Is this thing on?

I got two drive-by pregnancy announcements in the past month, and even though we're not in the trenches of trying or anything (which is a topic for another day) I felt blindsided. After all this time, I guess the pang of jealousy over seemingly easy conceptions and neatly spaced children hasn't gone away. Though apparently, J's tact about such things has -- he relayed one piece of news without any preamble in the midst of the evening getting-home-from-school chaos and I had to excuse myself to the other room to just process it alone for a minute. And then I just felt lonely, since I couldn't run to my computer and blog it all out and hear a chorus of support, and then I thought "hey, why not?" So here I am. Though I expect there's not much chorus to speak of anymore. And I have no idea what I'm doing here anymore, or where this will go. But here I am, for now, anyway. Ambivalent much?

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And because it feels wrong not to play catch up a bit:

M&B are 3. (Three and a quarter if they were older and counted in quarters, but M is in the phase of shyly holding up 3 fingers when asked her age so we'll go with that.) They are rambunctious and feisty and sweet and fabulous and fascinating. A couple of months ago, one of the kids got a fortune from a very wise cookie that said "You are a bundle of energy, always on the go" which is perhaps the most spot on fortune I've ever seen. They also snuggle and cuddle and generally melt my heart in the very best ways.

J is deep into the career shift process, which means he's gone back to school and might at some point try for an entry level position in his new field of choice. Hopefully soon. Which is wonderful, of course, but also tense and tenuous. I'm a planner, and this level of unknown makes me anxious on so many levels.

Plus, I am back from the land of the employed to the land of the (theoretically) dissertating, though so far I've been spending time organizing my household chaos, and lounging about, and feeling generally unproductive.

And those are just the highlights. Wasn't that fun?

Cass and the Terrible Awful No-Good Except-for-that-One-Shining Moment Day

Edited to add: I tried to post this last night, and just as I was finishing up, the battery on my laptop died. It's supposed to give me a 2 minute warning, so I can walk the ten feet to the plug, but apparently not. Went with the rest of the day, I suppose. So, this is yesterday's thoughtstream. Let's see how things go today...

I was looking forward to today, to watching the door open on a new era. To watching the door close, none too gently, on the last 8 years. But life happens, and today was just one of those sucky days. And now I'm just waiting for the *&$^@% day to be over. And that pisses me off.

Item the first. Somehow we forgot about the whole time-difference, East-coast/West-coast thing, and so my answer to "Where were you when Obama became President?" is "I don't know. Maybe changing a diaper? Probably poopy." Bah. When I realized, I sat down and cried. I know in the grand scheme of life, it's not a huge deal, but I really wanted to pause for a minute and just watch. And instead I. Missed. It. And the news coverage seemed lame in comparison.

Item the second. Sick kids. Feeling well enough to be bouncing off the walls and driving me bonkers, but M had a fever last night and school rules are 24 hours fever-free, so... (I do sometimes take one kid and keep one home, but B seemed a bit under, and we just decided to keep them both home.) J was going to stay home with them, and I was set to go to work when..

Item the third. Disaster on the computing front. Catastrophic issue with all the websites we run (several, including one that's the public information for a community group in the midst of a fundraising campaign, like, NOW). So, J got sucked into rebuilding the site and the donation form, and also little things like recreating our email addresses. Good times. Also time-consuming times, so I ended up taking a sick day.

Item the fourth. Good news, this one - my neighbor just had a baby. This morning. She was scheduled to be induced today, but her water broke in the middle of the night and they had a baby before we had a new president, even once you adjust the time zones. Sounds crazy fast to me, but what do I know? Bummer part of this is that I had grand plans for organizing meals for them, and balloons for when they come home, and I just can't get anything else together right now. Not a major issue, just one more thing.

Item the fifth. Did I mention the catastrophic computer failure was not our fault and totally avoidable? Yeah. We've had great experiences with our web hosting company until this blip, but it's not a minor blip. One of the sites? Our (family) baby blog and all of the pictures of the kids we've ever posted. The pictures themselves are backed up, but I'm not sure what it'll take to get them online again. Reminds me that I don't love having everything digital and really need to make printed albums for the kids. How else am I going to pull out their embarrassing naked baby pictures to show their prom dates?

Item the sixth. I don't even understand my numbering scheme here.

7. My kids nap fine at school, but they will not nap in their beds (mattresses on the floor) at home. It worked for about a week but now? No. Today after we gave up on bedroom napping, I took them for a drive to get them to sleep, then parked in the driveway

I just realized it's well after midnight, even on west coast time, so I'm going to put this *&^#%@$ day to rest now. I'm hoping tomorrow is the day I can revel in the hope and optimism that seemed to be the focus of all the Facebook status updates today.

various and sundry

I have a bunch of muckity muck floating around in my head - the typical 2.5 year old twin chaos, sleep suckage, behavior (theirs and mine) and much more - but it's been a while, and I don't want to launch right in to the suckfest as if that's all there is. So instead, I bring you the following:

• Both kids, but especially M, sometimes say they don't like Daddy because he has a beard. And they like me because I don't. Sometimes they LIKE the beard, though.
  
• Also, the thing over his lip is called a "mus-lip"
  
• M calls bicycles "bike-a-cils"
• M has started asking questions, with a slight up-lilt at the end

Back to school today after two weeks of vacation, including a trip to snowed-in Seattle, a dearth of naps, and a mouse in the house. I've never been so excited for a vacation to end.

Day in the Life

I thought things were going so well when the kiddos slept until after 7:00 - new time - and then had a good morning before heading out for bagels and errands. Things went downhill from there:

1. The people at the next table at the bagel place were, apparently, evangelical anti-choicers. And vocal. And then they paused to pray for a while. Out loud. There's more, but I'll spare you all.

2. We tried to go do early voting because we like to vote together and bring the kids, but the line was about 4 hours long. Seriously. So we'll squeeze it in on Tuesday, separately and without the kids. I was both excited to think about all of those people who wanted to vote so much that they'd stand there for 4 hours and afraid for the people who found that overwhelming. I'm actually really terrified about this election. It's not so much the national stuff, but there are a couple of statewide initiatives that are really close.

3. I don't know if it's the time change or what, but the kiddos did not nap. At all.

4. J is swamped with school and some community projects, and it's like he's trying to do two full time jobs at once.

It's not all bad, of course. It's just easier to vent than to rave.

Conundrum

If while conducting a search for a summer nanny for your toddler twins, you discover (through the first link on a simple Google search that even your grandmother could have done) that one prospective candidate has been featured on a website featuring shots of sorority girls on display for frat boys to oogle, but said candidate would otherwise be a potential match, do you:

a) ignore the soft-porn, and interview anyway
b) politely inform the student that she might want to rethink such ventures in the future
c) eat a pint of ice cream and bemoan your post-twin flab (and really, your pre-twin flab, too)
d) browse the past archives of the site to see if she's featured in her undies, in a faux-lesbian encounter, or just in a bikini on the beach (all of which seem to be frequent settings).

While I was never the sorority type (I went to a school that didn't officially have any, though really we did), lots of woman are in sororities, and apparently some of them submit pictures of themselves in various stages of undress (apparently, pictures of sorority girls peeing are a hot thing - who knew?). So am I just insecure because she's a college student with a hot body and I'm, well, not? (For comparison, our last fabulous sitter was a college student with a nice very-round body. Which is, of course, not why we hired her.) Why is this bugging me?

And what is this post going to do to my google search results?