Overheard at the changing table

Sung in a lounge singery kind of way: "And here we are again, changing your diap-diap. And oh, I see we've had a pooooo...."

"Eeeey!"

"Eeey!"

"Eh eh eh eh eh!"

"Don't clench your butt cheeks. Butt cheeks are a privilege, not a right."

Who knew?

Old MacJordan had a truck, E-I-E-I-O

One of the things that Nick discovered calms Big J down when he is flipping out - particularly on the changing table - is Happy Birthday.

So we sing, "Happy birthday to you..." Over and over and over.

Old MacDonald works equally well, and at least there's some variation. We were bringing him home past his bedtime last weekend and he was really screamy and cranky in the back seat.

And so we sang Old Fucking MacDonald. Allll the way home from Springfield. Which took, I dunno, somewhere near forever.

You go through all the animals you know. And then you start reaching. We took turns.

"And on his farm he had some...buzzards? E-I-E-I-O! With a buzz buzz here, and a buzz buzz there..."

"...And on his farm he had some okapi! E-I-E-I-O! With an ok ok here and a pi pi there..."

"...And on his farm he had a gin and tonic..."

At which Nick pointed out that we could actually recycle animals. It's not like J would know.

True, that.

Happy weekend, all!

With a week week here and an end end there...

The caulk issue. Because I am 12.

A couple weeks ago, in our weekly staff meeting, someone brought up The Caulk Issue.

Heh.

Have you ever discussed caulk in a professional environment? No? Let me tell you.

It turns out that a number of schools constructed from the 1950s to the 70s were built using caulk that contains PCBs. PCBs, if you don't know, are toxic and (it turns out) practically impossible to contain. So cleanup of these schools turns out to be a huge and costly issue.

I didn't know about the schools and the toxins, but had read that PCBs are responsible for the diminishing size of alligator penises in the Everglades.

Which brings us to the weekly meeting.

I work in an education-related field, and we write about these topics. Topics like schools and caulk. Not alligator penises. So in staff meeting, people talk about their article topics for the following week's newsletter.

My life is so much more glam than you ever imagined, no?

So we get to beautiful, elegant Michele, who says, "I'm going to have to write about the caulk issue."

She pronounces it carefully, trying to accentuate the L. CauLk. But still.

There is a pause. A pregnant pause, if you will.

And one of our older colleagues says - with complete sincerity - "Oh, the caulk issue. Yeah. The caulk is a big one."

Fortunately, I am sitting next to Michele, so I cannot make eye contact.

Someone else says, "What's the deal with the caulk?"

An explanation of PCBs and containment problems takes place. Schools have to be torn down, because you can't just remove the caulk.

I resist the urge to giggle like a girl. The caulk, people, the giant, dangerous caulk! What do we do with the caulk?

Half the table is avoiding eye contact, and the other half is discussing it in complete seriousness.

The giggle sits at the top of my stomach the entire meeting, flapping and fluttering, in much the same way a fly will bat itself against a window pane, trying to escape. I'm afraid to say anything.

Finally, we adjourn. I make it down the hall and around the corner before I turn to one of my Quad-mates.

I squawk, "The caulk! The deadly caulk!"

Little bitty bits

Seersucker. Nick is wearing his seersucker suit today. He decided that if it's going to be 90 degrees, it's summer, and he can wear seersucker. Plus it's almost Memorial Day.

I tease him about it, but the truth is, I think he looks so cute in this suit. And I totally want to get some seersucker for Jordan.

3:30 AM. Speaking of Jordan, he now likes to wake up right around 3:30 every morning. He's done this the last five or six nights. It's killing us.

Lipstick. I have started wearing lipstick in an attempt to balance out the hair. I've been wearing my wedding lipstick, which fortunately still seems fine. How long can you keep lipstick, anyway?

Kiddie pools. Nick wants to get a little inflatable pool to put on the deck. He was all, "Jordan and I can play in it together!"

Um. I'm going to let you conjure up your own responses to that one.

Happy Wednesday! Feels like summer! Time to dip our feet in Nick's office koi pond!

Kidding, honey, kidding. (Kind of.)

The maintenance

Have you ever gotten on a big diet and exercise kick?

You get all super motivated. You lose a bunch of weight. You fit in skinny winny jeans. You feel fabulous! You haven't been that skinny in years and oh, it's so great!

Then you maybe gain a couple pounds, because you can't maintain that level of starvation fervor forever.

You have all this enthusiasm for the getting there. But how do you stay there?

Because, crap, in order to maintain, you have to keep this up.

For the rest of your life.

Somehow it dawned on me, just yesterday, that the bulk of life is just maintaining.

This is something I have historically sucked at. I was good at leaving, moving, starting over, getting a new job, quitting a job, falling in love, falling out of love, starting a project, getting bored in the middle, moving on to another project...

The beginnings and endings I could throw myself into. They tend to be filled with anticipation, drama, motion, commotion.

It's the middles, the maintenance, where I've struggled. And fallen down.

I thought about this yesterday when picking up Jordan's toys and my clothes for the gajillianth time. You pick all this stuff up...just to take it all out. And pick it all up again tomorrow.

Dishes are clean. Dishes are dirty. Same with clothes. Floors. Carpets. And so forth.

I'm not in a woe-is-me place, or thinking my life is an endless cycle of drugery.

If fact, I actually really like my life more than I ever have. And lately it's been calmer and more normal and routine than pretty much ever.

I used to pull the rug out from under myself whenever anything got routine. And now, I fully realize that my life is one routine after another.

Perhaps it always was; I just had larger, more chaotic circles of routine, of dramatic start and stop, rise and fall.

I'm just wondering - do most people struggle with the maintenance?