Hating this Weather

Holy cats it's humid today.
Humid like, "Wow, I'm thirsty. I think I'll go outside and take a deep breath."
Humid like, "Walking around with this wet wool over my face seemed like a great idea!"

I had to speak (briefly) to the idiot step mother when she came to pick Bean up for an appointment. (I know! But when the Ex promises something it's best to just pretend he didn't say anything at all. I think he means well...) Anyway, I was polite but didn't really look at her... just kept typing. There is no point in engaging in some kind of conversation with her. All she does is lie and manipulate and I'm not interested in either of those things.

Apparently she told Bean that she is embarrassed for being "not very nice" to me on the phone.
Good. She should be.
She is someone I don't like and don't want to have any contact with at all... but I speak to her respectfully and appropriately and I expect the same thing in return.

Oh... and punchline #2? They took Bean to the dentist Monday and the dentist told them that they needed to go forward with phase 2 as soon as possible and that it was a good thing we had started as early as we did. She said they were thinking of waiting a year and he said not to wait that long.
Ha.
I know that she (and probably the ex) thinks that I just do things on a whim and don't put any thought into anything, but I do my research and I try to make decisions based on what is best for everyone involved. You know, like a grownup. My insistence that they take care of Bean's braces now wasn't me being a bitch and wanting to get my own way... it was because Bean really has some dental issues that need to be taken care of now.

Now, the fact that the idiot step mother was such a cow about this whole thing and I am getting exactly what I wanted anyway makes me sort of happy... but I will try to control my glee, lest Karma smack me with something nasty.

I Would be Happy Forever if...

... Fig Newtons (and Strawberry Newtons) were HFCS free. And also Oreos. Because Oreos will kill you. But I think that's the saturated fat thing... so none of that either.

... I could have my current brain implanted in my body from high school.

... Someone would pay me to knit and read and watch TV and sleep. (Especially the sleep part).

... Chocolate really was a food group.

... There was such a thing as "sex leave" from work. You know, like vacation and sick days, only with lots of sex.

... I could drink water all day and only have to pee ONCE!!

... There really was a "smart" pill that you could hand out. This would be especially good in large-crowd situations. And also at work.

... I had a maid. But one who wouldn't judge me when she found all of the fast-food wrappers and empty Ben and Jerry's pints. And who also wouldn't go all snoopy in my "adult" drawer.

... I had a cook. So I could avoid the fast food... but probably not the Ben and Jerry's.

... I could do that "Bewitched" nose-thing. I think that would be handy. Then maybe I wouldn't need the maid or the cook.

... I could take all of my friends on a tropical vacation. But without sunburns, sand in your swimsuit, jellyfish stings, or that thing that happened to Charlotte. You know.

... Smoking wasn't bad for you. And also, while we're on that subject, make pot legal too.

Drudgery

Ugh.
Today has been one long session of itty-bitty nitpicky whiny things that needed to be fixed on the announcer logs.
I started my day with a TWO HOUR meeting with the most whiny and nitpicky announcer, and moved on from there. I am nowhere close to being done with this... and with the program that we use, if you want to make a teeny-tiny change it requires eleventy-billion steps and takes ten minutes.

Andie (who is my best friend, but also my boss) sat in on the meeting... I think to make sure I wasn't openly hostile to the announcer. He apparently kept telling her about all of these "problems" with the log - but would never tell me. When we all sat down together he could only think of five of them... three of which he and I had already talked about. One was fixed already, one doesn't have a solution and one is something I need GM clearance to take away. The other two things took almost the entire 2 hours.

Then came the GM's demands and the underwriter guy's demands... and they don't actually understand the program well enough to know what they want and why I can't give it to them. AND they weren't even PRESENT for this meeting. They sent their demands through Andie.

I don't mind making log changes... I really don't. But I hate hate hate when changes are demanded that can't be done. And I hate hate hate that nobody understands that NOTHING with this system is a quick and easy fix.

Then Andie and I went to lunch.

Now I am sitting at my desk with my iPod on full blast, working away... It's a nice change, actually. The last few weeks of not having anything at all to do was making me crazy!

And this kind of work means that everyone will just go away and leave me alone!!

Interlude...

In which your NapLover will try to keep things light-hearted and breezy... just for a change of pace.

So I have started a Super Secret knitting project. Despite my assertion that this is my year of selfish knitting, I am working on a large project for someone special. As of last night I am about 20% done... more or less. Of course, I have only knitted one pair of socks for myself since January... my knitting mojo has been off. There are quite a few projects in the works... all for other people.

Apparently I have not yet figured out how to be truly selfish in my knitting. That's not such a bad thing.

So this week Bean is with her dad and I am on my own. Not such a bad arrangement, really, despite the fact that "Bean is with her dad" really means that Bean is with the idiot step-mother. The ex and I have been talking on a semi-regular basis, though... mostly logistics and kid stuff, but it is so much easier dealing with him right now.

She is supposed to come home on Thursday. Friday is the release party for the new Stephanie Meyer book. I'm SO EXCITED!!! Bean is having Lara's two older girls come with us and then we're going to grandma's for a midnight swim and slumber party. Woo hoo!!
Bean also came up with an idea for t-shirts... Mine will say "I like my men hot, live and furry" (as I have sided with Jacob) and hers will say "I like my men cold, dead and sparkly" (as she is an Edward fan). I know that she is going to pick Edward... I mean, there is a lot to be said for sweet and solid and stable (and furry) but Edward is the one she is passionate about.

You always go back to the guy who turns your knees to jelly.

I also bought her hair some color today... she wants to be RED!! I resisted all last year, but she is in middle-school this year and I thought, "What the hell?" I was pretty close to her age the first time I went red... My brother was born a redhead, and I was like, "Hey I want that!"
So red she will be.

Oh Baby

Babies have always been a tricky topic for me.

I was a little mommy from the start... there are pictures of me before I was out of diapers trying to mother something.
I always knew that I would be a mother. Always. I was never entirely sold on being someone's wife, but there was always someone in my future who would call me Mom. (Or, more recently, mo-THER).

I was pregnant at 17, and knew about it for two full weeks before I told anyone at all... and then I miscarried. It was terrifying - all of it. Knowing that it was the wrong time and the way-wrong guy and then the pain and the blood and the depression that followed. Bad depression. Scary bad. And once I came out of it, babies and baby-related stuff was not safe for me to be around. Baby powder scent could send me into a very dark place, let alone the curl of a chubby fist around my finger.

Then I was pregnant again at 20 and it was the wrong time (and a different but equally way-wrong guy) and when I started to cramp and bleed again at 9 weeks, something in me broke loose. This baby was mine and these changes in my life were going to move forward. I didn't lose that baby... the sonogram I had in the ER that night showed just this tiny, kidney bean-shaped flicker. That flicker was important because it meant that Bean was alive in there... and she stayed put. Good kid from the start. I married him (of course I married him) and we were too young and too stupid to breathe, but initially at least we tried to build a replica of a family.

We tried for another baby just after her first birthday and... nothing. But we were 22 and there was time... still, after a decade of safe sex talks where just one slip leads to a pregnancy it was strange to not be pregnant after 6 months of no birth control.

Then he went to Korea and then our marriage fell apart and then I was single for a long time... so the whole baby thing went on the back burner. I was fully functional around babies and baby-related things. I could walk past the baby section in Wal Mart without a passing thought. I could gather around my pregnant friends and talk about labor and delivery for hours... and it was all fine.

Except that one little thing. That knowledge that there were issues with my fertility... the PCOS which turned my 30's into "the barren zone." Lots of women with PCOS have babies with varying degrees of medical intervention... but there was this tiny worry in the back of my mind that if I waited too long there might not be anymore chances for me.

Enter Bartleby... in the Pre-Bartleby days. Back when he was just Jeff. The first time he talked about marriage I brushed him off. The second time I said, "You don't want to marry me," and wouldn't say anything more. The third time he mentioned marriage and having more kids and I told him I wasn't sure that I could have more kids... and he said that wasn't important. Except that it was. It was really important to me.

Six months before we got married we were already talking to doctors and making plans. I was charting and could tell you on any given day what "cycle day" it was and we were excited. About a month after we got married we met with the fertility specialist who seemed certain that we would have a baby within the year. I bought a car seat. I submitted to their rounds of testing and chemical alteration. I kept a log. I peed on sticks. I ferried specimens from the house to their office. I spread my legs for every intern on the east side of town.
My sister got pregnant.
I found internet groups... women just like me. I learned to drink Robitussin as though it were the elixir of life. I rubbed walnut oil into the small of my back. I did "fertility yoga." I fed him Red Bull an hour before sex. I stayed in bed with my ass in the air for 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour at a time. I had more tests. Peed on more sticks.
He lost interest, I became more focused. Obsessed with the mythical baby.
My sister got pregnant again.
His dad got sick.
I threw away my fertility books and my months and months and months of logs and tried to give up.
I went back to school.

But the baby section of the store was no longer safe for me... and when a girl at work announced her pregnancy I had to leave for the day.

When Jeff's dad got really sick I went back on the pill and started taking anti-depressants. I knew what was coming... OK, I thought I knew what was coming... and I knew that pregnant and not medicated were not places I wanted to be when the shit hit the fan.
You all know, when the shit came it started out a normal shit and then became a torrential downpour. Of shit. That didn't stop.
As things got worse and worse with him - as he became Bartleby - I was so grateful that there was no baby. Nothing tying me permanently to him, no toddler to shield from the shitstorm.

And I said, "My baby days are over." I've been saying that for a while... but still at the store I stay away from the baby aisle. I was afraid that those were just words and that at any minute that baby-lust could blindside me again.

The other day I bought some baby things for my friend Lia, who is due to pop any second now. I felt that automatic anxiety start, and I put the defenses up... but there wasn't anything there to defend.
I am really done.
After a lifetime of mixed emotions and secret baby-yearning and all of the crap that goes along with it... I am finished with that want.

I love Bean... more than love her... and the fact that she is my only baby is actually, finally, completely fine with me.

Wow.

The Punchline

The ex called last night.
Turns out his insurance will cover phase 2 after all.

Just like I said it would.

I refrained from saying, "Next time keep your wife on her leash until we all know the facts, 'K?"
Because I am a grownup.

Unpleasant

The idiot step mother was mean to me and I cried.
A lot.
More because I am angry than because she hurt my feelings or anything... but there is just no cause for this level of unpleasantness.

The ex-husband is still using the (very very) tired excuse that "they" are changing all of her meds and she is just angry and I should not take it personally... but he did say that I don't have to talk to her again until she stops being so crazy.

So.... never again. Yay!

We'll see how long that holds up. The whole thing stems from a fight over Bean's braces. More specifically, who is going to pay for this second phase of Bean's braces. I called "not it" three years ago when I was the only one paying for phase 1... but apparently (conveniently) I'm the only one who remembers that. When I talked to the ex earlier this week he seemed to be on the same page I was, and now... well... not so much.

So she was hostile enough about it that I hung up on her and then once I calmed down I called the ex again. We had a very calm and rational conversation and talked about what options were there and what should be done and when.

It is not supposed to be this complicated.