Mrs. Crabby Pants

Not sure why but I'm in a really foul mood today. I should be excited about Thanksgiving tomorrow - spending time with both sides of our family and all the yummy food I'll be scooping into my belly. But no, I'm just plain annoyed. Ever have a day when you're crabby for no good reason - just crabby? This doesn't happen to me often and I try not to let it happen. Today I find it kind of hard.

Had fun with the boys this morning here at home. Teddy had his speech therapy appointment (the therapist comes to our house every week - heavenly not to drive him somewhere) and I spent some time working with Ricky on his math and phonics. When Teddy gets up from his nap we have some errands to run and maybe tonight I'll get to see my sister and BIL and maybe bake a pie or two.

The speech therapy is good - Teddy sat with her for 45 minutes straight and played without losing focus or getting up to look for us. She is trying to teach him sign language ("more", etc.) and he signs here and there but not on a consistent basis. I listen to her play with him and do farm animal noises and car and truck noises and I think - this is what I do too - and it must not be enough - because we have to have someone come to our house and play with him and pay them. Kind of feel like a crappy mom about that!!

Had parent-teacher conferences yesterday for Ricky. He's doing well overall and is above average. Got every single math problem correct this year so far - his teacher says. He's great at phonics and mastered all the letter sounds and can read. He's not as interested in practicing how to write letters and numbers and this is where he may start talking to his neighbor and lose focus.

He will also tattle on other people when he is not involved - she said a lot of them do this. I told him to mind his own business except if a student is getting hurt. This tattling thing is so subjective!! I think it's okay for kids to tattle for other kids. Here is an example - the Big Bully took Ricky's Star Wars lunch bag during snack time and wrote all over it. This was when the bullying was still going on. Ricky was intimidated and didn't want to tell and the girl who sits across from him got up from her seat and told the teacher. Ricky was very grateful.

I have decided to stop being so grumpy. Starting now. I have a great husband and 2 adorable little boys and a family who loves me. Everyone is healthy, nobody is dying. We have a house and are renovating another. Fun family holidays are upon us. Lots to look forward to. So I'm slapping myself with the happy stick right now !!!! (*SLAP, *SLAP, *SLAP!!)

It Takes a Crisis To Know....

....that I'm probably done having kids!

The whole family - me, Mark, Ricky, and Teddy have been sick since July 4th. Mark and I were put on antibiotics and we finished them and are now on our second round! I started off with an ear infection and couldn't hear a darn thing out of my left ear - along with the cold, cough, stuffy head, etc. Well now we all have pink eye on top of it all!!!

This has been a pretty crappy 2 weeks - Ricky's been home from camp a lot, missed his T-ball game saturday, and we've been home quite a bit. We went to our nephew's graduation party in the suburbs Saturday night (all sick of course but doing our best) and on the way home Teddy threw up about 5 times in the car. When I say he threw up, it was the Exorcist-projectile vomit kind. It took Mark hours and hours to clean the seat and the car. Barf got into the vents too!

I miss the days of being little and living at home and being allowed to be sick. I would stay home from school and stay in bed all day - reading books, watching TV or just napping. My grandma (who lived with us) would bring me all my meals in bed - complete with a small vase with some cute flowers she picked in the garden. I was allowed to be sick and to rest as much as I needed.

You are not allowed to be sick if you are a parent. I can't just leave my kids in front of the TV and go take a nap. My first priority is to take care of them. The four of us all went to our doctors yesterday and I can't imagine what this would be like if we had more than 2 kids! At least with 2 Mark and I can each focus on one. Even this seems like a lot when you're sick yourself.

At the doctor's office yesterday I read an article in Time magazine about only children. It said that only children (as well as kids from families that only have 2 kids) score higher on achievement tests and do better over all than kids who come from families with multiple siblings. This makes sense in the simple fact of time. The more kids, the more you have to divide resources.

Mark and I have been talking about whether to try to have another child or not. If I were guaranteed a girl, I would jump at the chance, I think. But when times of sickness like this come, and when I think of money (although Mark is freelancing, he still doesn't have a permanent job) and time, stopping at 2 seems like the best thing. We are so lucky to even have Teddy, and my pregnancy was so tough (and unimaginable for how long) that I don't think another pregnancy is even a smart thing to do. Anyways, all I wanted to say was that the whole family being sick adds a perspective to the whole question of whether or not our family is complete. I think it very might well be.

V-day Memories

Mark has gotten these from me every V-day for the last 14 years. The first time, I mailed a box of these to him in college in his last semester. We weren't dating, we were just friends - and I kind of wanted something more.

I told my aunt T about it, and she came over that day with a Martha Stewart recipe and a heart shaped cookie cutter. The recipe was pretty crazy - it had about 20 ingredients. It was exciting to bake these and send them to a guy I liked. I was such a giddy schoolgirl. I sent them - red m&m in the middle of each and all in a box that I decorated in special valentine paper.

After I mailed the box, a day or so later, Mark called to thank me for the brownies. To save myself from utter humiliation, I told him that I also mailed a box of them to our mutual friend Jen (LIE!!).

When we were moving our stuff to the other house 2 years ago, I was surprised and touched to see that Mark actually kept the box that I sent the brownies in. If he didn't like me, he would've just thrown the box away, right?

So every Valentines Day, I make these for my hubby. My Aunt T would ask me every year if I baked them - and of course the answer was always yes. When I bake them, I always think about her and her help in getting-the-guy. I think about how much fun we had baking them and how I had to run to the grocery store THREE times that afternoon!! I think about how excited I was to send them to Mark and how embarassed I was after he received them. I plan on making these every Valentines Day for the rest of my life.

A Year Without T

Today marks the first anniversary of the death of my aunt - my mother's sister. We all called her "T" - short for Tita which means Aunt. My sister coined the name one day and I can't remember when that actually happened. But I must have been really little because not to brag, but I usually remember everything.

The day started off with a mass, then breakfast at the pancake house, and a trip to the cemetery. We also do this for my grandma's birthday and death anniversary as well. Then my cousin came over and sat on my couch all day with me - played with my kids and just hung out. I was glad because I really wanted to hang with someone. No offense to my kids, but it was that kind of day.

My aunt's passing was the second major loss in my family. The first being my Grandma's (also maternal) death in 2001. So my family is no stranger to loss or grief. My grandma lived with me for most of my childhood and took care of me and my sister while both our parents worked. Losing her shook my world, but that's a totally different topic for a different day.

The year without my aunt was tough. Easy in some respects because it just felt like she was at her house and I just hadn't talked to her in a long time. It was hard when something really funny would happen and I would rush to the phone to tell her - only to remember that she wasn't around anymore. It was also hard when I was cooking and would have a question to ask her, or when I had to plant flowers in the spring or clean up the garden before the winter. It is no secret I have a brown thumb, and she would always offer her green one.

In a lot of ways, her absence changed the dynamic of my family. It's not as funny anymore. T made things interesting in general - she had so many interests and had such a great personality. We laughed so much more when she was alive. Our family get-togethers are so boring now. It's really hard to explain.

Throughout my life, I found myself with the uncontrollable case of the giggles with T all the time - when something is funny and you cannot stop laughing for the longest time. Kind of like the time when we were getting our house blessed (I was about 7 years old) and the priest that was doing the blessing was wearing glasses with a PLAYBOY logo on them - and my Grandma sighing very very loudly during the blessing, "AGH!! I AM MISSING PALCON CREST!!!" (Falcon, but with the accent, it's PALCON). It's times like this that I will always cherish but will be sad because there will be no more like them, with her, in my future. That's the absolute worst. And what the hell is a PRIEST doing with anything PLAYBOY??? We found out that he later left the priesthood, got married, and has 3 kids. That says it all.

T used to babysit Ricky for me quite a bit when he was 2 and 3 years old and I went to work at the public library. Ricky was sad that T died and the other day I was mortified when I asked him about T and he said he didn't remember her. Not sure if he is making that up or if he *really* doesn't remember her. That would truly break my heart. T passed away when Teddy was a month old and she met him once before she died - when he was 2 weeks old. She was so weak, but was able to hold him while she was lying down, oxygen tank and all.

After giving birth, my hormones were crazy and losing my aunt threw me in a depression. Not to mention the fact that Mark lost his job just a few days after her funeral. I didn't realize it then, but I must have been depressed. I stopped calling my friends, stopped going on play dates or inviting friends over here, and basically did nothing but take care of my kids the whole year. I feel really bad for Ricky - it was a huge adjustment to get a sibling after having your mom and dad to yourself for so long and on top of that, your parents are totally lame and always want to stay home.

Anyways, I guess I carry T with me wherever I go, in my heart. I am sad my kids will grow up without her and if Ricky has any memory of her at all - it will slowly fade as time passes. My family is still trying to re-group and getting together still feels odd, but I guess that will take time too. I am having a lot of negative feelings toward my uncle (T's husband), and that will be a different post altogether.

Well wherever T is, I hope it is great. I hope she is happy and I hope she and Grandma aren't fighting.

Dealing with the Needs-Not-to-Know's

Things have been pretty busy at home. We're getting the house ready to sell because we're moving this summer. Hopefully we'll be able to sell it even though the market is bad right now. We'll see.

Our immediate families and closest friends knew about our fertility treatment but I still hate dealing with questions from relatives who are gossipy. I was messing around playing Scramble on Facebook tonight and a second cousin (who is VERY gossipy) started instant messaging me and immediately asked if another baby was on the way. I chose to keep my conversation on our house selling and ignored the baby question - hoping she would think I didn't see it.

I know she probably means well - she is in her early twenties and probably doesn't realize that having a baby doesn't come easy to everyone. She does know I had a miscarriage last year so I kind of expected a little sensitivity. I just know that whatever I did tell her would end up in family conversations and the entire clan would know. No thanks.

When we do see the relatives this year - which is almost never - I am wondering if I should just lie and say we don't want any more children - just to get people to shut up. I guess I just don't want something that has been so difficult and painful to us to be part of the gossip.

Just like the universal code of manners and common decency says that it is impolite to bluntly ask how much money a person makes - I wish it would be considered impolite to ask people if they are going to have another baby or when is the next baby coming.