Taking a Tour on the Blogosphere Bus

I met the fabulous Lisa Petty, of Petty Thoughts, at Blog U, dancing like a maniac. Or maybe it was me dancing like a maniac. At any rate, she's fantastic. And she invited me to be part of an ongoing blog tour! I've had a ton of fun at every stop, getting to know different bloggers and their writing styles and processes. It's a been a helluva digital vacation! And now the planes, trains, and automobiles have brought us here- to my stop. So while you take in the lovely Chicago scenery, maybe visit the Field Museum and eat a veggie dog on the back steps, I'll tell you all about what I do.



What Am I Working On?
I'm still fiddling with my memoir (excerpt here), and increasingly desperately trying to get a literary agent. The fact is, selling a memoir is hard, unless you're a celebrity. And sadly, having a few enormously viral blog posts does not a celebrity make. Aside from that, I'm writing here, on the blog, and I'm working on a super secret project I can't talk about right now, but that will no doubt make me wealthy beyond my wildest dreams.

How Does My Work Differ From Others Of Its Genre?
The memoir? It differs from others of its genres by somewhat defying genres. It's a story of the many ways our brains can try to destroy themselves, with tumors or poisons or chemical imbalances. But more, it's a true story about the power of love bold enough to stand defiant in the face of death. It's a love story, and an offer of comfort to anyone suffering from mental illness who ignores their own pain as immaterial or unreal. It's about surviving a death sentence, and collapsing under the weight of freedom. I'm not sure I've ever read a memoir with those particular themes.


Why Do I Write/Create What I Do?
I can't not write. I moved to Chicago for art school twelve years ago. And when the dean of the Art Institute welcomed us to the school, he said most of us would never work making art. Very nearly none. "So if you can do anything else, do that," he said. And it stuck with me, because I could. I dropped out of the Art Institute because I knew I could do something else. But there is one thing I can't stop doing. Since I wrote my first poem at age five, I cannot stop writing. Haiku, novellas, short stories, slam poems, fiction, and nonfiction... whatever is happening in my life, I am compelled to continue writing. Lucky me, the blogosphere is welcoming to folks with my particular writing handicap- namely, an addiction to an audience.

How Does Your Writing Process Work?
I'm a follower of Earnest Hemingway's methodology. "There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." I sit down to write, and I write until it's done. I ignore my children, I don't eat, I don't get up to use the bathroom. I just sit and write and write and write. Sometimes, I get an idea for a post or a chapter or a poem when I'm not at my computer. I turn it over in my head a while, coming up with phrases I like, examining the sides of the issue, or my perspectives on it, and then when I sit down to write I jump around a bit, make sure I hit all the salient points. But for the most part, I just sit and write.


...and that was the Becoming SuperMommy stop on the Blogosphere Express!



Let me introduce you to your next stops!

Celeste McLean is the writer behind the widely unread blog Running Nekkid, where she writes about grief, mental health, and her Pacific Islander ancestry. She left her tropical paradise island home twenty years ago and has been trying to figure out how to go back ever since. She currently lives in Seattle with her husband where they raise two children and tolerate one very demanding cat.

Get a feel for her by reading a few posts before you get to her station. Big Hair No Pants is a heartbreaking and beautiful tribute to her father. Then read For Ian, a Memory, which is an equally beautiful love letter written back before her husband was her husband. They are utterly marvelous posts, and your day will be inexpressibly richer for having read them.

Tamara Woods was raised (fairly happily) in West Virginia, where she began writing poetry at the age of 12. Her first poetry collection is available at Sakura Publishing and Amazon. She has previous experience as a newspaper journalist, an event organizer, volunteer with AmeriCorps and VISTA, in addition to work with people with disabilities. She has used her writing background to capture emotions and moments in time for anthologies such as Empirical Magazine, her blog PenPaperPad, as a contributing writer for the online ‘zine Lefty Pop, and writing articles as a full-time freelance writer. She is a hillbilly hermit in Honolulu living with her Mathmagician.

Get acquainted with her by reading her dystopian fiction, and watch her read a poem from her book- Hot Comb Self-Deception. It's wonderful.

Melanie is a recovering nerd who has always considered herself a writer, but barely considers herself at all anymore because three kids. She is mom to Moo, Slim and The Geel and is proud to say that so far the kids have fared much better in her house than the houseplants have. The NotsoSuper blog was born out of frustration and the not-so-thrilled feeling she got when she found out she was pregnant with The Geel.

She calls herself the NotsoSuperMom because she does not want to give anyone the false impression that she is trying to "do it all." She's not even trying to do it right. She'd just like to get something--ANYTHING--done. She writes to escape the laundry and to pretend that someone is listening to her. She was recently featured on In The Powder Room and you can find her on facebook and the twitter.

Get to know her delightfully self-depreciating humor in her post, Annie Get Your Gun (or the Night I Almost Shot My Yoga Pants). Then read her beautifully vulnerably post about the day she lost her first grader, Little Moo Lost.

Karyn is a lapsed social worker, work-at-home mom, and one-quarter of Team Pickles. Along with Ben (the thinker), Molly (the doer), and Ian (the Brit), she battles for truth, justice, and the Canadian way in a world where parenting and puns go hand-in-hand. Follow their adventures at PicklesINK and get short bursts of funny on Facebook and Twitter.

To give you an idea of why I'm crazy about Karyn (and it's not just her rock awesome moves to the Spice Girls), start out with her brilliant post- Are You Elsa or Anna? What Frozen Says About Depression. It's beyond insightful. Then for some more parenting depth and conversation on kindness, check out A Passion for Compassion.

Drive Slow

One cool baby.

It's Twisted Mix Tape Tuesday again! So yes, I'm linking up again.

This week's theme is Slow Jams.

I listen to a lot of slow music. But I feel like it's not really a "slow jam" unless there's also a real beat. Unless you can jam to it.

Yes, I break my own rules. So yes, there's at least one song on this list that doesn't exactly qualify,

Yes, this is a particularly long mix tape. I couldn't help myself. Previous weeks I've held myself to ten- but this time, I'm sorry, but you're going to have to listen to more good music.

...and yes, I may in fact have put in some jams that aren't *exactly* slow. But they are all awesome.

Go ahead and jump in. I know you're dying to hear the mix tape. :)



Heavy, slow, uplifting... maybe the world's most perfect slow jam. For a while, I started every. single. day by listening to this song. And you know what? It really did make my whole day better. Try setting it as your alarm someday and see if you don't have the world's best shower.



I tried. Oh how I tried to find a video of the whole band performing this song. Pearl and the Beard- such a STELLAR band. And while Emily's solo rendition is glorious, it just can't compete with the roundness of the sound with the three part vocal harmony in the refrain. Wow. So go out and download it, even pay the band for it because they're poor, and never ever regret it.



I never lie. Well, sometimes I lie. But not about John Lennon. John Lennon was amazing, and like I said last week, goes on pretty much every mix I make. If you're not familiar with his solo work, take a moment and be wowed.



This is a band that only existed for about eight hours. Amanda Palmer (of the Dresden Dolls), Ben Folds, Damian Kulash (from OK Go), and Neil Gaiman put together a band and recorded an EP in one night. They wrote songs based on suggestions from fans. Then they made all the tracks available for would-be videographers to make their own music videos. This song is remarkably tragic, and the video is beautiful. If you're going to slow down, you might as well make it worth your while.



I love this song for all the Chicago references, I love it for the storytelling, I love it for that slow, lazy hook... I love everything about this song. And no matter how weird and self obsessed he becomes, I'll always love Kanye for being this guy.



One of the greatest songs of all time. As far as I'm concerned, this is the definitive recording. I know, I know, you love Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. Fine. You're entitled to your opinion. But you're also wrong. This version is better.



I know, this song is everywhere. Sorry. But it's beautiful, and I think it's important. It would be more important if it weren't simply an ally ballad, we need LGBT voices in hip hop. We need them everywhere. But until then, we should all be grateful for voices like Macklemore's.



Let's all just sit back and smile and remember all the happy places we've been while this song has been mysteriously playing from somewhere.



Yes, this might have been the song that spawned all of Emo. But you know what? It's amazing. It's an incredible song. And I can't hear it without cranking up the volume and tearing up a bit. And unlike most of the Emo crap that started coming out post-alternative, this song actually has a message of positivity to it. Now get off my lawn.



I dare you not to slowly move to the beat. You can't help yourself. It's a biological impossibility. No matter what, you sway in your seat, tap your foot, snap, nod... you just can't help it. That's okay. It's not your fault.



It's barely slow enough to qualify, but it does. There's just something velvety and rich to everything about the sound of this song. It's another song you can't help but move to. And at the same time, slow. Including this song helped me justify leaving out "Gin and Juice." Okay, fine...



There. Moving on...



Another one that barely counts as a slow jam. Yes, I can be found most school days driving to pick up my kids from pre-K while BLASTING this song and belting it out my windows. Without shame. I will karaoke the shit out of this song. I fucking love this song.


Erykah Badu- Green Eyes

I know, it's long. I can't help myself. I gravitate towards songs that have a lot to say, and to say well. And frequently that means they're too long to be a single. And this is one of those songs that you listen to all the way through, feel let down that it had to end, and then realize how long you spent listening to it.

And to close it up...



I know, you've never heard of this band. Now you've heard of them. You're welcome.
You want a song that sums up everything that's great about the slow jam? This song does it. Because a slow jam is tasty. Anytime we mellow out.

Whole People

One thing they do have in common is how much I love them.

I really wanted to do this last night, but I was far too busy helping M put together our massive new collection of bookshelves and editing a new header for this blog (my babies are big girls now!).

I've been following PostSecret since I discovered the concept in Found Magazine.  I think that was probably nine or ten years ago now.  I anxiously waited until Sunday to check the livejournal feed every week, and there are secrets from the beginning that still haunt me.  I remember one, written on an unfilled prescription slip, by a person who couldn't find a way to tell his wife she was going to die.

PostSecret, 2005

And then there are some, like this Hitler secret, that still crack me up.

Living in the Central time zone is great, because it means that a lot of weeks, I actually get to read the secrets on Saturday night.  It feels like cheating, but it's something I still look forward to constantly.  I can't tell you how close I've been to sending in dozens of secrets, but each time I realize that my secret is something that shouldn't be a secret.  That I have people I care about that I can confide in, and that it's a healthy thing to do for me to take advantage of that.  I know how lucky I am.  I know how isolated and alone I felt back when I did lead a life full of secrets, and mostly secret pain.

I think that PostSecret isn't just an incredible art project, it's a public service.

At any rate, yesterday I discovered Mad Jackie's weekly event, Secret Sunday.  It's a weekly link-up and writing exercise.  You go through the week's secrets, pick one, and use it as a writing prompt.

I also freakin' love a good writing prompt.

Unfortunately, this week yielded a surprisingly small collection of secrets.  I think that's because Frank Warren, the creator/administrator/curator of PostSecret is still posting secrets from the short-lived iPhone app. So I went back a bit, I'm not sure how far, and picked out this one.  As it sort of speaks to something that I frequently find myself internally drafting diatribes about.

People feeling the need to label my twins.

www.postsecret.com

I don't feel like in my family we split up "pretty" and "smart" genes.  We split up "crazy," "smart," "funny," and "creative."

Lucky us, there are more "crazy" genes than anything else.

But people really are determined to label children as soon as possible.


When they were newborns, and M and I would take them somewhere- say, to a restaurant or a hospital waiting room- bystanders would ask me, "Which one is the quiet one?"  "Which one is the social one?"

It's constant, and it has never stopped.

Because there are two of them, they must represent different traits.  One must be smart, one must be pretty.  One must be quiet, one must be troublesome.  One must be a good sleeper, while one must be a good eater.

I don't see people do this as much with singletons, but it still happens.  And the fact is, it's so pervasive that children do it to themselves.

My children aren't simply aspects of a person that opposes a different aspect.  My children are people.  That means that they have moods, they have funks, they have passing whims.  Yes, right now SI constantly asks for help.  That doesn't make her "the needy one," that means that she's figured out that when she says, "Help, mommy!" I might do something for her that she thinks is a little too much trouble.

DD is picking up whole phrases and using them in context right now, that doesn't make her "the verbal one."

They're both people.

They're people with preferences and quirks.

Just like anyone else.

Aunt Something Funny, me, and Aunt Genocide

I think they get it worse as twins, but this was the case with my sisters and I.  I always considered Aunt Something Funny to be "the smart one."  I always considered Aunt Genocide to be "the funny one."  At different times in my life, I was intensely jealous of them for that.  I tried very hard to present myself as "the creative one."

But Aunt Something Funny isn't "the smart one."  She's one of three girls, born within about three years, who are all very, very smart.  She was the best at telling adults when they were wrong, she did have the best ability to recall impressive vocabulary, or identify specific dinosaurs.  She got good at Scrabble first.  She was also the oldest.

Aunt Genocide isn't "the funny one."  She's one of three girls, very close in age, who are all very, very funny.  She was the best at clowning around for a crowd, she was the best with a biting comeback, or a hilarious one-liner.  She also felt from a very early age that there was no way she would ever be "as smart" as her older sisters.  Which is a belief that, I'm sorry to say, Aunt Something Funny and I encouraged.

I wasn't "the creative one."  I was one of three sisters right behind each other in school who had a variety of talents.  I might have had the most drive to perform, I might have had the most art supplies in my rooms, I might have listened to the most progressive music, but I certainly didn't monopolize creativity.  Aunt Something Funny is a brilliant writer.  Truly brilliant.  I've reread one issue of her zine, published about a decade ago, more than almost any other book I own.  Aunt Genocide is an amazing photographer.  Really.  Even if she's decided that her passion lies more with her "smart" pursuits in academia.

Not "the boisterous one."

And we're all crazy.  And yeah, we all have our opinions on who is the craziest.  But frankly, there are enough kinds of crazy going around that we can all have our own.

The idea of teaching my children that they are whole people, not defined by their similarities or differences to each other, has been important to me since I first learned I was having twins.  I see so many other multiples- and their parents insist on dressing them identically.  What does that say about them?  That they exist only as reflections of each other?  That in fact, they are only one social entity?

How would I have felt if I constantly matched my sisters?

I would have felt even more that I needed to identify myself- to be "the creative one."  Because aside from that, I would have had no other distinctions.  I would have been simply part in a collective person.

I wouldn't be Lea the individual, I would be Lea of "The Borenstein Girls."

Just as DD and SI wouldn't be DD and SI, they would be, "The Twins."

They'll probably never get away from being, "The Twins."  No matter what I do, it's going to happen.  Just as I was lumped into the unit of my sisters, they'll be lumped into the unit of their twindom.

And yes, I've been guilty of dressing them alike.  Or as complements to each other.  But only as a special occasion thing- only for a picture, or for a big family event.  For something that they will understand as "not the way things normally are."  But each time I do it I feel ashamed.  Because being a twin isn't just a cool trick they can do.  It's a facet of who they are.  And I have no right to make a spectacle of that without their consent.

No, she's not "the sweet one."

I'm sure that it will be easier for them to actualize as individuals being as visually different than each other than it would be if they were identical twins. But they're not- no more than I am identical to MY sisters.  They just happened to be born at the same time.  And that means that they are automatically perceived as being part of a set- incomplete without each other.

I just wish that the rest of the world would stop treating it as some sort of novelty act.  One person, with traits divided between two bodies.

They are TWO people.  In some ways similar, in others, not at all alike.

Just as any two people in the world might be.









...and for those of you reading through a platform that doesn't actually show you my blog- the new header:

"Becoming SuperMommy!"

 

In Honor of World Vegetarian Month

Another post pilfered from my old food blog!  And a perennial classic around Casa SuperMommy.  Enjoy!





'Tis the season!  One of my husband's favorites of my inventions and one of my most requested recipes. Mike's very much a meat and potatoes kind of guy, and I'm a life long vegetarian with an unyielding love of curries and adventure, so you'd think that dinner might be an issue of contention. Not with this dish! And if you start with a meal like this, you can move onward to more exciting flavors and unusual names. But for the beginning food enthusiast, a nice warm bowl of savory stew and a sandwich is an excellent dinner. Or even lunch. Or leftover. Or, well... anytime.  But especially in the fall.  :)


Shopping List

1. 1 butternut squash
2. 1 can kidney beans
3. 2 small russet potatoes
4. 3 oranges
5. fresh rosemary
6. parmesan cheese
7. sour cream
8. parmesan cheese rind
9. whole grain bread
10. 1 heirloom tomato
11. sharp cheddar cheese
12. baby spinach
13. arugula
14. 1 bunch fresh cilantro
15. 1 avocado
16. slivered almonds

Now, to pick the ingredients at the store.
To choose a squash, the best you can really do is to find one that isn't too beat up. Sometimes you'll see that the butternut squash has had chunks taken out by being knocked around. Try to get one as undamaged as possible, and for this recipe you'll want one about the size of a loaf of bread.


When picking your beans, check the ingredients. Amazingly, most canned beans have all sorts of stuff that isn't beans. So if the ingredient list is long, pass up those beans in favor of some that have a shorter list. Ideally, the only ingredients in your beans will be beans and water.


For your spinach, cilantro, and arugula, find a bunch of greens that aren't wilting or gummy. gummy means rotten, and you want your greens fresh and crisp.


Picking avocados can be hard- you need to find one that's slightly soft when you squeeze it gently, but not so soft that it's all mush and rot on the inside. Squeeze a few, and if you can dent it gently, it's ripe.


Most difficult of all... a parmesan rind? Now to be fair, you can just leave this out. It won't damage the flavor very terribly. but you can find one at any grocery store that has a good cheese counter- any Whole Foods will carry them, even if they don't have it out. Simply ask the nice cheese man behind the counter for one. 2" inches of rind will suffice, and the more you put in the richer the flavor of the stew will be. Like garlic and chocolate, you can pretty much never have too much parmesan cheese.






Butternut Squash Stew
skin and seed the squash, and chop it into 1" pieces
1 medium onion, quartered and sliced
3-5 T minced garlic
3 tbs olive oil
rinse the can of kidney beans
2 small russet potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1" pieces
3 c water
Juice two of the oranges and zest the peels- reserve 1/2 T of the juice for the salad
1 tbs fresh rosemary, or 2 tsp dried ground rosemary
1 tbs Spike or Mrs. Dash
salt and black pepper
1/4 c grated Parmesan cheese (NOT powdered!)
sour cream, for garnish

In a large pot over med. high heat, sauté the onions in the oil until they become translucent. Add the garlic, orange zest, and spices and stir occasionally for three minutes.


Add the squash, potatoes, water, and orange juice and mix well. Bring to a boil, and then reduce heat to a simmer and cover. Allow the stew to simmer gently for half an hour.


Add beans and parmesan rind, and continue to simmer for another 20 minutes.


During this time, you're ready to make the rest of the meal.


Fresh Cilantro Salad
baby spinach
arugula
fresh cilantro
heirloom tomato
1 avocado
1/4 c slivered almonds
1/2 T orange juice- reserved from stew preparation


Rinse your greens THOROUGHLY. I always try to use local and organic greens, which reduces the likelihood of contaminants like E Coli, but there's going to be dirt on them. They do come from the ground. So rinse your greens!


The baby spinach and arugula can go in whole. The idea of salad greens is to get them to a size where you can easily put it into your mouth, so if your arugula or spinach is of a larger leaf, tear it down to size. Tearing instead of chopping your greens will keep them crisp longer.


Slice as much as half of the heirloom tomato- as much as you need to have two VERY thin slices per sandwich- and set those aside. Chop the rest of the tomato into 1/2" squares, and toss into the salad.


Cube the avocado, and toss the pieces in the reserved orange juice. This will keep them from browning while you finish the meal. Toss the avocado into the salad.


Mince the cilantro, and toss into the salad. You will, however, want to reserve about a teaspoon for the salad dressing.


Add the almonds, and set aside the salad to prepare the sandwiches and dressing.




Heirloom Tomato Grilled Cheese
I like to use a grill pan for my grilled cheese. Your sandwiches are less likely to stick to the pan, and who doesn't love the look of those grill lines on their food? You will want to pre-heat the pan, so set it on the stove and turn the heat to med. high. There is usually no need to grease your pan, but if you're using something fancy like Le Creuset cookware, you will need to be careful to grease it a little. Some pans can be damaged by inadequate greasing.


For each sandwich, you will need two slices of that tomato, enough sliced cheese to cover the bread plus a little extra, and two slices of whole grain bread.


Assemble a sandwich by first covering one piece of bread with cheese, then with the sliced tomato, and then with just enough extra cheese to cover about half of each slice of tomato. Put the second piece of bread on, and put it onto the pan. While it cooks, about three minutes on each side, you will make the salad dressing.


Orange Vinaigrette
1/4 c olive oil
1/4 c balsamic vinegar
juice of the third orange
reserved chopped cilantro
pinch of salt


In a small bowl, all ingredients together.


By the time you have finished this, your whole meal will be ready. And like magic, it will all be ready at once.


After serving the stew, garnish with a sprinkle of extra parmesan cheese and a LARGE dollop of sour cream- as much as 3 tablespoons. As the sour cream mixes in with the stew bite by bite, it will enrich the flavor.




Bon apetit!

Pouring My Heart Out

There's something I've been meaning to write about for a long time, but I haven't known how to say it.

And, for a not-quite-as-long time, I've been reading some posts from Pour Your Heart Out with Things I Can't Say.  The idea is to just let it out.  Say all those things.  Or, at least, write them.  So... here it goes...

People never seem to know how to react to the information about my husband's medical history.  It comes up fairly frequently when meeting new people, because of the standard litany of questions that people ask.  It comes up a lot at the beginning of a semester.  It comes up a lot when you see somebody you've known for a while, but only vaguely or professionally.

I feel like I have this rehearsed speech, "Hello, my name is Lea, and my husband is recovering from brain cancer.  No, it's not in remission, it's not the sort of cancer that goes into remission, but it's essentially gone.  They haven't been treating this kind of cancer successfully for long enough to know what 'cured' means.  He's doing fine.  He's doing great.  It's a miracle."

And so on.

And as people get to know me, or us, they start to ask questions... questions that people who knew us before would never ask.  Questions that are just plain ridiculous, but people want to know.

When you meet somebody, there's just a big question mark for their entire lives before the day you met.  You don't know how they've changed, what they used to do, how they used to act.  And when you hear that something BIG happened to them, it must be hard to simply assume that before they were pretty much exactly the same as they are now.

And so, once in a while, somebody asks me a question like... "If you had known that M had brain cancer, would you still have gotten engaged to him?"

Yes.

Unequivocally.

M and I got engaged about 16 hours before the events that led to his diagnosis.  I had known that I wanted to marry him ever since we started dating.  It wasn't exactly love at first sight, but he knew it, I knew it, and most everyone who knew both of us knew it.

Something as stupid as cancer wouldn't have made any difference.

I say that now, with the full hindsight of knowing that he survived.  That he is surviving.  Knowing that he got through it.  That he's come out the other end fundamentally the same person.

So far.

There are still questions.  We had been told at the very beginning of treatment that there would be side effects.  You can't irradiate somebody's brain and not expect some... well.... brain damage.  And we'd been told how long it would take to see it.

Well, now we can see it.  It's little things.  A bit of short term memory loss, fatigue, tiny changes that don't change who he is, but when you know somebody inside and out you notice.  Like no matter how many times I tell him what we're doing this weekend, he's still going to forget what we're doing this weekend.  Tiny little things that don't seem important, his brain is willing to just let go of.

And, as they told us four years ago, the long term side effects are completely unknown.

They hadn't been curing people of malignant brain tumors for very long.

Uncle Mouse and I had a talk about this.  We were in the car, I was bringing him to the airport to propose to his (now) fiancee, and he asked about M's short term memory.  And what the future looked like.  And if I was scared.

He's the one person who can get away with asking me the questions that came next.  He was on his way to propose, and the same summer that M was diagnosed with brain cancer, he was diagnosed with a bizarre and (so they said) fatal condition of his own.  He had a calcium deposit growing inside his spinal column, and the doctors had estimated he had two years before it completely severed his spinal cord.

And after all his own experimental treatments, after all the turns his own life had taken, he was about to propose to the girl who had been by his side throughout the ordeal.  While the choices M and I made involved me quitting my job and having kids right away, the choices that Uncle Mouse made were about his own career goals- a person who becomes randomly paralyzed can't very well become a fire fighter.  He had been through depression, addiction, and so much pain....

He had the right to ask what it's like to marry somebody when you don't know they're going to live.

I told him that if somebody had told me that he would die six months after our wedding, I would still have married M.

That if somebody had told me that they KNEW the long term consequences, that in ten years my husband would begin to lose all of his long term memories.  I would still have married him.

That if somebody told me that he would have a resurgence of the cancer in five years, that we'd have to go through it all again (if we were lucky), I would still have married him.

That maybe I'm young and stupid, or I was young and stupid, but that I thought that marriage was about taking care of somebody in sickness and health.  And as far as I'm concerned, promising to promise to do something is the same as promising to do it.  Which means that the moment I told M that he had two months to pop the question or I was going to do it first, in my own mind I'd already walked down the aisle.

I have no idea what the future holds.  Nobody does.  When you're in love, and especially when you're young, you have this idea that you're going to live happily ever after once you get married, but that's just not true.  Once you get married, you live.  And sometimes that means you get sick.  And inevitably, it means that you will die.  Someday.  Somehow.  It's not something that most of us ever want to think about, but there it is.

Could M's cancer come back?  Yeah, it could.
And he could also develop Alzheimer's.  And he could go blind.  And he could become a diabetic.  And he could get in a car accident.

And I could get in a car accident.  Or I could get breast cancer.  Or I could have a heart attack.

Or something could happen to our children.

Or our house could be hit by lightning with all of us inside and we could burn to death in minutes.

That's the nature of the future.  You just don't know.  No matter what has happened in the past, you can't extrapolate the future.

I married a man with brain cancer,  believing with every fiber of my being that he would get better.  And he did.  I suppose he just as possibly could have not.  And that would have changed nothing.  Except that instead of an ache in my heart where the ideas of life without him live, I would have a much bigger pain, an unimaginable pain, of having lost him.

But it would never change my love for him.

Rockin' the Baby

After the success of Rockin' the Bump, Things I Can't Say is Rockin' the Baby!

Which is the perfect excuse to post lots of pictures of my lovely daughters, growing from tiny munchkins into gigantic childlets!


Here is a collection of photos of my awesome little ladies.  Looking awesome.

2 days old

Six months old

9 months old

One year old

18 months old

21 months old

Rockin' the Bump

I've always loved Jewel.  But that's not why I'm linking up with Rockin' the Bump.  I'm liking up because I ROCKED the bump.  I LOVED the bump, no matter how miserable or uncomfortable I was.  I LOVED the bump.  So I showed it off.  And here, for your viewing pleasure, is how I rocked the bump.

22 weeks pregnant with twins

25 weeks pregnant with twins

28 weeks pregnant with twins

30 weeks pregnant with twins

32 weeks pregnant with twins

33 weeks pregnant with twins

34 weeks 5 days pregnant with twins, just a few short days before popping.

The Mom Pledge Vlog Tour

As you may or may not recall, I took The Mom Pledge.  Now there's a Vlog hop of sorts, a get-to-know-you-face-to-face.  How un-internet-y!  So of course, I've finally put aside all of my other projects and had a conversation with my video camera.  I hope you enjoy!

Breakfast with the Grublings

My cooperative eaters

I hear tell that toddlers are picky eaters.  Therefore, it is with much pleasure that I introduce to you, our biggest breakfast staple: Green Eggs.

Green Eggs make me feel better about whatever my kids eat for the rest of the day.  I know that they've had an awesome and healthy breakfast, and if they just load up on carbs for lunch or dinner, I have a sense of calm because I know that they've started their day with a belly full of good stuff, anyway.

Green Eggs are ridiculously easy.  Take a plain, ordinary cheese grater.  Use it to grate up about a third of a cup of zucchini.  Saute the zucchini lightly, and then scramble four eggs with it.  Now you have green scrambled eggs for two toddlers.

Cooperative eating at its finest

I top it off with a little cheese (for some reason Parmesan is completely unacceptable), and then serve it to my grublings with a cup of milk, and some fruit.  Usually bananas or clementines.  And on most mornings, some crackers.  But this week, matzoh!

I particularly enjoy calling it "Green Eggs," because I know how much my kids LOVE the Dr. Seuss book.  And the Dr. Seuss cartoon from the '70s.  (I'm a big fan myself.)

In fact, I think everyone should experience this amazing cartoon.  So here it is:


And thus, my children eat a healthy, balanced, quiet meal.  And then I abandon them in the living room to watch the above cartoon (or Sesame Street) while I clean up, get dressed, and generally make myself more like a living person.


...and hello all you blog hoppers!

Open all week- the Tuesday Blog Hop!

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SuperMommy and the Potty

"The Afterbath"

I've been spending a ridiculous amount of time in the bathroom lately.

No, this isn't actually due to my ongoing battle with the disease I've dubbed "Mystery Dysentery" (which is actually, according to my team of doctors, more like "Mystery Gall Stone").  This is in fact due to two new developments in my life.

DD and SI in the bath

The first is the reinstatement of a routine that puts my children to sleep at night.  The nightly bath.  They LOVE the bath.  DD, having recently learned to use the word "no" conversationally, will now respond to the questions, "Are you ready to get into your pajamas?"  "Do you want to go to bed?" and "Ready to get into your towel?" with a resounding, "No."  SI is more than happy to follow suit and stay in the water until her lips are blue.  While splashing me, or DUMPING WATER OUT OF A TOY BOAT onto me, and laughing uproariously.

Add to this that they now take out ALLLLLLL the washcloths and "help" me clean the tub, that is, drop all the clean washcloths they can get their hands on into the water, or "scrub" the fixtures with them, or "clean" themselves with them...

Bath time, all by itself, generally takes about forty five minutes.  The clean-up takes substantially longer.

But it's not just my own illness and bathing that has me spending most of my days in the bathroom.  No, we've embarked (haphazardly and clumsily, but nonetheless we have embarked) upon the long awaited mission of potty training.

Yes, SI and DD are just over eighteen months old.  Yes, I know they're hardly too old to be using diapers.  I don't care.  YOU spend all day, every day, changing 15-18 diapers (our service gives us an inventory receipt that lets us know just how much of our children's feces they're cleaning up for us) (and that's roughly 2.25 diapers/hour of grubling consciousness) and then you tell me that they can take all the time they want before they poop in the potty.  Please, please do this for me.

Okay, so we've started potty training.  I did buy a book, but I never read it.  I've got so much reading for school, I've got a WONDERFUL book I'm reading with my family book club, and I just don't have that kind of time.  So, no potty training book.  Even if it is only sixty pages long.

I've been playing it by ear.  The first thing that I did was to buy a potty.  I installed it into the house, and every time the girls saw it I made a point of telling them, "This is a potty!  It's for pee and poo!"  The next step was to buy a few picture books to switch in with our regular bedtime reading.  "Once Upon A Potty" was an instant favorite with SI, but DD was terrified- THIS explained the mysterious potty!  She would sit stock still, eyes wide, turning pages with speed and vigor, breathlessly hanging on every word.  She began to treat the potty with reverence and terror.  While before the introduction of the book, she would sit on it like a chair, stand on it, or put her toys in it, now it was some sort of holy object.  Dangerous, powerful, and not to be trifled with.

SI's reaction to this book was, for the most part, the exact opposite.  Much to DD's dismay, SI wanted it read every night.  I had to start reading two books a night, because if I tried putting them to bed after "Once Upon A Potty," DD would have panic attacks.  Seriously, panic attacks.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the book, it has these charming illustrations of Prudence, a little girl (just like you!) using the potty.  On every page without elaborate pictures of Prudence and her mother, there are pretty flowers.

SI LOVES to smell the flowers.  And she LOVES the story of Prudence and her many nice and useful body parts, and she LOVES that this is a nice, small book, that she can manipulate with her clumsy little toddler hands.

So sniffing this book became very important.

In fact, it became very difficult for me to actually READ the book, as each page looked like the back of SI's head, as she frantically sniffed every inch of each page once it had been turned.

And when we got to the picture of Prudence bending over so you could see her nice useful bottom, with it's nice useful hole for making poo...

Yeah, that page has flowers to sniff.  Sniffing every piece of that page is a matter of life and death.  She will not be stopped.

And if you dare laugh, you're in for more trouble.  Anything that makes a grown-up laugh is something that DD has to get in on.  So then you've got two toddlers frantically sniffing Prudence's butt.

Every night.  It's practically a tradition.

Slowly but surely, DD lost her terror of the potty.  SI got more and more excited, demanding to sit on it whenever it was in sight.  I was sure SI would be first.

This child demands that I live in the bathroom

DD memorized my commentary on the book, still not too sure of actually sitting on the potty.  I'd read, "Was it a hat?" and DD would shake her head and say, "No!"  "Was it a milk bowl for the cat?"  "No!"  "Was it a flower pot?" (SI begins sniffing frantically) "No!"

In addition, DD began adding her own, ominous commentary.  Whenever I read, I would follow the line about Prudence peeing and pooping on the floor by saying, "And that's okay!"  DD started pointing at the little picture of a puddle and a pile and saying "No no no!"  I have no idea how she decided on that, but okay then.  I'm still telling her it's okay to make mistakes.  SI does it all the time, after all.

So about a week ago, DD started letting me know when she had gone to the bathroom.  No matter whether she had peed or pooped, she started pointing to her diaper and saying "Poo!"  And I started taking her at her word.  Before long, I had made the decision to start plopping her on the potty before changing her diaper, to give her a chance to associate pee and poo with going in the potty.

Almost instant success.  There was DD, lips pursed, straining to go in the potty.  And she managed to squeeze out a few drops for me.

SI practicing on the potty

I was elated!  I hugged her and exclaimed over her tiny drops of pee, dripped it into the toilet, and helped her flush the toilet.  Then, just like Prudence, we waved and said, "Bye bye pee!"

She didn't pee in the potty today, but yesterday AND the day before we had success!  And today- today SI managed to squeeze out a few drops into the potty for me.  And DD managed to tell me each time she peed or pooped (and differentiate between them) today.

While that's all well and good, it still doesn't explain all the time I've been spending in the bathroom.  No, DD has learned that she gets a lot of special attention and one-on-one mommy time if she announced that she needs to use the potty.  I'll take her in the bathroom, sit down next to the potty, help her get on the potty, and coach her to pee or poo in the potty.

This child is about to poop on the floor

And then this conversation begins:
"Are you going to use the potty?"
"No."
"Do you need to poo or pee?"
"No."
"Can you try to poo or pee for mommy?"
"No no no Mama!  No poo!"
"Let's wait.  Do you want to read a book?"
(nods) "Book!"
"Here's a book."
(holds up book) "Book!"
"Yes, that's a book."
(points at door) "Door!"
"Yes, that's a door."
(taps SuperMommy's knee) "Knee!"
"Yes, that's mommy's knee."
(points at bubble bath bottle) "Bubble!"
"Yes, those are the bubbles."
(points between her legs at the potty) "Potty!"
"Yes, that's the potty.  Can you poo in the potty for mommy?"
"No!"

And then she gets up, pantsless, and tries to give me a big, mostly naked hug.

And this happens every time she sees the bathroom door.

So if she pees or poops, I put her on the potty and we try to go a little more.  If she tells me she needs to poo or pee, I put her on the potty and we try a little more.  And if she sees the bathroom, I put her on the potty and she laughs at me.

And in the meantime, SI keeps peeing and pooping on the floor after she gets out of the tub.

And that is why I spend so much time in the bathroom.