Three things that make me feel queasy

1. From antiangie on Twitter: "I'm not sure what you should do with this, just telling you it exists."
   
2. Jerry O'Connell is writing a memoir about parenthood.  Its title: Cry, Feed, (Make Love to Wife), Burp. I for one can't wait to hear still more about how much he likes having sex with Rebecca Romijn.
3. Number of Charlie's friends attending our party: One (1).

I bet they'd come if I made the frightening hand

I'd been toying with the idea for a couple of weeks, to invite people over for a casual gathering before Saturday night trick-or-treating.  I'd order pizza for the kids, put together a few amusing edibles for the adults — certainly this, certainly not this — and we'd all go out wilding, as the young people call it, as a group.

I meant to put a sign up at the preschool on Monday inviting everyone in Charlie's class, but I was sick and spent all day lying in bed either sleeping or mentally composing my will.  (If anybody wants 10,000 units of hCG that expired two years ago, which I have inexplicably kept for four years past the time when my ovaries might have met it with anything more than a bark of derisive laughter, holler.  We'll work us up a codicil.)

So on Tuesday we made a special trip, Charlie and I, to hang the sign.  Nice sign, too, with a spider-infested font and some clip-art and those neatly perforated "take one" tabs and everything.  I take my mothering seriously, y'all.

We got down to his classroom and prepared to hang our sign on the bulletin board next to the parent mailboxes.  And what did I see in more than half of the mailboxes?  Invitations.  Halloween-themed, obviously, unless people are using stationery with darling black bats and wee little tombstones for other purposes these days.  It's possible, I guess, that they were notes of condolence, but since no one sent e-mail drumming up casseroles, I'm pretty sure nobody died.

There were two separate invitations, in fact, to two separate functions.  Or possibly two separate coupons for two separate local semi-ghoulish service providers, although I have not heard that bat infestations are a big problem in these parts at this time of year, nor do I think the local gravestone-engraving concern offers any price breaks — at least not via flyers clearly marked "Bonfire and fireworks!"  Although come to think of it that's not a bad way to festive up a burying.  But I digress.

Two separate parties already on the books.  To which neither was of one Charlie invited to.  (I'm so upset that I've totally lost control of my grammar.  Can stress incontinence be far behind?  Not to worry. I do have a coupon for that.)

But I gritted my teeth and hung my sign anyway, feeling like an ass and a half for not posting it earlier.  I'm worried that no one will come, which would be a huge disappointment for Charlie, who's been wittering excitedly ever since we posted our invitation.  "I just know my best friends will come!"  "Mama, did you write on the sign that people should bring their costumes?  ...Maybe we should go back and add that part."  "I hope my friends like pizza!"  And this morning, "I hope some parents have pulled off the little tabs from our sign!"

Gaaaaaaaah.  So do I, kid.  Otherwise I'm going to have to pull in a couple of ringers, and it'd be awfully tough to justify flying Soledad O'Brien in for a slice and a sack full of candy.

The deeper level of anxiety, of course, is for the fact that Charlie wasn't invited to either of the other parties.  It's hard not to take it personally, even though I know, having constructed guest lists myself, that it's not necessarily a reflection of how well Charlie's liked by his friends.  It may have nothing to do with that.  It could be how well he's liked by his friends' parents — oh, God.  Or how well Paul and I are liked by his friends' parents — oh, sweet Jesus gay.  And I so want others — not everyone, but almost — to see our kids as I do.  As people with a sweet brilliance all their own, funny boys, kids who can share their gift for happiness, generous-hearted friends.  Company well worth the cost of a bat-spattered envelope and a slice of pepperoni.  And discovering that insecurity in myself, the need to have my children liked, a need I almost never feel on my own behalf, is humbling and scary as hell.

Look, all of a sudden I'm kind of regretting including "CLOTHES-OFF CORPSE-ON-CORPSE XXX ORGY OF THE UNDEAD" and "MENU TO INCLUDE UNSHRIVEN KITTENS" on the invitation, is all I'm trying to say.

Your invitation is in the mail

This morning's breakfast conversation:

Charlie: When Ben and I are grown men, we'll still be brothers.  But we won't live in the same house.

Julie, thinking, I hope not, because that'll mean both of you are in prison: You could live in the same house if you wanted.

C.: No!  I need a lady!  To be my spouse!  It has to be a lady.  Men are spouses with ladies.

J.: Well, actually, some men are spouses with other men.  So you don't have to have a lady if you don't want to.  In fact, you don't have to —

C., brightening appreciably: Oh!  Well, then, I will have a man for a spouse.

J.: — have a spouse at all.  Oh.  Huh.  Got anyone in mind?

C.: Yes!  M.!  He will be my spouse!

J., faintly, considering M.'s flair for mayhem, imagining a ruined Christmas 20 years down the road when a drunk and angry M. finally tells poor Charlie that Santa is a filthy fucking lie: Hmmm.

C.: And, Mama, you can come to the wedding!

J.: Thanks.  I'd love to.

C.: You will love it!  M. and I will wear matching outfits!

In twin Elmo underpants or not, in malicious Santa-ruining and out, I believe every preschooler should have the right to marry the incorrigible rapscallion he loves.  Don't you think so?

Truing up

I just want you to know that at no time has any agent affiliated with the TSA relieved me of either of my children during an airport security screening.  This is kind of odd when you consider that until recently I traveled carrying Nestle infant formula liquid poison, Ben's diapers are filled not with highly absorbent gel but the somewhat explodier Semtex, and Charlie goes nowhere without his nipple ring.

If this is making no sense to you, hello!  Welcome to my blog, where little that I say ever does.  I'm referring to a story posted by a blogger claiming that TSA agents had separated her toddler son from her during a security screening, contrary to the TSA's stated policy.  The TSA rebutted the story on its blog, posting video footage that appears to contradict several of the blogger's contentions, including the most upsetting, that her child had been taken out of her sight while she remained in the screening area.

Which makes me realize I should say a few things about truth.  I solemnly assure you that here at executive headquarters of A Little Pregnant Global Amalgamated Light Industrial Concern, we operate under the highest standards of veracity and accountability.  I will allow, however, that there may have been...certain assertions...I've made here in the past that might have been...left open to interpretation.  Or misconstrued.  Or misquoted.  Misquoted!  That's it.  Yes, I wouldn't be at all surprised if now and again I've misquoted myself.  We legitimate journalists bloggers do that.

So in the interest of correcting any perceived inaccuracies, I give you now the unvarnished truth, with my apologies for having misled you.

1. My husband's name isn't Paul.  It's actually Viggo.  That's short for Vercingetorix and, Jesus, you should see him unify the Gauls.
2. My boy/girl twins are not the result of IVF.
3. I live not in a small New England town but in a climate-controlled glass sarcophagus that is kept in constant flight aboard a military aircraft maintained at a cruising altitude of 39,000 feet.  The flight crew sleep in shifts, and when the plane is low on gas they do one of those aerial refueling maneuvers, thanks to a craft with a probe that looks not entirely unlike an airplane wang.
4. All proceeds from my sidebar advertising actually get split evenly between the NRA and my get-a-portrait-of-Ted-Nugent-tattooed-on-my-breast fund.
5. My infertility is not, in fact, unexplained.  It turns out — funny story, remind me to tell you sometime —  I'm actually a mule.
6. It wasn't a breast pump.  It was a penis pump.  Oh, don't pretend you're surprised.
7. You know, I like the cut of that William Saletan's jib.  (As an aside, I regret mispronouncing his name as I Fucking Hate William Saletan.  My apologies, my good sir.  It turns out the I Fucking Hate is silent.)
8. I didn't drink all the vodka I claimed to in any of my sadder posts.  Actually it's been Windex.
9. I only told you I had two C-sections because I didn't want you to suspect I carry within me a seductive, dark, invisible, undulating, moist pathway to conception and birth.
10. IVF attempts 1 through 3 were mistakenly attributed to Oscar Wilde.  IVF attempts 4 through 6 are actually a 47-year-old unemployed dataprocessor living in squalor in a mobile home in eastern Washington state.  IVF attempt 7 might have given your computer a virus, so I hope you run frequent backups.  IVF attempt 8 wants you to know that it was provided as a review copy in exchange for promotional consideration on this blog.

Anyone else have any corrections to make?  Now's the time to set the record straight.

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Hey!  Look!  I'm a finalist for a blog award.  If you feel moved, vote.  If you feel moved to vote for me, vote a lot!  I wouldn't normally ask, but the ultimate prize is real money, which might just pay for the Nuge.

New rule: Don't read comments, ever

New rule!

Every time someone declares that infertile people should accept their lot in life and adopt, they should be required by law to adopt a child themselves.  To put their money where their mouth is.  Shouldn't be a problem, right?  I hear it's a piece of cake.

And every time someone says that infertile people should not-just-plain-adopt, but special-needs-kids-from-foster-care-extra-special-bonus-just-adopt, they should have such a child deposited on their doorstep within, oh, let's say an hour.  Sign here, and here, initial here, fingerprint here, notary seal here, aaaaand done.  Congratulations!  You're a parent!  Hey, let us know how it goes.  I'm sure you'll do a bang-up job.  Really, how hard could it be?

And every time someone who's had no fertility problems of their own says it, someone with as many children as they'd like, conceived and delivered without difficulty, they get the full package.  The adoption, the special needs and the adjustment issues, and a stiff electric shock where it'll do the most good.  What?  Oh, you don't like those repeated high-voltage jolts?  Sounds like a lifestyle issue to me.  I know you'd like for them to stop, but it's not a matter of life or death, sooooooo...

This morning I read the comments on the articles about ART that ran in Sunday's New York Times, then spent the afternoon wanting to set things on fire.  I should know by now never to do that; every time the Times publishes such a piece, the comments run 89% in favor of consigning infertile people to a crumbling ice floe inhabited by leprous armadillos in the shark-infested waters just off the coast of Monster Island; 10% in favor of forbidding insurance coverage of any kind for pregnancies and babies resulting from ART because we chose to take the risk, like, thanks for that, Mayor Marlboro Bacon McGoddamnCheese, oh, and by the way, congratulations on your triple bypass, happy to pay for your "lifestyle disease"; and a bare 1% in favor of everyone who's never faced the situation shutting the fucking fuck up.  My stomach sinks as I see "482 people recommend this post" under every one of the 89%ers.  And there I am avenging myself, repeatedly clicking RECOMMEND for the shut-the-fuck-uppers, my finger stuttering on the mouse button as if it made a difference.  As if my anger and despair and urge to shout down the ugliness made any difference at all.

The articles themselves, if you haven't read them, are worth a look.  They're part of a package called 21st Century Babies — I presume because creating designer technosupermechabionic cyberbabies is what we'll all be doing in the fyuuuuuchurrrrrrr — and they raise some interesting issues.  A quick rundown, because it's late:

The Gift of Life, and Its Price focuses on the risks of carrying twins after IVF, bookending some discussion of the financial costs of prematurity with two scary anecdotes about twins born early.  The writer manages to ignore almost entirely the notion that insurance coverage for IVF, and the single-embryo transfers that would consequently become much more prevalent, could dramatically reduce the incidence of preterm birth after ART.

Grievous Choice on Risky Path to Parenthood deals with the problems of high-order multiples, profiling Thomas and Amanda Stansel, a Texas couple who conceived after IUI.  On an earlier cycle, Amanda had conceived and lost twins due to incompetent cervix; on this cycle, having refused selective reduction earlier in the pregnancy, she delivered sextuplets at 23 weeks' gestation.  Four of the six babies have died.

The Trouble with Twin Births is a roundup of educated opinions — hear that, commenters? — on whether the U.S. should regulate the fertility industry and whether IVF transfers should be limited to one embryo at a time.  Opinions break down pretty much along the lines you'd expect, with a rueful-looking Zev Rosenwaks — I love that picture — pointing out that a single rule applied indiscriminately across a varied population of patients would make him weep tears of bitterest regret.  Silent, manly ones.  (I admit I take certain interpretational liberties.  But doesn't he look so sad?)

I have more to say about these pieces, and I'm guessing you will, too.  Check them out and let me know what you think.  But don't read the comments, okay?  They may well move you to your own wanton spree of arson.  I have to go to bed, and I don't want you having all the fun without me.

Coal, goal, and a swab in the hole

It started with a high fever.  Holding Ben was like clutching a sack of burning coal.  An angry sack of coal, in fact, one that writhed and mewled and tried to escape from my arms.  Okay, I'd say, and put the coal on the floor, since that's what he seemed to want.  And then he'd slump onto the rug and start weeping, because running wild, unfettered, and free hadn't been as awesome as he'd imagined.  Sad coal.  Coal of desolation.  And I'd sit there and think, Damn.  Anthracite sucks.

We had a few nights like that, with Ben waking up every couple of hours needing only to be held, where "held" can be understood to mean held, then rocked, then caaaarefully carried over to the crib, then deposited as gently as if he were made of, I don't know, something fragile and dangerous like nitroglycerin or maybe plutonium or, wait! I know! my flagging maternal good humor, then picked up again as the howling commenced, ad infinitum, ad nauseam, ad hominem and beyond.  During the day, Ben alternated between his usual sunny good cheer and what more neutral observers might call irritability.

Now, along with a high fever and the rash that blossomed all over Ben's torso a couple of days later, that irritability is one of the symptoms of roseola.  I in my straightforward way am more inclined to call it asshole.  -Ishness.  -Ocity.  -Ification.  -A-ganza.  See how I'm not quite calling my sweet small son an asshole?  Rather, I am remarking in a detached and clinical way that he displayed many of the hallmarks of one.  That's for the convenience of all the Googlers who are querying roseola symptoms.  High fever torso rash diminshed appetite virus mild diarrhea "baby measles" puffy eyes lordy what an asshole.  And that, my friends, is how you do search engine optimization.

And then the fever broke, and the rash came on, and with it the high-pitched keening that signals an ear infection.  The only thing that seemed to comfort him was being holstered belly to belly in the Ergo carrier with his head tucked under my chin.  And that was fine until he decided to unleash one of his periodic dog-whistle shrieks, mouth right next to my ear.  It was unclear over the weekend whose eardrum would rupture first.  I confess to a fantasy of hastening mine along by mechanical means, just to muffle the noise.  Oh, like you've never considered defying the instructions on the package of Q-Tips, inserting one into your ear canal and working it like a butter churn. 

But I managed somehow to refrain, and to make endless grim circuits around the house with the aural equivalent of an actuated smoke alarm strapped to my head, and to pick up and put down and pick up and put down and pick up and put down gently...every...time.  None of that, of course, is more than a parent should do.  But I surprised myself by how calm I stayed, how willing I stayed, in the face of it.

And now we are back to normal.  I had forgotten over the last week exactly how delicious Ben is, how I get this curling feeling of full-body warmth when Charlie makes him laugh, how much it cracks me up to see him ask for things with a combination of the sign for milk — which he seems to think means gimme — and an imperious clap of his hands, like, Lady, who do I have to blow to get another handful of blueberries around here?  I think I'd better not expect much in the way of a tip.

This isn't going to seem related, but hang on because I'm going to do that thing where I gather seemingly disparate threads into a single impenetrable knot, which is either a neat trick or a cheap one, I never really know.  Yesterday I took Charlie to soccer practice.

Paul usually does this, but he and Ben were detained, so I did the necessary.  Put on quasi-athletic shoes, chivvied Charlie into emerging from the cardboard box he has claimed as his hideout, painted my naked chest with the team colors, that kind of thing.  And spent the next hour running back and forth, calling out approval and encouragement, turning Charlie's occasional frustrated frown up-the-fuck-side down with positive words, rambunctious hair-tousling, and snarled promises that we were gonna wipe the goddamn field with those clumsy loser children on the red team.

I was kind of excellent.  And so was Charlie, who announced later at dinner that practice was great.  "I love soccer," he gushed.  Which I, alas, do not.  I hate soccer, in fact.  I feel that way about children's sports in general.  I think it's important for a kid to be exposed to such things, and I'm committed to making it happen, but I would so much rather be reading a book to him, or doing a craft, or cooking, or pretending for the umpteenth time that he is Ponyo, I am Lisa, Paul is Sosuke, and Ben is a brine shrimp about to be filtered through the baleen plates of one of those freaky-ass giant fish, and we are all enjoying a hearty plank of ham in a cardboard box — even that — than getting all team spirited on the sidelines.

But I was, as I said, pretty excellent.  I didn't let on, even a little bit.  And sometimes I think — here comes that knot! — that my worth as a parent is better judged by how I handle the things I hate, soccer practice and having my sleep broken every 90 minutes by a scalding struggling bituminous lump of rage, than by the way I manage everyday affairs.  Which I don't always do so well.  But give me a sick baby and a breathless hour of "Good try!  That was close," and I feel like I'm doing okay.  Incredibly, I even feel like I'm lucky to have this luxury, the opportunity to do things I hate for people I love.

I can't be alone on this one.  Tell me you don't like soccer, either.  Or tell me what you hate but do with enthusiasm, anyway.  Or tell me I'm an asshole — excuse me, an irratibility-ish-ness-ication — for calling my toddler coal.  I'm listening, as soon as I dislodge the Q-Tip.