Pertinent to my Interests

One thing I am fascinated by is how families come to be the size that they are, and also the spacing between children. In particular, I am interested in the decision-making process of mothers. What internal and external factors were at play that caused you to end up with the number of kids you have?

This is, unfortunately, a touchy subject because so many have made it their business to judge other women for their reproductive choices. But my desire to discuss this topic comes only from a place of utter curiosity, and sometimes awe.

Here is how our decision-making process went to cause us to end up with the two boys almost exactly two years apart. The original agreement was that we would have either two kids or three kids.

I wanted my kids to be close in age for two reasons.

First, my sister and I are only nineteen months apart, I don’t remember a time without her, and we were super close for most of our childhood and still close as adults even though we live in different states. I wanted my kids to have a close-in-age buddy like that.

Second, I do not like having babies. I hated breastfeeding. I hated the interrupted sleep and changing diapers, and always having to carry a baby around with me. I wanted to get that part over as quickly as possible so we could get to the fun part of parenting.

So my second baby was born two weeks before my first son’s second birthday.

I had spent that whole second pregnancy thinking that this might be my last pregnancy; I wasn’t sure. But as soon as that second baby was born, I knew I was done. This is it. Nobody else is missing.

So what factors went into our decision-making process? Daycare costs and me trying to maintain a promising career while having babies was not a factor for us, but I know it is for many women. I do think my dislike of the baby and toddler phases had a lot to do with it for me, personally. But on the other hand, if God had come down and said he would just hand me my next kid at five years old rather than forcing me to go through the baby/toddler phases again, I don’t think I would have wanted that either. I have never yearned for just one more, as many mothers seem to.

So I wonder about other women. I suspect that if we were to take a survey of women who have more than three kids we would find that 100% of them adore the baby phase. I suspect that if we were to take a survey of mothers of only children they would be much more likely to share that the baby and toddler phases were exhausting and overwhelming (I agree).

I think your experiences in your natal family influence this a ton too. If you were never close to your siblings–and still aren’t as an adult–you may not see any good reason to have more than one kid. Or maybe you were an only child yourself and really liked the dynamic and want that for your own kid? Or it could go the other way: maybe you hated your one sibling and now you want to have a big family so your kids always have tons of playmates to choose from.

But I have noticed many of my female compatriots yearning for that “just one more” that they never got. It seems like it’s usually the father’s opposition and economic reasons that gets in the way of that “just one more.” But I also wonder if it’s natural female biology to feel that way no matter how many babies you have?

Well… I’m apparently missing that part of my biology.

I haven’t even really touched on the external factors that determine family size, and I know plenty of people end up with surprise children when they thought they were done. At one point–back when blogging was actually cool–I was reading THREE separate “mommy blogs” in which each family had an accidental fourth child. That sure put some fear into my soul. Conversely, I know a couple families who wanted more kids and it just didn’t happen. Or it did happen but with a much larger age gap than intended.

What’s that Star Trek quote? Infinite diversity in infinite combinations? It’s just amazing to me all the different ingredients that go into decisions about family size.

Anyway, this is just another example of things I wish I could ask other people about in polite conversation because I find it so interesting. But no, we have to talk about the weather instead.

“But how long is the hike going to be?!” my youngest wailed at me this morning. They have the day off from school and I have the day off from work and I had just delivered the bad news that we are going for a hike later.

“Not too long,” I said. “There’s not a ton of trails where we’re going.”

“But how long?!” he demanded. “How many minutes? Ten?”

“Until the Fun-o-Meter is full,” I told him.

“Noooooooooo!” he wailed even louder. “Not the Fun-o-Meter!!!!”

Have I ever told you about my greatest personal parenting invention, the Fun-o-Meter?

It was April 2020. Schools had been shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic for one month at that point. We had no idea how much further we had to go. My kids were five and seven, and I was struggling to provide us all with some semblance of routine as the world fell apart around us. Part of this routine was getting outside every day, no matter the weather.

Local playgrounds had been closed due to the pandemic, so every afternoon I found myself stuck in the backyard listening to my kids whine about how bored they were.

“How much longer until outside time is over?” the pestered me. “When can we go inside? When is it TV time? When can we have snack? How much longer? How much longer? How much longer?”

And then: a magical moment. For about five seconds I stood at the center of the Venn diagram of parenting desperation and parenting genius.

“You can go inside when the Fun-o-Meter is full,” I said.

“The what?”

“Hold on,” I said. I went inside and drew the very first Fun-o-Meter: a simple thermometer shape drawn in black Sharpie. I brought out my new invention and a red crayon.

“This,” I declared, “is the Fun-o-Meter. I’m going to sit here and measure the amount of fun you guys are having, and when the meter is full we can all go inside and have screen time.”

At first, they didn’t get it. They would wander out into the yard, halfheartedly kick a ball one time, and come back to ask me if the Fun-o-Meter was full.

“It only fills when you’re having fun,” I said. “And you weren’t having fun.”

“But I was having fun! Did you see me with that ball? I am having fun! Why isn’t the Fun-o-Meter full yet?!”

“Well, you sure didn’t look like you were having fun,” I said. “And right now neither of us is having fun so it’s definitely not filling.”

Things started to click. Now they were forced to find a way to have fun. I sat with my book and my red crayon and my Fun-o-Meter and every once in a while I looked up to appraise the situation in the backyard. Plans were being hatched. Toy trucks were being moved around. Holes were being dug and sidewalk chalk was being used. Success! We all filled the Fun-o-Meter!

“Hey, the Fun-o-Meter is full!” I told them. “It’s time to go in for screen time!”

The Fun-o-Meter became a regular fixture during our pandemic lockdown, although I have only drawn the whole thing out a handful of times. Now the Fun-o-Meter just exists in my head.

I still use it regularly all these years later, although less frequently now that everyone is in school and busier. And the kids are resigned to it. They know there is only one way out of their suffering and it doesn’t involve whining or moping or fighting. You must find a way to have some fun.

And that was it, the peak of my parenting. It’s all been downhill from there and unfortunately I don’t have the writing chops to turn this simple concept into a full parenting book, so I’ll never make any money off of it. But I hope this tip is useful for someone out there!

First: I want you all to remember that we humans are captive to the tides of history. This has been and always will be true.

Second: I hate how much brain space so many people have given over to the presidential election. I hate how a certain political candidate seems to have been top of the news and front of mind for almost all my liberal friends for almost a decade now.

Why? Why do you continue to give him that space? I walk away when the subject comes up. There are too many other things–lovely and difficult–to think about. There are other people standing right in front of us who maybe need us right now. I mean this literally, not figuratively. Who is in the room with you right now? Who is on the other end of that text message? Maybe instead of making a statement about a political figure you could center the conversation around your companion instead?

Third: On the topic of fear. I saw a lot of worrying things going around the Internet the past couple months. Some very extreme things. One in particular has stayed with me: a post about how we were going to end up with concentration camps in the United States if the presidential election goes red.

I have buried the lede like the mediocre writer that I am, so I’m going to bold it for emphasis.

Ask yourself: who is benefitting from this fear and hatred that I am feeling?

I guarantee you it is not the person standing in front of you. Your children are certainly not benefitting from it, nor your spouse or parents or neighbors or friends.

The politicians are benefitting from your fear. Anyone who wants the United States divided is benefitting from your hatred.

Is that who you’re working for in this life?

I am begging you, my fellow liberals, who I know (mostly) have good hearts and want to do the right thing: set aside your fear. Stop giving over so much space to this. If you feel strongly about an issue, give your money and time and your vote to that issue.

And please stop talking about it around me. Please. I have students and teachers and families I need to support at my job. I need to be emotionally present at home for my kids and spouse and the one cat who may or may not be sliding into kitty cat dementia. I have friends that I want to uplift and that is just so much more important to me than this change in the tides of history.

I know, I can’t believe it either. My mom called while I was elbow-deep in seed grime and dish soap, and I thought to myself that she would never believe me when I told her why I had ignored her call.

Did you know I have owned this bird feeder for at least five years and have never cleaned it before?

Did you know that according to the Internet you’re supposed to clean your bird feeder every 1-2 weeks?

Did you know that according to the Internet you’re also supposed to soak your showerhead once a month? That’s another thing I recently did for the first time. Eleven years in this house and this was my first time soaking the shower head.

I am very curious how many people actually follow these cleaning guidelines. My instinct is to say that only two or three people in the whole nation do, and they are likely mentally ill, but I don’t know. Maybe there are several of you out there reading this who do soak your showerheads regularly and you are mystified by the fact that I could go so long without doing it. Maybe there are several of you reading this who have never soaked your showerhead and wonder why anyone would waste their time on such a task.

We all live in such different realities, don’t we?

This is making me think of all the other household tasks that I fail to do regularly. Maybe I should wash everyone’s sheets today. I really need to dust but I hate dusting and do my best to avoid it.

Anyway, the bird feeder is clean and full of seed and hanging outside my kitchen window. The cardinals and sparrows already found it and I guarantee you I am not going to be cleaning it again this year.

I’ve been wearing dresses and tights to work this fall.

I hate dresses and tights. Or at least I used to.

I’m sure my mother remembers chasing me around my dad’s house in December of 1993 attempting to wrestle me into yet another pretty dress for yet another Christmas performance at church. I told her I absolutely would not be putting that dress on tonight and then I managed to insert myself under my bed, right in the middle near the wall, where she couldn’t reach me.

I was being a brat, and I knew it even then, but I hated dresses. And tights. And slips. I hated all of it so much, and I was desperate to not put on that dress that night.

But my mom was desparate too.

“Fine,” she said, sighing heavily. “If you put this dress on tonight I’ll never make you wear another dress again.”

“Really?” I said. “You promise?”

“I promise.”

I emerged from my hiding place, put on that dress, and wore it to church. That night when we got home, I took that dress off and did not put on another dress for many, many years. She kept her promise.

What do I hate about dresses? They are swishy. They touch my body in some places but not in others, and especially in the 1980s and 1990s my dresses tended to have itchy seams and little pokey, frilly bits. We wore thick, white tights with a lot of our dresses, and for a long time we also had to wear slips which were silky and didn’t have tons of seams but tended to bunch up in weird places.

In addition to my childhood hatred of dresses, slips, and tights, here are the other items of clothing that I found unacceptable:

1. Jeans, without exception.
2. Wool sweaters.
3. All other sweaters.
4. Anything with a tag.
5. Anything with thick seams.
6. Anything my mom bought at a yard sale.
7. Anything that was uncomfortable in any way.
8. Anything that could become uncomfortable at some point later in the day.

As you can see, I was a very difficult child to dress. And it was difficult for me too! In addition to my sensory issues, I have no aesthetic sense and can never tell if colors complement each other. Every morning as a child I would despondently paw through my drawers of uncomfortable, unacceptable clothing. And even after finding something that I thought would work, I often got sent back down to my room to try again after my mother insisted that red and purple do not go together and I cannot wear that combination to school. But what if my only comfortable pants were purple and my only comfortable shirt was red? WHAT THEN, MOTHER?!

I still struggle to dress myself as an adult, although now I blame this on my continued lack of aesthetic sense and disinterest in clothes shopping. But my sensory issues around clothing have improved! I wear jeans! And dresses! And tights!

Or maybe the clothing has just improved? My mother claims that jeans should only be made of cotton, but I think the modern addition of polyester and spandex is what has allowed me back into jeans as an adult. The dresses I wear are incredibly simple with plain sleeves and a plain round collar (and pockets!). I only wear Snag Tights because they are easy to put on and stay in place and all other tights make me want to die.

But I still hate uncomfortable clothing. I will never, ever be able to wear a wool sweater, even though I like how they look on other people. I am still picky about seams, although I no longer have to remove tags from my clothing.

I do find it ironic that now that we live in this post-pandemic world where sweatpants and leggings have become a legitimate fashion choice, somehow I am often the only adult in the room wearing jeans.

The Christmas Fruity Pebbles Commercial
How is it so good. My sister and I still text “ho ho ho I’m hu hu hungry” to each other regularly. This commercial is 100% the reason I always say yes when my kids request Fruity Pebbles.

My Buddy & Kid Sister
On the other end of the spectrum we have this commercial: as insipid as it gets. I can’t hear the word “buddy” without playing out this whole thing in my head and it’s kind of awful. Someone please carve this one out of my brain!

Puppy Surprise
Similarly, the word “surprise” seems to activate this song for me, but I find this one fun and I will sing it to my children and sometimes rework the lyrics to fit the occasion. My family thinks I’m delightful.

They Do Exist M&Ms Commercial
This one is from a little later in my childhood and I still love it. In part because it’s hilarious but also because the little red and green M&Ms are a big part of my childhood Christmas memories.

I try to keep my complaints to myself, mostly because I think people who complain all the time are really terribly boring.

Well, this is my time to let my boring shine.

I did not sleep well last night. I got sucked into Wikipedia and got way too excited about Hilda Petrie and the Sothic cycle and all of a sudden it was ten o’clock at night and everyone in my house was already asleep except for me.

I’ve noticed that if I go to bed at exactly the right time, I fall asleep pretty easily. But if I stay up just ten minutes too late, I will be unable to settle myself and I just roll around with my nighttime anxiety for hours. This is what happened last night.

I woke up this morning at 5 AM to find a text message from my lead clerk saying she wouldn’t be in this morning due to major plumbing issues in her house. This would be my first day in the office without her and although I have been looking forward to having a chance to shine like this my first thought was “I am way too tired for this today.”

Well, I made it through. A substitute walked out halfway through the day, and I had a kid laying in the office door screaming for ten minutes and there were major bus issues but I made it.

And then my car broke down on the way home from work. Well, it tried to break down. It was making awful, dying noises and I managed to limp it to our mechanic and take an Uber home from there. The place was packed with cars and all they could do was shrug and tell me they would try to get to it tomorrow.

I spent the next hour at home grousing to myself about how much time I spend just picking up and tidying. Seriously. I did not have a long list of chores this afternoon: water plants, scoop cat litter, finish laundry, trim BT’s claws, order new bras, grocery shopping. That was it, that was the list. But I spent at least 45 minutes just dealing with packages and cleaning up the kitchen and hanging up coats and piling up shoes and sweeping up crumbs from breakfast. And only then could I get started on my actual list of chores.

It sucks to live in a house where you are the only person who cares about keeping things tidy, and it especially sucks to care deeply about keeping things tidy.

And the weather. THE GODDAMN WEATHER. It was 81 degrees here today and I am so mad about it. We still have our window AC units installed and I’m really glad we do and that is just ridiculous. I am starting to really overreact about how hot it has been in Minnesota this month and thinking to myself that maybe I should just get rid of all our winter coats since we clearly won’t need them in the future. I probably will never see snow again in my lifetime, right?

And then I picked up my youngest and he announced that he had lost his school iPad but he was characteristically nonchalant about this. And then I picked up my oldest and he, too, discovered that he had lost his school iPad today, but he was characteristically devastated and has had approximately three full mental breakdowns over this just this evening alone.

And then I remembered that I was supposed to pick up a candy donation today for a school event later this week. I did not do this because I was busy limping my car to the mechanic.

And I guess I can do that… tomorrow? On the bus?

And tomorrow the lead clerk is out again. And we have three unfilled vacancies.

I can’t be the only one who turns to the spooky movie selection in October. But horror movies are so hit or miss, and I prefer a really particular ghost-y, suspenseful genre within the genre.

In no particular order.

The Others
This is one of my favorites. Underrated by the rest of the world.

Shutter Island
Not great for rewatching, but so well done and keeps my attention every time.

Smile
Disturbing, disturbing, disturbing. Only watch this one if you don’t need to sleep that night. I will not be seeing the sequel. This one maybe doesn’t count as a favorite because it’s too scary for me, but I am also very impressed by it.

The Shining
Did not fully appreciate this one until I watched it alone at the cabin one night and got totally freaked out.

The Conjuring and The Conjuring 2
Great movies with exactly the level of ghost-y suspense that I need.

Annabelle: Creation and Annabelle Comes Home
Nearly perfect.

Crimson Peak
The first time I saw this it was because my sister put this on and I didn’t understand what I was watching. I have rewatched it twice now and still don’t quite understand it, but it’s very good and very creepy. Great setting.

The Haunting (1999)
A favorite of teenaged Casey!

Poltergeist
Totally freaked me out when I was a kid.

The Exorcist
I saw this for the first time only last year; I can see why it caused such a sensation when it was released fifty years ago.

Scream
I dislike stabbings and gore–and Scream has plenty of that–but nostalgia wins out on this one. I rewatched it recently and can still remember so many lines!

The Haunting of Hill House (2018 series)
Technically not a movie, but great setting, great themes, great characters. Cannot recommend this one enough.

The Haunting in Connecticut
I don’t remember when I first saw this one, but this hits all my sweet spots for a good scary movie.

Paranormal Activity
Scary enough to freak me out, but not too scary that I couldn’t rewatch it.

Here I am, working half-time and having thoughts again.

It’s October, which means I have been living with the worst bedside calendar ever for ten months now. Ten months! I should have abandoned ship right away in February when it became clear that this calendar was not a winner, but here I am having already turned the page nine times.

Usually I pick something adorable for my bedside calendar. Like kittens, or hamsters driving tiny cars. One year I had a whole calendar of ducklings (that was a good year).

Vintage arts and crafts wallpaper is just not doing it for me.

I have been thinking a lot about age. At my temp job, and this new permanent job, I have found myself working closely with people who are younger than me. Not super young, but–you know–in their thirties young.

The last time I was a working person, back before kids, I was in my mid-twenties and I was surprised to be working with so many people in their mid-thirties.

Or no, that’s not right. I wasn’t surprised to be working with people in their thirties. I was surprised that I liked and enjoyed these people in their thirties. They were witty and fun and enjoyed going out to the bar as much as I did. People in their thirties… they’re just like us!

Of course, now I’m on the other side of my thirties! Hoping that I can still be witty and fun even if I don’t enjoy going to the bar as much as I used to.

I also wanted to recommend the documentary Ethel on Max, which I have already watched several times and will likely rewatch this weekend. Ethel Kennedy’s obituary in the New York Times is wonderful, but the documentary is even better.

I have a new job.

After four weeks of working full-time for the temp agency in a nearby school office, I officially started a new job on Monday.

This new job is:
also in a school office
permanent
half-time
even closer to my home than my previous job

I even have a real employee ID badge! And benefits!

I was enjoying the temp job at the other school. I actually really miss some of the people I met there. I liked being busy and I liked feeling useful, but everything that wasn’t my job was slowly falling apart: the house, the kids’ piano practice and homework, the meal planning and grocery shopping, the laundry. We went to the cabin one weekend during my full-time gig and two weeks later I still felt like nothing at home had recovered from that trip.

Now I feel like I can breathe again.

The new job is good. It does suck to have to start all over again after I had settled in so well at the last place. But I am getting to know some adults and getting to know some kids and the other clerk in the office is awesome and helpful and I’m really going to enjoy working with her (and being entertained by her) for years.

I am so grateful I landed this unicorn of a job, and am looking forward to a better balance in my life for the foreseeable future!