morning, he said thoughtfully, “That sugar looks like it’s picking its nose.” You tell me how to start an attentive and loving conversation around that opener. I thought we were on a better track when he asked, “Can we talk about what I want to grow up as?” and I said, with relief, “YES! What do you want to be when you grow up?,” and he said, “A sound wave.” Oh. Not a firefighter? Because I have a whole conversation about being a firefighter.

This morning I was getting Elizabeth dressed, and she was playing with a sweater that had been on top of the changing table. When I was finished dressing her, she indicated clearly (grabbing the sweater, yelling, trying to wrap the sweater around herself) that she wanted to wear the sweater.

I explained to her that the sweater had been on the changing table like that because she’d outgrown it and I needed to put it in the handmedowns bag. I pointed out that the sweater did not go with her outfit anyway. I reminded her that the weather report had suggested that today was going to be warm and springlike, not a good day for sweaters.

Her debating tactics need work: her only argument was “EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!”

Outcome of our disagreement?

Whose debating tactics need work NOW?

Maybe you have been wondering why there have been no Digging Ourselves Out entries lately? There are three reasons. First, I was getting jumpy about the number of posts: I would think, “Well, I already posted a Digging Out entry, and now I’ve posted a regular entry, so I really shouldn’t post another entry.” Second, I think that whole cleaning idea might have been Second Trimester Energy. It didn’t feel like it at the time, but compared to how I feel here in the third trimester, I think it was. Third, here are the Before and After pictures from one of my first tasks, the kitchen table project:

Doesn’t that look nice, all clean and smooth? So much better. And now here’s the After After:

It’s not as bad as the original Before picture, but nearly. And the worst part is, I didn’t put that stuff there. Those are Legos put there by Paul and Rob and William, a mask put there by William, school papers put there by Rob, magazines put there by Paul, etc. I know The F1y L@dy says that if your family doesn’t cooperate with your clean-up ideas, you should go ahead and do all the clean-up for them, but I say SCREW THAT!

The Flying Mum tagged me for a “7 Songs I’ve Been Enjoying Lately” meme. I’m supposed to include links to clips, but apparently I am too dim to do that: I tried copying The Flying Mum’s idea of using Rhapsody, but couldn’t make it cooperate with me. I am failing this meme.

1. Dragostea Din Tei, by OZone
2. Welcome to the Black Parade, by My Chemical Romance
3. Life Less Ordinary, by Carbon Leaf
4. What Hurts the Most, by Rascal Flatts
5. Behind These Hazel Eyes, by Kelly Clarkson
6. Too Little Too Late, by JoJo
7. Angel, by Shaggy

Do you know, I am actually a little nervous making that list? I feel like maybe you’re going to be snorting and saying, “She likes THAT song? She is SO lame.”

I’d like to start a meme of my own, if I may do that and I don’t see why I mayn’t. It’s a perfume meme. List three (or whatever–we’re casual in this meme) perfumes that are important to you, or have memories associated with them, or that you currently love, and say why.

Charlie (Revlon)– I wore this most of the way through high school, and I still have a bottle of it. I remember how appealing the ads were to me: beautiful girls in tough pinstriped suits, and, if I remember correctly, the idea that under their tough career exteriors they were wearing lacy lingerie. That concept makes me barf a little now, but I loved it as a teenager.

Sand & Sable (Coty)– I wore this during college. I still like it, but I can’t smell it without thinking of a relationship that ended very badly, and so I haven’t worn it since.

La Chasse Aux Papillons (L’Artisan)– This is one of my current favorites, and the first very expensive perfume I’ve owned. The way I found it is a little embarrassing: I read in US Weekly magazine that some celebrity liked it. The way she described it (“like fresh-cut flowers”) so intrigued me that I went online and bought a sample of it (I like Luscious Cargo for samples and also for their fun, cool site), and I loved it and now I have a whole entire expensive French bottle of it and it makes me feel special and pretty and not-frumpy to use it.

So! There’s my very own meme! And I tag ALL of you! Yes, ALL of you! You are ALL tagged! Well, all of you with blogs. All of you who have blogs and also wear perfume.