Generation gap

Recently, I was trying to explain to my mother the stresses of taking pregnancy tests (which, of course, I already blogged about here), and she totally wasn't understanding me. I was just trying to explain the stress of taking one versus the stress of buying one, etc...

Mom: How much do they cost?
Me: Like $15 for a 3-pack
Mom: Well geez! That's a lot just to pee on something! Just wait for your doctor to tell you!
Me: Mom, it costs way more than $15 to go to the doctor and the first thing your doctor is going to ask you is if you peed on the stick!
 
Turns out, pregnancy tests did not exist when my mother was giving birth to children.

Let me say that again: Did. Not. Exist.

Which helps some of my confusion tremendously. For years, I have heard  old(er) women say, "You'll know you're pregnant when your breasts are sore." or "your nipples will turn brown" or "you'll be hugging the toilet every morning," etc. This is very sage wisdom and I don't doubt it's true.

But then I read my baby books and they all say how these signs hit you between 4-8 weeks. And I sat there doing math in my head and counting days and weeks. This didn't add up. Shouldn't the first sign you're pregnant be your missed period, ladies? Why wait until your boobs are sore to take the test?

And there we have it: Because they didn't have tests. My mom knew she was pregnant when she woke up nauseated with sore breasts. She never had the final word of the E.P.T. to comfort her.

She never ever in her whole life has taken a pregnancy test. Women, can you fathom that? There is an entire generation of women that have never sat in the bathroom for five minutes going out of her mind wondering if she peed too much or too little and analyzing the darkness of those incomprehensible lines!

I. Am. So. Jealous.

Then there's my stepmom, who is a few years younger than my own mother. She didn't have a pee test for her first kid, but did for her second. She and I were laughing as she described those "old-fashioned" tests that required you hold a very small tip in your stream of urine (your morning pee) for so many seconds and how you just ended up peeing all over your hand instead.

And then it hit me: These are the same tests we're taking now. So in 20-whatever years, pregnancy tests have not evolved whatsoever. It still involves a woman waving a wand underneath herself as she squats on the toilet, trying to catch enough pee on her stick to get it to process and not get it all over her hand.

Men invented these, didn't they? There's no way a real-life woman thought this was a good idea. Only a man would think it would be easy to aim a stream of urine at a smallish target. I think men forget that women don't get to see their pee as it's happening without serious effort.

I am embarking on a campaign to redesign the pregnancy test and put an end to these ludicrous devices once and for all. Whose with me!?

My Budget and Me

Wait, where did the money go?

Money stresses me out beyond all reason. If my finances are a mess, by extension the rest of me is, too. I will plot and scheme and write lists and do all sorts of things trying to right the boat again. I felt like living one emergency or paycheck away from complete financial insolvency was my cross to bear – the one thing that God was never going to relieve me of.

Lord, why can't I just win the lottery and be able to make all these debts go away? My car payment, my student loans, my credit card. Would that be too much to ask?

Yet as much as financial woes have always bothered me and as much as I hate feeling out of control, I have never used a budget.

I'm not sure why. It's not that I didn't understand them, I did. I just didn't like them. I felt like maybe I didn't have enough income for it to actually matter: Most of our paychecks turn immediately into bills, leaving very little leftover to be "budgeted." I felt like budgets were for people who needed to decide they would spend $40 a month on clothing and $70 a month on eating out, etc. I felt like I spent on those things what I had leftover after the bills, if anything, and felt damn happy to have it.

I wasn't living purposefully with my finances. I had no plan. Well, that's not true: I had a plan, but it usually centered around a windfall of some kind. You know what I mean, "When I get my tax return, we can get caught up ..." "When my VA check comes, we can pay that bill off..." "We can use your student loan to pay down that credit card..."

But the tax return is never big enough, and I've run out of VA and we always manage to charge up that card again. (Because we never actually get rid of it! Idiots.)

In my marriage, money has been stressful, I think especially for TJ. Because I control it. I make the most of it, I pay the bills, I decide what we have left, I do the grocery shopping. Sometimes TJ gets an "allowance" for  entertainment, but he never gets the chance to question all my lattes and their fiscal impact. I have the power.

As much as I'm a control freak, this balance has bothered me. I don't want him to resent my control and feel stifled. So TJ signed up for Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University at church. The class is at a time I can't go, so he goes by himself and then teaches me. We go over the workbook, read the chapters, and talk about what he learned. Then he tells me what the homework is, and we complete it together. Last week, we had to make a list of all of our "necessary" (not debt-related) expenses. This week, we created a budget.

I loved the budget exercise. Because Ramsey recognizes that there is usually one half of the pair that is the "nerd" (that is, the numbers keeper). The other half is the "Free Spirit," which is absolutely TJ. So the nerd gets to write the budget, down to the last penny. Then she has to turn it over to the Free Spirit and allow him (actually, require him) to make at least one change. And then she must accept whatever that change was. This meeting can not last more than 17 minutes. So I created the budget, I slid it over to TJ, and he adjusted a couple of amounts toward credit cards. I accepted those changes.

And I starred at this magical piece of paper. There it is in black and white (well, actually in blue and yellow — I used a legal pad): Proof that we do make enough money to get buy, with even a little over our debt payments. The budget includes gas, groceries, savings, our tithe. Everything. Even a little for eating out, if we want to.

So for the first time in my life, I have hope that this budget will work. I have hope that we're on the road to not being blown over by an emergency every month, that we won't have those paychecks anymore when we say, "Well, we aren't eating ..." That I never again have to call my mom and ask for a short loan.

I'm so encouraged by our budget, it's nearly a sacred document to me now. I'm going to put it on the fridge. It's a part of the family — that strict, rule-making, hard-enforcer Catholic aunt. We call her Budget, as in "Does Budget say we can do that this month?" "I don't think going to Red Lobster is OK with Budget this week." "You'll have to ask Budget if you can buy that DVD."

It's not a piece of paper, it's an Entity. I may just keep a copy of it in my wallet, as reassurance that we will be OK. That God is in control and that He has a plan. And now we have a plan, too.

The Baby Name Rules

"Mommy, please don't give me a dumb name"

I'm already being asked by people if we're thinking about baby names. I find that pretty funny, seeing as how I'm not pregnant, people expect me to already have named my not-yet-conceived spawn. And yes, actually, we have. At least, if we have a boy first. If we have a girl, we're fairly clueless. This is all assuming I manage to get pregnant and then give birth to a child that looks like the name we picked out.

I've had many friends give birth in recent years, and baby name selection has ranged in difficulty — from friends who knew what their kid was named from the minute sperm met egg to those who didn't name their child for several days after birth, and even a friend who is still luke-warm about her child's moniker.

Now, as a copy editor, I see baby names all the time — especially in the weekly "birth" announcements. I think this makes me qualified to pass on some advice to all parents out there who are considering naming a child.

1. Watch your parts of speech: If English was tough for you, allow me to spell it out:
• Don't name your baby a verb: Verbs, as you recall, are "action words." Present or past-tense verbs apply. For example, "Drew" is not a good baby name. Neither is "Sting." When selecting a name, ask yourself, "Can I use this word in a sentence and have it mean "doing something" or "did something"? If the answer is yes, you can not use that as a baby name.

• Don't name your baby an adjective: Adjectives, for those of you bad at madlibs, are description words. "Blue," "yellow," "fat," all of these are adjectives. So is "Rusty," "Dusty," and "Porky." Other adjective baby names that are off limits include "Sunny," "Strong," etc. Possible exception: "Harry."

2. Activities are not child names: You know what I'm talking about. The guy who names his kid "Hunter" because it's his favorite hobby. Or "Rider" (the variation Ryder may be acceptable, unless you're a rodeo fanatic and you're doing it on purpose). Along those lines, "Fisher," is out. I shouldn't have to include such things as "Gunner," "Archer" or "Digger", but obviously I do.

Moments in love

That's amore.

Well, it's Valentine's Day — the least favored holiday of singles everywhere, a category for which I know longer qualify so ... YAY! Valentine's Day!

In honor of the day, I am going to give you a glimpse into my marriage and share some of the moments when I knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I married the most perfect man in the world (for me).

Our first "date": TJ and I began dating about 3 years after we first met in college, and maybe four months after beginning sustained contact online through chatting. We announced our coupledom when we were still in separate states, but he came to SoDak, we fell in love in three days, got engaged at maybe three weeks and married in three months.

Ah, love.

Our first date was a few days into our relationship when we went to Deadwood to admire the tourist trap. We watched a "shooting" in the street, strolled the casinos and ate the best damn fries ever. On the road home, I realized I was in love with this man when we spent most of the trip sharing our favorite Tiny Toons episodes. When we approach elevators or traffic lights, someone will inevitably say, "It's my turn to push the button!"

Since then, it's been a great romance. We have a partnership, and he makes me totally comfortable. At times, his thoughtfulness completely overwhelms, and at others, his silliness has me in stitches. Here are some of our most popular topics of conversation and examples of TJ's greatness:

• Farting and/or bowel movements: Look, everybody poops. You have to be able to talk about it. The other day, I was in the kitchen and TJ came in and ripped one in the doorway. "Woah, I think I have to go the bathroom," he said, and walked away. "Hey!" I yelled after him, "I have to walk through that to get out of this room, you know!" And he laughed maniacally.

If you're ever sitting somewhere with TJ and he starts giggling and says, "You may want to move." Do it.

Alternatively, I once made some "unholy noises" in the aisle of a Walmart and probably killed the other three people in that aisle. We moved fast, trying not to die with laughter. TJ was so proud of me.

• The greater cultural ramifications of horror movies and monsters (esp: zombies): People assume that TJ's love for all things that go bump-in-the-night has spilled over on to me. It hasn't. Rather, it allowed me to express something that I had kept dormant for more than 10 years. My best friends can tell you how much I used to love Halloween (I was usually a witch) and how I loved having "Nightmare on Elm Street" marathons. In my teens, the horror started to get me and I backed off. But most of my knowledge of this stuff comes organically. TJ's just growing my repertoire.

• The English language: We're both word nerds. One night, we stayed up for 45 minutes in bed giggling hysterically and having a conversation that consisted mostly of words that begin with "Dis."

A few nights ago I was relating to him a story of a little boy I watched in the church nursery named Drew. After a moment he said, sincerely, "I don't think I'm OK with naming our child a past-tense verb." And then we proceeded to have a 30 minute conversation about what parts of speech are OK for baby names (that blog post coming later).

• Just plain silliness. TJ has one of those life perspectives that make everyday things funny. And he can deliver a line with a complete straight face. Last night he was camping out in the bathroom and I yelled through the door, "Are you in there reading my "Good Housekeeping"?" Followed by, "Yes! I need to find out if I'm wearing the right bra size for my body!"

• His thoughtfulness: Two days in a row last week I accidentally left my face wash by the sink instead of taking it into the shower with me. On day three I muttered to myself, "Dang it! I did it again." Within seconds, TJ popped into the bathroom and was handing me my face wash through the curtain. It was so sweet.

There are a hundred different moments I could share that wouldn't even begin to describe how great this man is and how perfectly suited we are for each other. I know this year TJ felt bad that we're so broke and so he wasn't able to lavish me with gifts for Valentine's Day — I guess that's what the point of this blog post is.

Because I don't need a special day to be reminded that my husband loves me. Every morning I wake up and pinch myself because I can't believe my luck. I married the best man in the whole world — and he shows me he loves me every day, in every action.

Working harder on being a Duck

But he's wrong, dangit!

I totally lost it at work yesterday. I was in a disagreement with my editor over something meaningless, and I was livid pissed. He was wrong. I was right. This is bull!

I went looking for confirmation of my rightness, and got shot down. "But he's wrong!" I whined to my supervisor. His sage advice: "Get over it."



But I couldn't. I felt betrayed. And I was furious for the remainder of my shift — swearing under my breath (and, at times, quite loudly), hurrying through the rest of my work and finally storming out of the building. It was a full-blown fit. I was mad enough that I'd forgotten to turn in my time sheet. Which made me even angrier.

This morning I woke up and thought, "Oh. My. Gosh. That was ridiculous."

And it was. It was a meaningless argument, but my pride was hurt. I felt like my talents and knowledge weren't being appreciated. I resented my boss pulling rank on me, especially when I felt like clearly I know more about the subject than he does. It was a personal affront — not just that he was saying he didn't agree with my decision, but by extension must think that I'm an idiot for havin g made such a decision in the first place. I was angry my supervisor had more wisdom than me and is better at picking his battles. I had picked this battle, dangit, and I needed backup. Instead he let me hang.

Let's be clear: I love my job. I love my career. I'm still living in the honeymoon phase of "This is so much better than my last job," that most things still roll right off my back. I am a duck, and I love this pond.

But I have a fatal flaw.

Shortly after taking this gig last May, I was delighted with a page I had designed. I was desperately seeking someone to admire my work and tell me how great it (I) was. An editor walked by and I snagged him, "Look at my page! Isn't it wonderful!?" I crowed.

"Sure." he said. "Looks good."

Which of course wasn't near enough. I pressed for more. And he gave me a very level gaze and said simply, "Why are you so insecure?"

That's really the heart of it. I'm crazy insecure. And unfortunately I can't blame it on 3 years of working for a near sociopath for whom nothing was ever good enough. I was insecure when I got there. I have no faith in my own abilities and I look for a sense of self and completeness in the quality of my work. The why of that is much longer than single blog post.

The heart of marriage

Till death or morning breath do you part?

T.J. and I started a new small group at church last week. It's on the book "Love and War" by John and Stasi Eldredge. We both really like John's other book, "Wild at Heart," (a must read for any men, wives of men, sisters of men, mother's of men ... you get the idea). I also read his book aimed at women, "Captivating,"  which is sort of the female-counterpart to "Wild at Heart," co-written with his wife.

"Love and War" is about how marriage is a total setup for failure. Seriously. It uses those words. It calls it a heavenly "grand conspiracy" — God uses lust and passion and the desire for companionship to suck us into these commitments, and then we discover how hard it is to live with another human being without killing them, and he uses that knowledge to mold us and transform us into the (kind, generous, loving) people that we were meant to be.

It reminds me of the subtitle of a book I was given as a wedding gift, "Sacred Marriage." It proposes, "What if God created marriage to make us holy rather than make us happy?"

It's quite the question, isn't it? What if marriage isn't about you — what if it's about your spouse? Or what if it's about neither of you and really it's about becoming more like Christ? Which brings us more to the heart of the issue: Can you have a good marriage without Christ?

A quote I've really liked so far in "Love and War" says, "Trying to have a successful marriage without God is like trying to grow a tree without sunshine and water."

Fear of labor pains

I'm afraid of giving birth.

There. I said it.

Do you know there's a word for it? Tokophobia. I'm not saying it's rational or anything, but it's just something that if I think about it too hard, I start to hyperventilate for a minute.

Excuse me, I need to go breath into a paper sack.

This fear is complicated for me by my belief in natural childbirth. Before I continue, I have to add this caveat: Odds are, if you are a woman and my friend and reading this, I've already heard your birthing story. In great detail. With visual aids (in the form of your small, adorable child at best and hand motions depicting your expanding vagina, at worse). Lord almighty, don't tell it again.

I think birth is very personal. I think every woman deserves to have whatever kind of birthing experience she most desires. If you had an epidural or a C-section or pulled that sucker out with your own two hands, good for you. I do not stand in judgment of your experience.

But for me, I dream of natural childbirth. There's a few reasons for this, they are backed by research and statistics that I don't know off the top of my head but learned once and so remember the general gist of it. One is that statistically, natural labor is shorter. Please don't mention your Aunt Bessie or Cousin June who had a 10 hour natural labor. My former psychology instructor would have me yell at you, "OUTLIER!" For most women, natural labor is shorter than medically-assisted labor.

I also want to be monitored as little as possible. Other statistics show that women with heart rate monitors and all those tubes, etc., are more likely to have C-sections. The reason: Doctors start worrying too early that there is a problem when there isn't, so they yank you open, when really that baby was probably just fine.

These sorts of statistics make me feel in control of my birthing process. I can think about the odds and combine all the studies and try to push everything in my favor, knowing full well it is completely out of my control when the time actually comes.

So I remain terrified of childbirth.

So I wonder — do you think if you do enough squats, it'd be easier? I'm wondering exactly how powerful your thigh, glut and ab muscles would have to be to really just have this thing sail along. I think Jillian Michaels should do a pre-pregnancy workout tape. You'd work all those major muscle groups, but instead of things getting harder as the weeks progressed, they'd get a little easier as you get fatter and fatter. But you'd still be working those thighs, practicing pushing. Maybe a little Lamaze in there, too.

I'd buy that tape. Absolutely.

OK, I need to go breath into that sack again ...

Two of the worst questions of all time

There are two questions I absolutely hate to be asked.

Wait, what do you want to know?

1) How's married life? Thankfully, I've been married for a little more than two years now, so this one has started to slack off. But as a newlywed, I had no idea what to say. What kind of information, exactly, is the asker of this question looking for? "Great! Our sex life is terrific!" Or perhaps, "Wow, actually, I had no idea a man could be so disgusting ..."  Usually, I would just say "Fine," but if I knew the person well, I would actually tell them, "I have no idea how to answer that."

Better questions may have been 1) Did you enjoy your honeymoon? 2) How are you adjusting to constantly having another human being around? 3) Did you get everything you wanted from your bridal registry? or 4) Is the sex terrific? (If that's what you want to know.)

Which reminds me of a really wonderful conversation I had with my friend T when my spouse and I began dating. We had all known each other in college and everyone was fairly shocked when we hooked up 3 years later. While talking to her on the phone about the new relationship, T said, "OK, I don't want to have to ask this, but ... you know ..." and I said, "Yes, T, the sex is terrific."

And we had a good laugh.

My husbands uncle had a much better intro: Upon first meeting him, he just went right for the jugular: Pumping my hand in greeting he said (quite loudly, in a church, in the midst of a family reunion), "I hear you're having lots and lots of sex now!"

And I thought, well, crap. At least he's direct.

The second question I absolutely loathe is like it:

2) How's the baby-making going?

Seriously, how is the right answer to that not, "The sex is terrific." ? I mean, seriously, think about what you are asking. You want to know how my efforts to conceive are progressing? Which, at this stage, mostly involves trying to up the frequency of good times I get to have between the sheets.

But, judging by the people who have asked me this question (such as my parents), I'm assuming they don't want to know, "Well, recently we decided to try this new position where you stand on your head and let gravity ..." 

I quizzed my best friend about this after she asked me the question for the nth time. She said what she actually wanted to know was how I was feeling emotionally, if I'd had any problems with my hormones since being off my pill for the first time, if I'd had to go to the doctor, if we were stressed or worried or nervous, if I was charting my basal body temperature or peeing on ovulation kits ...

And I'm supposed to have known that from the oh-so-generic "How's the baby-making going?"

So here, for all of you, is the answer to those questions, should you be filled with the burning desire to know:

I feel fine. My hormones are fine. I haven't had any weird moments when I burst into tears while having typical conversations (which happened to me when I went off my pill for a month a while ago ... and freaked my editor right out). Entering the fourth month of being fake-hormone free, everything appears to work as predicted. I'm taking a prenatal vitamin and something my doctor gave me. We're not really that stressed about the whole thing, and if I don't conceive until well into summer, that'd be just fine. Or fall. Or Christmas. My mother is requesting that we give birth in June so she has the summer off to come play with the baby, so my womb may be attempting to help her out with timing. I'm not tracking anything yet and barely keeping track of my start- and stop-dates because I don't want to turn this into a project too quickly. We're not desperate yet. Probably in July I'll go back to my girly doctor and we'll talk about where things are. Until then, I trust God to do what he's going to do and my womb to do what it's going to do and those things to come together in perfect timing that I won't understand until it happens.

And yes, actually, the sex is terrific.

Thanks for asking.

If I get pregnant, will I have friends again?

Coffee is better in groups.

According to Facebook I have 183 friends.

In real life, I have a handful of "former colleagues" that were my friends when I lived in that town, 3 "phone friends" that I'd love to see in person more but, again, don't live anywhere near, 1 best friend that I do absolutely every thing with (my spouse) and a handful of people I've met since moving to Washington that I want to be friends with but haven't figured out how yet.

Basically I'm left feeling like I have no friends. It's mostly my fault, I suppose — I work a horrible schedule that has me in the office during the evenings, when most adult people socialize and make friends. Also, I've never been good at making friends, so I tend to hold on dearly to the ones I have. In our global, digital age, that's gotten easier since I stay in touch with you all on Facebook (because, let's face it, if you're reading this, you're likely one of my friends).

So once a week, I know I'll get a call from K., or a text message from E., or have a Facebook chat with T. And that sustains me. But my day-to-day friendship requirements of someone to talk to about what I'm going through, bitch about my day with or get a cup of coffee are filled by my husband. Or my mom, who doesn't live here but does a verbal cup of coffee very well.

Now, I married my husband because he's my best friend — and was my friend long before he was my man. He is my favorite company, but the man cannot relate to a conversation about menstrual cycles. Or gynecological visits. Or whatever he did that day to irritate me that isn't actually a big deal, but I still feel like talking about it, just not to him. He does his damnedest, I'll give him credit for that, but dang it if I don't feel like sitting down face to face with another woman and talking about something. Anything.