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| September 2006 »
I got the worst haircut on the planet today. That is what I get for paying $20 for a haircut. I usually get my hair cut once a year, in October. Since I only do it once a year, I usually spend a lot, figuring that I only do it once a year. This year, though, I didn't want to spend the $60 or whatever for the expensive hair lady. I am paying for it. My hair was huge, like to the middle of my back and has been fading to the color of strawberry vitamin water. It has been on top of my head like a dairy queen cone all summer. It has also been wet all summer. I don't dare blow dry my over bleached locks. I figured I would get it cut, then pick a new color for fall and off I will go into green hair land or blue or purple. But this hair cut is so bad that I don't even want to look at it. I asked for shorter and messy. I got that. Just too short and not messy in the right way. Ugh. Oh well, maybe the new color will make it better.
Some recent pictures of the girls:
Girls playing in the cabinet. Don't worry, it is their cabinet. This one is blurry because it is getting harder to catch them. Ani in the orange, Rachi in the back. Both are crazy about wearing necklaces, but Ani likes hers to be long enough to go under her arm as seen in the picture.
Matching jammies made by grandma. Ani is the one with the teeth:
Jessica sent me all the stickers in the world. I have to get a picture of them all. THe best part is that most of them are PETA stickers. I love that the girls go to school with NO FUR stickers on their arms. There was also a page of rat stickers. One of which is now stuck on our kitchen floor and makes me laugh.
I stood in the kitchen yesterday, looking out the solarium windows over the park and thought, this is my new work space. No more offices, no more desk near the printer. No more sitting and waiting for emails to tell me what to do all day.
I am a speeding train. Speeding speeding toward a new destination. Each day, I get closer to being a full time mom and I am having a hard time believing it will really happen. I met with the other twin mom who will be taking my job, her old job, back and it is strange because she is leaving where I am going. She knows my future and I know hers. I know her future of working fuill time and taking care of twins and feeling like you aren't doing a very good job with either. I always felt like I was just getting by. Not the best employee, not the best mom. And she knows my future of being home alone with twins.
I saw a little boy on the plaground this morning. One of the girls' friends who just transitioned out of the baby room. He was sitting there, surrounded by other kids playing and he looked so afraid and alone. I know that you can't keep your kids happy all the time, but seeing him sitting there made me realize that I made the right choice to stay home. I want to be there when they feel so lost.
I have been thinking a lot about how I will manage my days, my time, the girls, the mess, my 3 hours of paid work each day, making stuff, etc. It would be really easy to get stressed out about these things. But I won't. I will try not to. Instead, I have decided, my first job will be the girls. Keeping them safe and happy and interested in new things. This is my new job. All the rest will fall into place once the tiny girls are cared for. I will not sit on the couch while they play, I will not turn on the TV. I will sit on the floor and crawl around with them and schedule our days for outside time and visiting other people and places time. And I will not let myself fall into a depressed, it's 3pm and I am still wearing my jammies state. I will be proactive and my army of clones will be charming. This is what I am telling myself when I slip into worrying. I tell myself, you are hella lucky to be home with your children. You are the luckiest girl in the world. You hit the baby lottery and now you get to raise them. And there will be no depression and there will be no stress and there will be no fear.
This is my new work space.
Ok. There are actual pandas on the zoo's panda cam:
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/GiantPandas/
But no people yet, so not sure if this is good or bad. I spent so much time watching people on the octopus cam that I actually miss the people.
There are about a dozon other cams on their website:
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/default.cfm
If anyone can get a screen shot of the damn octopus on the cam, that would be rad, though.
Emily's comment about the octopus cam made me think about how we should have a camera in every city in the world. A web cam, where anyone on the internet can see life happening somewhere else. I think that the show Sunrise Earth should do this, too. They should set up cameras on city corners to capture the sunrise and the people_life and not just cows waking up to eat grass.
Emily is in London and she and I were talking about place the other day. I think of the Thames often, so I asked her to go there and think of me and see if I felt transported somehow. It didn't work the way I thought it would, but it was still a cool experiment. I loved that someone half a world away was thinking of me at one of my favorite places. But what if there was a camera set up in every city? And I could say, Emily, go to the camera at 1pm my time and I will watch for you.
Anyway, this damn octo cam. I was just watching and saw some people pointing to the corner of the tank that I can't see. They are seeing the octopus! I am so mad. I need a pet octopus so I can see him all the time.
In emails with my brother today, I found out that my blog comments have been broken all month. I just thought everyone was on vacation or not interested.
Now I know that some of you are seeing that octopus!
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/Invertebrates/
I am jealous. I just see fat guys and little kids looking in at me. I feel like maybe I am the octopus.
Anyway, comments are all better now and I think I retrieved ones that you left in the past few weeks.
The bus ride to Paula's house is a good 27 minutes. Maybe a little less.
At first it is lonely. I look around and no one needs me to pick them up. I laugh out loud at this visual. No one cares about me and it is sad, but still interesting. Before I had kids, I never would have been lonely on a bus. I think of my brother, 3,000 miles away. He is in an office all alone again and I can feel his loneliness. I can hear it jump from the screen of his email that starts, "Hey sister."
Our sister's house has a ghost. At least one. There might be two. I wonder if she can lend one to our brother. How do you mail a ghost? I was thinking of faxes this morning. No one faxes anymore, but think about how 100 years ago, it would have seemed like magic. Like real magic. Like evil. And now, faxes are quaint. I will invent a ghost fax machine and I will fax my brother one of my sister's ghosts. And the ghost will keep him company during his long days at work, all alone.
Why do we all sit at desks all day? Some day we will be ghosts, so let's live now before we can't anymore. Let's take the bus to a friend's house and knit a scarf and eat strawberries. Let's ride the bus and think of the beauty of the lonely.
Saturday was my 33rd birthday and I was a brat all day. We took the girls to the zoo super early and there weren't any animals out. Rachi was way more interested in the people, anyway. We did see the giant turtle and some Golden Lion Tamarans, so I guess it wasn't a wash.
But yeah, I was a cranky brat all day and I am sorry for that. I already told Jeff I was sorry, but it bares repeating.
Sunday, I met up with our super rad Craft Mutiny! group. It was nice to take the bus somewhere all alone and get out of the house of tiny girls. It was also nice to meet with other crafty gals and talk about postcards and websites and crap. We are all gearing up for the Crafty Bastards show on October 1.
I have still been losing and gaining the same 6 pounds, which is sad. I think the answer is to not let things like no sleep and cranky babies get me down. I also need to keep my hands busy with things other than food. This week has been good so far. I rekindled my love affair with Subway yesterday. 6 inch Grilled Chicken on wheat. Yum and only 7 points. It is only Tuesday, so we will see where the week takes me.
Did you know that the national zoo has an octopus cam?
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/Invertebrates/
How did I not know this? Been checking on and off and have not spotted an octopus yet, though.
Mr. Archie came home from his surgery last night looking like a Frankenstein dog. Ugh, his underside is really gross. I was busy checking out and paying the bill for his bladder surgery when I looked over to see that they had brought him out for me. He looked so tiny and fraile, like a little old man. Like a puppy grandpa. It was sad. Sometimes I feel like the stress of the babies makes it hard for me to relate to or feel for Archie anymore. But in that instant, I was HIS mommy again. And the past 9 years of being his mommy came floodding back to me.
Last night, holding a cold compress to his brusied and bloody tummy, Jeff and I wondered if getting the surgery was the right thing to do. He is just in so much pain. But this morning, he looks better and I feel that he will look better everyday from now on. At least I hope so. The alternative would have been to put him down. But I think we made the right choice. He is 9 and if this surgery works, I bet he will live another 5 years or so. At least that is my hope.
These past few days have been a whirlwind of spotty girls and doggy bladder stones. Archie actually has a stone that fills up 75% of his bladder, so now we know why he has been peeing in the house. Finally. All they had to do was an xray to see this monster.
Dropped him off for yet another surgery this morning. This time, they will cut open his tummy and remove his bladder stone. Poor guy. Poor us on the price tag, too. Not to mention poor us having to take care of a post operation dog and twins. Hopefully the old man will bounce back fast. If it is anything like when I got my c-section, I am a little concerned for him.
The spotty girls are all better now after a measles scare. It wasn't the measles, but it was still a mess of cranky rashy babies that lasted all weekend long, dragging into yesterday since they weren't allowed back to school until they had a doctor's note. In the girls' last two weeks of daycare, I feel a little like they are glad to see them go. I know this isn't true, but it feels that way. The girls have had to stay in the baby room about 2 weeks extra, so I am sure the teachers are looking forward to getting new babies and sending my toddlers packing.
Girls. I love their summer feet. So tiny and bare. They haven't worn shoes all summer long. Mostly because their feet are still too small to wear even size 6 month shoes. Most of the shoes we own just fall right off of them. I fear they will be adults with tiny baby feet. I wonder wonder when they will grow grow. Tiny summer feet must make way for fall feet. I try and try, but off the shoes come. The girls have no idea that in a mere two weeks they will be entering a new world. Long days of being with mommy and wearing shoes. Goodbye tiny summer feet.
For a long time, I have been trying to get friends to draw stuff for me. When it comes to drawing, I am so bad. One of my dreams was to have someone create a line of clip art just for me. I would tell them, "Hey, I need a stressed out octopus." And they would draw it, knowing exactly what I meant. Well, it has happened and I am sooo excited!
My friend Susan and her husband, Scott were visiting us last month while in DC on vacation and during a chance turn in conversation, I found out that Scott liked to draw. Mostly realistic stuff, he said. "Scott's going to do my clip art," I thought. I just had to ask and hope that he would say yes. And he did and I am so excited. The first piece that he tackled for me was the stressed out octopus and I was so excited about it that I came home and immediately silk screened him on some greeting cards.
What's so great about this is that Scott got it just right. I found a font for the text to match and whoohoo! This opened up a whole new world for this girl who can't draw. These will go up in the shop later tonight.
Here is a sneak peek of what I have been working on:
This new t-shirt design is going to be printed on yellow American Apparel girly shirts. I am taking pre-orders (but no prepaying!) for this. If you want one, just email me your size/style/color preference. They will be yellow American Apparel and any color Hanes unisex. These will be printed in September and ship September 15th. Oh, the shirt says "I take every corner like a dance floor."
Here is my newest refrigerator magnet:
It is also the cover of the blog book that I am getting printed next month. The book is being edited by my oldest friend, Lisa. She is not old, I have just known her for forever. It will collect some of my favorite posts and will be a nice thing to give to a mom expecting twins or maybe someone who doesn't even want kids. I sound like Al Franken ("It will make a great gift!"). Anyway. more on that later.
I am also working on one other crafty project tonight. Photos of that later.
Last night, Anya's screams of pain over her ear infection were like nothing I had ever heard before. She was in so much pain, that she didn't want to be held. We almost took her to the hospital. Instead, I took her to the bedroom and put her next to me in bed. I sang her this song, "Anya is my bestest friend. She will soon feel better again." I sang this over and over again while rubbing her tummy, I knew her tummy didn't hurt, but thought it might be soothing. This reminded me of when I was little and had "growing pains" and my dad would rub my legs while I was in hysterical pain.
Eventually the Tylenol kicked in and she fell asleep. It was crazy because she woke up the happiest person I have ever met. We played patty cake and clapped and clapped. I love her ability to bounce back.
Lately, I have been more Rachi's mommy than Anya's and this makes me sad because it needs to be more equal, but is hard. Being a mom of twins is all about having two children clamoring for your attention. And I feel like I always have to put someone down to rescue someone else. I hate this and need to see it more from their eyes. I need to remember to be more careful running from one child to the other. Rachi is very good at making sure she gets her mommy time, while I will often find Anya off to the side, playing all by herself. She often sings to herself while she plays, it is so sweet.
These are things I need to remember while in the trenches. These are things I need to work on when I am home with them.
People from the past have been showing up lately. Some of it has been Jeff's doing with his crazy Myspacing. But others have to do with my blog. I am easy to find on the web because of it. Is this happening to you, too? How do you feel about it?
It started a few months ago when my best friend from 1st grade emailed me. I think she might have found me on classmates.com or something. But what a lovely surprise. We shared all these memories of our 6 year old selves. I loved that she remembered things that I didn't and vice versa. We used to make these tapes, like radio shows. And I would use this weird voice and said I was the Tiddy Bowl Man. It is a disturbing memory, really. Cindy was my first best friend. We shared all of this time together, singing in her big bedroom. I remember the way the light came through her window and how we loved this song by Roseanne Cash. Then one day, she moved away and was lost forever. She made me think about how, as a mom, I will have to make these kinds of decisions for my girls. I mean, right now I am taking them out of daycare and they can't vote on whether or not they get to stay. Will they miss their friends? Probably not yet, but what about in the future? I thought having infants was hard. I think navigating the politics of friendship for twin six years will be even more difficult.
So the internet is delivering my past to me. Within the course of a week, I have spoken to both an exboyfriend from college and a close friend from high school. Both relationships ended on poor terms, but with time all of that craziness has seemed to evaporate. I love this. I love reknowing people. I always miss people who leave my life. Mostly because I tend to either become very close with someone or not close at all. I am an all or nothing kind of friend. And as I get older, I seem to find comfort in people who knew me when I was younger. I wonder what this is about. It is so interesting to talk to someone you haven't seen in 14 years because you know this former them and if the friendship was close, then you know the core them. But then they have this time that you dont' know about. It is almost like Dr. Who. I know the Doctor. I have watched like 30 years of Dr. Who. But I don't know all the inbetween stories. I don't know about the Time War, ya know? I can just see how it has changed him. I know this is a fictional character, but really this is what this is like. I know these people and who they used to be, but am intersted to see who they became. And how they got there on the way.
This makes me think about this dream that I had where I found a time machine and decided I would go back in time and get actors in the past to come here and box office battle their current selves. Like John Cusak from 1989 came back, made a movie and it was box office gold. Meanwhile the current oldish John Cusak is suffering and is like, "oh crap." I would want to do this for lots of actors. Like dead ones, too. Like Jack Lemon. Is it just me, or would we leave Johnny Depp in the past and keep the current version?
To this, Jeff says, "That is the worst use of a time machine I have ever heard of." This makes me laugh and laugh.
No one wanted to sleep last night. Rachi has an ear infection, so the poor lady cried all night long. We tried to keep her sauced up with infant Motrin, but it just kept wearing off.
All the Rachi crying made Anya wake up. And she was wide awake from about 2 until 4 am. During this time, she decided it would be fun to sing. "Da da da da da," she sung. Then it turned into "Tatata tata toooo" while pulling at my PJs to look at my tattoo. Her voice was the sweetest I have ever heard, but I would have rather been asleep.
Then she ate all the milk in the world, about 12 ounces and played on the floor while I denyed Myspace friend requests from strippers and metal bands. Finally she was asleep a little after 4.
We are completely done with formula and I am so glad. I estimate that we have spent around $2,500 on formula in the past year, maybe more. I am glad the transition to milk has been easy. I worry about milk, though. Hey, healthy people, should I be worried about milk? I am wondering if we should be feeding them soy milk rather than whole cow's milk? I should have done this research before the switch, but I am tired and sick of spending $10 a day on formula.
We got some gift cards for the girls' birthday and are thinking of trading our front to back stroller for one of those side to side jogging strollers, but they are quite expensive. I keep thinking that 3 weeks from now I will be free and I will want a nice new stroller to push them around the city in. Something sleek and easy to control where they can sit next to each other and tell each other secrets once they learn to talk more.
Jeff sometimes asks me if I am sure that I made the right decision to stay home. He usually does this in the chaos of trying to get them out of the house in the morning or while I am chasing everyone around the house. I usually think, "yes" I have made the right decision for THEM. I won't know for some time whether or not I made the right decision for me. I do know that I am excited for the change and the new experiences. I am also excited to become a better mom. I feel like going to work lets me become disconnected from the girls. I get to stop being a mom for a bunch of hours a day and I think I would like to see what it is like to not feel that disconnect everyday. I think is going to make me more complete somehow.
We are going to take the girls to their first movie on Saturday night. The CityPaper is showing Pee Wee's Big Adventure outside on a big screen right behind our apartment. I hope the girls dig it. Check their website for information if you wanna go. It is free!
Saturday, August 5th! @ Marie Reed Learning Center in Adams Morgan
Bike in Movie @ 8pm (for everyone)
Washington City Paper and Washington Area Bicyclist Association invite you to a bike-tastic summer event! Single? Join Washington City Paper Matches at 5:30pm at the Marie Reed Learning Center Plaza for a leisurely ride through Rock Creek Park. The ride finishes back at the Marie Reed field for a public "BIG ADVENTURE" of a movie showing at 8pm
I keep thinking that I am on the brink of some kind of weight loss. That one more day of walking miles in this 105 degree heat is going to push my body to this place where I drop pounds, but then I weigh myself and see 253 and know that I am kidding myself. Last week was great. I dropped 3 pounds and felt that terrible hungry feeling all week. Usually a real weight loss journey begins this way. Hungry for days and then your body gets used to less food.
I need to take my own advice and remember that this is about food, not about exercise. But I am not ready to take this advice yet.
This morning, lumbering to work like a giant panda, I thought about the fact that at least I am 60 pounds less than the day I gave birth. This is of some comfort. Then I thought about how fat people talking about being fat and not getting their asses into gear is tiresome.
The first time I lost the weight, I made many friends on the street because people would watch me shrink over months. I also took note of one guy whose daily route was similar to mine. He, too, was shrinking. I always wanted to talk to him. Encourage him. But he was doing fine on his own and didn’t need me to be one of those people who walk up to you on the street to discuss your body. I knew enough of those people. I saw him this morning. And sadly, I have to say that he has gained weight. He looked like he has gained weight, but hasn’t bought any new clothes. So he is stuffing himself into his old new clothes. I wondered what happened to him to make him take this turn. It isn’t like he got pregnant with twins, I tell myself. To this, I realize that it was a year ago that I gave birth and I am in the same place that I was the day I got home from the hospital. So I don’t really have this as an excuse anymore either. There must be a statute of limitations on this excuse. I say one year is more than fair.
So screw excuses. I don’t want to hear them anymore. It is time to drop these pounds. It is time to find myself under here again. I am an archeologist and I have some bones to unearth.
For the 3rd year in a row, I will be selling my stuff at the Washington CityPaper's Crafty Bastards Arts Fair. I am super excited. OK that is an understatement. I have known for over a week and was hoping to make 2 new items per day until the fair. The first few days, I did silkscreen a whole new batch of clone shirts, so I have done something. But the quota of two items a day just isn't happening. This is a big day for me because I get to meet so many nice new people and sell so much stuff. I love the planning and crazy energy that go into the weeks before the fair. I love the excitement, but I hate the fear that I won't have enough cool stuff!
Now that I think about it, I realize that I have gotten some stuff done. Said tshirts, sent my little blog book to the editor, designed the cover as well as some postcards and a new refrigerator magnet. But it just doesn't seem like enough to have done in the past 10 days. I feel like I need to put up a giant calendar and fill in the days with a list of the things that I have completed. We used to do something like this when we had a zine. The page layout would go up on the wall and we would cross of pages when they were done. I used to stay up all night long to finish it. I miss being able to stay up all night long and work on a project. I am just too old and tired now. I laughed as I wrote that because I don't feel old at all. I was wondering today when I would feel old. And do old people "feel" old. It is just their shell that is old, really.
Jeff and I are also doing the Philly Zine Fest the weekend before Crafty Bastards, so that is one more weekend without time to get anything done. Poop! I actually think I might have to re-evaluate my line of items because the girls just won't let me make jewelry. They always want the beads and the ninjas and the bait. They love the bait. But it ends up in their mouths, which is kinda funny, but not safe. I have found that a sheet of stickers will keep them busy long enough for me to make a necklace, but that is getting costly!
I am going to get one of my shirt designs printed professionally on American Apparel girl fit Ts (and maybe some boy shirts, too). I think it might be a brand new design, actually. If you have any sugguestions as to which design it should be, email me.
So, 59 days to go. I will start posting pictures of what I get done each day... maybe that will help!
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