Girl Detective

Taking care of two kids and trying to get stuff done feels rather like my head and to-do list are at 45, but my life is playing at 33 and 1/3.

Speaking of, I’m woefully behind on my email and comment replies. Please don’t take it personally if you haven’t heard back. Thanks to everyone for writing; I do read and appreciate and will try to get back on track.

My spam lately is links for va1ium. Coincidence? Are they reading my mind? Ooh, the spam is talking to me.

I was sorely tempted to put ellipsis after that last sentence, but I think they’re so overused that they’re probably not able to be used at all anymore.

#14 in my movie challenge was The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Sweet and smart, it’s the best modern comedy in recent memory. Paul Rudd, especially in the sequence at the end, thows himself into his role with delicious abandon. I wish this movie had received Oscar attention for best actor, film, and original screenplay.

After Drake was born, we had our three Netflix movies for three months, then finally returned them unwatched and cancelled our subscription. I’m not exactly sure what’s different, but since Guppy was born, I’ve seen twelve movies, three in theaters. Perhaps it’s that Guppy sleeps more than did Drake. Perhaps it’s that we don’t quibble about watching a movie with him–we put Drake to bed, watch a movie, then (try to) put Guppy to bed. Perhaps it’s the combination of giving myself a movie challenge, which puts it higher on my awareness and priorities. But I’m averaging two movies a week, both for the year and since Guppy was born. In case you want to congratulate me, though, please know that my house is filthy, my blog entries have been sparse, and my other writing has received almost no attention. Guppy and Drake are clothed and fed, at least.

As you may have guessed, I haven’t posted recently because I gave birth to Drake’s little brother. I went in for my 38 week checkup on Tuesday the 7th with contractions that went from about 5 minutes apart to about 3 minutes apart while I was there. The doc said I could go home to collect my husband and my things, but then I was due at the hospital. My husband’s ride home from work kindly dropped him off at the clinic rather than at home so he could pick up me and our car. My sister Sydney was staying with us to help with Drake.

We got to the hospital about 6:30. I was in labor for another 5 hours or so, everything going great, using my hypnobirthing techniques and breathing, and certain that I was ready push. Then the nurse checked me, and I was only dilated to 4, a mere half centimeter more than I’d been on admittance. That was a low, low moment. I did all the usual cliches–begged for drugs, cried that I was tired, in pain and couldn’t do it, but my husband, doula and the nurse kept assuring me that I was doing it, and just before 3 am I gave birth, having had no drugs. I still can’t believe I did it. Those last few hours are indescribable in a difficult way. The moment of his birth is indescribable in an entirely different way. We had no problems of positioning, elevated heart rate or meconium as we did with Drake. I did end up with two smallish tears, but nothing like last time. The new guy was 8 pounds,2 ounces and 21 1/2 inches long, in spite of arriving two weeks before his due date.

He sleeps a lot, though not necessarily between 11pm and 6 am, and is napping on my chest in a sling as I type. We finally revealed his name to family and friends; we’d kept it a closely guarded secret. Both his first and middle names were ones that we liked and that are also, incidentally, family names. For the purposes of the blog, though, I’ll call him Guppy.

We’re all tired but doing well. Posts may be a bit sporadic in the coming weeks, but I’ll do what I can, when I can.

#13 in my movie challenge for the year was Lawrence Kasdan’s western, Silverado. The good guys are all very good. The bad guys are all very bad, and further, they all wind up dead by the end. Sorry if I’m spoiling anything for you. This movie contains every plot point from every western, yet its energy and good will let it transcend cliche. A young Kevin Costner plays a charming, immature cowboy. This was apparently Kasdan’s way of apologizing for cutting him out of The Big Chill almost entirely. (Costner played the dead guy, whose funeral was the occasion for everyone else to get together. They filmed scenes with him, but none made it into the final cut.) Silverado isn’t a great film, but it’s a good movie with a good heart that’s a lot of fun to watch.

I’m getting slammed with spam, here. My tech support, ahem, husband, has changed the setting so that your comments may not appear immediately. Sorry. Once we get over our spam crisis, we’ll try to return to real-time comments!

I often have trouble explaining where I grew up. When I mention Ohio, most people guess Cincinnati or Cleveland. “It’s outside Columbus,” I explain. “A little town called Granville, where Denison University is.” Sometimes people have heard of Denison. This week, though, Granville has made the major papers and the blogosphere. I may not have trouble explaining where Granville is for quite a while.

As I’m sure you probably know by now, the accuracy of James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces, the supposedly non-fiction book and Oprah’s first foray back into living authors, has been exhaustively questioned at The Smoking Gun. In one of the key conflicts in the book, Frey says he drove up on the sidewalk outside Granvilla Pizza, struck a cop and there was a kerfuffle. Granville PD records show no evidence of said kerfuffle.

Believe me, if there had been such a kerfuffle, it would have made the front page of both town newspapers. And my parents would have called.

When I lived there, the population was about 4K, half of which was the student population of Denison University. There were more churches (six) than traffic lights (four). While there are now more people and more stop lights, it’s still a lovely little town, more reminiscent of New England than central Ohio. And while Granvilla Pizza has changed hands, it still makes some of my favorite pizza ever.

I had to laugh at the idea of Granville as the site of Frey’s supposedly severe drug and alcohol debauchery. Peccadilloes and misdemeanors, perhaps. Many years ago when I was sixteen, a fourteen year old friend of mine got a few of the guys at Sigma Alpha Epsilon, the fraternity Frey would join several years later, to buy a case of beer for us. Friends and I used fake IDs to buy beer at Granvilla, or in the nearby city of Newark. We knew to carefully obey traffic laws in town, though, so we stayed out of trouble. Frey wasn’t so cautious. He got busted, though hardly in the spectacular way he describes in his book.

The Smoking Gun backs up this small-town persona. When they called to ask for arrest records, they found themselves talking to the arresting officer himself. And since there are only a couple hundred arrests each year in Granville, there were still records back to Frey’s 1992 arrest. As the Granville chief of police noted, they’re not pressed for storage space.

My mood this morning, in spite of outside sunshine, was pretty grim. I decided to embark upon laundry. Not in the spirit of “perhaps this good, hard work will make me feel better” but rather “if I’m going to be in a bad mood then I might as well have several loads of clean laundry to show for it.”

Over the years, I’ve tried to simplify my life. This included simplifying my wardrobe. This meant getting rid of almost all dry-clean-only items, and keeping those that could reasonably survive in a delicates bag in the washing machine. So into today’s last and largest load of darks went a black chenille maternity sweater labelled “dry clean only”.

I thought I’d washed it before. I thought it was safe.

I brazenly didn’t put it in the delicates bag. Now everything in that load (including the neutral, not-so-dark stuff) is coated in wads of black chenille fuzz. I shook about 2 handfuls out of the offending sweater, and the laundry room floor is dotted with black. Additionally, I’d just taken a load of whites out of the dryer, and some black fuzz got onto that as well. I was able to pick most of it out.

I set the fuzz-generating sweater aside, though I might as well throw it away. It was a very nice sweater, and I regret that I won’t be able to wear it again. Most of my other maternity things aren’t as nice as it was. I have split the rest of that laundry load in half, putting each half through a rinse and spin again to see if I can get more of the fuzz off before merging both halves in the dryer.

My mood has not improved.

Whoever stole the sun away from Minnesota these past few weeks finally saw fit to bring it back today, and I for one couldn’t be happier. It’s not enough that the days have been cold, my toddler son Drake is firmly in the “No!” phase, I’m already feeling 7+ months pregnant awkward when I’m not trying to cram both of us into coats and boots to go outside, and I’m tired because I can’t seem to nap (heartburn) or sleep through the night (various pregnancy related discomforts, in addition to a lingering sore throat virus.) So the lack of sun for TWO WEEKS has felt like grievous insult, and has taken its toll. A friend asked how I was feeling the other day. I thought a moment. “Like punching someone.” Fortunately I was able to contain myself. Now that the sun has returned (oh, please, let it stay!) perhaps the other things will feel a bit easier to bear.

*That’s a Simpson’s joke, folks.

I feel as if I should come up with a standard disclaimer for when I haven’t posted in while. Kind readers, please know I don’t take you for granted. The last few weeks have been filled with pregnancy-related rest (I’m fine and Swimmy’s fine; we just need to rest) and crafting my very first query letter so I can finally send out the manuscript for my novel.

Stunning insight of yesterday: the more pregnant I get, the more rest I need.

Stunning insight of today: the more I rest, the less I get done.

But I continue to read, write, and watch movies and TV. I continue to challenge my brain into activity. Remember, the law of inertia concerns bodies, not minds.

I spent the last hour on the phone with my health clinic so someone could explain what charges I was being billed for, and then with my insurance company, so someone could explain to me why my health clinic is billing me incorrectly and, apparently, unethically.

Why yes, I do have better things to do with my time, thank you for asking.

I have been increasingly unhappy with the quality of care I’ve been getting from the clinic, and now the billing is a problem, too. I don’t relish the thought of switching doctors and clinics mid-pregnancy, but it’s looking more and more like the thing to do.

It occurred to me today that before we pick a new healthcare provider, perhaps we should call the insurance company, and ask how their billing services are. We found our financial consultant this way–we asked a friend who was an underwriter which of the people he worked with gave him the least nonsense. Years later, we’re still thrilled with that choice, so I think there’s something to be said for checking references that way.

To all of you living in the United States, a reminder. It’s election day. I know it’s not a presidential year, but go vote! The polls aren’t crowded, the people are nice, and it’s a way to do something good and feel good about it.

Finding out where you’re to vote, and what candidates match your concerns, are easier than ever. Don’t let minor, fixable gaps in knowledge stop you. Spend a couple minutes on Google or at the website of your local newspaper.

Vote!

Someone had cause to translate this blog into French. Thanks to Blogenheimer for the link.

My husband G. Grod brought home an article from his daddy and me class last weekend that has been on my mind ever since. It’s a publication of the College of Education and Human Development of the University of Minnesota, and titled “What is Meant by ‘Infant Mental Health?’” The article centers around the phrase “good enough”:

…children’s development depends on their parents and other caregivers to provide a “good enough” environment. British pediatrician and psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott coined the term “good enough” when he described an environment where parents respond consistently enough and well enough to their children. From those consistent reponses, children learn to expect care, comfort, and pleasure in their achievements. And “good enough” means just that–good enough. It would not be good for babies to have their every uncomfortable feeling sootheed from the outside, because then they would not learn how to wait, to tolerate some discomfort, and to soothe themselves.

The article is short, but worthwhile, and contains the kind of information that I find rare as a parent–realistic, human, and the kind of common sense that sometimes has to be learned. I think the phrase “good enough” is a remarkable help both as a parent and as a human being. I won’t be perfect, so I needn’t bother exhausting myself as I try to be, or worse, second-guessing and overanalyzing mistakes of the past.

I thought of this when a friend asked me recently if my husband’s and my night out for our anniversary was romantic. It wasn’t, really. Rain and a rushed dinner made things a little hectic. But we had a nice time, and appreciated the time out together. It was better than good enough, even if it wasn’t romantic. And after seven years of marriage, good enough is pretty good, and romantic will happen when it will, not on demand.

Unless, of course, they don’t. Friday night I had what seemed very much like a gall bladder attack, after indulging in the Modern’s famous pot roast, which includes fork-tender meat, garlic mashed potatoes, melting carrots and veggies, all topped with a dollop of horseradish sour cream. Our family is pretty familiar with gall bladder symptoms, since G. Grod had them on and off for years before having his gall bladder removed earlier this year. Fortunately I had a prenatal checkup already scheduled for this week. When I described symptoms and said that this was the second time this had occurred during the pregnancy (the first at about 12 weeks), I was swiftly given more blood tests and signed up for a gall bladder ultrasound.

The good news is that I received an all clear–none of the tests showed anything to be concerned about. The bad news is that no one knows why I have had two episodes in 8 weeks that seem so gall-bladder-y. The best guess is a virus. I am worried, because I feel as if I’m waiting for a shoe to drop, wondering if I’ll have another episode. I am relieved, though, since I had lurid visions of having to undergo the same surgery that G. did, only at 20+ weeks pregnant.

In the meantime, I’ll follow the usual pregnancy advice to eat several small meals a day. I’ll also avoid especially rich or fatty foods, at least at night. Alas, no more post-dinner ice cream. I’ll have to fit it in after lunch, I guess.

My father has taken the month of September off for a boat trip. He plans to take his boat, a refurbished ‘71 Hatteras Express Cruiser, from Kelleys Island in Lake Erie to Florida via inland waterways. Sadly, the boat has broken down in Michigan, but when he does start up again, the rest of the trip will be posted here.

Apologies for sporadic posting. I feel like I’m being flung from one thing to the next. First was G. Grod’s surgery, from which he continues to recover nicely. Then was Drake’s birthday, and this week it’s a very nasty head cold. I can’t quite get my groove back, and I’ve not worked on my novel in a while. I am trying, though,and hope to be back up to speed soon.

G. Grod is back to work these past few days after his gall bladder surgery, and is tired, but in no pain. He is rather cranky at the continued restriction on fatty foods–and who wouldn’t be?–but is being a good sport. Drake is confused and put out that G. Grod can’t pick him up, but we’re managing. Some friends (saviors, as far as I’m concerned) brought us meals to help out, other friends have made sure that we have what we need, and still other friends wrote and called to check in and give cheer.

We are very thankful for friends, near and far.

My husband G. Grod has his gall bladder out today, stones and all. The doc said the procedure went perfectly, so he is home now and doing as well as possible, given 4 incisions and the loss of an organ.

We returned home to find that the company G. Grod works for has been bought out by another. Sigh.

Or rather, he has one giant stone and a few small ones. As I’ve mentioned a few times recently, my husband G. Grod has been having gall bladder trouble. He is having surgery later this week. Fortunately, he’s probably able to have the easy version (outpatient), rather than the hard version (5 day hospital stay) of the surgery, but it still has a 10 day recovery period, so things may be a little erratic around here for a while.