I have a new rule for inclusion in the Rulebook For Parents, and I assume someone is compiling such a volume because it is clearly needed. The new rule is this: No parent may set up an activity for children that requires supervision, and then bail. For example: I may not set up Rob and William with fingerpaints, as if I am some sort of Fingerpaint Fairy bestowing favors, and then say to Paul, “See you later! I’m going to the store!”

Notice how cleverly I avoid implicating Paul as the rule-breaker when I use this example. It almost seems as if I could have broken the rule myself, and was now feeling remorse. But in fact what happened was that Paul set the twins loose in the house with cups of orange juice and crayons, and then took off on a walk with William.

The twins get very little time loose in the house: they spend most of their time in their room–which is also their playroom–and the large play yard in the living room. This is because they are still destructive, mindless animals, and because they get into trouble in two different directions at once. When they are out, they require intense supervision, ideally by two adults so that one can stop Edward from pulling the tape out of a videotape while the other stops Elizabeth from pulling out handfuls of crayons and throwing them under the couch. And do you think the twins are normally allowed to have cups of sticky, sticky orange juice while they are running free? No. No, they are not.

Certainly no one would want to be the one to re-cage the twins after someone else has promised them time to roam freely. You might as well set up an air raid siren–no, two air raid sirens–right inside your house, and let them whoop until your teeth fragment and skitter to the floor. And so I was trapped: the door closed behind Paul, and Elizabeth dropped her cup. Moments later, Edward upended the crayon bin. Moments after that, Elizabeth tripped and hit her mouth and started screaming, and Edward used the ensuing fuss as an opportunity to escape into the kitchen and start emptying cupboards. If I had come up with the twin freedom idea, I would have been cursing myself; as it was, I was cursing Paul. Paul was conveniently not there to receive the curses.

I don’t think I should always have to be the one issuing edicts around here, and yet that is the way it happens. Some of us seem to instinctively understand the rules, and others of us seem to need them spelled out. Writer of the rulebook, please take note.

Apparently you guys were just tapping your fingers impatiently through all the posts on baby names and recipes, dying for me to ask you instead what TV shows to watch.

I’ve watched Six Feet Under on DVD already; I found it almost too upsetting at times, but wonderful. The last episode had me sobbing—not just crying a little but snorting and heaving and choking. I think I watched the last part of it three times, and then had welling tears every time I thought of it for the next few days. And, um, also right this minute, writing about it.

On another topic, I told some people in my real life about my blog. It was a total secret before, and now it’s a mixed secret: I told Paul and my parents that the blog exists, but that they may not read it. This may have been a mistake. But I am not good with secrets, and I was starting to slip and have to cover it up, and also I wanted to be able to tell Paul and my parents when something awesome happened (“CATHERINE NEWMAN commented on my blog!!” “SUNDRY reads my blog!!”).

As you might expect, there have been mixed reactions to my sudden revelation. Paul was a little crabby, especially when I made him actually literally promise not to look for the blog or read it—but also made him listen to stories of blog happiness. My mom, who is the kind of mom who would walk right past an open diary, was just “Oh! How nice!” My dad is more, “If it’s a public blog, it should be public”–that is, he should get to read the whole thing, because everybody on the internet gets to. My argument is that it isn’t really public. Sure, it’s on the internet, but it’s anonymous. If it weren’t anonymous, I wouldn’t be writing as frankly as I write. And to my parents, I’m not anonymous. Therefore, they can’t read it. We’ve worked out an arrangement: I’ll send him links to the entries he may read, as long as he promises not to go poking around in the rest of the site. I can’t write if I’m thinking, “Oh, my dad’s going to be reading this–better leave out the part about pelvic rest.”

Semi-Desperate Housewife had a post awhile back on this general topic–basically, who knows about your blog, and how does it affect your writing, and do you leave things out because of the people you know are reading, and do you now regret telling people about the blog?

I never manage to remember what’s on TV or when, and so what I like to do is rent DVDs of TV shows that are no longer on the air. It’s an instant-gratification way to snork down entire series: no waiting a week for the next episode, no waiting all summer for the next season.

But here is the problem: it does me no good to rent DVDs of TV shows that are still currently producing episodes. I accidentally got started on Gilmore Girls and now I’ve seen through season 6 but I have to wait ages before season 7 will be on DVD.

What I need are recommendations for good television series that are no longer being made, so that I can watch the entire series now, with no waiting.

I had an OB appointment today (I’m at 23 weeks), and he went over with me the results of the ultrasound I had in mid-January. Apparently the ultrasound shows I may have placenta previa.

I’ve been doing a little frantic online research, and so far it’s setting my fears to rest. For one thing, I was thinking that placenta previa could lead to placental abruption (where the placenta pulls away from the uterine wall, depriving the baby of things it needs), but I was mistaken in that. Also, it appears that it’s fairly common to hear after a mid-pregnancy ultrasound that you have placenta previa, but then to find later that the problem is no longer there. I have an ultrasound in 4 weeks to check to see if “migration” has occurred. The OB said the placenta doesn’t literally migrate (here he made a wing-flapping gesture) but that as the uterus expands it can turn out that the placenta was never over the cervix to begin with and only appeared to be.

If it hasn’t migrated, the ultrasound will determine how far over the cervix the placenta is. I’ll have to be alert for any bleeding (as if I’d be blase about that otherwise), and there’s an increased risk of early hospitalization and premature birth. Women with placenta previa have to have c-sections, but I have c-sections anyway so that’s no big deal.

The most alarming thing to Paul, of course, is that if I do have placenta previa, I’ll be put on, um, “pelvic rest.”

I made muffins this morning with William, and I was letting him stir even though I hate to because I like to have it done Right and Efficiently and My Way, but I let him do it because it is good practice for him and it is also good practice for ME in controlling my controlling nature. So he was stirring, and of course he accidentally made a perfect lever out of the spoon and there was a geyser of flour, and luckily it was a small geyser and not like the one that went all over both of us and the floor and the cupboards the other day. A little did still get on my face and glasses and shirt, but I cleaned up relatively easily and managed not to say anything crabbier than a gentle “Please be more careful with your stirring” which was the kind of parenting triumph I wish was being observed from behind one-way glass because I think it’s an accomplishment deserving of at least an approving little checkmark in a notebook.

So later I took William to kindergarten, and when I got home I put the twins to bed and finally got a chance to pee in peace, and when I was checking myself out in the mirror afterward I noticed I had flour ringing one nostril. Evidently I was insufficiently thorough with my clean-up. How many of the teachers and other parents think I use drugs now, do you suppose?

I’m sure it didn’t help the picture that I have bloodshot eyes today. Paul is sick, and when Paul is sick I have to use all my inner strength not to kick him out the door. He is such a baby. I was queasy for three months and had a hacking, gagging cough for about a month of it but couldn’t take any good drugs (e.g., flour) and he was all, “Yeah, so you said. Does this mean we’re not going to have sex again tonight?” But he gets a totally normal minor cold and he’s groaning on the recliner, going to bed early, taking huge slugs of Nyquil, picking fights with me about comment sections and then bailing with “I can’t deal with this, I’m too sick,” and saying, “I might not go to work tomorrow so don’t wake me if I’m still here in the morning.” Oh my freakin’ stars, he should feel lucky I was still here in the morning.

As it turned out, he did go to work and he said he slept really well last night. That was news to me, since from my point of view what he did all night was snore deeper and louder until he jerked awake and thrashed into a new position, often elbowing me in the spine as he did—every 1-2 minutes. Tonight I’m keeping the rubber mallet by my side of the bed, just in case the Nyquil needs a little “help” knocking him out again.

I slept poorly, not only because of the thrashing and snorting, but also because Paul had turned the heat up 2 degrees warmer than usual (because he’s siiiiiiiiick), and I’ve been liking it about 2 degrees cooler than usual, and so the 4 degree difference was roasting me slowly over open flames. And I would like to know what has happened to all the awesome “Logan Huntzberger is my boyfriend” and “Tom DeLonge’s lips belong to me” dreams I was having before, because now I’m getting mostly dreams about looking for a bathroom, being late for a flight and I haven’t packed yet, and having futile unsatisfying fights with former boyfriends.

In happier pregnancy news, I can now feel baby movements from outside my tum. I was sitting in the recliner reading a book (Twisted by Jeffery Deaver—really good if you like suspenseful, twist-ridden short stories) and I had my hand idly on my tum just to check and I could FEEL the kicks against my hand. I love this stage, but now I’m not going to get anything done because I’m just going to sit in a chair all day trying to feel more of them.

Paul and I just had an argument about comment sections of blogs. He said that “everyone on the whole Internet” agrees with his point of view, which is that posting a comment and then never going back to the comment section to see if anyone else has commented on your comment is like going to a party wearing ear plugs. He says the comment section is where people discuss the post, and that it is weird to leave a comment and then “leave the room,” as it were.

I say that the comment section CAN end up being a conversation between commenters, and that it’s interesting and neat if it does, but the real point of a comment section is to comment to the blogger–more like listening to a speech and then going up to tell the speaker what you thought of it afterward; and I say that he’s thinking of chat rooms when he makes his party analogy. I generally leave a comment and then don’t return, unless it’s the kind of post that leaves me wondering what other people will say about it, too. Paul says that my approach is antithetical to the whole concept of blogging/commenting.

What say you all? Do you return to the comment section of a post you commented on (1) always, (2) sometimes, (3) never? Do you think it’s weird or rude not to? Do you think of the comments section as being for (1) comments, (2) conversations, (3) both but more of one than the other?

I mentioned recently that Paul and I got so overwhelmed by choosing A Good Diamond, we skipped the engagement ring altogether–a decision I still regret, by the way. Today it is my job to research large freezers, and this reminds me of the diamond thing, and if you will just be patient I will say why.

We’d like to buy a big freezer because already we cram our refrigerator totally full after every grocery shopping trip, and we go through a surprising number of loaves of bread (which we like to freeze until we use them), and we like to stock up on meat when it goes on sale, and so it seems as if we are always on the verge of disaster. One day I came home with the groceries and there seriously wasn’t room to put them into the freezer, and we had to make some emergency dinner plans (menu theme: “Using as Much Stuff From the Freezer as Gastronomically Possible”) and also take all the ice cube trays out for a couple of days to make room. And this is only going to get worse as the four boys–four boys!–turn into teenagers and start eating a bag of groceries as a snack.

Another good reason to buy a big freezer is that every time I have a baby (and this happens surprisingly often, it seems), I think about how, when I come home from the hospital, my number one source of despair is food. I must eat, and yet there is nothing to eat. I want hot food, but am too tired and overwhelmed to make any. Good food improves my morale so enormously, it makes total sense to arrange for it ahead of time. So, as I say, every time I have a baby I think to myself, “You know what I should do, is before the baby is born I should make a whole bunch of single-serving containers of hearty, easy foods like chili and turkey-vegetable soup, plus a whole bunch of muffins and cookies.” But I can’t do that, because we don’t have enough freezer space.

I see I have now explained why we need a freezer, when what I meant to be explaining was what freezers had to do with engagement rings. The reason I am procrastinating on this freezer decision is that I feel like I’m going to make The Wrong Choice. I’m going to get the one that costs more money per month to run than it should, and I don’t know how many cubic feet we need and will probably get too many and that will be a waste of electricity and money, and I’ll buy a brand that isn’t the best brand to buy. And all these things cause me to hem and haw and stall on the freezer decision, just as we did on the diamond decision when we were worried we’d pay too much for a diamond that was too flawed or the wrong color or something. We worried that our ignorance (which was only compounded rather than relieved by our decision to purchase and read a book on choosing a diamond) would cause us to be suckered into a bad decision, and so we didn’t risk being suckered. And so I have no pretty-sparkly, and I don’t know how our decision could have been badder than that.

It is in these trying times that I depend on my friend Mel. I was in exactly this kind of stalling cycle when I was pregnant with twins and realized we seriously needed a minivan now, and we couldn’t really swing a new one but I was worried about buying a used one because what if we paid too much? and what if we chose the wrong make or model? and what if it turned out to have problems? and should we buy that optional warranty or is that for suckers? and are we supposed to try to talk them into coming down on the price? And I turned to my friend Mel, who said, “Listen, the reason you’re worried you’re going to get screwed is that you are going to get screwed to some extent, but you have to have a minivan, so just buy one and hope for the best.”

I can’t even say how unlikely I would have been to come up with that philosophy, and I am grateful to Mel for adding it to my Soothing Thoughts repertoire. As I understand her point of view, it’s that there are certain situations in which it is near impossible to eliminate all the bad things that could happen, but it doesn’t improve things if you wait around wringing your hands. You can go back to school for that double degree in automotive science and the art of negotiation, or you can buy the stupid used car and hope it’s not a crapmobile and that you only paid a little more than you should have.

In the case of the freezer, it helps me to realize that the things I’m worried about don’t really matter. Let’s say the one I choose costs more to run per month than the freezer I “should have” chosen. Will I even know that it does? And even if I did know, would that money make the difference between long-term happiness and long-term misery? Let’s say I choose a brand that should have been my second choice, and so the freezer doesn’t last as long as another brand’s freezer would have. I’m not going to know, and it’s not going to matter. If I get screwed a little bit on this purchase because I don’t happen to be a freezer expert, it is not a big deal. And there are millions of people all around the world who don’t give it any thought at all but instead just go into a store and choose the one they like best and don’t worry.

Oh, the sweet, sweet relief of things not mattering! I don’t have to make the perfect choice on every single point, I can just choose a freezer and move the hell on! But I still don’t know what cubic footage I need.

Our 10-year anniversary is this year, and Paul wants to buy me some jewelry. (Okay, fine, so I told him he had to. Let’s move on.) He’s asked me to give him some ideas, not as in “Choose from A, B, or C,” but more like, “Gold not silver, and please no heart-shaped pendant necklaces.” He said it would be helpful if I showed him some examples of items I liked, and some examples of items I didn’t.

I started out thinking this would be a fun project, but I’m overwhelmed already. There are too many choices, too many stores to look at, and too many of the available items all look the same to me but have wildly different prices. The whole diamond clarity/color issue is why we didn’t do an engagement ring and instead spent more on our wedding bands: we kept trying to figure out whether a this-grade diamond was worth this much or that much, and pretty soon we didn’t like diamonds anymore. Now I like diamonds again, but I still don’t like the feeling that I need to get a B.A. in Diamondology or else I’ll get totally suckered.

When we were looking for wedding bands, we looked at a bunch of department stores and jewelry stores, but eventually bought them from this little downtown jewelry store someone recommended to us, where they made all their own stuff right there in the back. Now I wish we still lived in that area, and could go back to the same store where we got our wedding bands and pick out something nice from there. But we’ve moved, and that store is far enough away that we’d have to get a flight, and they don’t have a web site, so forget it.

I wonder if we could find another little jewelry store like that one. But how would we know they weren’t selling us fake crap? Neither of us would have any idea if what we were buying was a diamond or a cubic zirconia. And now I’m thinking maybe instead of jewelry we should replace our couch, which has completely caved in on one side. I like the romance of jewelry, but I’m discouraged.