tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74541392008-07-25T16:13:15.482-05:00carohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04771333861395563193noreply@blogger.comBlogger216125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7454139.post-85120434348928337762008-07-25T06:43:00.007-05:002008-07-25T06:43:02.004-05:00

Today is the fourth anniversary of my first blog post. I've had a long hiatus or two, but, still, four years is a long time, and it's way longer than I thought I'd be at this. I started this blog to join the community of bitter, funny infertile women writing on line—a community I needed, at the time, desperately. Since then this has been part notebook, part brain dump, part builder of small but

carohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04771333861395563193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7454139.post-14906405222795401092008-07-18T10:05:00.002-05:002008-07-18T12:45:12.362-05:00

We chose Iris's name a few days before she was born. It rose to the top of a pile of names that we liked but that each had a fatal flaw: Edith or Alice (too plain, maybe, and without much meaning for us), Harriet (too much like my real name), Freya (A loved it, but it made me think frazzled), Siri (a nickname for Sigrid, it turns out, and it means butt in Japanese), Esther (a bit too old lady, we

carohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04771333861395563193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7454139.post-48025354979871716942008-07-17T14:14:00.000-05:002008-07-18T10:05:38.231-05:00

Right now the blackboard of shame says 8 days, and my record is 11.5. No one at day care ever so much as batted an eyelash about the train undies. The neighbors finally took down their Christmas wreaths around the first of June. I run at least twice a week these days, and my pelvis hardly makes that snapping sound at all anymore. Ingrid has asked about nail polish two more times, and each

carohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04771333861395563193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7454139.post-16391893343180646662008-07-14T21:21:00.005-05:002008-07-14T21:36:41.393-05:00

This is certainly a case of caro being late to the party, but last week I discovered Alltop, and I am smitten. I'm a sucker for simplicity in design. And what an elegant way to skim through favorite reads and find new ones. My blog is on there, as well...waaaaay at the bottom of the moms category. And I'm so tickled to be part of such a nifty site that I am doing just what the clever Alltop

carohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04771333861395563193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7454139.post-48840941443905596862008-07-11T16:00:00.003-05:002008-07-11T16:21:41.185-05:00

Wednesday night A was out of town, and it was a work day. The events of the evening seem worth recording for posterity: Pick girls up from day care. Decide it will simplify dinner to pick up a you-bake pizza. Tell Ingrid we are getting pizza. Drive around tiny cramped pizza place parking lot looking for space. Drive around block looking for parking space. Drive around block again. Drive

carohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04771333861395563193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7454139.post-82468939866475147482008-07-09T09:24:00.000-05:002008-07-09T09:22:58.740-05:00

Ingrid's been peeing on the potty with total reliability for months. Number two, though? Never. We'd tried all sorts of encouragement, all kinds of potties, all kinds of conversations, and a good long stint of no-pressure, hands-off waiting. Out of some sort of idealism, I'd been resisting offering bribes. And somehow I'd been thinking that, once I finally crossed into the world of offering

carohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04771333861395563193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7454139.post-11462000659294102008-07-07T19:00:00.000-05:002008-07-07T19:00:10.816-05:00

The red currants are ripe, and both girls know how to pick them—Ingrid conscientiously placing most of hers in the bowl, and Iris with great concentration and two tiny fingers. The herbs—parsley, dill, mint, sage, basil—are ready to be pinched back and harvested. There are flowers, and Ingrid and I clip a little bouquet for the table: coneflowers, amaranth, lavender. It's hot out, but not too

carohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04771333861395563193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7454139.post-51467005801352931732008-07-02T16:11:00.005-05:002008-07-25T15:31:16.920-05:00

Our friends C and J come over for dinner every week, usually on Thursday, when our shared box of CSA vegetables arrives. They are terrific people. Cooking and eating and sitting around the table with them is a deep and reliable source of pleasure. And there's something else, too. One Thursday in May, C came over early to bake a birthday cake (their oven was broken). Ingrid had refused, in a

carohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04771333861395563193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7454139.post-46097752355988088062008-07-01T23:00:00.002-05:002008-07-01T23:08:36.687-05:00

This is exactly what people mean when they say blogging will cause your kids trauma and embarrassment. But I can't resist. I have worked very hard to word this in a way that won't attract scurrilous googlers: This is my eldest's number one favorite implement for bathtub self-exploration. Obviously, the girl is a genius.

carohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04771333861395563193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7454139.post-91715091465188048012008-06-30T13:25:00.002-05:002008-06-30T13:54:00.836-05:00

I dreamed I was going to do some sort of reading of my poems. I arrived with a stack of poems in a big box that looked like our dining room table turned upside down, and everyone at the reading treated me like some kind of crazed pariah. "That is the filthiest dining room table I've ever seen," I heard people gossiping to one another. "And are we really supposed to listen to those poems after she

carohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04771333861395563193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7454139.post-75132615673357361762008-06-25T20:44:00.003-05:002008-06-25T20:55:06.004-05:00

Just now as I was helping Ingrid get ready for bed: "Mama?" "Yeah." "H has polish on her fingernails." [H is a girl at Ingrid's extra crunchy Waldorf-y wonderfully free-thinking day care, where all the women are strong and half the kids (including H) have two mamas.] "Oh! That's very grown up!" "Mama, I want polish like H's. "Oh, hmmm..." "H's is purple." "Oh, wow! Who helped H put on her nail

carohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04771333861395563193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7454139.post-25977722316285197452008-06-25T16:01:00.001-05:002008-06-25T16:03:47.388-05:00

I make it a rule not to write about work, but this isn't about work, it's about working. It's about what it feels like to keep going to my office every week. I've been working at the same place for almost six years now. When I started my job, I had no children. Had never been pregnant. Had never tried to get pregnant. A and I weren't even married. The place has been good to me. They've given me

carohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04771333861395563193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7454139.post-65689391213257000412008-06-24T20:30:00.003-05:002008-06-25T15:37:22.120-05:00

The best thing the girls and I have done with our days this summer is to pack up swimsuits, sandwiches, and sunscreen and spend the whole middle part of the day (from the end of Iris's morning nap until the beginning of afternoon nap time) at the park. We play in the wading pool until everyone's hungry, and then we sit on a bench in the shade to eat. We pee in the sketchy rec center bathroom. I

carohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04771333861395563193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7454139.post-91086610107404236052008-06-23T20:22:00.002-05:002008-06-25T15:37:30.058-05:00

Iris wakes up first. I feed her bananas and drink tea and tickle her feet, and then Ingrid wakes up. "Maaa maaa!" She sleeps in a big girl bed, but she treats it like a crib, sitting there calling for me to come and get her. I balance Iris on my hip, and all the way up the stairs she kicks her legs and bounces. "Gidd! Gidd!" I open Ingrid's door. "Hi, chunkster!" she croons. "Good morning,

carohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04771333861395563193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7454139.post-3891348734916962272008-06-22T22:20:00.005-05:002008-06-22T22:36:17.611-05:00

Revising complaint letter to awful children's dentist...replacing "half-assed" with "insincere" and "piss-poor" with "unacceptable". Peered at bathtub turd like a medium reading tea leaves for several seconds before realizing I didn't actually want to know whose it was that badly. Purchasing an ark's worth of Schleich animals to bribe Ingrid to poop on the potty. Also, a case of size six

carohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04771333861395563193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7454139.post-68273869237554188552008-06-16T14:54:00.004-05:002008-06-25T15:37:50.114-05:00

(And that's not a lifetime record, it's just since I decided a couple of weeks ago that some sort of external shaming would get me back on track.)

carohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04771333861395563193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7454139.post-83867184988086925702008-06-14T20:09:00.002-05:002008-06-14T20:21:19.329-05:00

Friends, I'm sorry about that. How sweet of you to not all lunge through the computer, shake me by the shoulders and demand, "What in the living fuck are you talking about?" My excuse for the incoherence is that I've had some sort of stomach bug that had me puking all night Tuesday, bleary in bed all day Wednesday, and, until now, not really able to eat much other than crackers. Count

carohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04771333861395563193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7454139.post-71083621624968571062008-06-12T13:56:00.004-05:002008-06-25T15:37:06.080-05:00

In Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, she describes working in the clothing department at Wal-Mart. All day, she's responsible for cleaning up the continually unfolding mess, sorting, folding, and hanging clothes that customers have removed from the racks. Of course, her job is never finished. There are always more t-shirts in the changing rooms, sweaters unfolded, jeans carried off but not

carohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04771333861395563193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7454139.post-55808135682842773062008-06-08T12:07:00.003-05:002008-06-08T12:30:45.101-05:00

I've gotten out of the habit of writing, and been out of energy for it. A was away for over two weeks, and during that time I gradually wore down my reserves: up many times a night with a teething Iris, plus awake in the 5 o'clock hour every morning. This left me not exactly tired, but with the sense of having basically nothing left for anything but getting through each day. That sense is

carohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04771333861395563193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7454139.post-11758852416560390942008-06-02T16:38:00.004-05:002008-06-02T16:43:15.058-05:00

I ought to make some sort of consistent policy on whether to post photos of my kids here. But for now, since I'm not well rested enough to either do that or write more than a couple of sentences, enjoy the cuteness.

carohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04771333861395563193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7454139.post-7304389522802717832008-05-30T22:15:00.000-05:002008-05-30T22:26:34.116-05:00

Squishing, whatever. Kate guessed right. It is about a just three year old squashing, elbowing, and upending the crap out of her baby sister. I’ve written about the problem and a move toward a solution before, but it’s kept up. The squishing, I mean. The squishing comes in waves, as does my ability to deal with it calmly rather than giving in to the primal baby-protecting urge to scream like an

carohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04771333861395563193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7454139.post-40466951310918588132008-05-29T13:22:00.002-05:002008-05-29T13:24:18.584-05:00

What I want is one of these that works on the ears instead of the tongue, turning whining into normal, reasonable talk and a full-throttle tantrum into delighted giggles.

carohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04771333861395563193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7454139.post-10454891786434865852008-05-28T13:04:00.003-05:002008-05-28T13:52:51.862-05:00

I've got seven posts in my head but none written. Maybe I can get to one this week. Which do you think you want to read? Inside Jokes Turning Pro Sisters Slow Spring Coming Clean Again With the Baby Squishing Work

carohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04771333861395563193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7454139.post-92010375090862645962008-05-26T21:38:00.003-05:002008-05-26T21:51:31.078-05:00

It's time made this explicit: I do not even know how to operate our camera. Today I learned that that little red picture of a hand? Means the flash is not on. All this time I was thinking it was there to say, Hi! Welcome to your camera! If I did know how to use a camera you would be able to see right away the solid, glistening dignity of this chunk of tofu. I mean, the thing is, like, six

carohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04771333861395563193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7454139.post-701341336584011672008-05-23T13:44:00.004-05:002008-05-23T13:55:51.334-05:00

(Two days ago, near the breakfast table.) Ingrid: (Stands near Iris wearing pink felted slippers.) Iris: (Pulls at flower ornaments on slippers, tries to put in mouth.) Ingrid: (Yells.) NO, IRIS! (Bats Iris’s hand away.) caro: You need to find a gentler way to tell her no. You could just step back and say… Ingrid: (Interrupts.) Here, Iris. (Sits on floor and removes slippers one at a time,

carohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04771333861395563193noreply@blogger.com