just wondering

Analysis paralysis

by mayberry on September 17, 2009

I hand you a stack of 17 envelopes. Sixteen of them contain a fat check, enough to make you very happy and comfortable. The 17th envelope holds proof of complete financial ruin.

Do you open an envelope?

I show you a tray of 17 crystal flutes. Sixteen of them are filled with the finest, most delicious Champagne you’ll ever taste. The 17th contains a deadly poison.

Do you take a glass?

*

You can’t make good decisions without information.

Too much information makes it painfully impossible, or impossibly painful, to make a decision.

*

There is no black or white. There are only shades of gray, and they go on for so long I could never reach the end.

*

One in 17. That’s the chance that another baby would suffer the same fate as his brother did.

I don’t think I like those odds.

{ 20 comments }

Only one of my children’s names starts with J

by mayberry on September 9, 2009

The other day I landed (as you do) on an article from some newspaper about a family with seven children who had just adopted three more. The three new additions, plus one of the original seven, had Down syndrome. Okay, so that caught my eye but if that’s what they want for their family, more power to ‘em. But there was an offhand comment in the story that stopped me for a minute. Something about how one of the newly arrived children had developed a strong attachment to an older sister, to the point where the older child sometimes had to hide or switch places with her twin in order to get a break from the clingy toddler. My train of thought chugged along the track something like this:

ME: Well, that seems excessive. Should that really be the older kid’s responsibility?

MYSELF: That’s how the Duggars do it. All the older ones take care of the younger ones while the parents, like, blow-dry their hair or or something.

I: That’s also the way it’s been since time immemorial. Siblings did the child care while parents hunted/gathered/farmed/riveted.

ME: Yeah, but this is now. Aren’t the parents right there? I can see a child being required to help, but how much is enough?

MYSELF: How is it different from having to mow the lawn or scrub the kitchen floor?

I: Dude, that’s a totally different kind of outsourcing.

ME: Let’s ask the internet.

{ 13 comments }

Bedtime

by mayberry on August 26, 2009

Mommy, why did Jo and I not die?

Everything worked just the way it was supposed to and here you are.

We were born.

Are you thinking about your baby brother?

Yeah.

He was very sick and he couldn’t be made better.

Why?

He was just too little.

I wanted to see a real baby.

Me too.

…

Mommy? Why is Darlene the leader of the G-Force?

{ 12 comments }

In praise of the oldies

by mayberry on July 7, 2009

Staying at my mom’s temporary hangout recently cemented my feelings on new houses. I don’t like them. Or, to be fair, I wouldn’t want to live in one if I could possibly avoid it, but I know not everyone shares this opinion. When we moved to Mayberry, I wouldn’t let our real estate agent show us any,  despite a lot of nagging on her part. I don’t like the way newer homes are so matchy with all the other houses on the block. I don’t like the way they swallow up their lots, leaving little outdoor space. I don’t like the excess: huge, specialized rooms that go unused; more bathrooms than there are family members; extra refrigerators stashed on each level, greedily sucking electricity.

Most of all, for the love of God, I do not like the enormous mirrors in the bathroom that force me to ponder my nakedness daily. Give me a good old-fashioned medicine cabinet over the sink any day.

My 90-year-old house has a choppy layout, a detached garage, a ventilation system that baffles most heating contractors, and no master bath (yes: we grown-ups share a bathroom with our children!). But it has charm like nobody’s business, and I don’t have to see myself in the altogether after each and every shower.

I think most people are either old-house types or new-house types, and rarely the twain shall,  you know, switch teams. Which one are you?

{ 30 comments }

Two imponderables

by mayberry on July 1, 2009

1. I wash a load of towels. I put them in the dryer. Later, I open the dryer to fold them and they REEK. I dry them again with an extra dryer sheet. Now half of them smell normal. I take them out (this requires sniffing each item individually) (!) and dry the remaining, reeky ones one more time. Now they’re fine. The first time this happened I thought it was a fluke. The second and third times, I got mad.

2. I mostly use Firefox for my web-browsing needs, which of course are constant especially during the so-called work day. But for months now, FF freezes and crashes constantly—but only between about 11 a.m. and 3 p. m. I have the most recent version of FF. I have good virus protection. I even changed service providers (from cable to DSL) and this still happens. It must be my computer, but how come it only happens at certain (extremely inconvenient) times?

Do we have a poltergeist or something?

(In possibly related news, I am buying myself one of those teeny weeny laptops. Asus? Eee? Any thoughts/prefs?)

{ 11 comments }

Slightly sticky wicket

by mayberry on May 22, 2009

Our book club is currently reading a short-story collection written by the husband of one of our members. I’m only halfway through it, but I am enjoying it very much. When we first decided to read it, the plan was for the author to come to our meeting, which is next week, and join in our discussion. Now I’m not sure that he is coming, because we’ll be meeting at a restaurant instead of at their home as we typically do.

But either way, I’m a little stuck on what to say and ask. Typically our discussions tend toward what we liked and didn’t, characters that annoyed us, what we found believable or un-, what messages we took away from the book. I’m curious as to how that will all play out with the very different dynamic of having to consider the author’s feelings too.

What would you want to know? Would you focus on questions about writing process or seize the opportunity to dive more deeply into the characters’, and the author’s, motivations and choices?

{ 12 comments }

The Mad Family

by mayberry on March 18, 2009

Mad drawing skillz, that is!
The assignment was to draw a self-portrait, so Opie drew himself “with a mad face” (top left; apparently also with some kind of bunny ear/mohawk thing going on. And also he’s holding a sword, one that “shoots needles”). Then he required everyone else to draw a Mad self-portrait. Jo is on the upper right with the unibrow. Jeff is at the bottom left, being shot by a needle and shouting at the sword-bearer. Also he’s on fire. I am on the far right with angry eyebrows and bared teeth. And in the bottom center, Jo’s “surprise” look.

Here’s what I found irksome the other day: Our grocery store changed its policy on reusable bags. They no longer offer a 5-cent rebate for each bag you supply–only their branded bags count. I don’t use the reusables for the cash, but come on! What a stupid policy.

And you?

{ 12 comments }

This week in grief

by mayberry on February 26, 2009

It’s been almost six weeks now and most of the time I am holding up fine. I think about my son all the time, but it’s an undercurrent as I go about my day. I no longer can quite keep track of how many weeks pregnant I would be. But there are always moments, things I see or hear or read that tip me unexpectedly into a puddle of sorrow and regret.

Most recently it was the song “For Good” from Wicked. Looking at the lyrics now, they strike me as trite, but they hit a nerve nonetheless. Because I do wonder, often, what Lesson I am supposed to have learned from this experience. Is it presumptuous, or just premature, to think that I should take something away, that I deserve to get something out of it? That I ought to be wise enough to figure out what that something is? Is that too much pressure for my baby’s tiny shoulders, or my own?

I’ve heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return

Well, I don’t know if I believe that’s true
But I know I’m who I am today
Because I knew you

Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun

Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood

Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good

It well may be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you

You’ll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend

I may not know exactly how far along I should be now, but I do picture, often, what would be happening now if our boy had lived, what I’d be doing and feeling. I expect I always will. I see three paths, three versions of my life–the one where I have a healthy, typical pregnancy and baby; the one where I have a child with disabilities, and am suddenly thrust into a new world of medical and educational and emotional challenges; and the one where I am missing a child. It’s all very Sliding Doors.

Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a skybird
In a distant wood

Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good
–lyrics by Stephen Schwartz

Changed for good? That much is clear, even if not much else is.

{ 18 comments }

Random ‘n’ ranty

by mayberry on December 11, 2008

Item 1. Not so much a rant, really, as another “What’s the deal with…” question. Why do kids love getting their faces painted? It takes for-fricking-ever, we always have to wait in a huge line (because every other kid at the event wants her face painted too), it smears within 10 minutes, and the kid can’t even see it. Why, I ask you. Why?

Item 2, in case you missed this on Twitter. It is too important for you to miss: The best search string ever. Someone arrived here at Mayberry Mom by googling “are you down with opie pee.” Yeah, you know me! My friend, I hate to break it to you, but this here is a mommyblog. If you’re looking for OPP, try here. Or possibly here.

Item 3. I had the most stay-at-home-momish kind of day I’ve ever had. School drop-off, yoga, home briefly, school volunteer thing, church thing (me and 40 old ladies in the church basement, for real), home again to clean up hideous dog accident in basement, school pick-up, back home for small window in which I accomplished one tiny work task (only because kids were watching TV and husband came home from work early), swimming lessons, home to wolf down dinner, PTA meeting. And tomorrow? Is a half-day of school. TGIF.

{ 14 comments }

What would you name yourself?

by mayberry on December 5, 2008

I’ve been having an email conversation with two friends about what names we would have chosen for ourselves (as children) if we’d had the option. Two out of three of us wanted to be “Lisa.” So now we’re curious. What name would you have given yourself at 5 years old? Or 10?

And did you ever try to change your name or nickname? In 6th grade, I decided my name was boring and I henceforth wanted to spell it with an “ie” at the end instead of a “y.” Much grief ensued in the form of kids calling me “Cath-WHY.” Eventually, I did get it to stick and kept that spelling through high school and college, at which point I finally gave it up as dumb. And that’s why friends and family now spell my name three different ways.

You see why Lisa would be so much easier.

{ 23 comments }

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