six months

My babies turn six months old today.

Now that I have two babies, people often ask me, "Isn't it hard to remember life without them?"

And for a second I feel bad, and uncomfortable, and unsure how to answer. For me, it's not hard. I remember very clearly my life before babies.

I remember desperately wanting to be a mother. To know what it would feel like to be pregnant, to breastfeed. To create a human being with the person that I love. I remember feeling like I would suffocate under the astounding and oppressive unknown. I remember bitterly hating the cruel unfairness that is infertility.

I remember trying to explain to people that I was not unhappy in my life. But that with my happiness, with my love for my husband and my love for life, I carried the weight of a sadness I didn't know how to handle.

There is not a day that goes by where I forget any of that.

Words seem petty and foolish when I try to use them to describe my love for our babies. Words like "amazing" and "incredible" only frustrate me for their weakness.

Little details blow me away. Like the golden wisps on top of Rhys' head. Or the way Quin coos when he catches me smiling at him. The fact that my babies have these perfect tiny little hands, hands that curl around my finger in the middle of the night, clenching and unclenching as they nurse off to sleep.

This too feels unbelievably unfair. The tables have turned and I have an amazing and terrifying abundance.

I remember life before. I choose this. Again and again, I choose this.

Bing Crosby, I challenge you to a sing-off. Although I think you might be dead.

I think I'd make a pretty kick-ass rock star.

I decided this in the fifth grade, and not one to let small matters like talent get in my way, I whipped together a cute little act for my school's talent show.

I decided I would sing "Would You Like to Swing on a Star" because at eleven I was a dead-ringer for Bing Crosby. Actually, I picked that song because my little brother was obsessed with Little Lulu and Bout with a Trout was a particular favorite in our house.

I picked out a satiny dress, had my mother curl my hair, and enlisted a family friend to accompany me on piano.

The performance was an astounding flop. For one, I can't sing. And then there was the small issue of getting so nervous I GASP! re-sang the same verse twice in row, realized half way through, and burst into tears. That pretty much ended my stage career. At least it ended my "in reality" stage career. Because in my head, I've just released my sixth album and it's a smashing success. I just stay away from the Bing Crosby stuff now.

But lately I've been able to provide some resolution for my inner eleven year old. Turns out that "in reality" I've actually cultivated a few real fans. And not just people who are clapping because they feel bad for me because I'm crying and look like I'm going to pee my pants.

My fans? Are six months old. Do I worry that perhaps my fans are simply victims of poor taste? This could be the case, since they also share an insane love for Bonnie Hunt and Sally Field, squirming with delight at the sheer sound of either melodious voice or grandmotherly face on the TV.

No bother. Apparently, my rendition of "Itsy Bitsy Spider" is like the heavens opening and showering glittering diamonds of love on the earth. Really, who am I to judge?

Since I am a kick-ass rock star, I host private concerts on demand and am even willing to repeat the same song twenty eight times in a row. I also am way nicer to my fans than most famous people. Sometimes, I even wipe their adorable little bums.

I bet Bing Crosby would have felt too sophisticated for that.

Oh, Freecycle, how do I quit you?

I hoard Freecycle emails.

I have belonged to two local Freecycle groups for well over a year. And yet I've never given anything and never taken anything.

Once I tried to get a Canadian rocker for the nursery, and once I tried to get some rocks. The rocks were not for the nursery.

I get about six Freecycle emails per day. They drive me crazy. Mostly because I'm compelled to read each one, lest I should pass up the opportunity for something really good. Like rocks, which I definitely actually have right outside my very own door.

Every time I realize that I should remove myself from the Freecycle mailing list, I'm hit with an overwhelming wave of panic over what I might be passing up the next time my neighbor decides to offload some of their crap to somebody else.

But I don't need their crap. I don't want it, either.

I have too much of my own. Not like one of those crazy families from Oprah whose garage is secretly filled to the brim with granola bars and beach balls. Just a typical American collection of STUFF. And sometimes, I have the overwhelming urge to just go through my house and start throwing things away.

Because lately, as I fight the urge to bring out my inner Kate Gosselin and demand that my home remain absolutely meticulous at all costs, I am finding that STUFF is wreaking havoc on my dreams of clean.

I refuse to let my husband take off to France with a much younger girlfriend and start wearing Ed Hardy garb. Which basically means my only other option is to get rid of STUFF so that I can simplify and reach a higher standard of clean without having to get all crazy bitch-ish.

Here's where I start:

Freecycle emails are going into a special folder. I will not read them. But Freecycle gets all the STUFF that eBay doesn't want.

STUFF, be warned. Get useful, or get out.

Dear Ellen DeGeneres,

I am a fan. And I know you appreciate your fans.

So. Right now, I am watching as you sit RIGHT NEXT to Mary Murphy as you guest judge on SYTYCD.

Please. Please! I implore and I beg: Punch her in the larynx. America loves you and thinks you are funny. They will think a good solid larynx punch is funny too.

Have courage, Ellen. Millions of desperate Americans are counting on you.

Punch her in the larynx!

Yours Truly,

A loyal fan.

Purchasing groceries.

So you know when you're at a pretty disgusting grocery store, but you're shopping there anyway because our economy has tanked and now you have no money but hey! we still have to eat, right? and you suddenly need to pee Right! Now! because you're nursing two babies and usually you're so dehydrated that your lips are peeling and then when you try to rehydrate you overcompensate until you feel like you're six months pregnant again what for all the water in your tummy so you decide that rather than just letting out a gush in the middle of the aisle you'd best make your way to the restroom which absolutely happens to be in the back through the swinging doors to the stockroom and is hugely disgusting, like we're talking pubic hairs on the toilet and weird smudges on the floor and walls but oh. thank. god. relief is in sight and so you make your way to the toilet while wearing your baby on your front and finally get to pee but then your baby starts squirming because MOMMY I LIKE MOVEMENT! and now you're peeing and trying to dart the pee around so you don't pee on your baby's legs because good mommies don't pee on their babies and then geeshush, the next thing you know you've peed all over your own damn legs and shorts and foot and GOD it's on my flip flop! and then you have to put yourself all back together and try to make your way through the grocery store, looking at people like, what? it's water, bitches, but you know and they know that that's no water.

Yeah, that happened to me.

Small request to the universe.

I think that perhaps we'd all be better off if Mary Murphy from So You Think You Can Dance started messing around with downers. Not just alcohol. Big time stuff.

A nasty case of laryngitis might do. But really, downers would be way more fun for everyone. No?