Here we go again?

So.  I made an appointment to get my IUD removed.  The first available appointment is not for two weeks and it's with the OB that I like the absolute least, but it's the best I can do.  It's a bit weird to wait for years to make this decision, finally screw up the courage to call for an appointment, and have to wait so long, but hey.  I'll take it.  Keeping my fingers crossed that this will be an easier journey than the last one, that I will be able to accept whatever happens, and that I will be content in my family no matter if it grows or stays the same beautiful size it is now.  I'm not thinking of this as TTC.  It just is what it is.

I imagine I'll probably be writing here again, since this is my most anonymous place and this is not news I feel like sharing with people I know IRL.  I have multiple friends and even my sister who are going through infertility and who actively want to get pregnant.  I don't feel I am in that same place.  And if we don't get pregnant, I don't want it to be a big deal.  So.  Here I am again.  Hopefully blogging will bring me some clarity and peace.

Cheers.  =)


P.S. The OB I will see is the one who delivered my kids, who showed up to work after I had already stopped pushing and stepped in just for the c-section.  So maybe there is some sort of meaning there ... maybe he just shows up for the extremely important moments?

Life keeps going

Well.  I have been away from blogging for a while.  It wasn't a conscious decision, it was just one of those things.  I have a love-hate relationship with blogging, and I needed a break.  I'm still not sure if I'm coming back.  But sometimes I feel like I need a place to share, to unburden my mind, and air my thoughts, and wander through my own brain.  Sometimes I feel like I'm just complaining too much, that my posts are all negative, or that if they're positive, they sound annoying and boastful or preachy.  So I don't know.

Don't get too excited with this next paragraph.  There's no "real" big news.  The somewhat big news is that my husband has told me that he realizes it's not fair for him to unilaterally decide we won't have more kids.  After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I've had some time to ponder it.  Like, ponder it for real, as if it were an actual possibility instead of a pipe dream that I knew would never happen.  I've been going over the pros and cons in my mind, as I have basically been doing for the last four years since my twins were born (Turtle and Tadpole are 4 now, can you believe it?!?!).  I've written about it many times before, and I don't think I want to review it now, but the main things I want to reiterate is that I have no plans to go back to infertility treatment, and I'm a little terrified of deciding I want another child and failing.  I know my husband is worried about that, too, worried that my resolve to avoid further treatment will weaken and we will be right back in that mess we were in before.

Interestingly, my identical twin sister is now pursuing fertility treatment.  Although her doctors say there is no link between both of us having infertility, especially since mine was unexplained.  So there's that.

So.  I'm working my way towards an answer, and I hope to reach it soon.  Time is ticking.

In the meantime, here are a few points of what's happened this summer:

- We went to Europe (mostly Italy) for 6 weeks, including a week-long vacation in Elba, and a 6-day trip to London to visit friends.  We also stopped in Pisa to see the leaning tower.

- We went camping to Mammoth.  So much fun.

- The kids are back in preschool, and I'm getting mentally ready for them to go to kindergarten next year!

- I'm still looking into career options.  Life is really busy and I'm doing so much work for my husband's company that I don't have a lot of time for my own career at the moment, but I'll get there. 

-. I'm getting back in pretty good shape.  I ran a half-marathon yesterday, my fourth in the last two years.  Half-marathons are really hard.

That's it for now.  I haven't been reading blogs much either, but I may start again.  Although, in general, I'm looking to get away from the computer more.  I need some screen-free time myself.

Errands

I'm feeling really proud of myself today.

Yesterday, I cleaned out a huge chunk of our 3-car garage and reorganized a ton of it, which included dragging a heavy workbench and really tall set of shelves around by myself.  Not to mention unloading and reloading a lot of heavy stuff from the bench and shelves so that I was able to move them.

Today, I took the kids and we:

1. Went to the household hazardous waste drop-off at the dump, where we unloaded lots of cans of old paint, stain, and other chemicals that the last owners of our house left in the garage, plus some sharps for my mom and e-waste.  The kids were fascinated by the hazmat suits the guys were wearing.  I mean, they weren't full-fledged hazmat suits, but they were still impressive, along with the gloves, goggles,etc.

2. Had lunch and pretty authentic gelato with my sister.  It was fun.  And yummy.

3. Dropped off my old unused needles from my infertility treatments at a needle exchange location.  They were really grateful, and it felt so good not only to get them out of the house, but to see them go to good use.

4. Dropped off a box of hotel soap my mom had been hoarding for years at the local Loaves and Fishes.  They were also really grateful, and I felt sorry that I hadn't brought more stuff.  But I will keep it in mind for the future.

5. Dropped off another 4 or 5 bags of stuff at the thrift store.  I still have a LOOOOOONG way to go getting rid of extraneous stuff around here, but that still felt good.

6. Bought sweet peppers to plant in the garden, plus one more eggplant.

7. Went to the post office to snail mail some gift cards to my nephew for his birthday (which is today, I'm SO not on the ball).

8. Made it home and the kids were not interested in going out again, even though I had also planned to drop off baby clothes at an acquaintance's house and go grocery shopping.  Fine by me.  I'm tired.

Then my husband and kids surprised me with Mother's Day flowers, the perfect start to the weekend.  And tonight we're off for rock climbing and a nice dinner out while my sis watches the kids.  AND it's my favorite festival in town this weekend.  So I'm in a pretty good spot right now.

Hope you all have a good weekend, too.

Spring update

It has once again been a while since I've written, and for that I am sorry.  I'm doing a lot better since the last time I wrote, although I haven't resolved much.  I have taken on some big projects, some of which may or may not come to fruition, but at least I have something to focus my time and energy.  They are, in no particular order:

1. I'm making a quilt (together with my sister) for my good friend who is about to have her first baby.  It's my first real quilting effort, but it is a strip quilt and is turning out, so far, to be pretty easy.

2. I'm working on vacation plans for the summer.  Our good friends are traveling with us to Italy for 3 weeks, then returning home with my husband while I stay another 3 weeks with my husband's family.  While our friends are visiting, we plan to take a week-long trip somewhere in Europe - top contenders right now are Provence, Corsica, or Greece (Kalymnos, I think).  After the others leave, the kids and I will likely go to London to visit some friends.  I'm a bit nervous traveling on my own, but my husband's Aunt is going to London around that time, so we will probably be able accompany them at least one way.  I will be traveling back to the US by myself with the kids.  I'm very nervous about that.

3. I'm still working on all my racing plans, and enjoying it.  I'm taking 4 days off from running right now to rest my aching joints, but training has been going very well so far.  I have my half-marathon on June 8, and I'm tentatively planning a sprint triathlon the last weekend of May.  I haven't really been able to bike much, so that's been a bit harder to train for, but I've been swimming and running a lot.  Depending on how things go this summer, I will consider training for a marathon in December (the same one I was training for when I broke my finger.)  I'm still up 5-10 pounds over my previous weight (and more like 10-15 from my ideal weight), but I am feeling a lot better for all this exercise.

4. Climbing!  We've been climbing again (conveniently right after we cancelled our membership at the climbing gym).  We brought the kids to the gym and they generally had a good time.  The height of the walls there is a bit intimidating for them, and when the gym is crowded it's just about impossible for the kids to climb (and less pleasant for the adults, too).  So ... I'm dreaming of building a climbing wall in our garage!  My husband is trying to be very realistic about how much work it will be and how long it will take, but it makes me happy just to have a dream.  If all goes well, it will be awesome.

5. My husband is leaving tomorrow on a week-long ski trip to Norway.  I'm pretty jealous of it.  It won't change my day-to-day life all that much, since I do the vast majority of the housework and child care, but he has been on many, many, many more outings than I have since the kids have been born.  In fact, I've been on only one overnight trip without my husband since the kids were born, and that was a pretty sad 3-day backpacking trip two years ago with friends who were not all that into it.  SO!  I'm hoping to do a longer, more challenging trip later this summer with my sister.  We're thinking of doing a 3-4 day trip along the Tahoe Rim Trail.  The timing is not so great, because it will be hot and there wasn't much snow this year, so I'm a bit worried about water availability on the trail, but it is nice just to have a general plan.

So that's where I am.  I also had great news for some of the work I'm doing for my husband's company, which was a huge relief, considering how much time I've spent on it this spring.

Anyway, I just spent way too much of my available time writing this email so ... I have to go work on a quilt!

I have had such a rough day.  I don't know if writing about it will make things better or not, but here goes.

I planned a visit to a friend from my old job who has moved several hours away to a really isolated agricultural town in the middle of the San Joaquin Valley.  She just had her second child a couple months ago, and I've never even met the first one, who is 2.5 years old.  As it happened, I didn't meet him today either, since he was at daycare, but that's ok.  It was a miserable, boring, hot drive, but I has the chance to stopp at the cemetery where my father is buried, which is only about 15 minutes from their town so it was a nice opportunity.  I haven't been there since I was pregnant, I'm pretty sure.  Being there made me sadder than I expected.  I really miss my dad sometimes.

I stopped in to ask about having my dad's remains moved to a cemetery that's closer to us, as my mom regrets that he is so far away, but the information I got made it seem like it won't be possible.  The move would be at our cost (the original burial was either free or low cost because my dad was a veteran of WWII), and it requires notarized signatures of all living children.  My dad was not close to a few of his kids from his first marriage, especially his adopted son who stayed with his mother after my dad got divorced shortly after the adoption.  I think I've met my adopted half-brother only once, when I was a child.  While I doubt any of my half-siblings would be petty enough to refuse a signature, I can't imagine they would be bending over backwards to get it taken care of, either, especially since it requires a notary.  That plus the cost pretty much means it won't be happening.

Off to my friend's house, and she looks great.  She's the type of person who sees the silver lining in everything.  But I can tell pretty quickly she's unhappy with her current situation.  She's terribly isolated in the town where she lives, I don't think she has any friends.  She has been working until the birth of her second son, but she reviews school meal programs, so she mostly works from home or travels to school sites alone, and has no coworkers that are geographically close by (when I worked with her, we both worked at the main state office in Sacramento, but when her husband got a job as a veterinarian in that town, she was lucky enough to find that job opening within our same department that allowed her to continue working).  The main blow was when she told me about her niece - I've never met her sister-in-law, but I've heard a lot about their family.  They had identical twin girls who survived twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, and then got pregnant again immediately after their birth and had another little girl within a year.  I always enjoyed hearing stories about the three girls, but I discovered that since I last spoke to my friend last summer, one of the twins was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, and passed away just a few months ago at the age of 5.  I was completely shocked and saddened by the news, as I had thought often of my friend's extended family.  I never met her, but I still can't believe she is gone.

And then a lot of petty little things are just getting me down.  A friend from my book club has decided to reschedule several of our activities to days that work better for her, even though I can't make it and I'm the one who organized the outings in the first place.  When I asked her nicely if she would consider proposing a wider range of dates, she said she was only proposing dates that were convenient for her, and I don't see how I can do anything about it without sounding totally passive aggressive or controlling.

And my mother ... oh dear, my mother.  I'm at a loss for words.  I'm really tired of dealing with a mentally ill person who ... sigh, I don't even know where to start.  She is exhausting.  She called me at least 12 times today and left a series of messages, each more desperate than the one before, all about how she needs me and needs help and needs this and needs that.  I am reaching the end of my rope with her.  I couldn't find the strength to call her back today.

On my way home from my friend's house (another long, boring, hot 2-hour drive), I stopped at the post office to mail the second batch of cards for my sister's bridal shower, which I've spent many many hours working on this week.  A postal worker was gathering the mail, and I handed them to her.  She handed them back and informed me that since they're not completely flat (I glued a small fabric flower to each card) they require an extra 21 cents.  I had dropped a whole bunch in the mailbox yesterday without knowing that.  And they don't have return addresses.  So I don't know what is going to happen to those cards that I spent so much time and money on.  And I have no idea of knowing who will get invitations now and who won't.  It's such a huge mess that I don't even want to think about it.  I think that was the point  when I really lost it.  I'm a mess.  I've spent the rest of the day crying.

My husband is leaving for a week-long ski vacation in Europe in a couple weeks.  I don't really know what to say about that either.

We just bought tickets to Italy for the summer, and I am already regretting the dates I picked.  I'll be staying three weeks longer than my husband and flying back with the kids alone.  I'm not really sure why I decided to do that.  I like my house.  I like being home.  I like my summer garden and my friends (except for a few from my book club at the moment).  I like my kids being in preschool and having time to run and swim.  I like my kids having their bikes and their toys and their swim lessons.  I like having a car and being able to go where I want.  I'm just ... it's too much to even think about right now.

So.  I'm trying to regain my perspective, but things look awfully shitty right now.

St. Pat's

We had a crazy weekend, and I am barely recovering today.  I am happy the kids are in preschool on Mondays now, I need it to recover from the weekends!  Today, being St. Patrick's Day, went easier for drop-off, which is making me wonder if I can incorporate some of these lessons every morning.  When I told them it was a day to wear all green, they were very excited to pick out their clothes and get dressed, and then they were excited when the other kids at school were all wearing green, too.  So, that was nice to not start the day with crying about preschool.

So this weekend we had something like 15 people for dinner on Saturday, which we cooked a fancy 3-course-meal for, and then about the same number of people plus 7 or 8 kids on Sunday for a pool party, which the pool didn't get quite warm enough for.  Not that that stopped most of the kids from going in anyway.  It was 80 degrees out, so it was nice.  At least Sunday was a semi-potluck, and everyone had a great time. And since we started in the afternoon, people left early after dinner and that gave us a chance to get the kids to bed at a reasonable time, too.  I was exhausted, and still feel that way today.

I'm beat, and the house is a mess.  And I have a ton of work in the next couple weeks, plus a bunch of crafty things that need to start getting done for my sister's wedding in June, my friend's baby (also in June), a birthday party (this weekend!), and just my own stuff.  I'm feeling overwhelmed, which is the usual anyway.

In other news, exercise is going well.  I'm swimming twice a week, running twice a week, and biking when I can.  It's been really windy here lately, which makes biking sort of miserable.  I've been working on bringing up my speed at running, to at least get back to where I was pre-kids (which is still jogging, not really running, but feels like sprinting to me).  I picked a half-marathon to train for in June, and possibly a triathlon at the end of May.  And then we'll probably be in Italy, so I'm hoping I'll be able to keep running at least while I'm there, plus some hiking, too.

Speaking of which - I'm off to the gym now for a 2-mile run and then master's swimming.  And spring is right around the corner!

Turtle v. Tadpole

Oof.  Raising 3-year-olds is making me rather schizophrenic.*  I LOVE it one moment and HATE it the next.  When it's awesome, it is SO awesome, and I am dying to have another one to make it all the better and keep the awesomeness coming.  When it sucks, I want to cry and tear out my hair and walk out of the house without looking back.  The cycles can last for hours, minutes, or really even seconds.  I am definitely starting to feel the strain, though.  I need a break.

One thing that's really awesome about this age is that their personalities are really starting to shine, and they are SOOOOOO different.  Here are a few examples.

This morning, the kids found a bag of colored star-shaped beads, so I got out the muffin tins and explained that they could group the beads by color, with each color getting its own spot.  Turtle loved that game.  He sat there and worked diligently and was so proud of himself when he was done.  Tadpole ... well, sigh.  I started them working together on the same muffin tin, but that didn't last longer than 5 seconds. I think she was purposely putting the wrong colors together just to make Turtle mad.  So I got her a tin of her own, where she gleefully combined all the colors together in each spot and then, after two minutes, called it a day.

My husband made up a bedtime game whereby the adult gives clues and the kid has to guess which animal we are thinking of, then we switch roles.  I have actually never played with Turtle, but my husband says it goes something like this:

Husband: The animal I'm thinking of swims in the ocean and is really huge!

Turtle: A whale!  My turn.  The animal I'm thinking of does NOT swim in the ocean, and is NOT really huge!

Here's how my games with Tadpole go:

Tadpole: This animal talks and has wings!

Me: A parrot!

Tadpole: No!

Me: Ummmmm ... really?  Are you sure it's not a parrot?

Tadpole: I'm sure, it's NOT a parrot.  It talks and has wings!

Me: (After trying a few other random guesses) Tadpole, I really don't know, can you tell me what it is?

Tadpole: A giraffe that talks and has wings!

OK, I guess you got me there.  More stories to come.