Yellow Wallpaper

It's 3:15 and both kids are sleeping in their beds. Now what do I do with myself? Maybe I should work on my thesis...Or maybe I should make some hot cocoa and read a book...

Once upon a time a woman gave birth to a darling baby girl. This little girl took nearly a year to sleep through the night, but still gave her mother a rest during the day by napping at regular intervals. By the time she reached eighteen months old, she spent several hours napping every afternoon, during which time her mother could enjoy surfing the internet and eating chocolate with wild abandon. This blissful pattern continued for over a year, until one day this little girl decided she was done with naps. Perhaps this was partly due to the influence of a wily little brother who has nothing but contempt for daytime sleep, but perhaps it was just an entirely original idea. These days a typical afternoon goes something like this: 2:00 Stories are read and S-Boogie is deposited in her bed for a nap. Mommy goes into her bedroom to nurse Little Dude and read. 2:30 Little Dude, now sound asleep, is placed in his crib. S-Boogie is reminded that it is nap time, not singing/humming/monologuing

I went walking three times this week. Normally my friend can go Monday, Tuesday and Friday, but she couldn't make it this week on Tuesday. I did get up by myself and go Wednesday. I don't know if I'm going to burn a lot of calories, but having someone to talk to is doing a lot of good for my psyche. So is getting up and moving before I get kicked out of bed by the babies. I hope I can keep this up even when the weather gets colder. S-Boogie is probably going to end up being Supergirl again this year. I realized a few days ago that we could just buy her a yellow sweatshirt and put black stripes on it with tape, but plain yellow sweatshirts are impossible to find. So are bee antennae. I'm a lame mom for waiting until the last minute to find a costume. I've also realized that 90 percent of the girl costumes out there are princess outfits. Why are princesses the only choices for girls these days? The other day at the toy store a mom was surprised that S-Boogie was enjoy

Little Dude is five months old today! I can't believe how quickly the last few months have flown by. He's suddenly not a little infant but a chubby, smiling baby. He has really discovered the power of a smile and will anxiously wait for people to look at him so he can grin back. This month he also found his voice and will try and "talk" to you when he's in a good mood. Two other milestones he's reached this month are rolling from his back to his front and reaching out to grab things. He loves going to playgroup with us because he can watch the other kids and I can tell he is anxious to get down on the floor and play with them. He'll sit on my lap and flap his arms and legs and coo with delight. Little Dude is still somewhat cranky, but we're learning how to live with each other and how to help him be happy. We started giving S-Boogie solid food at five months, but I'm willing to wait until six with this guy. He doesn't sit up very well yet in t

I fear that I too often focus on the negative in my relationship with my children. This year with S-Boogie has been particularly difficult for both us. I've either been uncomfortably pregnant, recovering from having a baby, or just plain stressed out by life to really want to deal with a challenging toddler. And she certainly can be pretty challenging; this is a child who can melt into a crying puddle when you give her the wrong color of cup or who can argue with you about whether the sun is awake or not. But, she really does have so many good qualities. Some days it feels like they only occasionally peep out between the clouds like rays of sunshine, but I'm glad when they do. For instance, she is incredibly creative. Tonight she had a group of about five or six long Duplos. First she made them into a piano and hummed a little tune; then they became a flute; then rhythm sticks; then a car; then an airplane so we could come to Seattle. All that from five blocks. Then she wanted

Halloween is next Tuesday and S-Boogie doesn't have a costume yet. We did finally get a pumpkin today, so maybe we'll get a jack-o-lantern carved before then. Master Fob's birthday is next Friday and I don't know what to get him. Well, besides a better paying job, a full scholarship, or a publisher for his novels. Sigh...

Several years ago Master Fob decided to write a personal essay for a class. After it got a positive reception we decided to publish it. Both of us decided that it would be a good idea to put our names in it rather than leaving it simply as "anonymous". Part of the point of the essay was to emphasize that there are real people behind the story and that we have no shame in our decisions. Then the nice reporter from the Trib wanted to know if we'd be willing to have our pictures in the paper, because you can't have a very good newspaper story with just pseudonyms. Now we've had several offers to appear on TV and documentaries. Last week I answered the phone expecting to hear the same annoying telemarketer who calls us several times a day. Instead I was greeted by an enthusiastic, official-sounding woman who introduced herself as a reporter from Fox 13 (just you watch the best!) in Salt Lake. She'd seen the article in the Tribune and wanted to know if we would par

After dinner tonight we had some time to kill, and it was actually not raining outside (today was a beautiful fall day) so I gave in to S-Boogie's pleas to go outside to the playground. I'm not very good at being socially forward, but I'm starting to make some friends here with the other parents and I'm really enjoying being back in an environment where there are so many people in the same situation. Tonight another family that I know from my ward was outside and so I started talking with them a bit. I actually know C (not sure if she wants her real name on the web) from being in the same singles ward the summer before I got married, and we've conversed quite a few times since I moved here. Tonight we chatted about how hard it is to live on student income (AKA nada) and how hard it can be living with two little kids, especially when your husband is gone so often for school and work. For some reason it really made me feel better to have someone else say "yeah, y

It's still a little over two months until Christmas, but we've already had some people ask about presents. I just updated everybody's wish lists on Amazon, so everything should be current. S-Boogie and Little Dude share her list, so you can find it under her given name (ask us if you need help finding it). Amazon now lets you make sublists, so the books are for both of them, the one marked "toys" is ideas for her and the one marked "stuff for baby" is ideas for him. Both of the toy lists are just an idea of the sorts of things we want, since neither of them is old enough to get real specific about what they want for Christmas yet. S-Boogie could also use some warm clothes for winter, but Little Dude is pretty well stocked on clothes. My wish list is also updated, and I also wouldn't mind new clothes or money to get them either. If you weren't already planning on getting us stuff and think this post is a plea for gifts, just ignore it. Your happy

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I have to try really hard not to laugh every time S-Boogie asks for one of her new favorite snacks--peanuts. She can't pronounce the T very well and it usually sounds like something else... And the other day I exclaimed to Little Dude "You have big balls!" (on his shirt, I meant) Yes, I really am almost 30 years old and a college graduate....

I haven't been posting very much over the last few weeks. Part of it has been the whole chaos of moving, plus people visiting and me going out of town. And I haven't been feeling very inspired as of late. As much as I've been trying to fight it, I really feel down lately. Some of that is due to adjusting to a new area, difficulty getting our finances in order and finding jobs that will cover the rent, the fact that Little Dude still just wants to spend all day in my arms, etc. But I also realized the other day that my life doesn't have to be as hard as it feels. I have way too many days where I don't even want to get out of bed, where things like getting dressed or brushing my teeth feel like they take too much effort, and I just want to go hide under a rock somewhere. I also realize that I can't fix this myself--it's there in my brain and I can't make it go away. The other day at a bookstore I stumbled on a book about post-partum depression and it was l

Thanks to Google I found advice on how to remove unwanted crayon from clothes. We soaked them in Borax for an hour or so to remove all the wax and then washed them in hot water and color-safe bleach to get the color out. Most of the pink spots are gone, although I have still found a few here and there. Taxi rides cost a lot of money. So does eating every meal at a restaurant and doing things like buying an umbrella just because it's pouring rain. But, BYU was very generous and paid for a very nice hotel room with a beautiful view of the Potomac river in the rain and I got reimbursed for all the taxi rides. Traveling with a baby is hard, but I was grateful for my spiffy new stroller with the rain cover. Little Dude was very pleasant during the conference and a number of the other participants commented on how cute he was and how much he reminded them of their kids or grandkids. I wonder if it would have been different at a conference that wasn't on feminist literature and theref

In preparation for packing everything to go to DC tomorrow I washed all the laundry today. I just went to get the enormous load of all the kids' clothes out of the dryer and realized that there is hot pink crayon melted all over everything . I didn't think S-Boogie even had pockets big enough to put crayons in. I just got a nice email from Geico informing us that our premium has now doubled since we moved to Seattle. I also realized yesterday that I haven't looked at the paper I'm reading since March, so maybe I should read through it once before I read it to a crowd. I haven't had time for a haircut since July and my hair looks terrible. I've also broken out majorly this last week and I never managed to get some decent brown dress shoes to replace my beaten down Doc Martens from my mission. I feel so professional. I've gotten several nice emails from people over the last few days and I won't have time to respond before I go. Sigh.

I usually hate those talks that use comparisons to help you understand how blessed you are; the fact that other people's lives suck more than mine doesn't necessarily make me appreciate mine more. Plus, I think the suckiness is relative. Anyways, the other day was reading about a girl who had only been married for a few weeks when her husband was in a horrific car accident. He suffered brain damage that doctors aren't sure will ever heal. For the last year they've lived in his parents' basement and she has to do things like give him liquid feedings every 4 hours and change his diapers. He can't even talk to her or walk on his own. Or how would you like to be the poor girl from Provo whose parents are now in court on kidnapping charges because they forcibly drove her to Colorado the day before she was supposed to get married? That's a way to get off on the right foot with your inlaws. Or what about the poor wife of this guy in Pennsylvania who went nuts and s

A few years ago, Master Fob and I attended the annual Evergreen conference together. While he went to workshops specifically geared towards his situation, I attended a few that were for spouses (in reality, wives--I didn't see any husbands there). I actually felt out of place with many of the women there, because for most of them learning about their husband's homosexuality had been a traumatic experience. One workshop focused on healing ourselves so we can be stronger to support our spouses. The facilitator pointed out that any trauma requires a period of grief so we can deal with the change in our life and move forward. At the time, I tuned out that message, because I didn't have to mourn my old idea of our relationship and I didn't think I needed to deal with any sort of trauma. I haven't been feeling very happy lately, either with myself or with life in general. Some of that is, I'm sure, biochemical, since I just had a baby a few months ago and have had tr