Pickling

I've been gone - off the radar - for almost a week now. My apologies. I've been mired in the swamps of nausea and exhaustion. I've been living on small pieces of cheese and saltine crackers, watermelon and ginger ale. It's been hard to imagine getting back to normal, and I've been getting a little freaked out at it all. I also went to Portland to visit my family while my husband went to eastern Washington on a fishing trip. A lot has been going on.

I went to the doctor on Friday for a checkup/ultrasound and to hand over some more blood, and they told me that my due date is March 20th, which puts me at about 8 weeks along tomorrow. Soooo, another couple of weeks of this feeling crappy crap. I've had enough. It was heartening to see the baby's heartbeat on the ultrasound, though. I remember that my daughter's heartbeat was very fast, and my mom and all those women my mom's age told me that meant I was having a girl. But this heartbeat didn't look quite so fast, so I can't help but to think that maybe I'll have a boy. That and this yucky morning sickness, which I don't ever remember having with my daughter. I feel like I've been just sitting around this time, watching my daughter play, with minimal movement. I feel like she must be so disgusted with me after a while, saying "No-no!" and "Not for babies!" from my perch on the couch. I am disgusted with me, that's for sure. She is such a sweet little girl, though - so patient and coming over to me to say "Kiss!" and to pat me on the back every so often. What a peach.

This morning when I went to use the toilet and she went over to her little potty, I told her she was going to try and go potty like a big girl today. I took off her pants and her diaper, and sat her on her plastic pot, but she kept getting up and walking around. I think she understood that I was asking her to produce, but I'm not sure the message got across that she needed to aim her production at the potty. Finally she walked over to the corner and peed standing up and said, "Mama, potty!" She was very proud of herself, and I praised her, but then I took her hand and tried to lead her mid-pee to sit on her potty. She managed to get one drop in the pot, so I would say that she's officially christened it. I am very proud of her. I probably should do some reading on the topic of potty-training before I go whole-hog with her, but I would say that was a very successful introduction.

What else? Speaking of whole-hog, I attempted to make pickles this weekend at my parents' house. I went with my mom to Sauvie Island, to a farm stand, and bought a bunch of pickling cucumbers and jars and vinegar and spices, and got started on my project on Sunday. My sister took the baby to the children's museum, so I had a few hours to myself. Let me just say that, as with every home-made item, there is an awful lot of prep time compared to the actual time of completing the task called pickling. You have to wash and dry all the jars, screw-tops, and lids. Then you have to wash all of the cucumbers really well (and I had 20 lbs.!). Then you have to set up all of your ingredients and set out like four pots with boiling water and your vinegar solution. Then you have to sanitize each jar by dipping it into boiling water (oh - and don't forget the tricky task of getting the jars back out again without cooking your hands!). And THEN you can pack the pickles and spices and pour the solution over them and screw the tops on and put them back in the boiling water to get the lids to seal. Whew! A lot of work for about 18 jars of pickles. And I have this fear that none of them sealed right so they're all going to go bad. We'll see - I'll let you know. It did feel really good, though, to start a big project like this and see it through to its completion.

I also saw my best girlfriend from high school this weekend. She has moved back to Portland from doing her OB/Gyn residency at Duke, and now has a 3-year fellowship at OHSU. What a smarty-pants. She's getting married to her long-time boyfriend this month, and she's anxious to get going on starting a family herself. It was so nice to see her - she's one of those friends where I can go months or even a year or so without seeing her, and then I see her again and we just catch right back up. There's never any awkwardness, and she and I share the same principles of etiquette. That is to say, we are considerate of one another's needs and situations, and we don't say rude things to one another - amazing! We went out to dinner and dessert and the food tasted wonderful and I didn't feel sick once - Hallelujah! But she did say to me something that has been on my mind since I saw her. She said, "So, are you going to come back to Portland ever?" And I wasn't sure what to say. And it made me feel sad. You see, I'm still at that stage here in Seattle where I love living here, and I love the friends we have made and the life we've built for our family, but if the opportunity presented itself and the cards were right, I'd move back there in a heartbeat. You bet your boots. Because that's where I'm FROM. I LIVE in Seattle, but I'm FROM Portland, and my struggle thus far has been to create more of an identity for myself in Seattle. I suppose it will just take time, blah blah blah. It may also take getting a job outside of taking care of my daughter, eventually, or doing something where I am having an impact on a community greater than my household. I want to love Seattle in the same way I love Portland, but I'm not quite there yet. I love various people in Seattle, but the city itself is still fairly foreign to me and holds little interest right now, aside from child-friendly activities and the occasional need for a good restaurant for a date with my husband. In Portland I have a whole city that I love - every last pocket - as well as the people (including my own family and a couple of childhood friends) who I love there. Anyway, it's still a challenge.

We saw "Young Frankenstein" last night. It was very good, although quite long and my husband and I kept getting sleepy. We are such old people now! Megan Mulally was hilarious in it, as was the guy who played Young Frankenstein himself. As always, it was very fun to go out and share an evening of adult activities. As parents we need to keep reminding ourselves that this is key to self-preservation and the preservation of our romantic relationships. Amen.

On Houseguests

I had houseguests all weekend long until yesterday morning. First my younger sister came to stay, which is something of a treat. She is generally a good houseguest and loves to spend time with her niece, although lately she makes me a bit nervous as she is constantly "cleaning" my house while she is here. I'm not sure why this is, but I suspect it has something to do with the whole sister-competition thing and is a passive-aggressive way of letting me know my house is somehow not up to snuff. No, it is not "helpful" but rather distressing to the hostess when your houseguest gets out the Clorox spray and begins disinfecting the bathroom and the area around the dog bowls. As a guest, I believe a balance must be struck between being respectful and keeping your room tidy and not leaving your bowls and glasses around the house - perhaps even clearing the table and offering to do the dishes one night - and actually taking on the role of housekeeper, taking out the garbage and doing laundry and scrubbing the floor on your hands and knees. In my opinion, you as a guest have a duty to let the host/hostess know with all of your might that you greatly appreciate being invited to stay in their lovely home, you find it most relaxing, and is there anything you can do to help maintain the loveliness that surrounds you. You should behave as though nothing needs improving, and certainly does not need deep, disinfectant cleaning.

Then my mom came up from Portland and stayed for one night while my sister was here. I love my mom. She is a good houseguest, too. I especially love that she goes and takes a nap in the afternoon when she is here. That's a good thing, all you guests. It is important to initiate some "off" time while you are staying in someone's home. Particularly someone who is newly pregnant and feels perpetually as if they could just crawl under a table and sleep for three days. Give your hostess a break from hostessing once in a while.

Of course, there are things that bug me about my mom, too. For one thing, she seems to always only stay for one night. She does work full-time still and has things at home that she has to take care of like we all do, but this is kind of a strange feeling. My husband jokes with her that she's afraid she'll turn into a pumpkin if she stays here longer than 24 hours, and there is always that awkward chuckle after this comment. Because it's true, I guess. The thing is, she's just like me. She's a Taurus. She knows she loves her daughter and her daughter's husband and above all, her precious granddaughter, and she wants to come up to Seattle from time to time to pay a visit, but God forbid she be taken out of her element - out of her home, her nest - for more than a little while. She starts getting itchy, and she "really needs" to get home to do things like sort out the boxes in the basement that have been sitting there for thirty years. So, it bugs me because it is all too close to home, I suppose. It is interesting, though, because she cries really hard when it's time to leave us. She probably wants to bring us all home with her to always have around her. I guess my sister would be in charge of all the cleaning in that case.

Then an old childhood friend from Portland came to visit, starting on Monday. This houseguest will not likely be invited to stay again anytime soon, as she violated many of of the rules of houseguesting, and generally pissed me off. #1: She called me at the last minute to say that she was coming up with a friend (who I do not know) and she guessed they would have to stay at the youth hostel, unless I could possibly spare them a room. Of course I will say of course you should come and stay with us. What else can I say? #2: Said friend of friend would be attending a real estate conference on Monday and Tuesday, and old friend would like to just "hang out" with me and "do whatever." All day long? What about events in my schedule? #3: Houseguests were going to just need to spend Monday night, and leave Tuesday after conference got out, but oh, actually, come Tuesday morning, would it be okay if they just stayed one more night? Um, NO! But of course, "Sure!" #4: Old friend is newly pregnant as well, for the first time, and has extreme morning (read: "all-day") sickness which involves frequent vomiting and inability to eat or even look at regular foods at regular mealtimes, to go for a walk, or even to just be. This makes you an extremely high-maintenance houseguest, and someone who should not be a houseguest unless it is some kind of emergency. This was not. #5: Old friend (this is fast-becoming an inappropriate title for this individual) leaves dishes, silverware, food wrappers and large clumps of hair all around my house, poo-poo track marks in the toilet bowl, every single light on in her guest room all the time, and her bed unmade with the door wide open. Needless to say, on Tuesday night, when she and her friend were telling me that they'd like to spend Wednesday "just hanging out and doing stuff," I told them that actually I had a list of very important appointments for Wednesday so I couldn't join them and that everyone needed to be out of the house by 9am. At 9am, we all left the house, I locked the door and said good-bye, then I drove around the neighborhood with my daughter and came back a few minutes later to my sweet empty house where we both fell down and took a good long nap.

Maybe I am hard on my houseguests. Or I shouldn't be so critical of people who I myself have invited to stay. Well, my sister and my parents are givens. They can come and stay no matter how much they bug me, because they are my family and we're stuck with each other. But I do find that having non-family people come to stay is a good way to figure out who you really desire to have in your life. This friend was a lot of fun when we were little girls - she was adventurous and always up for whatever mischief I wanted to get into. But this weekend sealed for me that she has grown into a woman who missed a good portion of the lesson on manners and selflessness. She is a kind enough person, and I'm sure she will make a perfectly fine mother. But when someone lacks the ability to conduct themself as a houseguest with grace and some humility (yes, even when they are feeling ill), I feel that I simply don't have the time or energy to deal with that person any longer. And these days, I will not.

Got an email yesterday from a college friend of mine. I haven't heard from him for a few years, and since then he's gotten married and just had his second daughter three weeks ago. His first daughter is 19 months old - almost the same age as mine - and she was born with Down Syndrome. He sent a photo of the whole family, and it just made me cry to look at it. I don't know if I can precisely describe what I was feeling. Sad, not so much because the child has a disability, but more because I know it must have been so, so hard for my friend and his wife to be faced with the prospect of raising a child with a disability. I was sad for the moment that they had to endure when they realized that none of this having-a-baby stuff was going to be the way they'd always imagined it. I also cried because I was so proud of my friend, sitting there with his beautiful family and so full of love and it all working out for him in spite of the intense challenges his family faces. And I suppose I wept a little out of guilt, too, for all the times I thought my situation wasn't perfect and got stressed out about it.

I would never not be a mom now. I am so addicted to this love (I know, I know . . . Robert Palmer got into my head just now, too - sorry) that I can't imagine living without it. Of course I get resentful sometimes that I can't just go to a movie or out to a restaurant or shopping for clothes by myself and take my time. And have things that are MINE and pretty and not stained or wet. But those are low moments, and luckily they are becoming a lot fewer and farther (further?) between. I think my situation now is just about perfect, stresses and worries and all. I'm sure my old college friend thinks his is, too.