Congratulation Flowers

I just had flowers delivered! From my Dad and his girlfriend. So sweet. I don't think I've ever had flowers DELIVERED. It even has a big bunny and carrot in it.

Certified Professional Midwife, and today, a recluse

I have big news. Very big news.
I finally received my letter from the North American Registry of Midwives telling me I passed my written exam and I am now a CPM!!!
Woo-hoo!
I finally received my letter in the mail yesterday after an agonizing 5 weeks of waiting, doubting, feeling confident, then doubting again, etc.

It is DONE. The last 5 years of my life have been focused on those three little letters.
After the initial whooping an hollering and hugs and kisses from my family, we got on with dinner and playing and homework. I was alone in the kitchen cooking when I was overwhelmed by great, big, gulping, snotty waves of weeping.
Perhaps this letter took the top off of my pressure cooker. The heat had been turned down, then maybe even turned off for a while. A little steam has been escaping, but yesterday the whole lid was removed and I lost my shit.

I feel like I'm on day 3 or 4 of post partum-ness. My milk is in, the birth went well, baby is nursing, but I just want to cry and sleep a bit. Everyone is congratulating me and I feel a little out-of-body about it all.
I suppose that's how it goes when these big milestones occur.
You're left saying, "That's it? We're done? You're going home now? I suppose I'll stay in and fold some laundry..."

I'm not meaning to be a downer. I'm sincerely happy and also very grateful to all those people in my life who have made apprenticing possible, and to everyone who helped me get up the funds to send in my portfolio and take the exams.

We need a celebration party, which will happen. Right now, I'm starting my period and I just want to read my novel.

(and I'm not really a recluse. It's 2pm, today I've dropped S at school, drove 30 miles for a consult, drove to another midwife's office to borrow something, visited a friend... I just FEEL like if given the choice, I'd be laying in bed reading!)

PMS Alter Ego or Freshly Weaned Hormones Amuck

I am no longer feeling like Catherine Deneuve.
I've officially weaned E. He's not nursed since Saturday morning. He's tried though, believe me. And it's been hard at nap times when he's so tired. He looks at me like I've just run over his dog in front of him and then laughed about it. It's heart-wrenching. It makes me feel like a witch.

And even though my period isn't due for another 10 days, I have a huge hormone-feeling headache, a few anger issues, and I'm really tired when I shouldn't be. So I don't know if my body is immediately feeling the effects of the no-more-nursing, but something is going on.
Can one have PMS 10 whole days before period is due?

I am a driver for a field trip today. S and her class are going to see a local theater troupe. Today should be interesting as S has been awake since 3am. She came to my bed around that time, shook me and said, "Mama,is it too early to wake up?"
I told her yes and to go back to bed and read books until she fell asleep.
She came back an hour later and asked if she could watch a movie.
I told her yes but to keep it quiet and to lay on the couch so she could fall asleep.
But she never did.

I'm imagining her teacher will call me around 10:30 this morning saying, "S has melted into a puddle on our floor and she's sobbing and won't get up. Could you please come get her?"

Between me feeling like Endora, S not sleeping, and E not nursing...
it will be the day for huge meltdowns.

Ovulation Alter Ego

I missed a small Girl's Night Out last night at the brewery up the street. I had to work and was very bummed. I am making it up today by going out with my own husband tonight. It's St. Paddy's day, so I'm hoping the bar (which is non-smoking) won't be too packed by the time we arrive, 7ish, early yet not so early. In this college town, the college kids will all be at the smoking bars, not the lame, non-smoking brewery for 30-40 year olds. The place is comfortable in that way because you feel like most everyone there is making a small escape from their children. You can tell by the desperate smiles and sloooooooow drinking of the beer. "Can't leave yet, honey. Look at all the beer in my mug!"


I am in the mood to actually get dressed up to go out. But it's too cold to wear a skirt and such.
It will be nicer jeans and a hip, tight shirt.
Or maybe, I shall just wear something ala Catherine Deneuve.

I am so obviously ovulating. While driving Mr. Senior Guy to a far-away grocery store last night (for Diet Coke, 2 twelve packs for $1.99~ drive 20 miles to get it), I was overcome by images from the previous night from my husband. We had fun laughing in bed, followed by sex. For some reason I kept my eyes open for a lot of it, and loved the way he looked. Kept thinking of him. In that good way that warms your belly like when you're first screwing someone AND you like them. Can't wait to get back to them.

I told my husband all this when I got home. I said, "Lucky me, married 12 years and still able to get those butterflies from time to time."
And he replied, "No. Lucky ME that you still get those butterflies."
"Yes, lucky you. You're right."
Smile.

I've always loved going out for drinks. Always loved people watching. To see and be seen. Love it. My husband, not so much. Yet we've always had so much fun together when we're out. We spent most of our time in bars during our first year or two.
I'd wear the best skirts and dresses. Get drunk, dance, play pinball, eat chili-cheese fries at a coney when the bar closed. Ahhhh, dreamy.

He's already said that if there's nowhere to sit, we're not going in.
There better be somewhere to sit, because I know I will be overcome with a long-lasting, pissy pout if I don't get to have a beer in a bar on St. Paddy's Day.

All right, off to read a book for a bit while E is napping and S is watching The Princess Diaries.
Then to think about how to best emulate Catherine Deneuve. (Wearing a bra in bed shouldn't be so bad, but mine are all fairly natty right now. Not to mention my post-nursing boobs just are NOT the same. I'm feeling a little let down by the whole thing, to be quite honest. That's for another post.)

I have many alter egos. Ms. Deneuve is definitely at the top of the list. With some others, from Fellini films. I'll have to make a list of my alter egos sometime and try to post them all with pictures.
I'm sure they change as I go through my cycle. I wonder if they're all European? Don't I have any American alter egos?
I'll have to put some thought into this.
I think I'm on to a good blogging project. Will post pics of my alter ego, ala celebrities, or not so celebrated (Mommie Dearest?). We'll have to see.

Young Michael Cain

I think I am the only woman on the planet who thinks Michael Cain is very cool and therefore geekily, Mod-sexy in The Ipcress File.


For some reason, I've been thinking of him in that role all weekend.
Imagining drinking a vodka and tonic (with a twist of lime, please) and smoking a Lucky Strike with the young man in the thick, black eyeglasses.

confession

Okay, it's not a terribly exciting confession, but I still feel the need to share it.
I told my husband a little about this strange new phenomenon I've been having since late August (coinciding with my work with seniors). I must also say that I am in NO WAY looking outside of my marriage for ANYTHING! I'm very happy and satisfied with everything under our roof and blankets.

When I first became a mother, I seemed to have lost any presence of sexual identity. I was the milk-stained t-shirt mama, completely in love with my baby but completely at a loss as to what the hell had happened to my libido and my desire to be attractive. Over the years I've slowly regained that sense of self and think I have it back in full force, albeit in a different form. (Like, um, I'm not terribly drunk dancing to ska and reggae and flirting with skin head bartenders.) Sadly, I noticed that even though I've regained my sexual identity and libido (HURRRRAHHH!), I'm now a bit older and I often have kids with me. I'm not quite sure I believe in the MILF thing. I do NOT want to be a MILF. I would love however, to be aging gracefully and becoming ever-more sexy like Catherine Deneuve (fantasy, I know, but that's what I imagine I am doing-ha!).
At any rate, one misses having decent, sober, men of a similar age flirt with you. Or at best, smile warmly. Doesn't happen very often when one is dripping wet with lactation gone wild and screaming baby strapped to your chest in a sling.
You often hear about young guys borrowing nephews or nieces or puppies for a day so they can make small talk with young women who think they must be incredibly sensitive and good father material, when in reality, they're just trying to hook up with young women.

Forget the small children if you're a woman. It very obviously doesn't have the same effect. What I have found however, is that shopping with a really old person brings me flocks of flirtatious guys tripping over themselves to help us in stores.
It's downright bizzare. The last time I had this many guys paying this much attention to me, I'm pretty sure I was wearing a very short skirt and dancing with a beer in my hand....over a decade ago.

It's kind of fun to be in Home Depot and have a cute 24 year old guy smile and pester me and Mr. Senior Guy (whom I'm pushing in a wheel chair btw) to allow them to help us, despite us just browsing the store. Same thing in grocery stores with my other senior client who was a woman. Who knew? If I were single at this age, I would've never have guessed that shopping with an 80 year old would bring me men ever-ready to help me, make small talk, and smile warmly.

I think I actually *blushed* tonight in the store. I can not remember the last time I blushed. Uh, maybe 8th grade? Strange. Very unaccustomed to this new strange form of attention. It felt kind of good, but also kind of creepy in that, "I'm a MARRIED woman, I'll have you know!" kind of way.

So if you're like me and coming out of the sexless identity funk that seems to come with bearing and raising very small children, and you feel the need to have your attractiveness validated by someone other than your partner or children, get a job helping seniors shop. You'll be beating them off with a stick, I tell ya.

FORKS

My strange son has a thing for the forks in our house. Over the past week he's taken to opening the drawer and removing all the forks from their fork-shaped, plastic molded holder and then playing with them. My MIL suggested that he's playing as if they are people.
I don't know what he's doing with them, but they're almost always in a fan formation when I eventually need to retrieve them for mealtime.

hmmmmm.


I went to a lovely surprise birth a couple of days ago. I'll write more about that when I have time. Time? TIME?! Oh yeah, I remember that.
Maybe next week.
Despite being busy, things have been going really well. I'm not complaining (for once).

Off to retrieve forks, or at least 3 of them so we can eat our breakfast.

ISO last-minute sitter

We visited my mother-in-law Margaret over the weekend.
After having a great post-surgery vacation in Las Vegas (she'd planned the trip months before she was diagnosed with breast cancer and decided to go anyway), she came home from a dismal message from her doctor. During the surgery they removed one of her lymph nodes to test it and it has come back as being cancerous. This is obviously horrible news. She found out about an hour before I arrived with the kids. At the time she was said she was angry. Angry this was happening to her. Thought she was in the clear.

Today she has an appointment to discuss treatment options with her doctor. She was told to bring a family member to help her digest the information. She's asked Greg and he's asked me to come too.
I've had a prenatal this morning and since coming home have been on the phone cancelling work tonight and trying to wrangle someone to pick Sarah up from school and someone else to actually watch the kids while we're gone.

My mom hurt her chest/back while moving a really heavy box Friday. She described symptoms to me that sounded more like a heart attack than anything else, but of course she down-played it when I scolded her for not 1, telling anyone and 2, not going to the ER. So I'm not going to ask her because she's still sore.

My brother just opened his sandwich shop today, so he'll be busy.

My sister has a 3 hour class after work.

It's a crazy day. Greg is quiet and angry looking. I feel as if I need to tighten my seat belt as we're about to go on a very bumpy ride. Cancer is very hard. My aunt died of breast cancer. I remember the awfulness of it all. But between Greg and his mom and their tendency to not emote and then get really pissed is so hard for me to understand and be compassionate. I'm so used to women and family and friends who wear their heart and soul on their sleeves....this keeping it in stuff is just foreign to me. Very English.

Must go make more phone calls.

Saturday morning

Saturday.
We've got a house full of Girl Scout cookies that we need to distribute and get the money for.
We ordered 10 boxes. I have no idea why. I ordered them around Christmas. (They're so smart to let the girls start selling over holiday break when people are feeling all WTF about all the crap they're eating.) I've been pretty darn disciplined about doing my vinyasa yoga or pilates every day. And seriously can feel some difference. I have triceps again. My abs are coming back although still covered in stretchy-had-2-big-babies skin. That skin that won't ever go away.
At any rate, I've been feeling really good about working out. My stress level has gone way down and I have more energy. Why is it when I don't work out for months on end I always cynically think that "more energy" thing is just a myth put out there by peppy, dopey, aerobic instructor types?
So yeah, 10 boxes of Girl Scout cookies. We've plowed through 4 in 2 days. BUT, we did have 3 little girls and 2 little boys here yesterday and they ate a lot of them. However, I will admit I must have 6 after dinner yesterday.

Today I have a prenatal in Detroit with a new client.
I have 5 clients now, have I mentioned this?
Very cool. Still worrying about how I'm going to break this to Mr. Senior Guy.
I'm due to attend 3 births in May. I can't fake my kids being sick that many times in one month.
I'm taking the kids to Royal Oak to play with their cousins while I do my visit in Detroit.

Then back home again. My mom and I are going to IKEA with no kids! Greg is taking them for dinner and to the indoor play structure place.
My brother and I got on my moms case about needing to buy furniture. She's had the same crappy bedroom set since 1975. It's a fake wood plastic monstosity. Really awful. And despite it being plastic, it's HUGE and unwieldy and just too much.
There's a huge armoire and a full length dresser with 2 hideous screw-on mirrors.
I think it must have been one of those grown-up, not hand-me-down furniture purchases made by my parents when they were still married. It's time to let it go. My mom claims she doesn't want to spend her money on new furniture because she doesn't have enough. But she'll be living here for pretty damn near free until she dies. She can afford to spend $1000 on an IKEA dresser and a new couch, coffee table.
We've all refused to move the plastic bedroom set.
My brother and I were talking on the phone last night about today's IKEA trip. He told me to come pick up his truck and make sure my mom doesn't leave the store with just a few new dish towels.
This morning my cell rang at 7am. It was my brother saying he was swinging by to give me a check for mom. He came over and gave me a $2000 check to give to her.
I said: She's never gonna cash this. You're crazy.
He laughed and said: I thought about that. Just tell her I'll never, ever talk to her again if she won't use it.
See, it's common knowledge in this family that my brother is her favorite. Certainly the most coddled, and it makes him fucking crazy. She talks to him like he's a baby and he's 35 years old. She tries to rub his cheek when he's talking to her. Makes him want to scream. Makes my sister and I laugh and cringe!
So if he threatens to never talk to my mom again, she will cash that check AND buy new furniture.

So I'm really excited to go to IKEA and help someone spend money on all new furniture!
In the meantime, we've been painting the apartment bedroom and slowly moving mom's things in. We're all excited about her moving in finally.
This week her ex-husband finally bought her half of the house from her, so she got a big check to put in the bank and is now finally free of his silliness, despite it being nearly a full year since they divorced!
Ugh, the drama!

Gotta get my kids ready for the day.
I bought really nice strawberries at the store yesterday and I felt really bad about it. I'm certainly not buying all-local all the time. But I try to respect buying things that are in harvest in MY part of the country. Michigan strawberries won't be here for another 3 months.
These Florida ones were lovely. It was like eating summer while looking out at the snow.