Last Splash

The gene pool could use a little Chlorine.

Why Marriage Sucks Sometimes...

I warn you, this will be more like a diary entry than a blog post. I just need to let my feelings pour out right now and this is the only truly anonymous vehicle I have to do it.

My husband is a sissy. I can't even tell you how upset and frustrated I am right now, because his decision making ability is severely hampered and his sense of timing is impeccably stupid. We've been talking about having kids, when we wanted to do it, when we would start trying for over two years now. For christ's sakes, we've talked about baby names for alomst four. We've been trying for two "cycles" now, and on the last day of my ovulation this month, when I was hoping to spend the latter part of our evening at home seducing him, he has to start a conversation about why he doesn't think we can afford kids. Jesus F-ing Christ...could his timing be ANY worse? First of all, if two people who own a home around the American Median Value and make a combined income of about $70K a year (and that's with me in a starter-level position with the next promotion fetching a raise of 5-10K) can't have a baby, who can, really? Second of all, could he NOT have HAD this conversation with me oh, about six months ago, when we sat down and looked at our debt and savings and picked out a month to START TRYING? And finally, does he not realize that toying with a woman's emotions while she's ovulating and hormonal is bad enough, but to do it when last night they made love and looked into each other's eyes and laughed about "maybe that was the time that did it" and the next night he looked at you and said "why did I marry you?" is just murder? What the HELL is wrong with him?

I should have seen this coming. I mean, this is a person who takes ten minutes to decide what to order at the FREAKING WAFFLE HOUSE. I should have known that he can't just take a leap this big after merely talking it over for years, that he would need a Power Point presentation on how much diapers cost and the current inflation rate of onesies. I should have called ten different daycares in my area and made a graph of the average cost of childcare in a week, as well as compared that with how much of my income would be spent on childcare versus the benefits of staying at home and not working (not happening b/c the State of NC offers the worst Health Care rates EVER for spouses and family). I should have realized that he would need to hold a focus group discussion of ten parents in our neighborhood as well as know their yearly income compared to their monthly mortgage payment. Had I done all of this ahead of time, I could have spared myself the drama of me screaming "well, let's just hope I'm not pregnant yet " while waving the toilet brush at him. (I like to clean when I'm angry...don't ask.)

Anyway. I'm sure now that things will just be swell in our household for the next week or so. I have basically been pushed to the edge by this, and I'm now second guessing everything about our relationship. Maybe because it's all fresh and new in my mind right now, or maybe because I feel like no matter what I do things are just not going to move forward. I didn't even want marriage or kids before I met this person, and now he's proving that maybe he's the one having a hard time committing to the house we bought a year ago and the idea of raising children. Who knows? All I know is that typing this is keeping me from hopping in the car and buying a pack of cigarettes, which is what I really want to do. So, sorry for the raw emotion.

 

posted by: Cannonball14 at 01:12 | link | comments (2) |
childbearing

So, no news yet. I have to admit, it was a little disappointing when my "visitor" came last month. (A full DAY late, no less...bastard.) But, hey, it's still fun to try.

I am so tired of people with kids (especially young or old ones...people with 5-12 year olds seem to keep their advice to themselves a little better) telling me how much my life is going to change once I do get pregnant. Hello, I'm 29 years old. I've thought this through. I know my body will change, I know I won't sleep for at least three months for more than four hours at a time (and that's an optimistic estimate), and I know that lying on the couch watching an America's Next Top Model rerun while saying to myself "I'll get to the dishes eventually" on my day off will soon be a thing of the past. It kind of already is anyway. The 9-5 job has been a good transition to make while preparing for kids. No more watching old CSI's on Spike until 3AM because I knew I could sleep until 10 the next morning. These are things that I know will change...I'm as ready for them as I can be! So quit trying to talk me out of it and just let me enjoy this phase in my life...

posted by: Cannonball14 at 18:05 | link | comments |
childbearing

Guess who's coming to dinner?

So, my granmother is in this rehab facility that is about five minutes from my father-in-law's (and wife's) house. The same father-in-law and stepmother that say "call us anytime...we miss you guys" at the five family events we manage to see them at each year. So, Sunday around 4PM we call, get the machine, and leave a message saying we're on the way to visit grandma and since they're so close we thought we'd see if they had dinner plans or not. Twenty minutes later, we get a call back, and they say "why don't you come by for dinner?" Okay. That's cool...usually when we call last minute the response is more like "well, I think we're all settled in for tonight, bud" at like, 7:30. (Have I mentioned that my husband's brother was always daddy's favorite growing up.)

Anyway, as we arrive later, John says, "oh, cool, Karen's here (senior in college stepsister)...and Eric, I guess (24 year old sepbrother)...and...J and J?" (J and J would be John's brother and his wife with 9 month old baby.) So, we walk in and J and the baby are all sprawled out on the living room floor, the table is set all fancy and stepmom-in-law has baked a pie and roasted a chicken and obviously, cooked a dinner for the rest of the family that was planned much earlier than 4PM. Obviously, our gut feeling that all the "call us anytime...we miss you guys" are fairly insincere, seeing as how we were the only siblings living in town that were not invited to this get-together. (In fact, Karen actually said, "I didn't know you guys were invited!" to which I promptly replied "oh, we weren't...we invited ourselves, apparently...")

So, that was awkward...

posted by: Cannonball14 at 17:08 | link | comments (1) |
childbearing

She makes her return. No, seriously, I have not found another blog life or anything like that, I've just honestly not been inspired. And, I have a job where I haven't checked, but I'm pretty sure this will be one of those sites where I get the "not an acceptable website" message from my IT department if I go here. So, once again this may be sporadic at best, but I am giving it a try.

I want to have a baby. Seriously, that's the next logical stage in my life, right? Geez, I never thought I would be 'that girl'. The one that gets married, buys a house, gets a dog, and then wants kids. I thought (and a lot of my close friends and family thought as well) that I would move away, be single for a while, meet some foreign man, adopt African babies, and so on and so on. But life had different plans for me, and here I am. A Southern landowner with a good old boy husband living in what our realtor referred to as a "country subdivision". (No, seriously, I mean that...)

When women talk about their biological clock in movies and TV and books and magazines, you may say to yourself "that's a bunch of bullshit". But it's not. I'm sure there are some women who never experience it, because they've made the personal decision not to have children, and that's fine (I thought I was one, actually), but for the rest of us, strange things happen. We get upset when our monthly cycle starts. We watch parents in public with their children with the kind of misty-eyed, sappy expression that is usually reserved for those Hallmark movies, the ones where a stranger steals your baby. We actually stop being annoyed when at every family event we get asked when we're going to have one. We don't mind holding a crying baby anymore, we jump at the chance to change our niece's diapers, and we offer to babysit on our paid holidays off...for free!

Most of all, though, for me personally it's the feeling that I am ready, that this is the right time in my life, that I have carefully prepared myself and my body over the last six months. I can imagine myself with much more than just a baby...I can imagine myself raising a child who is 3, 6, middle school, dating, the whole nine yards. And now, it's finally time to start trying! It's very exciting. During grocery shopping day last week, I picked out my last six-pack. I debated over my selection as carefully as if I were a death-row inmate choosing my last meal. I overlooked a few of my favorite stouts because it is the sweltering part of summer and that's just a little too heavy. I wanted something expensive, light, refreshing, something that feels like a treat. I settled on Hoegarden, from Belgium. I highly recommend it. I've got 5 to go this week and I'm in the clear. After that, well, I've never been one to spare many details, and I've always used this blog as a space for my personal thoughts, so I will warn you: adult content may follow in the next year.

 

posted by: Cannonball14 at 20:28 | link | comments (1) |
childbearing