Not Calm (dot com)

Ugly doll is testing phone to twitter/flickr app.

Jenijen — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:51:52 -0700

Ugly doll is testing phone to twitter/flickr app., originally uploaded by Not Calm (dot com).

This is beautiful, hold my hand

Jenijen — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:58:37 -0700

I'm standing waist-deep in the water in Monterey Bay, hopping around on one foot and trying to get a fin on the other. I've got a mask on, am remembering to breathe so I won't panic, and remembering that remembering to breathe means remembering to breathe through my mouth, not my nose. Sometimes I try to inhale through my nose, but there's no air, and the impulse to pull off the mask and gulp in air as fast as I can is almost too much to resist. Just like I put up with airplane rides (terrifying) to get to where I want to be, I will squash this physical reflex I get when I put a mask over my face and breathe through a snorkel (that I'm not entirely sure I trust to not send a dose of saltwater into my lungs).

SG knows that I'm nervous; he helps me with my fins without making me feel dumb. My heart is beating too fast from ignoring the urge to get everything off my face. He is so patient with me that my heart starts beating faster from being happy. It's enough to tip the panic back down so I can keep going. I can't just put my snorkel in my mouth and my face in the water and go. I have to put my face in, quickly pull it back out, steady myself, and then try again. The water is murky, so I don't have much to distract me. But I can see SG, and there's a single blade of seagrass reflecting that shimmering hypnotic glowing quicksilver underwater light.

After I get more comfortable he tells me to float with my face in the water, and to not kick my legs or move my arms. The sun is warm on my back and I am amazed to find that I'm completely relaxed, listening to the underwater sounds and my own breath going in and out of the snorkel. He tells me that I can just relax and float, that I don't need to work so hard. Then we both put our faces in the water and start to swim around. He takes my hand, and we swim together for a little while. I'm not scared, not even a little bit.

Later we get lunch, then drive down the coast a little further, to a beach on the side of Highway 1 called Garrapata. The waves mean business here. It's too beautiful to be real, but there are ants crawling on the blanket and kids with buckets braving the surf to get water for their sandcastle. SG and I are on a blanket in the hot sunshine, and when I touch his shoulder it's hot. too. I come home with photos, but they don't even come close. Not even a little bit.

Next we drive back north to Carmel to get in the water. My feet won't let me in, though, because the water here is colder and walking in it makes me cry. SG is tougher; he goes in and I watch him from the shore. When we leave, we go to Moss Landing, to meet my mom and stepdad at Phil's for dinner. I'm tired and sunburned. I'm happy. SG goes to get us a couple of glasses of wine, and comes back with glasses that are filled to the top and impossible to carry without splashing. And I look at him with his full hands and all I want to do is wrap my arms around his neck and tell him how damn grateful I am every day that we found each other and how I can't exactly get my head around how much I love him. Instead I take one of the glasses from him and sip it down and wipe it off. And he sits down next to me. I hope he knows.

Define "hands-free"

Jenijen — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:34:14 -0700

So the other morning I was getting ready to drive to the office and I was talking to Jenny about work stuff, and we weren't done talking and I needed to go BUT I didn't have my phone headphones because I left them on my desk at work, so I put my phone on speaker and sort of shouted at it and then held it near my ear so I could hear.

I brought the phone close to my mouth, and yelled, I don't think this counts as hands-free; it's way more distracting than just holding the phone to my ear. I'd better call you when I get to the office.

Just do what I do, Jenny said. Stick it in your bra!

Luckily I had on a scoop neck top, so I just put the iPhone into the iCleavage, and then talked to my boobs like they were Jenny for the next forty five minutes.

You totally won't see that in a Victoria's Secret ad. But you should!

Now it's us and now it's we

Jenijen — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:56:00 -0700

Wow. I was going to write a little bit about Michael Jackson, but then I read Susie Bright's post, and Megan Smith's.

I picked the girls up from camp tonight late and told them about MJ while we drove home. They were crushed, Sophie in tears, because their favorite songs to listen to while we drive around or clean up their room are ABC, Don't Stop Till You Get Enough, I Want You Back, and Never Can Say Goodbye. Plus, they know the little-kid Michael Jackson from their Free to Be You and Me DVD. He sings about what he'll be when he grows up, which was already making me a little sad every time I saw it.

Tonight I went to yoga class and we did abs to Billie Jean, but my favorite was always Ben. Kinda sappy, but I'm a total softie pushover. Dont' tell anyone.

And Farrah Fawcett. When I was a kid, she was the beautiful woman in the poster on the wall of every straight teenage boy. I guess she's the person (along with Tina Turner and Bo Derek) who introduced me to What Sexy Is, now that I think about it.

So between work (hectic, to say the least, but good) and other stuff (tax audit! shitload of tough financial paperwork for divorce! such fun!), and the whole Mom to Four Kids thing, I've been a little busy. I'm really and truly looking forward to this weekend. The kids are with their respective fathers, so SG and I are going to go for a ride

and also to Monterey to swim, dive, snorkel, bike ride (bicycles this time), and maybe take out the boat. Then on Sunday I get to go to San Francisco to meet up with some of my visiting-from-out-of-state extended family members who are, awesomely, some of my very most favorite people on the planet. It proves how much I love them that I'm willing to brave driving up to the city on Pride Day. Honestly, I hate to drive and I hate to drive in San Francisco especially, and this is the biggest parade in the history of California forever and ever, Amen. Maybe I will just train it in. With my camera. Because, seriously; Dykes on Bikes, The Leather Contingent, AND Drag Queens? That's a lot of fabulousness marching on the road right there.

Speak softly, big stick optional

Jenijen — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:11:36 -0700

So, I'm a total monster who made Willow cry today because I yelled (not really at her, but definitely in her general vicinity) about the mess in the living room. Why are you crying? I asked her. I'm not MAD at you, I just want you to pick up your shistuff. (That's what happens when you start to say shit and then remember this is the six year old, not the twelve year old you are talking loudly to.) She looked up at me, all snotty and red eyed, Because you are mean, she said. Because you are yelling and mean and I was TRYING to play with my toys in the living room.

I left the girls with Lex then, so I could drive over to the skate park and drop off Nate. When I got back, they'd thrown away the wrappers and trash that was on the floor, picked up the dirty dishes, put away the shoes and papers. The rug was three quarters of the way vacuumed, and two little girls jumped out from behind the couch yelling Surprise!

I really did yell at them before I left. I know it's a bad idea, even when the words are flying out of my mouth, but I get tired of my kind and reasonable requests being ignored. Still, though, I love these people, why the hell do I have to yell at them?

I apologized. Especially to Willow. She was over it by then, and brushed off my apology, gave me a hug and a smile. When she was so tiny and so sick, I couldn't have imagined ever yelling at her. All I wanted to do was protect her. Keep her safe and happy and make her feel loved. Same goes for all my kids, of course. I don't want to fight with them, but I also don't want to live in a sea of crap where everything is gross and I can't find anything. I don't want them to grow up to be slobs, to expect someone to clean up their messes, to not care about how their actions ripple across the household where they live.

Later SG came by on his motorcycle and stayed for supper (quinoa with chicken apple sausage, bell peppers - orange, yellow, red, and spinach) and then let the kids sit on his bike before taking us all out for ice cream. The kids were messy and tangled after a long day, but I looked at them, laughing and talking all at once, and I looked at SG, so patient and funny and kind with all of us, and decided that this is the picture of my family that I need to call up when I find myself angry at the kids. Yelling really doesn't have a place in my house. Or anyone's.

Sweet wild road ahead

Jenijen — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:01:24 -0700

Yesterday morning I had to go to the pharmacy before work, and of course it took for-ev-er. I sat in the waiting room, catching up on work email from my phone while I waited. And waited. When it was finally time for me to go, I headed toward the exit and fell in step behind a woman who was pushing an older woman in a wheelchair, and that woman, the older one, was pushing an older man in his wheelchair. Your wheels are bumping together! the younger woman said to the woman in the chair. She was cheerful and didn't appear to be struggling, but I approached her anyway and asked if she could use an extra pair of hands. Thanks, she laughed, but this is the best entertainment they get all day. And the trio continued their wobbly path out of the building and across the parking lot.

Lots has been going on here these past few days. Willow graduated from kindergarten:

SG and I went to Carmel Valley to see one of my very most favorite singer/songwriters perform in someone's living room to a group of about 30 people, and the woman who was touring with her was really incredible, too, so that turned out extra happy: (I grabbed this post title from a song of hers)

My brother and his wife and baby Max came for a visit:

::swoon::

I went to a pretty outdoor wedding with SG, where I met and instantly loved a bunch of his extended family members, and talked him into dancing with me. I watched Napoleon Dynamite for the first time, with SG and the kids. The boys had already seen it, and I'd heard them saying Napoleon, gimme somma yer tots, for so long it was great to finally get the reference. Though now they will say, Gaaaawd, idiot! under their breath and when I get on them for it they say, Oh, I was just quoting Napoleon Dynamite, Mom. I swear.

I'm not sure why -- it's not the end of the calendar year or the beginning of school or anything -- but I've been all reflective about the General State of my little family lately. Things are going so much better than I'd even hoped they would be at this time last year. My kids are truly happy, and after seeing them on Sunday, my mom, brother, and sister-in-law all commented on how content they are. How relaxed and comfortable they are with each other and the world. After so many years of wondering how in the hell everyone else does it, I'm finally starting to think that I'm getting close to doing a good job at being the mom to these kids. I'm still terminally behind on housework, terrible at keeping any sort of schedule around the house, and way too much of a pushover, but I'm really happy, which I think is coming through loud and clear to my children. I don't think it's the case that if I am happy, they will be too; but I do think that they look to me to be sure things are okay, that the sky is clear, that it's safe to relax and have fun.

Born on the couch; Sophie's Birthday Eve Story

Jenijen — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:15:00 -0700

If you are a kid living under my roof, it's a given that you get to eat cake for breakfast on the day after your birthday. On the night before your birthday, you'll find yourself curled up in a queen sized bed with your mom (that's me) and your three siblings, listening to the story of your birth. Beginning Sunday, June 14th, at 8pm e/p, and airing nightly through Friday, June 19th, Discovery Health will be bringing birth stories to the small screen as they celebrate Baby Week. You can catch Twins By Surprise on Sunday, Little Parents, Big Pregnancy on Monday, Births Beyond Belief on Tuesday, and Obese & Pregnant on Wednesday. They've also asked some BlogHer moms to share their own birth stories, so here's a version of the one I tell Sophie every year.

Each of my four children had a very different birth than the others, so the stories I tell at bedtime in February, June, October, and December don't resemble each other at all.

I didn't ever have an underwater birth, and there's no way that doing it unassisted (Freebirthing) is for me, but I still can't wait to see this episode and hear how these totally non-medical births compare to my own minimally medical home delivery:

And, I can only imagine the heat that these women must get for the choice they're making. Most people in my life were not shy about telling me what a big mistake it was for me to have a baby at home on purpose. I didn't come away from my first two labors the poster mom for childbirthing, much less doing it at home without so much as a tylenol. Both my boys were induced; I took any drugs the nurses were pushing, thanked them, and then asked for more; and I begged and demanded an epidural starting when I was about not-even-1 centimeter dilated. Things were different this time, though, with my daughter. I found out that I was pregnant just a couple of months after I had a miscarriage, when my boys were not quite 2 and 4 years old. I thought about having a homebirth, because I was so insprired by a couple of my close friends who'd done it recently. My first two birth experiences left me wanting to be able to talk about the next one the way these women did about theirs. They never had to say the words, "It changed my life," but I heard them whenever they talked about it.

When I was six months pregnant with Sophie, my June baby, her dad and I split up. Far from being the tragedy that lots of my family and friends thought this was for me, it was actually a huge, freeing relief. Her dad was really skeptical of non-hospital deliveries, and we never even discussed the subject. Within a week of becoming a single mom, I had found a midwife, Veronica, and made a Grand Master Plan for my homebirth. Veronica worked with an MD in the wings in case of emergencies, but she had more experience than any of the OBs I ever had. She'd spent time as a traveling midwife in impoverished villages, delivering babies with no doctors on hand. She said that she missed being able to do breech deliveries now that she was back in the US. Also? This woman had a root canal, completely unmedicated. (Typing that gives me the shivers.)

I remembered how great it was to be in a hot shower during labor with my first two, so I started asking around about renting a birthing tub. I didn't want to spend much, and I found a great match with a couple not too far away who rented out Rubbermaid horse troughs just for that purpose. I lost count of how many times I had to say, "No, not straight from the farmyard." (eyeroll) "They're bought and only used for birthing."

Once the tub was set up in my living room, I went to the hardware store for a new garden hose to fill it up with. Everyone recommended using the washing machine hook up to fill the tub: just connect the hose, open up the spout, and soon after you'd be immersed in warm water, laboring to soft music and low lights with no beeping monitors or IVs jammed in your wrist. But. I lived in a two bedroom apartment, and the washing machine was communal and down the hall. No problem! I thought, I'll just use my kitchen sink!

So my due date, June 2nd, arrived and I was still pregnant. I'd just gotten over a horribly wretched case of strep throat that hit me after I'd spent two weeks taking care of my boys who had it one after the other. 105 degree fevers and puking all around! That's motherhood. Well, at least part of it.

On my due date I had a class at my midwife's office. I was sitting there, watching birth videos, when I felt a twinge in my belly. I'd never gone into labor on my own, so even though this was my third child, I wasn't sure if this was "it." After the class, I stopped at the drugstore to stock up on a few last minute items, and I think I was a little bit manic because I was telling anyone who wasn't afraid to come near me that I was, "Going! Home! To Have! A BABY!" I did go home, and was still having some mild contractions, but nothing that really slowed me down. We had plans to meet family at the park that night, so I packed up my boys and we went. Later that night I got the boys to bed, then tried to sleep myself.

At 3:00 am, on the nose, I sat straight up in bed, no longer wondering if I was kinda maybe sorta in labor. It was now abundantly clear to me.

I called my mother. She arrived to find me on my hands and knees, rocking back and forth. She sized up the situation and asked if I'd called Veronica yet. I hadn't, so she got that ball rolling, and also called my friend, K, who was my doula. My mom has had four children herself, so she knew that this was no false alarm.

While we were waiting for Veronica and K, my mom turned to me and said, "So, you wanna fill up this tub?"

"Sure, pantpantpant, that sounds pantpantpant like a great idea!" I said.

There's this thing you've maybe heard of before, called a Dry Run? That would have been a wise thing to add to my birth plan, just under the line that read "Get birthing pool." We somehow got the hose connected to the kitchen sink, and it just barely stretched across the apartment to the trough. My apartment was sort of cute; it looked vaguely like something out of Melrose Place, and was built just after World War II. The original wood floors were under the carpet, and, as it turns out, the original plumbing was behind the walls. There was just not any water pressure. A trickle, no -- not even a trickle, a very weak spit of warm water dribbled out of the end of the hose. I had a big contraction and threw up in the little plastic bowl I was holding. My mom looked at me. I looked at her. We both started to laugh, because there was no way that pathetic stream of water could ever begin to do the job, especially now that the contractions had gotten a lot more serious about making themselves known to me.

I dragged myself over to the couch, which was covered in a sheet and some big plastic-backed cotton pads, and my mom got the hose put up.

I must say that even though I was feeling nervous about the whole "no drugs" thing, I did alright. Unfortunately, I did vomit almost every time I had a contraction and the contractions were right on top of each other. Still, I noticed the absence of bright lights and beeping machines and there weren't announcements and people in the hallway. All that was a huge difference for me. Veronica made a little pallet on the floor so she could lay down, and talked me through when she heard me struggling. I went straight for the blowing breathing they teach in Lamaze class. Couldn't help it.

When things got more and more intense, my lower back spasmed on me (or as a guy I used to work with would say, "It seized up, ahhhhhh!"). I couldn't move, and the grip was furious. I remember laying on my side, feeling like I'd never be able to leave that position, and how every time I threw up, my whole body felt like my lower back: one big knot of extraordinarily painful muscle. My friend K stood on the other side of the arm of the couch at one point, and when I was having severe pain she took her hand and pressed it, open palmed, into mine. I pushed back, and immediately had less pain. Counter-pressure = magic.

When I reached the point of thinking that I'd made a stupid, horrible mistake doing this at home and felt like I needed to be taken into surgery to get. this. thing. out. of. me. RIGHT NOW; I said something to that effect. I think that I was so tired that I just said, "I can't do this," which was Veronica's cue to get up and see how I was progressing. She checked me and said I was at 8. And I thought "ARE YOU KIDDING ME? EIGHT?!" Just then I had a massive, physics-defying contraction, and she said, "OH wait, you're at nine. . . no, ten, okay, you're there, BUT DON'T PUSH!"

Uh, no.

I pushed. Hard as I could. Don't tell me not to push.

On the first push, Veronica told me that my water hadn't broken yet, and that she was going to have to take the membrane off Sophie right after she came out. Then I pushed again and her head came out right when the water broke, on its own. One more push and she was out. Three pushes. Three. And really, it could have been one if I'd applied myself.

So there was Sophie, totally clean from being in the amniotic fluid, and tiny and perfect.

The time? 6 a.m. Exactly. Three hours from the "this is labor" to babe in arms. I suppose you might call hers an 'easy' birth, though I don't think those two words belong in the same paragraph. Since I was on the living room couch in my tiny apartment, I was near the front door. I remember that someone opened the door, and there was a cool breeze and the sun was coming up. Birds were singing, the fridge was humming, but it was really quiet, too. I remember the damp cool breeze coming into the house, and how blue and grey and cool everything was. It was nice after working so hard, like a drink of water.

Veronica weighed Sophie in a blanket attached to a spring scale; like a fisherman would weigh a fish. She was nearly seven pounds by that scale, but I think she was really closer to six. She had no eyedrops and no shots and no bath and no blood tests and no plastic bracelets and she didn't leave my arms for a good long while.

It's hard to explain without sounding a little like a cornball, but never in my entire life have I ever felt so capable; so loving toward myself and my body; so able to do anything, literally, in the whole wide world.

I'm so cheap

Jenijen — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 12:05:43 -0700

Really. Read about it here. And share your cheap ways with me so I can be even cheaper.

Happy, happy birthday to me, and to you

Jenijen — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:10:28 -0700

I'm feeling thankful for the small things today.

It's Sophie's birthday today. (Edited to add: It WAS her birthday when I started this, but now it's a couple of days past.)

I snuck out of the house this morning early, while the kids were still sleeping, to walk to the store for cupcakes and milk. Last night, I told Lex I might do that, just so there wouldn't be a panic if they woke up without me here. (Or a party!) It was already light at just a little after 6am, just like it was at 6am as when she was born, eight years ago. I got in line behind a woman with donuts and milk; she told the cashier that it was her daughter's 11th birthday, and I felt so much better about not staying up late last night to make cupcakes or cinnamon rolls or something from scratch like I used to on birthdays. Because that is how I do it now, single fulltime working mom of four kids, I cut corners and do what I can when I can. And it's fine, really. I think Caroline Ingalls herself might have walked over to the grocery store to get premade cupcakes if she could buy them for less than it cost to get the ingredients and she was feeling a little too busy with other things to find the time to bake. Behind me was an old biker dude, and when he put a dozen roses on the belt, the cashier said, Awwwww, thanks! Those are beautiful. They laughed and then he complained that the edges of all the roses were wilting and discolored. I didn't find out who the roses were for, but it was sweet to see this leather and Harley tshirt dressed guy even notice that detail.

I walked back home and found the candles, put eight of them in a cupcake for Soph and set all the cupcakes on a plate. Poor girl was so tired when she got up that she could barely keep her face from falling into them.

Last year around her birthday, I wrote about her birth. Before she was born, my friend Karen (she was also my doula) hosted a Blessingway for us. At the ceremony, we took a ball of string and the first woman to hold it wrapped it around her wrist a few times, then she passed it along, and the next woman did the same. When it was your turn with the string you got to say a few words, share a few hopes for the new baby. The woman leading the exercise, A, then pointed out how we were all connected here, all brought together by this little baby who we were waiting for. Then we cut the strings and tied them off, making little string bracelets that we kept on until she was born. I still have mine. It's in a bunch of short pieces from where I cut it off when she was tiny. During the string thing, or maybe during a different part, A said, Okay, when I was getting ready to come over, something told me to bring glitter to sprinkle on Jenifer's head. I think that Sophie is going to be a playful little puck of a girl. (Not exactly that -- but you get the gist.) And A was right. Sophie is playful, sometimes innocently, sometimes in full-on mischievous ways. Here's an excerpt from a post I wrote when she was 21 months old:

Yesterday morning I woke to the feel of something cool and almost slimy rubbing the bottom of my foot. Sophie said "Hi Mama!" She was happily rubbing deodorant on me. It wasn't even 6 am yet. . . Later, Sophie dragged a chair to the kitchen counter while I was changing Willow. She picked the counter area with the toaster. Lexy's Lord of the Rings cards were also on the counter. Yes. She toasted Legolas and almost started a fire.

I think that, pretty much, we are who we are. Some of us so much so that people paying attention can tell what we're going to be like before we're even here to show them.

Happy Birthday, Soph. You are never boring, you impress the hell out of me every day, and I have no idea how I will survive you being a teenager. You're your own boss, as you like to remind me (and uh, your church & school teachers and the school principal, and the uninitiated adult who tries to tell you what to do) and I love that about you. In many ways, I want to be more like you, and I hope you never lose your sass, even when I'm cussing under my breath because it's directed at me.

Happy birthday, baby.

Antie Jen (that's me)

Jenijen — Mon, 25 May 2009 10:36:57 -0700

Max is a sweet, sweet baby. He's content and likes to be outdoors. At six weeks (but born a couple weeks on the early side) he was already struggling to hold his head up while the adults around him said things like, Well that's a huuuge noggin. That's a virtual planetoid.

Max is a lucky guy. His parents don't seem like they've never done this before. The whole time I was there, there wasn't any stress at all. I know that they are putting a huge amount of effort into caring for him, but they do it so gracefully and cheerfully that it seems like he's their fifth kid. Even after a night of being up every two hours.

It's been a forever six years ago since I had a baby. Now she has a couple of grown up teeth and mutters damnit under her breath when we run out of mini marshmallows. Max is so teensy; he still spends his awake time stretching his limbs like he's underwater, studying faces, sticking out his tongue.

Part of my intention on this trip was to let my brother and his wife get out for a dinner alone, or a movie or something. The first 24 hours I was there, so was my mom, finishing up the last of her weeklong trip. Even though we live less than a mile apart, I hardly ever get to see my mom without my kids around, so it was nice to have a quiet visit. Mostly we just took turns holding the baby and talking about how cute he is and about how much I barfed when I was tiny. She took us all out to dinner at this swank neighborhood cafe close enough to walk to. We timed our outing around Max's nursing schedule, and as we started down the sidewalk I remembered how much I liked being on that stripped-down newborn schedule: a two hour loop of nursing and rocking, burping, changing, napping, that goes on for weeks.

Max came along the next night to a ten table sushi restaurant, and the next afternoon to a barbecue. Portland was gorgeous, all flowers and sun, and it stays light a little later up there.

My brother asked me what I'd like to be called. When we were little (and still) we didn't ever use the word Auntie. It was always Aunt. We leave out the U sound, though, and say it Ant. So now, when Max is six and his parents are wondering how the time went by so fast when so many of the days felt so long, he'll be calling that lady in California who likes to spoil him Antie Jen.