Appropriate, Since I Crave 'Em.

Thanks, S. I always knew I was fruity, but now I know exactly which kind.

You Are a Strawberry

You are friendly, outgoing, and well liked by many people. You are popular, but there's nothing ordinary or average about you. You are a very interesting person, and you have many facets to your personality. Sometimes you feel very conflicted. Your different sides of your personality pull at you. You are a very sensual and passionate person. You are fiery... you can't help it. In general, you keep your passionate side under wraps. You are only wild in private.

What Type of Fruit Are You?

Getting More Pregnant By The Day.

This photo is almost a week old now, since I took it last Friday. The belly? It's even bigger now. And yet this is still about half as big as the buddha was at this point in my first 2 pregnancies. Yes, I realize how insane that is. I also realize I look a little grumpy, but that's just my Friday face.


Also, check out that bookcase downstairs. That's my built-in, the one I built last summer with my own two little lily-white hands and which houses our DVD collection and about half of our current book collection. I'm working on getting the rest of our books unpacked from basement storage to add to the wall.

Also, this case will soon hold the contents of my summer reading list. Which I am working on faithfully, I swear. 1 more day to get your suggestions in!

Confessions, Part Deux

The Official Summer Reading List-a-Palooza is tumbling along nicely. In fact, I have now subdivided it into 3 categories which are still being populated:

1) 10 books I will read this summer
2) Books I have already read but that YOU should read this summer
3) Books I have not yet read, but that we should BOTH read together if we make it through our respective lists above and require further reading material.

Genius, right? Yeah, I thought so, too.

The list is still coming along, so if you have not yet submitted your suggestions I will humbly implore you to go back to The Original Post and leave your suggestions in the comments or, as my awesome Brother-in-Law did, email them directly to melkist at gmail dot com.

Also, if you want to include a mini-review of each book as he did, I will crown you with Mucho MeL Cred (way cooler than street cred) as a fellow Book Geek. Of course, Brian has more claim than most, what with being an officially published author and some sort of associate editor-type dealy for Sci-Fi Channel's print magazine. (Sorry, I'm sorta fuzzy on the details, but I do know he gets to talk to publicists and ask for photos of hot babes. I suspect it's not nearly as porno as it sounds.)

So if you want to get your suggestions in by - let's say - Friday, I'll publish the finished list one week from today. Then you can start stalking your local library (or, if you're me and you live in the sticks where your local library offers up a choice between the Bible and a dog-eared copy of National Geographic Magazine from 1987, you can hit up Amazon.)

Happy Memorial Day. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to be getting back to the encore presentation of the So You Think You Can Dance season opener. While I avoid most reality television, this is the gooey, indulgent, chocolatey center of my television addiction cake. Dance on, my people, and hop on that Hot Tamale Train.

Summer Weekend: Number One With A Bullet (or several)

* Indiana Jones was disappointing. I'd take the time to break down exactly where I think they went wrong with the storytelling, but I already spent 10 bucks and 2 hours on it and I really don't want to spend any more.

* SUMMER! Finally, at last, SUMMER! The kids and I are already planning our first weekly pool outing for Wednesday. I'll be the one in the maternity bathing suit, possibly covered by a mumu. Because, you know, mumus are hawt sexy.

* 2 new pregnancies have come to my attention so far this weekend. Don't drink the water people, unless you are intent on getting knocked up. For those who are recently pregnant: I salute you! (Especially you. Yes, YOU, you know who you are. And, yeah, I get pregnant on the first try, too. EVERY TIME on the first try. I am very, very thankful for the invention of birth control.)

* It is worth it to wake up early with the kids on a Saturday morning just to watch Toby attempt to clap along with the songs on Bunnytown. I forgot that nearly-three is such a delightful age; at least ten times a day I have to restrain myself from snatching him up and snogging him thoroughly. Of course, that's beyond the thirty or fifty gazillion times a day that my restraint fails me and I smooch him until he squeaks for mercy.

* Happy Memorial Day Weekend! Welcome to Summer. Let's go have a Slurpee and celebrate, shall we?

Confessions.

1) I am a geek. A literary geek. Or, at least, I aspire to be one. I spent my formative years reading anything I could get my hands on, including my mom's entire library of Agatha Christie by the time I was 13. Twice.

A few year's ago, I printed off a list of the greatest literary works of all time and made it a life goal to read All. Of. Them. I'll let you know how that goes when my brain is done being addled by raising small humans who demand to hear "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" for the 15th time in a row.

2) My husband is also a geek. His geekdom encompasses a broader spectrum than mine, and he can converse happily on the subjects of Ancient Egypt, American Revolutionary History, the finer points of the old BBS days and, especially, Sci-Fi.

He introduced me to real Sci-Fi soon after we started dating, as well as the Cyberpunk genre. I have embraced both happily. It's the delicious brain-candy dessert after muddling my way through a little Faulkner or Hawthorne.

3) I have never read any of Stephanie Meyer's vampire books. I'm not into gothic/vampire or horror themes. They have just never appealed to me. But when I first heard about the series, I checked it out on Amazon just to confirm that it wasn't my cup of tea. It wasn't.

But I also found that she would soon be releasing a science-fiction book about aliens along the lines of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" called "The Host". The summary caught my attention, and I thought that maybe I would check it out sometime.

A few weeks later, just as the book was released, I saw it at Barnes and Noble and thought "Oh! Yeah! That!". But, at a cover price well over twenty bucks, I figured I could wait for paperback. Then I found it at the Wal-Mart while perusing for greeting cards. It was a relatively cheap price and I was in the mood for a little light reading. So I picked it up with the intention to read it sometime over the next few weeks.

That night, after the kids were in bed and I got Big Daddy out the door for a night out with one of his friends, I settled down on the sofa with my book to do a little reading before heading up for an early bedtime.

Somewhere around 11pm, Big Daddy wandered in and chatted with me for a half-hour before heading to bed.

Somewhere around 4:30 the following morning I closed the book, stretched, and hauled my carcass off to bed.

Somewhere around 7:30am the alarm went off, the kids demanded some attention (and breakfast) and I realized I had a half-dozen or so women and their children headed to my house at 10am for a playgroup.

Which brings me to my final confession

4) I am an idiot.

Also, a day later, I am still tired. But the book was a good read; it's amusing, engaging, and comes complete with a tidy, satisfying conclusion. I haven't read enough body-snatcher fiction to know how derivative it may or may not be, but I enjoyed it. Obviously.

So now I am left without any ideas for some good summer reading. I plan to attempt at least 3 of my Serious Literary Novels over the course of the summer, but I'll be happy if I manage to get through 1. For the rest, I'm hoping to find some good light reading. I'm not above Chick-Lit as long as it's not TOO vapid, I skip 99% of the self-help books, and I do love a good mystery series or light-hearted rom-com series. (Janet Evanovich has a few confections of that sort, as well as the Stephanie Plum series... all perfect for tossing in the beach bag.)

So I'm looking for some recommendations. What are YOUR perfect summer reads? Is there a book you reread every summer, or just one that was particularly fun? I've read the entire Harry Potter series already, so it's safe to leave that off the list. I've read most of Michael Crichton's works already, and most of the biggest mystery serials. Okay, I've read a LOT of things already, which explains why I had to put in the built-in bookcase in the living room. I have a hard time giving up my favorite reads, though goodness knows I'll probably never make it back to read most of them again. But hey, if my kids inherit nothing else, at least they'll get a good library to divy up after I'm gone.

So make with some good suggestions if you don't mind, and I'll announce my final version of Mel's Summer Reading Plan once it's all decided. I'll even promise to post at least a short review of each title as I finish the book.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go bash my head against the wall until the exhaustion headache passes. Happy Friday!

Distractions.

The hormones are raging, my head is pounding, and it's raining AGAIN. And I am so very done with the rain.

These are the distractions that assault me.

Also, my children have been fighting like two cats in a wet sack for THREE DAYS now, and if anyone knows where I can find a roving band of gypsies who want two kids for cheap? Please to be sending me the linky. (Although my friend Danny DID send me this creepy link. Which I really hope is a joke. It has to be a joke.... Doesn't it?)

But, no, at the end of the day I'm sure the sun will eventually come back out and the actual summer will replace this disgraceful display of flip-floppery by Mother Nature. (So much for my "Mother Nature for VP!" bumper sticker idea) And I'm sure my children will eventually re-emerge before my eyes as the darling small humans I birthed. I'm guessing that will happen about the time the sun comes up and I reintroduce them to the wonders of the Swimming Pool. Somehow all that chlorine seems to evoke a state of euphoria in children. Maybe they can intensify the effect with the addition of ice-cream-flavored cooling mist or something. Someone should study this phenomenon. (Hey, if they can figure out how to get vanilla flavoring from cow crap...)

So, in lieu of anything useful to add to the grand exchage of information on these here interwebs, allow me to present someone else's Very Useful Ideas to stimulate greater brain-thinking for your Tuesday.

P.S. I'm sure my melancholy is also in no way related to the fact that mah preshusss baybeeee is graduating from preschool tomorrow. NOTHING AT ALL, YOU HEAR??

P.P.S. It is becoming intensely clear that we have reached the all important "Why Do They Not Make Pregnancy Mood Stabilizers Because OH MAH GAWD?!" phase of pregnancy number 3. This also seems like something the brainy science-types might want to investigate. So far, the only chemical help I have found involves several pounds of chocolate, which isn't really much help at all. Someone scientific get right on that, okay? I mean, honestly, people - vanilla extract from cow dung. Oh, and also, apparently, This.

For the record, while I enjoy Spicy Goodness as much as anyone, I'll stick with my epidural thankyouverymuch. But I wouldn't say no to This as a little adjunct pain relief because, well...DUH.

Cup of Cake

For the "Summer Birthdays" celebration at Jack's preschool today I made the purported recipe for Magnolia's Very Vanilla Cupcakes, from Magnolia's bakery in NYC. Google it if you are so inclined; I suggest doubling the vanilla.

If the sight of these does not cheer you - YOU HAVE NO SOUL.

For the frosting, I was feeling lazy and also wanted something a little more robust, so I used a can of Betty Crocker's cream cheese frosting, half a small container of real cream cheese, a half cup of powered sugar, and yellow gel food coloring. Whip it all together and you get a slightly firmer, more tart cream cheese frosting. Piped on with a zip-top bag with the corner cut off.

And that, my friends, is about as Martha as I get up in here. Fear my mad skillz.

Size Matters.

I may have mentioned, casually, once or twice.. or fifty-gazillion times, that I come from a large family. I am the ninth of ten kids, and the youngest of the five girls. Growing up at the tail-end of the brood meant that there were actually only 5 or 6 kids around for my childhood. By junior high it was just 3 of my brothers.. and me.

Any way you slice it, though, by today's standards I was in an Exceptionally Large Family.

I have been thinking about this lately as we prepare for the birth of Baby Boy #3. I have never thought that 3 kids a large family did make. As I have become visibly pregnant, however, the comments? They have begun. IN EARNEST.

"Wow! You'll REALLY have your hands full now, won't you."
"So is this your last one? I mean, you won't have more than three.. will you?"

And my favorite:

"Don't you know what causes that?"

For the record: Yes, we are quite aware what causes that. Oh, and in case you were wondering, engage in that activity as often as possible.

But even living in a small town, I am realizing that having more than 2 children makes us something of an anomaly. Having one more would bump us into "Mega Family" status, according to, at least, these websites I stumbled on that are dedicated solely to support for large families.

It got me thinking about the psychology behind the number of children couples decide to have. There's this guy - who, in this article from 2004, appears to be suggesting that people have more than 2 kids for the tax breaks. To which I say to him: Sir, I suspect you do not HAVE children. If you did, you would be acutely aware that the sacrifices required to have and raise a small human entirely outweigh the "benefit" of getting a few bucks back from the government.

There are these people, and many others like them (including my own parents) who have large families because they believe it's what God either requires or requests of them. But, in the spirit of honesty, I find that thinking a little on the crazy side in several respects. However, since Big Daddy and I are not religious, God obviously doesn't figure into our thinking here. That seems to be rare among those who desire larger than 2.5-kid families in general.

So baby #3 is on the way, and I'm left thinking about how we came to this decision. Big Daddy is one of 3 kids, and has always thought that was a good number. Me? I prefer the idea of even numbers, and I'm not sure yet if this is our last baby or if maybe there is one more in the cards for us. That's a discussion for another day and one which does not, dear internets, include you. (Some things remain off-limits after all... who knew?)

I have begun to suspect, though, that the debate here falls on somewhat generational lines. This suspiscion appears to be confirmed by this 2007 Gallup Poll, which seems to show that my generation is more open to the idea of large families than our parents were. Okay, obviously not my parents, but since they're technically part of the Baby Boomer generation it's not really a fair comparison.

I'm not sure how this compares to my actual life, though. Few of the friends our own age are even beginning to contemplate children yet, and more than one has entirely ruled out the idea. They are, for the most part, young professionals. More than one has commented negatively, in our presence (and assumedly forgetting to whom them were speaking), on other people with children at restaurants or other public venues. We try to take it with good grace.

The friends a few years older than we are who are working alongside us in the parenting trenches are mostly 2-kid-limit sort of people. The obvious exceptions are these fantastic women, and between them S and PK are my heroines when it comes to juggling the demands of raising their kids with sanity and grace.

The most important lesson they have both taught me, by the way, is about setting boundaries with other people when it comes to your time and your kids. It's ironic, then, that I have let the unsolicited opinions of other people send me down this path of pondering, but since the opinions themselves are not influencing my ultimate decision, I suppose it's probably a healthy question.

In our case, if I have to boil it all down, I think it falls to 3 main categories for consideration: Age, Finances, and Time.

Big Daddy and I are both still young; he'll be 30 in July and I'm 29 for another year. If this is, indeed, our last baby... well, we'll be done having kids before most people begin these days. So we have almost a decade where the option to have more will still be physically open to us.

Financially, we fall squarely in the middle class. Supporting and caring for 3 kids, or even 4, is feasible - even if we figure in sharing a portion of the costs of college education for all of them. Then again, the sooner I am done being pregnant and get all the kids into elementary school the sooner I can go back to school myself and persue a career - which will make our financial position stronger and more stable for the future.

Time is the final consideration. We are determined not to have more children than we can give sufficient individual attention to; I want each of my kids to have a comfortable certainty that there parents know them as an individual and that their activities and interests are as important to us as our own. If one of the boys wants to try his hand at something, I want to give them the option and not be limited by the impossibility of trying to keep it "equal" while dividing ourselves between the siblings. There are, after all, only so many hours in a day.

If I'm totally honest, I also have to admit that the idea of a small family makes me feel vaguely lonely. I adore our two boys, but if I thought there would be no more children I'd be .. intensely wistful. I embrace the chaos of a larger family, and imagine Christmases of the future spent around a huge tree. I picture adding a gaggle of grandkids and beloved in-law children to our brood. It's a nice picture in my head, even if reality doesn't usually quite measure up to the imagination.

So here's a question I'll pose to you, dear readers. How do you feel about family size? What determined or will determine the number of kids you have? Do you have to resist the temptation to make snide comments to parents of lare families, or do you follow a strictly nonjudgmental policy? OR are you on the receiving end of the comments, well-meaning or otherwise, as you attempt to navigate the aisles of Target with your brood in tow?

I'm going to reach out to a few of my favorite blogistas here, and I'll link back to you if/when you want to post on this topic. (For now? I'm lookin' at YOU: S, PK, Mocha, and to get a scientific-atheistic perspective up in here I think it would be lovely for chanson to chime in, too!)

I'm "Just" A Mom.

There comes a moment - say, when you are searching the entire house for your child's lost blankie for the fourth time at 10pm on a Sunday evening - when you realize that your finer aspirations - becoming, for example a modern-day female Hemingway - have necessarily fallen by the wayside.

In that moment, you have no choice but to stop, breathe deeply, and acknowledge that, no, this is not the empowered, Ayn Rand-ian existence you had imagined for yourself; that it is quite unlikely you will rewrite the rules of history or change the geo-political landscape of your time. There is a very good chance you will never see the Sahara Desert or take tea with the Dalai Lama, and it is nearly certain that you will never walk the red carpet in an organza Chanel confection.

There's also a pretty good chance distinct possibility snowball's chance in hell that you'll ever be photographed in a bikini and mistaken for the body of Angelina Jolie.

Hey, we all have our dreams. Judgment only makes the judge a smaller person. After all, I didn't comment on your childhood dreams of being a firefighter, astronaut, or whatever.

But it is, in those moments, that I find a certain kind of clarity. There's no way to predict what the rest of my life will be like, after all, and when I think of all the great accomplishments I had planned for my life they all share one thing in common - their singularity. I always thought I would do One Great Thing with my life, something I would be noted in history for.

Instead, I find that I get 3 really great accomplishments. It may be that they won't go down in the history books; I doubt I'll be numbered among the ranks with the likes of Marie Curie or Amelia Earhardt. But their names are Jack, Tobin, and (for the moment, until we change it - as we reserve the right to do) Milo. And they are some pretty amazing things, even if nobody but their father and I ever notes it.

I started my Mother's Day in a grumpy way, which remained unimproved when I realized we were out of coffee. I slept in to a not indecent hour before waking to the screams of my children, as the two boys had suddenly discovered that brothers are, apparently, each others' natural predators. Their frazzled father was just doing his best to keep them both alive and in one piece, and so I finally stumbled down the stairs in search of breakfast which was, obviously, not going to be able to make its way up to me. And I was pouting about it.

Of course, Big Daddy quickly smoothed things over. He and Jack headed up to the kitchen to make me a lovely plate of nibbles: fresh strawberries and toast with my favorite jam (amaretto peach apricot). After the nourishment made its way into mah bell-ay, I was feeling good enough to spend the afternoon wandering the mall with my menfolk. I even bought some new lip gloss at Bath and Body Works - sparkly lip gloss that smells delightfully of cupcakes.

All in all, it was a somewhat ordinary day. Me-Me the blanket was eventually located (this morning. outside in the rain. the joys.) and I found that, for all the ambitions that will likely go unrealized in this brief life of mine, I am quite content to picture an old age where I have accomplished little that the world will note... so long as I can live those days surrounded by my children, grandchildren and - of course - my pretty spectacular husband.

Reality? It's not such a bad place to live. Sometimes it even smells like cupcakes.

No One Expects The Spanish Inquisition.

Wow. I mean, just... wow.

I made it through to week 20 of this pregnancy without puking. NO VOMIT. I may have mentioned this before, but I really hate throwing up.

So finding out that Big Daddy's food poisoning incident on Tuesday was not, in fact, food poisoning... was not a good thing. Especially not good was finding out this vital piece of data at around 10pm on Wednesday, when my crushing headache suddenly turned into nausea and ferocious projectile vomiting.

Followed by raging diarrhea. (And.. you're welcome.)

Violent fluid loss in all possible ways from my body pretty much sums up the activities of the subsequent 24-hour period. Let's not even talk about the clean-up that was required, and just say that my husband is a raging candidate for sainthood. He's really earning his 30th birthday present (whitewater rafting with "The Guys" in July.)

The one bright spot in the clamoring chaos of the past week?

I have reserved an hotel room at the Westin St. Francis, San Francisco, for BlogHer. This room, where I anticipate late nights of giggling and intermittent weeping to take place, will be shared with This Lovely Lady... on condition that I promised my husband not to start a torrid affair with her. I did, however, receive permission to smack her on the bum with wild abandon. Also, since she is somewhat infamous for her wild abandon in bestowing random acts of licking, there will be a detailed diagram of "places I may be licked by mochamomma without having to confess and repent to my husband after the fact". Good thing I kept all those blank anatomical diagram sheets from nursing school. heh.

So I return you to your regularly scheduled programming. I, for one, will now commence laying prostrate on the sofa waiting for my strength to return.

Oh, Baby!

If I could make the scanner bend to my will and just WORK already, I could show you some really incredible photos from the ultrasound today.

EDIT: I received the following picture in my weekly update from babycenter. Apparently my baby has entered the "Cirque du Soleil Acrobat" phase of development. This is nothing like the actual images from the ultrasound. It is, however, highly disturbing.

In lieu of that, allow me to say that when an eye as untrained as my own can easily identify the child's external paraphernalia, 'tis safe to say that his papa can be proud.

Yeah, it's another boy.

And, while I thought it was a girl - while I was, in fact, nearly certain that it was a girl growing in there - nobody is more surprised than yours truly to find that, in fact, I am at this moment doing my best not to leap out of my chair and dance around the room from sheer, overwhelming GLEE.

HELLO, LITTLE MAN!! I SAW YOUR PENIS!! AND THEN YOU KICKED ME!! A LOT!!

I'll explain to him eventually about Mommy's nasty habit of typing in all caps without provocation and also yelling, in person, at the top of my lungs when I am very excited.

Also, we will now officially have more than half of a basketball team.

Also, also, we are planning to begin a special savings account to pay for grocery bills in about 10 years, because three teenage boys are going to eat us out of house and home.

CAN'T. FRACKING. WAIT.

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Broadcast

I'm sure you'd love to hear all about how my husband threw away the kids snow pants this morning, because THEY WERE IN HIS WAY in our cramped, cluttered laundry room. Or about how the Jack is bouncing off the walls with anticipation for his Tee Ball game this afternoon and the possibility that his grandparents may be in attendance.

I could regale you with tales of how the dog and the kids have finally seemed to accept each other as part of the same litter and now Jack is regularly content to prostrate himself across the dog's butt and watch television.

But, instead, just for today, I'm going to go back to Politics.

On Thursday I participated in early voting in my state for the Democratic primary.

I walked into an historic courthouse, the one where abolitionist John Brown was tried and convicted for his Harper's Ferry uprising and just a few blocks from the tree where they hung him for his actions.

Into THAT courthouse did I walk, and I cast my vote for Barack Obama.

It was not until days later, when Big Daddy had cast his vote at that building, that he pointed out the irony to me.

I consider myself a modern feminist - ultimately, I am a humanist who thinks women still need to fight for respect and equal consideration. I look forward to the day I can cast my vote for the first woman president - one I can get behind and support with a clear conscience. For me, Hillary Clinton is not that woman. My decision to vote for Obama has nothing to do with his race or with her gender, it has to do with who they are and what they stand for.

Today, I found myself reading along on MOMocrats and nodding my head vigorously. I might have even shouted a "HELL YES!" a few times. CityMama has hit it on the head for me; that beyond all of the reasons I supported Obama in the beginning, there are a lot of very good reasons why my support has continued through what some people have tried to construe as his recent "scandals", his so-called "elitism".

Finding out that Hillary Clinton operatives have been sending messages to Obama mailing lists under false pretenses ( "I'm rethinking my support of Obama in the wake of the Reverend Wright scandal..." etc) in an effort to demoralize his supporters - to make it seem that those of us who believe in the MESSAGE should begin to doubt the man - the man who lives and breathes the message and has not waivered - when the message itself remains unchanged and, if anything, more timely and true than ever...... well, that wasn't even a surprise, but I am still shaking my head in sad disbelief.

I think the statements Reverend Wright made are reprehensible. I also find certain statements made by leaders in my former church reprehensible, but those statements are not the reason I finally left. I also find it true that everyone I have ever known with a strong attachment to their religion clings to it more completely in times of distress. I don't see anything incorrect in the statement that Obama made about people clinging to certain issues or belief systems all the more tightly because they are angry at their circumstances. He never said they only picked up those causes to begin with out of bitterness, only that they invest them with disproportionate importance when they are desperate. I agree with that sentiment.

I think that Obama's book, "The Audacity of Hope", is the most insightful, unpretentious and honest looks at politics from the inside that I have ever come across. I don't think that's a mantle you assume in order to fool people; for that, you can go read Chris Matthews' "Life's a Campaign". The works are antithetical in philosophy, as far as I am concerned.

So whether or not you like Obama, or agree with me politically or otherwise, I highly recommend reading the MOMocrats column and giving it sincere consideration. There is some serious truth up in there.

This Wild and Precious Life

In lieu of anything worthwhile to say, myself... Because I'm a messy ball of anxiety waiting for my next doctor's appointment on Monday and the, of course, you know... THE ULTRASOUND on Tuesday.

SO, allow me to share with you my new favorite poem. (found via CityMama, cited as a favorite of Maria Shriver)...

The Summer Day

Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Failure to Communicate.

I have noticed a disturbing trend lately in the relationships that surround us.

First, I need to explain that I am incredible fortunate in my relationship with Big Daddy. We communicate - ad nauseam at times, sure - but we never fail to communicate effectively on any topic. We may have the occasional argument in which I refuse to talk about "What is the matter?" but it never fails to follow that we sit down and discuss "What, exactly, just went wrong here?"

When it comes to my friends and relations, it seems I have one of THOSE faces, the kind that people look at and immediately begin to unload their life story and most intimate problems. I've never minded; I'm a very good listener, and I know when to offer advice and, generally, when to keep my mouth shut and allow the other person to simply release their pressure valve a little.

And so it is that I am befuddled by the people around me. Especially by the married people. It seems that everywhere I turn, I am deluged with stories of marriages wherein the spouses actually speak to other as little as possible. Got a problem with your husband's failure to take out the garbage? As willing as I am to listen to how you feel that this is a serious indicator that he is taking you for granted and completely out of touch with your needs, may I suggest... you know... TELLING your husband that you feel he is out of touch with your needs? Because chances are, if you're going straight from "does not take out trash" to "doesn't understand me at ALL!", there are larger issues in play.

We know couples who have recently dealt with such topics as illness, infidelity, death of a child, loss of employment, and a whole slew of other seriously heavy issues. And yet, if what I am hearing is any indication, there is very little discourse within the marriage on .. you know "What happened here?" and "How are you doing?". Most disturbing to me is the number of women I know who have said, flat out, that they know their marriage is in trouble... but their husbands have flatly refused to even TALK about the possibility of marriage counselling. Like, at least one has said he'd rather just go ahead and split up rather than - you know - go and TALK to someone about their problems.

The most frustrating is the couple we know who are splitting up; he has stated his intention to move out and leave his wife and their children. And yet every conversation seems to be a mix of blame, accusation and resentment... without ever actually stating the actual problem. Just a lot of "It's all your fault I'm not happy" with no explanation as to in which ways, exactly, he is not happy.

Maybe I'm naive; maybe most marriages really ARE a union of two people who are "part of the marriage" without being, I dunno, part of each other. Big Daddy and I are two totally separate, distinct individuals who disagree regularly (and with gusto) but we're also completely open with each other. Totally honest. If one person isn't happy, we talk it out until there is a resolution or a compromise. We talk about our day, and I can name a half-dozen of his coworkers (most of whom I have never met or maybe said "hello" to at the Christmas party) and describe their key personality traits. He knows the names of my Mom friends and remembers to ask how my sister's health is and whether her daughter did well at her violin recital. We have parts of our lives that are separate from each other - that exist outside of the marriage - but we still do our best to give each other a glimpse into that world.

I might be weird, but I am always floored when other women tell me they have no idea what their husband does at work, who his coworkers are, or what is going on at his company right now. Even when we were both working full-time, I was interested in those things. And I like that Big Daddy can vent to me about the office; he still needs to go out with the guys once in a while to commiserate with those who Understand Better Than His Wife, and I am happy that he has that chance, but he would never discount me from that part of his life.

So maybe I am a bit of a Pollyanna when it comes to marriage; maybe I am just incredibly fortunate to be with the person that I am (scratch that, there's no "maybe" about it) but I am beginning to despair of finding more than just a handful of couples who share that with us; who don't divide into "his" and "hers" conversations at every social gathering; who are still each other's true best friend.

Of course, out of all the couples we know, nearly all of them would claim to be each others' best friend... but I keep coming back to this: When your spouse is truly your best friend you can share any truth, no subject is taboo, and no conversation too scary to have. If you have to fear any discussion with your spouse, or some topic (like seeing a counsellor when you know you're in trouble) is absolutely taboo, then you may be married, you may love each other dearly, but there's not trust there.

That may work with friends and relatives - to avoid certain topics for the sake of preserving the relationship - but it doesn't fit any recipe for a Good Marriage that I'd want to be part of.

So, assuming I'm not pouring lemonade on anyone's open wounds here, I'd love to hear other thoughts on this topic.

Ready, steady, GO!