Artificially Sweetened

Most of the boxes are unpacked. And glory glory hallelujah, we finally have both internet and a landline.

Both Pepito and his mommies have been enjoying the new house.

Looking out at his new backyard.

Proudly walking (not independently, thank g-d) amidst the boxes.

Peering through the “chubby kat” cat door.

The house has a semi-finished basement room, which we call the playroom. Here’s the “adult” side. I got this on Saturday at a yard sale for $60 - delivered.

And while the mommies play pool, the boy can play with his toys… A lot of these were left for us by the previous owner.

My friend MC is right: move is a four letter word. Go give her some lurve, she has been through hell lately. I hate it when things don’t work out for my friends.

I started my new job on Monday.  So far… so good.  I am a little nervous about the expectations people have of me - after waiting a year for someone to start, it’s easy for that person (um, me) to become supergirl, the imaginary solution to all problems.  On the other hand, the position has been vacant for a long time, and I’m basically starting from scratch (well, from scratch with an office full of files going back to 1973), so anything I do will be better than the nothing that was happening before, right?

I have to choose an insurance plan, or negotiate a pay raise (already, I know: I am supergirl) that would enable me to stay on Pili’s excellent insurance and spare new employer the expense of covering me.   Amazingly, for a very small, rather financially challenged organization, they are paying my whole premium. This may change once they discover what I will do to their insurance costs…

Last year, Pili paid $3800 dollars for the privilege of having me on her insurance.  If Employer paid me $4000 extra, I would happily stay on her coverage.  Of course, Pili’s employer’s contributions to my health care are not tax-deductible - in fact, they are counted as additional income and she is taxed on them!   

I am usually pretty good at figuring these things out, but for some reason, my eyes have been glazing over on this decision.  Tomorrow I will find a detailed current benefits & costs list for Pili’s insurance and post the new options and the current plan here and let you all tell me what to do.  I also have to find out how diabetes and pump supplies are covered under the different plans… most of them have a 50% co-pay for non-generic perscriptions.   I am terrible at swallowing pills, and the generic version of my anti-depressent pill is not coated, so it always gets stuck in the back of my throat and tastes nasty.  In order to avoid tasting battery acid in the back of my mouth all day, I have my doctor write that one DAW and pay extra for the name brand.  But I may get depressed all over again thinking about how much that stuff will cost me with a 50% copay. 

Finally - I swear this isn’t strictly a mommy blog…  although I know it sure looks that way at the moment.

But our boy has started doing some really incredibly cute things.  He’s cruising all over the furniture, and he loves to push his little walkie thing around.  He has also started kissing.  Last night, we were reading Whose Knees are These and when we got to the last page with the picture of the baby, he kissed it over and over again.

This morning, he was occupying himself with his second favorite passtime - pull-all-the-books-off-the-shelf - (his first favorite is pull-all-the-shoes-off-the-rack) and he pulled out The Happiest Toddler on the Block.  After studying it for a while, he started kissing the little girl on the cover.  By the time I got the camera out though, he was trying to eat the dust jacket.  I hope it’s true… you are what you eat!

This post is already reeedicuklously long, so I will not get into the Great Sleep Wars of 2007 that have been waged around here.  Except to say, please tell me about how you and your partner fought bitterly disagreed entirely had very difficult times deciding what to do with a child who Does Not Like to Go to Bed.  Even when he is Very Very Tired. 

I think I put it in a box somewhere…

We survived the move and the drive with three cats harmonizing, but I am afraid I will be somewhat scarce until next tuesday, when the internet fairies come and turn on my internet. I am currently using my dad’s laptop via his cell phone as none of our new neighbors are considerate enough to have non-passworded wireless networks.

The cats and the boy seem to be adjusting just fine to the new house. I feel sort of shell shocked. Having spent four years getting used to the quirks (can’t use the toaster and the microwave simultaneously, no three-prong outlets anywhere, etc.) and joys (laundry chute! laundry chute! cabinet space!) of the old house, I find myself constantly bumping into walls. Today I walked into the walk-in closet (nice) in our bedroom and started pulling down my pants. Then I realized that although it’s in the same place as the bathroom was in our old bedroom, it’s a closet, not a bathroom.

Must go unpack a few more boxes in search of my thoughts… until tuesday.

And happy new year, to those for whom it’s a new year.

Thanks to my friend the engineer, who stopped by after work today, we now have cribbage in our living room. 

It could use a fresh coat of paint, but I think it’s quite pretty.

Here are some pix of the bumper.

Now all I need is a baby to put in it… sigh.

My superstitious I-don’t-want-to-jinx-it nature is over-ruled only by the sheer joy I take in getting a really really good bargin.  So when I saw a really pretty crib at the second-hand babystuff store near work - which came with a bumper with orange kitties on it - for $25 - I decided that g-d would not put such bargins in my path if s/he/it wanted to strike me down for my chutzpah.  Or something like that. 

Before you get all, um, art, used crib, um, safety on me, they only sell stuff that meets current safety standards.  So there’s a crib in my living room.  Unfortunately, I have no clue how to assemble it.  And while it came with an adorable bumper - it did not come with instructions. 

I got this far.

I know that the bottom part there is a foot bar that you use to raise and lower the movable side.  I know that the brackets on the springy piece fit into the white brackets somehow and the crib mattress will go on top of the springs.  I suspect that the little metal things that come out of the moveable side engage with the foot rail somehow. It came with a bunch of hardware, including 4 springs. I have no clue how it all fits together. Because it was on consignment, I have to return it by Thursday if I don’t want to keep it.

	Bracket on the bedspring
	White bracket that I think bedspring backet goes into
	Metal foot bar to raise and lower side
	Movable side with metal thingies at bottom that I think engage somewhow with metal bar

Both Pili and I somehow managed to avoid the lesbian DIY gene, although I can put together an ikea product with a minimum of cursing. If it weren’t for that, I think I’d be out of the lesbian-stereotype-club altogether, as my firm motto when it comes to sports involving flying objects coming at my head is stop, drop, and roll. On the other hand, we do drive a subaru.

If you think you can talk me through this, or you have instructions for a similar crib you could fax or scan for me (the brand is Nod-a-Way), please, please… let me know. There will be some sort of Guatemalan goodie in it for the helper… along with my undying gratitude.

In other news: I think we’ve found a house in MUCDTR.  My desire not to spend every weekend shlepping back and forth is at war with my essential indecision factor.  I don’t love this house the way I loved our house here and our condo in Flat City.  But it’s down the street from the library, on a block with lots of kids and liberal looking families (although not so great as far as ethnic diversity), it has a huge back yard with a sandbox and a small guest house for our friends who are allergic to cats, and I think I could learn to love it.  The owners are friends of a friend, and they are happy to split the difference not selling through a realtor with us.  This is really happening. This is really happening. Holy Crap.

On the plus side - it’s finally, finally spring.  And these are from my garden. 

I got a letter in the mail today officially offering me the position in more-urban-city-down-the-road (MUCDTR) that has been in the works since november.

I am thrilled. I am panicking, big time.

Homes in MUCDTR are twice as expensive as our house here. There is actually more than one neighborhood where we’d consider living. We need to find a home. Very very soon. Mortgage. House selling. House buying. Movers. Aaaaaaaaaack. [sandbox, head, insert, deeply]

We will be moving. I will be starting a new job. And possibly hopefully bringing home our boy. All right around the same time, if g-d and pgn* cooperate. Aaaaaaaack. [deep breath of sand]

Pili will be commuting a loooong way to her job and staying over a few nights a week while school is in session. I will be single momming it a few nights a week while school is in session. [Daycare. Add to list of Things. To. Figure. Out. Very large breath of sand.]

House. Daycare. Car. Two-door tin-can. Want to replace with car that does not require advanced yoga skills in order to get car seat in/out before boy comes home. Buy house. Buy car. Sell house. Sell car? Finish Big Projects at Current Job. Start New Job. Bring home baby? Move. And Still Leave time for Pili to Write Book.

Hyperventilating sand.

Plus: As much as I gripe about the city with only three thai restaurants, we’ve made some really wonderful friends here. We have a beautiful house here. Now that this possible job is becoming Real, I find myself clutching onto the familiar and wondering whether I could have overlooked some way - in all my trying - that I could have made this place work for me professionally.

I know this is the right move. I think I know this is the right move. I’m so so freakin’ scared.

*This is assuming we are actually in PGN. Because this is a HAPPY albeit panicky post, I am not going to get into my current irritation with GAL today.

… Or, why you don’t want to move to Upstate NY.

I kept holding out, hoping I’d be able to come up with some nice Spring photos. But Sunday found me outside, in my winter coat, vacuuming out the mouse droppings from the frame of our old garden lattice, which was peeling and disgusting. In the snow.

This seems to be a trend for me.

On the irony front: After I took all of your wise counsel and accepted that Pili ought to stay on with the Boy, she took a good hard look at her schedule… and decided that she ought to come back with me.

(Yes, we really have friends whose initials are T&A. No, they don’t really think it’s as funny as I do.) This was originally supposed to be posted on the day of the big snow, but Pili’s camera cable was eaten by a puppy in India.

This is what I was doing while Pili was cooking up a Valentines Day feast.

Still think you know who’s butch in our relationship, ladies?

And to my friend Chicagomama. You can have your g-ddamn Weggies. I just want my innocence back. In other words, I want to return to a life where the words “roof rake” have no personal significance to me. This is about the time of year when I forget how much the other people on our condo board annoyed me and all I remember is that when we lived there I did not have to shovel sixteen tons of snow off my deck so that it wouldn’t collapse.

And to the previous owners of our house: What were you smoking when you built an extension onto the house with a flat roof? In the freakin’ frozen tundera icebound wasteland snowbelt?

And to my back, shoulders, and legs: I’m really, really sorry. Yes, I know you’re not twenty-one anymore. I’m sure I’ll know that even more tomorrow morning.

And to the people who wrote the grant application I learned was due tomorrow yesterday, on which I’ve been working all day, on Valentines Day: If you don’t give this to us, I am going to be majorly pissed. More later - I still have a 2/3 in-kind match to fabricate figure out.

The weather around here of late has made me dream lots of warm dreams.

This is one of my favorite summer places - lying in the hammock on the deck off our bedroom, surrounded by trees, the sun on my face and a cat on my lap.

This is what said deck looks like right now.

Perhaps it’s a good thing that Guatebaby isn’t coming home anytime soon - can you imagine being four months old and coming from warm humid Guatemala to this? Never mind, I’d still rather have him home.

This is one of my favorite places during the winter. Our bed, flannel sheets, and all four cats.

Lazy? Me? Never…

I’ll distract myself from all of the Big Questions and from the lack of updates from Guatemala by catching up on my photo friday topics.

Last week’s topic was “a unique body part.” Anyone who’s ever sparred with me in karate knows that I have unusually, I dare even say, uniquely, sharp elbows. They put umbrella tips to shame, my elbows do. Pili would like to register that she thinks I have other unique body parts. Do I need to go into further detail on that erm, front, erm?

This week’s topic was “show me your sofa and anything on it.” Somewhat sheepishly I do.

Tonight my sofa was occupied by a snoozing (”just ten minutes, I mean it!” she says) Pili and an ever changing parade of cats, none of whom chose to grace this picture with their presence. The traces of their attentions are, unfortunately, all too visible, especially next to the barely touched scratching post. The soft and colorful afghan is a handmade wedding present and the green sling (just barely visible) is a hopefully-soon-to-be-used hand-me-down from gandksmom.

…that things had miraculously improved since that last post.

I can’t. It seems we do not get January photos as the holiday photos we got in the end of December count for January. To which I stick out my tongue and and say phooey. How hard is it, honestly, to snap a bunch of digital photos of babies in a hogar?

It might be harder than I think, as we did get a photo from a visiting family, which, unfortunately, is very blurry and which I am not at all sure is actually a photo of my Guatebaby.

And apparently GAL, who has the unenviable position of running interference between the hogar and the chomping at the bit adoptive parents, has not been able to get January measurements from the folks in Guatemala.

Things at home continue to be, for lack of a better word, tense. I feel like even the cats are fighting more. I’m sure that we will pull through this as we have pulled through difficult stretches before. It really does help to hear that other people struggle with the two career/where to live issue as well.

I constantly question myself: am I holding onto my career dreams just because I wouldn’t know who I am/how to define myself without them? I don’t think so. When I’m at a job that’s a good fit for me, I know that I’m doing what I love. There’s a part of me that says I should just give up these hopes and do what would make life easiest for us as a unit. But why should I be the one to do that?

[This is where I start feeling like the chips are falling along traditional gender lines, with me the woman and Pili the man. And I will be damned if I will give into that tired old narrative.]

Recently I saw my DREAM JOB advertised. A high level position at an organization that I think is doing amazing and unique work - in the Big City Four+ Hours South. When Pili was playing the “soon-to-be-wed” game at her bachelorette party, her friends asked her what my dream job would be. And she answered, correctly, this position, at this organization. I thought about applying but decided that while the compromise we’ve come up with to allow me to take an interesting, career-advancing job in a better location (which will involve the moving and commuting alluded to to in the last post) is unpleasant and hard on Pili, this was simply impossible. Unless Pili was willing to leave her job, which she’s not. Rinse, lather, repeat.

So I’m curious: how do gender roles or your reactions to them (even in a same-gender relationship) shape the way you handle conflict and decision-making in your family?