Today, I peed on a stick (POAS in the online trying to conceive community) and got a BFN (Big Fat Negative, or Big Fucking Negative). Mixed feelings abound. I became well-versed in the TTC (Trying To Conceive) acronyms during my six months of “trying” (translation: having frequent, well-timed, unprotected sex) to get pregnant. I hate internet acronyms. As an English teacher who fights the abbreviation revolution of my beloved language every day, I find the DH, DD, DS, LOL, IMO, et al utterly intolerable. Any one of my Fertility Friend dot-com friends can look in my chat threads and see that I have always taken the trouble to type “my husband” and “my daughter.” I don’t judge the women who abbreviate. I just cannot join you. I’m sorry.
But if I were in a FF chat room right now, I’d be telling them I am 10 DPO, even though I haven’t been “charting” and today was the earliest possible day I could test. It was also Odie’s first day of teaching the 2010 school year (they started so late this year!), so I promised myself that if it WERE a BFP (Big Fat/Fucking Positive), I would keep this morsel to myself until he got home. Instead, I shared the happy news that we will not be having another baby in June. He wanted to be relieved, but he told me that he wouldn’t completely relax until “AF showed up.”
That’s Aunt Flow to you and me.
One of my recent commenters made some excellent points about having another child. If I’m a good mother (she’s from the UK, so she said “mum” which I find so delightfully charming), then I should bless a second child with my talents. If I’m a terrible mother, then my poor “DD” is going to need a sibling to help spread the crazy. I’m paraphrasing.
Odie and I have discussed this at length. I have written about it here before too. In spite of all his reservations and the logical reasons why we shouldn’t procreate a second time, I have always wanted to do it anyway. And Odie’s like, “Myeh, if it means more sex, I’m down.”
I am an optimist. Did you just spit your wine all over your computer? Believe it. Life is a goddamn adventure. Children are one of the best parts of it. They are the only shot most of us have at leaving something lasting on this earth. Great teachers and writers are lucky to leave legacies of learning and words. I should be so lucky, but if I’m not, I did meld DNA with my beloved, and we’re pretty tickled about the result. Why not roll the dice again? See if we can get my nose this time.
My optimism has faced some wicked challenges of late. My district has cut my health care benefits in ways that take my breath away. I also have the aforementioned 10% pay cut that is likely to be permanent. It will take many years of little raises (frozen indefinitely due to budget issues, according to my union reps) to get back to the salary I was earning TWO YEARS AGO. I have almost fifty grand in student loans to pay back. The news about the U.S. economy looks bleak. Teaching used to be a sweet gig for a small family. Benefits, shorter hours, summers off, tenure, a comfortable pension. With the recession and the wars and the gulf oil disaster (I can’t call it a “spill.” A “spill” is something I do on the kitchen floor and clean up with the hem of my sweatshirt), the world is looking less and less like a place for two public school teachers to try to raise two children.
Maybe Odie’s genetic predisposition to gloom is finally wearing off on me after seven years together.
We’ve been lucky. For the most part, we have what we need and what we want too. I can’t afford a new car, but we can make do with what we have for now. We don’t get to take vacations or eat out at restaurants often, but that’s ok too. Recently, however, I went online looking for some toys for Baby V. The kid LOVES “Yo Gabba Gabba!” and I wanted to get her a set of the characters. They used to carry this stuff at Target and Toys ‘R Us, but I’d been to the stores and found nothing but OTHER Nick Jr. merchandise. When Baby V picked up a “Wonder Pets” cell phone that sang the theme song to that infernal show, I nearly threw it and ran screaming from the store. It’s that sewious.
I found the YGG! toys on-line, but the set I liked was over $150 dollars. We simply don’t have that kind of “extra” cash in the budget, and it pained me a little. They’re just toys, and my 16 month old doesn’t really care either way, but I felt for the first time that I couldn’t get her something she’d really love to have. The trials and tribulations of the bourgeoisie. Next I’m going to complain about how my maid is always hiding shit, right?
It’s a good life. It really is. But maybe it’s going to be just the three of us.
The Friendly Pedant by Mrs. Odie 
I Couldn’t “Rally” Today
Just a quick word to those of you who will know what the hell I’m talking about when I say: K-Hizzle des choses petits must have posted something new, because my blog stats jumped significantly even though I haven’t written anything new in a few days. My small readership wants to know, perhaps, what I think of The Littles Summit happening in Big Sky Country. I have been feeling horribly under the weather this past week, no doubt catching what Baby V is bringing home from day care, so the amount of research it would take to find out exactly for what Hamps was dragging her kids across the states seemed especially daunting to me. The photos are gorgeous, as usual. I had to wonder if the close up of the other woman’s daughter with what looks like the herp on her upper lip was lily-white in the motive department. I don’t know how to pronounce the other woman’s name from looking at the spelling, but let’s just say she and K-Hizzle play fast and loose with the “roolz” of English pronunciation when it comes to their monikers. And while all children are adorable in their own ways, it isn’t always a great idea to put your kids next to stunningly beautiful children for photographs unless you are sure to get close-ups of those pretty other children’s erupting skin lesions for good measure. Also, don’t forget to put a bright shiny coat of gloss on your hang-overs and make them sound like poetry. There is MAGIC in the bottom of the gin bottle (throws confetti).
Okay, okay, that was nasty. I’m sure they weren’t REALLY hung over. And if they were, we’ve all been there.
I skimmed comments, because I need to know if Poppa is moving forward with any of those adoptions, or if 60 is STILL sexy, and ascertained that somebody said some snotty things about this PEASANT WOMAN and her unsaintly lack of household staff to clean, and that our QUEEN deigned to expose the two messiahs to her unfabulousness. Pish posh on that, I say. I have no dog in this fight. But poor Diggety Dug Gardening Blog Lady. I know from personal experience how nasty those Annie Wilkesish followers of the little things can be!
But I had to clap my hands together with a cackle of wicked glee, because where there is a bitchy reader comment, there is the poppa of K-Hizzle with a bitchslap and a snap and a no-she-didn’t! Sometimes there are Bible quotes, but always there are platitudes and armchair psychology diagnoses. These “haters,” according to him, want relationships with him and his ilk, and since his sweet daughter and her lovely friends won’t be friends with US, the haters, we have to piss all over their beautiful world in steaming hot streams of rejection and envy. But like Wonder Woman’s bracelet cuffs, they use their pure love and joy and specialness to deflect the hateful words of critics, and we “haters” are left alone (like we were before because we have no friends, and no lives) covered in our own hot piss. Remember, they are certainly attractive people, but what they really radiate is INNER BEAUTY. Velveteen Rabbit beauty. The kind that bitter people like me who don’t KNOW GOD can’t possibly understand. We want relationships with them? The “haters” do? Not the hundreds of women who say “I want you to visit me! I’m so jealous!” or “I want to steal Nella” or “I printed a picture of your kids, put it in a frame and am telling people they’re mine” or “ADOPT ME, POPPA! YOU MAKE 60 SO SEXY!” Okay, sure. Let’s go with that. No criticism could be legitimate. We “haters” must be lonely, crazy and dull. And we’re making our own children bitter. We’re Jennifer and she’s Angelina. We’re Debbie, and she’s Liz.
Now back to me. Not unlike two stay-at-home mommy bloggers, I woke up at 6 a.m., as usual, this morning (sans hang-over) looked at the sleeping puddle of cute snuggled up beside me, rolled over to give her a kiss and … okay, INTENDED to roll over and deliver this kiss, but I couldn’t move. The persistent bursitis in my hip had joined forces with the muscle spasms in my back and mutiny was declared.
Yesterday was a half day at school so that we teachers could be ready for Back to School Night (and still only work the usual number of contractual hours that day), so I took the day off with every intention of being rested up and ready to meet parents in the evening. I hate BTSN as much as any teacher (as my buddy Trixiebell puts it, it’s like spending 3 hours being a Miss America contestant. We smile, we wave, we talk about the teacher version of world peace: high test scores), but I’ve never missed one in all of my 10 years of teaching.
Okay, ONE.
But it was ON my birthday and that morning I sprained my ankle while running with my (then) newly adopted dog (who I am convinced tripped me on purpose, but I could never prove it, so my lawyer said I had no case). I even showed up for work that day and the principal sent me home.
I’m dedicated, is what I’m saying. Even though BTSN feels like a giant job interview-where I stand in front of a group of people who are getting closer and closer to me in age as the years pass, and assure them that I am capable of teaching their children-I show up. So I felt a little guilty calling in sick Tuesday night.
To my surprise, I actually called in sick today as well, only I DID take Baby V to school, so now I’m home sick and alone. Alone. I haven’t been alone like this since August of 2008 when I found out that I had another human being inside me.
Let’s just say I’m happy that my back is in agony and my throat is killing me and that my period is telling me, “Go get an egg and cheese biscuit from McDonald’s.” That’s right, because otherwise I’d have no excuse to not be cleaning the house for my mother-in-law’s visit later today.
I just found out yesterday that a friend of mine is pregnant with her second child. Her first is a few weeks older than Baby V. A second friend with a baby my baby’s age gave birth to number 2 yesterday. I’m feeling sad about the possibility of having only one. AGAIN. Jeebus, Mrs. Odie, pick a side and stay on it, will you? I KNOW! Last night I lay in bed nursing Baby V to sleep while she kept popping off my nipple to breathe through her mouth and sing a few bars of “Itsy Bitsy Spider,” and I was thinking, “Odie takes terrible care of himself and won’t see a doctor EVER. It isn’t fair to me if he dies in his fifties and only leaves me with one child to keep me company.” Don’t worry, I actually DO have the good sense not to say that to him. His mother will handle it for me.
So, between (it should be “among” but that sounds wrong) my hip, my back, my period, and the imminent arrival of Momma Odie, I just couldn’t rally today. So it’s just me, the DVR, and a twelve pack of Diet Dr. Pepper.
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