Lux et umbra vicissum…

Actually, I guess it’s not as much grandparentland as it was last weekend because my dad won’t be here, but the girls will have my mother and sister to play with. 🙂

Joel and I got tickets to see “Babes In Toyland” tonight at the Patriot Center. It was one of those donate-to-the-firefighters-get-some-tickets things, and the call came at a good time. I knew we had the money ($30 for two tickets) and I had just been thinking that Joel and I needed to go out on a date again. So “Babes In Toyland” may not have been his first choice of shows to see. Still, couldn’t really beat the price! 🙂 And it’s cool that we’re actually getting to go out somewhere together. I think we’ll enjoy the time, and if we don’t end up liking the show that’ll probably give us even more to discuss than if we do. 🙂

Which reminds me… a friend recently said that she was discouraged because she and her husband, having gone on a three day getaway recently without their young children, had pretty much nothing to talk about. I was thinking about it afterwards, and I started thinking that there are really two major contributors to good conversation: shared interests, and shared experience. When we’re dating – and sometimes early on in our marriages – we tend to spend a lot of time together. We often met because of shared interests and we like to persue those interests together, and we spend time together alone creating shared experiences. Once we get caught up in the work world, the time we spend persuing interests goes way down for most of us. When kids come along, that’s exacerbated, and even shared time doing other things (things we wouldn’t necessarily qualify as “interests”) dwindles. Unless we actually plan time together as a couple, it’s easy to let those shared interests and experiences go by the wayside.

All that is to say that if we’re having problems developing good conversations as a couple, maybe focussing on trying to start up a conversation isn’t the way to go. Maybe instead we need to refocus and start budgeting time together to foster those shared interests and experiences. Once we’ve started doing that, I think the conversations will start to flow again. We’ll be friends once more as well as spouses.

As a side note, I also think that sometimes we need to give things a little push by taking interest in things our spouse is interested in. For instance, I like some of the tech type stuff Joel is into, but I think we’d both admit that he’s far more into it than I am. Nevertheless, there are times when the best thing I can do to engender a close relationship with Joel is listen to him talk about Microsoft IIS 6.0 verses Apache web servers and how he was having to use mod_rewrite to make it so the servers didn’t ignore form post information when using custom error messages. (This was last night’s conversation, after which Joel rewarded my listening by saying, “Thank you for letting me geek out now and then.”) 🙂

Anyway, enough chatter. Bridgette and my mom just arrived, so I should go be social. 🙂

Joel’s office is in the process of packing to move. They aren’t moving far, so I guess it’s not as much stress as it might have been. When there were first rumors about the move, the rumors mentioned places from Maryland (no, please no!) to Gainesville (oh, please yes!), but they ended up finding a good spot in Chantilly, only 10 minutes from where their current office is located. It’ll mean Joel’s commute will be about an hour in traffic instead of 45 minutes, but that sure beats commuting to Maryland.

As is the case with satellite offices of many large companies, decisions are made in a different office and those decisions are not always well communicated to the lowly peons that are doing the actual work. Consequently, no one is quite sure whether or not they’ll be in the old office or the new office on Monday. They’re packing up as if they won’t be back, but some stuff may just have to be unpacked and then repacked early next week. They wouldn’t unpack the biggest things (like some of the on-site servers), so they’d be operating on a somewhat limited level, but it seems safer to assume they have to be out than to assume otherwise. Don’t you love corporate communication skills?

I’ve thought a good bit about what I’ll do if and when I get a chance to go back out into the working world. There are any number of directions I could go, most of which will be helped by a little extra education (a teaching certification, masters degree, business degree, or some such thing). One thing I’ve considered is going into some form of management. I love managing things and tend to be good at it, but there’s one minor problem… I hate the business world. I don’t like the double talk, the little white lies to smooth things over, the wheeling and dealing that goes on, the red tape… The list could go on and on. I do enjoy stage management, but it’s very time and energy consuming – not the best line of work for a mother even when (or perhaps especially when) her kids are all in school.

I’m still considering trying for my masters in directing so I could teach theatre at a college level. Either that or going for my teaching certification so I could teach in a high-school or at a tutoring facility like Sylvan Learning Center. (On a side note, it’s nice to know they only employ tutors with teaching certifications. There are schools that don’t do as much.)

Well, there’s plenty of time to think about which way to go. I probably won’t be starting on that path for many years to come.

While I was in nursery yesterday evening, Wendy called me on my cell phone… something she doesn’t generally do unless it’s about something important. I answered and she said, “Cindy’s in labor, they induced her and it’s not going well.”

Our friend Cindy was due at the end of last week. The practice she attends – the same one I attend – believes in inducing mothers at 41 weeks. If you question this practice, they show you charts showing how infant mortality increases starting at 42 weeks gestation, increasing even more at 43 weeks. (The studies showing this did not take into account whether or not a patient was closely monitored after 41 weeks.) The problem is, I now see that they don’t even necessarily wait until you’re a full 41 weeks along. It’s all about convenience. Doctors make me so mad.

Cindy was told she’d be induced this week and she assumed, rightly so, that it would be at the end of the week since that would make her 41 weeks along. Well, no sirree… she had to be fit in on a day where there was an opening. So they took her in Monday evening to put the prep gel on her. MONDAY EVENING!!! Hello??? She was only a half week past her due date, if that! Idiots. So of course her body wasn’t ready. They prepped her that night, then did it again Tuesday when she hadn’t dilated. Then they sent her home. She went back, they sent her home again. She went back again Wednesday morning and had to sit in triage for five hours because they didn’t have a room for her. Note: the woman has been having contractions THE WHOLE TIME! I’m ready to go smack the doctors around a bit. By the time they finally got her a room and gave the poor woman an epidural, she was having extremely painful contractions and experiencing pain between them as well, and she still was barely dilated.

Cindy told us all before that she’s discovered that anesthesia doesn’t work very well on her. For some reason, she just isn’t as sensitive to it as most people. This being the case, the epidural didn’t afford her as much relief as it might afford some, and she was unable to rest fully. When I spoke to her husband last night, she had been in labor for two days and hadn’t been able to rest well for most of that time. They were both exhausted, and she was still only at 5 centimeters dilation after almost two days of induced labor.

Now, if you’re going to try for an induction when a woman’s body isn’t ready at all – she hadn’t dilated at all before they started the procedure – you’re either going to have a failed induction that ends with the doctors saying, “Sorry for all the pain! Go home and we’ll see you in a few days!” or you’ll end up with a C-section. Cindy’s doctors determined which way this would end when they broke her water yesterday afternoon.

They let Cindy get all the way to 6 centimeters dilation, cranking up the pitocin at regular intervals to try to move things along, then they gave her a C-section. That was at 5:48 this morning after they had caused her to be in labor for more than two days’ time. The best part is, even then they didn’t give her enough anesthesia and she was in pain for the whole C-section procedure.

Now, I know that if I went with this practice for my next child (whenever that happens), I would probably be induced. I’ve gone more than 43 weeks with both of my girls. The doctors very kindly told me that they’d let me go to 42 weeks because of my history, but that’s not very comforting when I see what happened to Cindy. I’m sure my situation would be different since my body would probably be a bit more ready than hers – this was her first child, too – but it’s still scary. I hadn’t decided before whether I would do another home birth or a hospital birth for my next child, but I think this has made up my mind. Home births cost more financially since insurance won’t cover them, but I think I’ll save bundles on the emotional wear and tear.

So much has been happening over the past week that I’m going to just have to give an overview instead of going into details. Here goes…

Last Thursday night was spent packing so I could take the girls to Maryland Friday. Friday morning I attended MOPS, then I fed the girls lunch at the church and we drove down to my parents’ house. I stayed for dinner then drove home. On my way home, Joel called to say that there was a problem. He wouldn’t be home when I got there after all because his radiator had sprung a leak. He was hoping at the time that it was a hose, but we found out later there was actually a small hole in the front of the radiator. In order to get the car home, he had to drive very slowly for a little bit, then pull over to let the engine cool down again. He had run out of water to put in the radiator, but even if he had had some, it just went right out the bottom without cooling the engine any time you poured it in. When I found out where he was I was able to alter my course slightly and come up behind him, and we caravanned home the rest of the way. At least we could kind-of keep each other company that way.

Joel and I had Friday night, Saturday, and Saturday night all to ourselves, so what did we do? We spent most of Saturday making costumes for ourselves and went to a really fun costume party Saturday night. 🙂 Of course, we ended up staying at the party singing karaoke so late that the little bit that we slept in Saturday morning was pretty much wasted. 😛 Oh well. We had fun. If we got any decent pictures of us in costume I’ll post them another time. I still have to get my film developed.

Sunday we attended Sunday school and then went to pick up the girls. They had done pretty well though Alexis had apparently been close to tears a couple of times when I was mentioned. They were able to distract her pretty easily, so it wasn’t a problem. Branwen hadn’t been any trouble as far as missing us, but when we showed up she didn’t want me out of her sight for a little while.

We drove back home Sunday afternoon during nap time. Sunday evening Joel and I played rock-paper-scissors to determine who would get to go to vote on the new Minister of Education at church and I won. 🙂 (In all fairness to Joel, he told me I could go before we played, but I didn’t want to feel the guilt of knowing that he wanted to go and decided to send me instead… so we made it more arbitrary.) It was a long meeting because the man they were recommending is local and there were a lot of people who had things to say about him, both negative and positive. After we voted (we did vote him in), they closed in prayer but then provided an opportunity for people to stay and hear about the 2005 suggested budget. I knew Joel would like me to get that info since there’ll be a vote on the budget in November, so I stayed until that was over. I didn’t end up leaving until about 9 PM. I got home just in time to say goodnight to the girls.

Monday Joel took my van to work since his car was out of comission. He called the mechanic that evening and they said they could fit his car in the next day, so we inched our way to the mechanic’s Monday evening. I needed my van on Tuesday so I could teach at the church in the morning, so Joel worked from home for the day. When I got home from the church, we had a typical lunch hour after the girls have been away all morning. Branwen was surgically attached to my legs, screaming, while Alexis was fussing about various things and having to use the potty fairly often. I don’t know how long it took to get lunch together, but it was some ridiculous amount of time. Joel offered to help a couple of times, but I didn’t want him to take time away from work to help me do the normal house stuff. I did make sure to point out that the way it was going was absolutely normal so that he would appreciate my job even more. 😉

Tuesday evening was Bible study and I had to make dessert for which I didn’t have the ingredients, so the afternoon for me was spent completing a grocery list, gathering coupons, and dragging a tired Alexis to the store so Joel could keep working. (Side note: Isn’t it great fun when your three year old announces loudly in the canned fruit aisle that she needs to poop?) The trip did not go terribly well and I came home frustrated and a little late. Joel helped me make the dessert or it never would have been done in time. We went to Bible study and had a nice restful time there, at least. The girls actually did incredibly well for the babysitters downstairs considering how tired they were by that point. We couldn’t go straight home from there, either, because we had to go pick up Joel’s car at the mechanics. We changed the girls into their pajamas there and let them fall asleep in the van.

Yesterday Joel had a dentist appointment in the afternoon and we had prayer meeting in the evening (where I had also agreed to coordinate the nursery since the normal worker couldn’t make it). The morning was spent mainly dealing with a back-up of email and phone calls plus two somewhat fussy girls whose schedules have been thrown off for several days running now. At least with Joel having a dentist appointment in the afternoon he actually got home in time for us to eat a relatively casual dinner before we had to leave for the church. Nursery was hectic, but went well, and I was able to find someone to take me home so Joel could take the girls home before I was finished at 9:20.

The last crazy thing for the past week actually began yesterday evening during nursery duty, but it really deserves its own post which I may just go ahead and write now. On a positive note, we did get a letter from our HOA yesterday saying that our ridge vent was approved. 🙂 Yay! Maybe we’ll actually stop being rained on in our master bath now.

This one comes because of a frustrating experience with my credit union. Over all, I’ve liked them very much. They have good rates and have had pretty good service. There’ve been a couple of moments of mild idiocy on their part (letting a check go through for more than the amount I wrote on it, for instance), but those moments don’t happen often and have been quickly resolved.

This time it’s a matter of annoyance. I like their online banking option. I tend to check in every day to make sure I haven’t missed putting anything in the checkbook. We use our debit card more than anything else, so we do occasionally miss writing things in the register. (It doesn’t happen often anymore… we used to be worse about it.) Today when I went online to check the account, I couldn’t access my information. Every time I tried to sign in, it told me that my session had timed out and oh-so-helpfully gave me the option to either sign back in or sign out. Um… I hadn’t signed in in the first place. Hadn’t been on at all yet today.

At this point I wasn’t overly frustrated. I figured I’d try a few things and then, if nothing worked, I’d let them know about the problem. I tried choosing each of the options they gave me (signing on again, signing off and then signing back on…), and I tried going through their home page into account access since I’ve had it bookmarked and figured they may have changed the official URL or something. Nothing worked. The only other thing I could think to do that might help was clearing my cookies, but I decided that by that point they should really know about the problem. That was when I started to get frustrated.

Nowhere on their site could I find a “help” link, a “contact us” link with an email address, or even a direct phone number to let someone in their tech area know about the issue. I found some unhelpful FAQ’s (mainly about how to set up your account access in the first place), but there was no option there of contacting anyone. Here’s my beef: if you’re a business who’s going to have an online presence, you need to support it. I’m sorry, but if people are having technical problems, they should have an easy way of reporting them. I finally ended up calling them at their membership number, waiting for 10 minutes or so to talk to someone, telling her the problem, getting a different phone number from her, then getting disconnected as she tried to transfer me to the other phone number, calling the other number, waiting 5 minutes or so to talk to someone there, only to hear, “Yes, someone else just called about that. It seems to be intermittent. Can you try while we’re on the phone now? No? Ok, well, hang up and try again.” *sigh*

I think I’ll write them a letter and suggest adding a link with an email address so I don’t have to go offline to contact them. 😛 So far they’ve at least accepted suggestions kindly even if they haven’t acted on them most of the time. 🙂 Well, I guess you don’t necessarily choose a credit union for how nicely their online tech support system works. 🙂

I finally got brave enough to give Branwen her first haircut. The child never stops moving, so even though her hair was getting into her eyes all the time (it’s not thick, but parts of it were getting longish), I was scared to death to cut the stuff. As I sat feeding her lunch and watching her blink blink blink each time it fell in her eyes, I steeled my will and ran for the hair scissors. I knew I had to do it right then or I’d wimp out again.

I had her look at Alexis across the table while I did it. That worked out pretty well except when I forgot that she answers yes and no questions by nodding or shaking her head. 😛 I asked her if she loved her sister and she nodded…. very sweet, but rather dangerous when a woman (especially an inept one like me) is waving scissors around your temple region. Anyway, all I had to cut was a little bit off the front and a little on the sides to even it out a bit. It didn’t take too long to do, but by the time I was done Alexis had decided that I should cut hers, too. 🙂 Hers really did need a trim, so I figured I’d at least play with it a bit and see if I thought I could do it. I took her to an actual hair person for her last cut because I wasn’t sure that I could manage a reasonable cut on hair as short and wispy as hers.

After playing with Alexis’ hair for a minute or so (with Alexis saying, “Do it with the scissors, mommy!” the whole time), I decided that I couldn’t hurt things too much. I cut her some bangs, but who knows if they’ll really ever look bang-ish. Her hair is used to laying over to the side and I have a feeling she’ll be pushing it off her forehead most of the time. Anyway, I trimmed up the sides and back, too, so it’s a little more even than it was…. I think. Well, in any case, it’s no worse than it was before and may be a little better. 🙂

So now both of them supposedly have bangs, and I shouldn’t have to do that again for a while. Like a good sentimentalist, I put Branwen’s hair in a little baggy and labled it as “Branwen’s First Haircut 10-20-04”. I’ll stick it in her baby book later.

Now if I could only get up the nerve to cut my own hair again…

A little less than a month ago, I was in the pediatrician’s office for Branwen’s one year appointment and he was trying to talk me into getting flu shots for the girls. “I don’t have them yet,” he said, “but I should have them by the time you bring Alexis in for her three year check-up. You could have them done then.” I told him I would do more research and think about it.

It’s funny… I’m not really against vaccinations. I know some people who are for various reasons mostly involving risk factors, but when I looked into most of the vaccines out there the benefits seemed to outway the risks. The flu shot is a completely different story not because it’s risky, but because it’s arguably fairly ineffective. From personal experience, I can say that I’ve probably gotten the flu once since I stopped getting flu shots sometime in college. When I was getting them, I still ocassionally got the flu. From what I’ve read, the companies and doctors who make the vaccines need to make them a little ahead of time (at least one person who was anti-flu vaccine claimed they make it two years ahead of time but I haven’t found information to back that up). Since they do have to be made ahead of time, however long that is, the companies need to predict which flu strains will be strongest in a given year. Their predictions, much like the weatherman’s, are sometimes on and sometimes off. This being the case, I often just haven’t seen the point in getting the shot. Joel has been of the same mind if not feeling even a bit more strongly about it than I do. Neither of us has gotten a flu shot in years.

Fast forward once again to this year. I said I would do more research, so I did. Alexis has asthma and Branwen probably does though we won’t be able to test her till she’s older. Babies (classified as children 23 months and under) and people with asthma are considered “high risk” when the flu hits because it tends to attack the lungs among other things. Though it’s not so common as to call it a plague, the flu does kill people. Putting these two factors together (the possibility of it being fatal and the high risk of my children), I decided that I should go ahead and get the shots for them. After all, if they caught the flu after I had refused the shot, how guilty would I feel?

And then came the shortage.

So now my pediatrician hasn’t gotten any flu vaccines. He had ordered from the company whose production was tainted. He doesn’t know if he’ll get any at all this season. He told me a few other places to call, but everywhere I’ve called is short on supply and is only giving them to their own patients. The couple of public clinics I’ve heard about won’t give shots to anyone under the age of 18.

So what do I do? I start mentally panicking, because now, of course, my children will die of flu if I can’t get the shot. Remember, less than a month ago I wasn’t sure I wanted to get it for them. So, was it the research I did that changed my mind, or was it the shortage? Probably a bit of both, I guess.

At this point, unless something really unexpected happens, none of us will be getting the flu shot. Prayer. Prayer is a good, effective way of dealing with fears, disappointments, and sickness if it comes. 🙂 Guess that’ll be our sole vaccine this year! 🙂

This will be the seventh month that Joel and I will be trying for our third child. It took us a year to conceive Alexis and six months to conceive Branwen, so this isn’t unusual for us, even if it is a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. (Actually, our first baby was conceived in the first month of trying, but then I miscarried when I was about 10 weeks pregnant.) Every month as I draw near the end of my cycle I get hopeful. This past time was the worst, though. I had been queasy for 5 days straight with food aversions, etc. I really thought I was pregnant that time, then my period started two days early, was rather heavy to start, was very clotty, and I cramped a lot. I’ll never know whether that was a normal period starting or if I had an early miscarriage. I hate not having closure.

Anyway, I was praying again about the whole baby-making thing this morning in the shower. [Side note: as a mother of young children, I’ve found that praying in the shower is an excellent way to fit in a good prayer time each day. It’s pretty much the only quiet time I can count on. :)] As I prayed this morning, one of the things that ocurred to me was that even though I didn’t particularly like being pregnant over the summer with both of my children, it really was a blessing to have two babies who could wear the same clothes. If Branwen had been born in the Spring like I was hoping, we would have had to buy a lot more since the sizes of the things we had wouldn’t have been right. The Lord was looking out for us financially even in that way. Now, we’re praying for a boy this time, but if we have another girl I can see pretty clearly how things will be easier for us as far as clothes and toys go. 🙂 Anyway, maybe the Lord will allow us to conceive in the next couple of months so that our babies will still be close in size in the same seasons. Here’s hoping!

Can’t go into it too much or I won’t get to bed at a decent time… again. We missed Alexis’ doctor’s appointment this morning because I forgot that Branwen would need a breathing treatment before we left home and had to do it last minute. I called them on my way and they said, very apologetically, that since I’d be about 15 minutes late they would have to reschedule. The next open date was November 1st, so I took it. I’m still irritated with myself for being so forgetful.

I did ask about the night terrors over the phone. The doctor agreed with my friend Stacey’s diagnosis saying they did indeed sound like night terrors. He also reinforced what I had read elsewhere. She’ll most likely outgrow them, and the only real way to avoid them in the meantime is to try to “break the cycle” by waking her up about a half hour or so before they’re likely to happen. For some reason, this keeps them from happening once she goes back to sleep, or that’s the theory, anyway. She doesn’t have them very often, so I don’t know if we’ll end up doing that or not. We’ll see.

Time to go relax for a few minutes before bed. Frustrating days wear me out.

I found out on Sunday that the AFA (American Family Association) is calling for a boycott of Procter & Gamble. Focus on the Family is supporting the boycott as well. Upon looking into it a bit more today, I see that the AFA is actually just calling for a boycott of three specific product lines – Crest, Tide, and Pampers – which is far easier than boycotting the entire company since they’re such a huge presence in the industry. Anyway, the boycott is in response to Procter & Gamble’s position openly supporting (in pretty big ways) the homosexual agenda.

I have a couple of problems with this boycott and the idea of boycotts in general. First, Procter & Gamble is a mammoth entity. It would take an awful lot of people boycotting them to make an ounce of difference in their bottom line. This doesn’t mean one person or another shouldn’t join in, but I’m not optimistic that enough people will care enough to change their normal practices and try new products from other companies. Cynical? Perhaps.

My second problem is that if I boycott a company because they don’t support my beliefs, how can I be sure the company I buy things from instead isn’t supporting something I’m against, too? It’s not that I want to support companies that don’t agree with me morally, but I just don’t know all that many “Christian” companies. It seems like most of the companies that are out there support something that I don’t like. Now, if someone suggested a viable alternative to me that came from a company that supported Christian values, I’d be happy to try the alternative. To be viable I would say it had to be a reasonable quality product and similar in cost to the one I’m trying to avoid. It would be nice if the organizations calling for the boycott would provide a list of good alternatives.

These two things being said, you probably won’t hear of me buying Crest, Tide, or Pampers any time soon. Boycott aside, I do want to try to be conscious of where my money is going. Though I won’t be so thorough as to research all of the companies I buy things from, if I act on the ones that are brought to my attention from time to time, maybe I’ll avoid supporting the ones that are worst (worst being defined as giving the most support to things that go against my morals). Besides, I only bought Crest when I had coupons, and I don’t buy Tide. Pampers will be a bit of a sacrifice, but the reason I used the diapers was because they were the only ones I could find that Alexis wouldn’t leak out of when she was a baby. Branwen doesn’t tend towards leaks as much, so I might actually be able to save some money by trying a different brand for her. 🙂 I’ll miss the Pampers wipes because I really liked them, but we’ll survive.

Along the lines of being conscious where your money goes, here are two other companies we don’t support any more. Earthlink was our ISP until we randomly came upon an Earthlink promoted pornographic CD-rom. We didn’t like that, so we switched ISPs. Once again, the switch saved us money, too, so there’s nothing to complain about there. (We’re now with Mailaka and so far we’ve had a very good experience with them… not many problems and very good support when the occasional problem has arisen.) The only other company we don’t give business to is Target. (Many of my friends don’t understand how I can avoid them when they have such good prices, but WalMart is pretty competitive even if it is a little farther away.) I found out while my mom was volunteering with her area Pregnancy Care Center that Target supports Planned Parenthood. Being an ardent pro-lifer, I don’t feel right giving them my money especially when there is a viable alternative as far as I’m concerned. WalMart has been pretty supportive of the pro-life side of things (refusing to provide the morning after pill from its pharmacies, for example), so I’m more comfortable supporting them. They’ve also been very responsive to Christian groups asking them to remove offensive materials from their magazine racks, etc. (Not to mention they’ve been very nice about letting church groups come and sing Christmas music on their property and such whereas at least one Target that I know of refused.)

So I don’t know how effective this boycott will be, but I’m willing to put my money elsewhere for now. 🙂 I may even stop buying some other P&G brand products if I find viable alternatives. I guess it seems to me like it’s more a matter of conscience than a matter of expecting to make a financial difference in the life of their company.