remember

I remember walking into the psychologist's office wondering if she really wanted me to sit on the couch or to lay down on it, just like, I imagine, everyone deliberates upon entering.  What is the protocol with appointments like this?  She sat across from me in a chair, scooting it closer to me.  I decided to sit.

I had just finished my written test, the one that is suppose to determine if you are nuts or not.  Not really, but of course, I felt like every answer would be over analyzed: she lies (like about sending out an email yet or not), she steals (as in taking a pen from the office)... she's no good.

"So", she began, "what do you think will happen after the baby goes home?"

Straight to the point.

I wasn't even pregnant, not even paired with a potential family.

I paused for just a moment and answered "I think the baby will go home and live with their family.  It is, after all, their baby.  I'm not going to be one of those people that requests weekly updates, or monthly pictures.  That just isn't me.  I have my family and they will have theirs."

She continued "You're just going to send this baby off into the world and you'll never need communication with them again?  That sounds very altruistic of you".

I wondered why she had to use such a big word, couldn't she have said something more like 'nice'.  She didn't have to make me feel like I was going to be a surrogate, have a baby and then forget the whole thing.

But that's what I almost did.

My eyes popped open this morning at 2 something and I freaked out.  'I missed it!'.  I counted the days in my head; 21, 22, no... it's OK, it's just Wednesday.

It's my surrogate son's birthday.  Today, he's 6 years old.

It really isn't something that I want to forget, but it slipped.  The ten thousand other things that are going on in my family right now didn't coincide with their family.

But today, I will remember Ari's birthday.

*

I also want to remind you to remember those that struggle with infertility and if you are one of the lucky ones, remember there is always something you can do to help:

offer support.

speaking diva

It's pretty much a secret language between her and I.  Edy says 'ninwo' from the middle row of the van upon us pulling out of the garage.  She's pointing to the window and wants it down.  She then proceeds to point to the other three windows, that I can control, insisting that they each go down too.

Then she usually says something that sounds like 'baabas', but she pinches her thumbs and fingers together and bounces them on her temples.  I know that she wants her sunglasses.

This day, she probably asked for 'wa-wa' and 'yummies' (water and gummies/fruit snacks) at some point along the short car trip to drop Henry off at school, in which case, I was already screwed, because I didn't have either with me... and the girl can scream, like ringing in my ears aftershocks from her screams.

I roll my eyes to myself and wonder how in the hell did I get such a diva on my hands.

Then I remind myself that she's only 1, and that her world revolves around her, and that, as one too many people have told me, 'girls are so different than boys, this is just the way girls are' - dramatic.

ugh...

From farther back, I heard Wyatt yelling something at me, which I didn't initially hear, because I turned up the music to drown out the screams.

Wyatt leaned forward and shouted again "Can you put down the windows?"  Which, in his little mind, means 'can I roll up the windows?' (don't ask).

I looked at him through the rear view mirror "Buddy, it's not that cold, can we please leave them down for Edy?"

Wyatt proceeded "but she's dressed.  I don't have any clothes on, I'm reeeaaaallllly cold!"

I do a double take in the mirror.  Yes, he's wearing a t-shirt, but did he take off his shorts for some weird Wyatt reason, I ask myself.

"Wyatt, you still have your pants on (insert lingering, I'm not sure I want to know the answer, pause) right?"

He responded "NO, I don't have pants on..."  I nearly pulled the car over, but he slowly continued "I have SHORT PANTS on, that's why I have no clothes on, THAT'S why I want the windows closed".

Umm, so apparently, wearing shorts and a t-shirt is equivalent to wearing nothing to this, winter is 9 months long, Minnesota kid.

I'm going to have to brush up on my 'diva' since they both already speak it well. 

Is there a Rosetta Stone for that?

riddle me this

Riddle me this, is a dinner party going extremely well when you are dumb brave enough to pull out your scrapbook from high school, or is it going terribly wrong?

It started somehow because I wanted to show our friends a picture of my husband and I at prom (yes, we are high school sweethearts, you can see it here if you want a giggle) and at that point, I had a few Sam Adams under my belt and could only think of the picture in my scrapbook.  So, out it comes.

There we were, skimming through my book, laughing at me being involved in almost everything, because when you graduate with a class of 52 kids, staff/coaches are pretty much begging you to participate.  A list of a few things I don't do anymore... play clarinet, counsel students, twirl flags, act in plays, sing (at least not for an audience other than those in my van), cheer lead, well, maybe a kick and rah once in a while.

Then we landed on my poetry pages and I, instinctively, slapped the book shut.

*Imagine this poem with flowery love sayings from magazines clipped out and glued around it making a lovely paper border.

I've been with you for only a short while.
But I still feel so close to you.
Many words rush through my head.
Words I'm not sure if they are true.

I know how quickly I am falling.
It is too hard to stop me now.
I am not suppose to fall in love.
No, not this quickly, I don't know how.

I don't want to give you my heart.
For you'll hold it like a treasure.
Once you win the prize,
There will be no love for us to measure.

Why must men just be like that.
Will I ever learn or understand?
How courageous the women are
To give he love the men demand.

Each day I'll dream of you.
You'll be in my mind forever.
The first day and the last,
Of the love that began, Never!

I especially like the dramatic "Never!" part. 

Honestly, I don't know how my 8th grade teacher handed this back to me with a straight face, or without writing a warning in big red letters 'just you wait'.

She must have read this swigging a few Sam Adams herself.

well, poop on you

I took the kids to the library on Monday, because, as I tell my husband, I like to use their environment to educate entertain them, and well... it was Monday and I was tired.

As we walked in, we were surprised to see a former preschool classmate of Wyatt's there.  They both got a little giddy and chased a circle around the young adult section until both moms slowed them down to a few wiggles and instead, had them sit on a bench next to each other by the window.

I overheard his friend tell Wyatt "I can read that one to you, just stay here next to me..."

At that time, I was flipping through the books seeing which ones catch my eye (because, yes, I really do judge a book by it's cover, sue me).  I whispered to his mom, who was standing close to me, watching them, "He doesn't really know how to read, does he?"  I sort of said this laughing, I mean, he just turned 5, like Wyatt.

She replied like it's no big deal "Oh, yes... he does."

I must have looked a little stunned by that.

She continued, obviously feeling the need to rewind a bit, "But he was highly motivated by his big sister".

I couldn't get any appropriate response out, all I could think was, 'well, Wyatt has a big brother too, and that doesn't make him want to read.'

Just at that moment I heard Wyatt yelling something to his friend who was still sitting next to him "I don't know how to read, but I know how to write!"

Thank goodness that conversation sort of turned at that moment and they started talking about 'who was taller than who', because the only word Wyatt knows how to write, other than his name, is p-o-o-p.

Apparently, this is how Wyatt is motivated by his big brother.

little holes

My mom leaned over in the front seat of the car and asked me 'if I remembered to wear my underwear?'. I lifted up my skirt and the confused look must have said it all as she made a quick turn around to swing into the nearest Pamida to buy me a new pack of days of the week underwear so I could go to preschool properly dressed.

This is how I remember that day, but I'm pretty certain there are like a billion holes in this story.  Like one, why am I sitting in the front seat of the car? (Yes, it was the late 70's, but still...). Two, my mom is asking me 'if I remembered my underwear?', so did I not wear my underwear enough times that it warrants her to ask me before dropping me off at preschool?

'Yep, Beth, you use to forget to wear underwear all the time!'

Awesome. Child genius, clearly.

It's just one of those memories where you look at a picture and it feels like you remember being there, being in that moment, remember that second when the camera snapped.  But in reality, you have a picture and you have people reminding, telling you, filling in all those little holes.

Today, I'm pretty happy for those little holes, those memories that Edy won't really remember.

Because I was pretty much insane.

I chased after her all. day. long. trying to get the perfect picture of her in her first day of pigtails.

I think I'll be selective in telling her the story, short and focused.

'No, Edy, your mommy is not crazy, you just looked so cute!'

Dang it... she probably need some convincing that I'm not crazy.

(and this is only 3 of the umm, 47 that I've taken).

wisdom and shaky things

Wyatt turns five tomorrow, with age has (apparently) some sort of new wisdom.  Take last night, we were on the bike trail heading towards the skyline of Minneapolis; birds chirping, wind in our faces, grass blowing (get the picture) when from behind us, we heard music creeping up, getting closer and closer.  When he finally passed us on his left, it was some idiot with this little stereo duct taped to the handle bars of his bike.  I wanted to yell at him something about 'did you know, you can get an MP3 player for like 10 bucks now?  Amazing!', but I didn't, I kept my mouth shut and pedaled a little slower to pace him farther away from us.

Wyatt chimes in though "Now he's all set!"

And we laughed, and to no surprise, he screamed at us.  And then we explained how he sometimes says things that are just so smart, so adult, that we just have to laugh.

Wyatt settled down to a low grumble as he complained about sitting in a baby seat, aka the Burley, once again.

With this new found wisdom, this sitting on the edge of becoming five years old, there are certain things that we expect from Wyatt; like to get dressed by himself, wipe his own butt, not put things in his mouth, nose, or other accessible areas.

So, we were at a friend's house.  Wyatt was playing downstairs, when he comes upstairs, crying, shouting that he put something in his nose, but he doesn't know what it was.

All the parents head down the stairs to the basement to figure out what we will have to be extracting from his nasal passages.  Turns out the kids cracked open a maraca and Wyatt put one of the tiny little beads into his nose.

"Why?" we all want to know.  At almost five, this is something that he should totally not be doing.

He shrugged and continued rambling on about 'how in the world we are going to find the tiny ball in his poop?'

Later that night, settling into the back seat of the minivan, driving home from our friend's house, Wyatt whispers something in the dark...

"I put that bead in my nose so I could make the shaking noise like the shaky thing."

(sigh)

Now that's some awesome (almost) five year old wisdom.

closer

I don't know what possessed me, but I bought something from Oriental Trading Co., which means that I (willingly) put myself on lists to get some of the crappiest catalogs known to man.

I should back up, are you familiar with Oriental Trading Company? It's a catalog company that sells plastic crap in the form of foam fingers, with discount pricing on ordering multiples. I'm pretty sure their slogan is something like 'we sell China' umm, I mean... 'we sell fun'.

And that's exactly the trap that my boys have fallen into.

They leaped across the counter to grab the catalog from the pile of mail before I had the chance to throw it into the recycling.

Henry stared at the catalog, mouth slightly hanging open, "whaaaat's this?" (I swear, I can see a slight bit of drool too).

I tried to downplay it; "it's just a catalog, it's full of junk..."

It was pointless though, he was already thumbing through the pages.

And out of the million and one pieces of crap in the catalog, what does he point out that he'd loved to have?

The life-sized inflatable palm tree. (Poor Henry, he has some weird obsession with palm trees and here he is, living in the tundra of ol' Minnesota).

Wyatt grabs the catalog out of Henry's hands and points to the palm tree on the back page.

"No way! We should get this one!" He waved a picture in front of us, it's the (slightly smaller) inflatable palm tree in pool cooler.


He continues "Mom, this would be a great idea. You could finally get rid of our freezer and put all our drink in there with the ice instead. It would be perfect for your drinks... we could use it at your parties!"

Did you notice how he mentions drinks and parties and getting rid of a kitchen appliance?

Geesh, this kid sure does know how to close a sale.