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purchase that make and model for a reason it seems ridiculous to compare our donor with a car vehicles though they both were for moving our life forward after all despite the very similar research processes and on paper comparisons there was absolutely no way we were going to take the donor on a test drive 1 comment filed under d is for donor and that s good enough for me april 25 2020 10 32 am a bouquet of sadness let me say this up front we are fine good even safe healthy happy privileged the losses closest to me have been two degrees of separation everyone in my first degree circle who has had the disease friends family members and acquaintances has recovered so without crushing grief i am left with spots of sadness sadness for clementine who this year was assigned a teacher who turns out to be both exemplary and her favorite one yet and a shockingly wonderful combination of kids i am so sad they don t get to be in the classroom together this spring although my sadness is nothing compared to the teacher s she is holding it to together but you can see how it breaks her heart sadness for julia the extrovert who misses her friends and the structured socialization of preschool i learned with clementine that preschool friends don t last our preschool is not in the town we live in but julia needs that day to day human connection and it s also sad she won t get to close the year out with a portfolio and a moving on ceremony although that s nothing compared to the high school and college seniors who are graduating virtually this year or even the elementary and middle school students who are leaving schools they ve been in for many more hours of their lives sadness that the birthday celebrations we had carefully planned for them did not and will not happen as planned a sleepover live theater a whole host of outings most which we carefully bought discount tickets for well in advance so we could afford full price on the ones that did not offer a discount and a large gathering of loved ones in a public place julia s actual birthday is on a weekend this year and she had such plans for the guest list sadness that the summer road trip we planned with our new car that perhaps we should have waited to buy after all will not happen it s a trip i ve been wanting to take since i was a kid that i ve been waiting to take until the kids were old enough to appreciate it the saving grace is that we hadn t actually booked anything so we haven t had to cancel anything sadness about the summer camp and camping reservations we ve made which haven t been cancelled yet but probably will be we had things so carefully mapped out the perfect balance of being away and being at home clementine s first overnight camp and julia s first full day camp carefully coordinated with the grownups work schedules for maximum productivity instead it s more of the same all of us at home together in our very small apartment but at least we can afford to lose the deposits if it comes to that and neither of us is out of a job sadness about the work events i had scheduled one in particular was a special celebration for people who had been working very hard on things they were very proud of as the pandemic crept into visibility my signature event of the year was slowly whittled down to nothing or nothing more than a recorded video call and although part of me was relieved not to be hosting it i was so sad for the celebrants maybe we ll schedule it when we go back to work whenever that is but our team read director has been so bad at planning over the years and this was the year we finally did it the director left you see for another job so many events postponed indefinitely and when we reschedule them it will be in fierce competition with the events we had planned for next year sadness about next year even a major anniversary milestone birthdays and even a wedding balancing that with my workplace s own milestone year was going to be tricky but we had advance notice until the uncertainty set in so much uncertainty i can only imagine how the wedding couple is feeling sadness about our apartment we love our apartment the location the coziness of it the stuff we filled it with there are reasons good ones even we never moved to a house but now the condo feels so cramped the pool in the building is closed for good reason even if it were open i don t know if i trust my neighbors enough to throw my children into that vast chlorinated puddle but to unfortunate effect it s the less apocalyptic version of that article i read stating beautifully so much for stockpiling weaponry it s not the butchers who will get out of this but the bakers it s okay that we didn t have a yard to play in because we have a pool and live near parks so much for that but of course our ability to shelter and feed ourselves is not in question and plenty of little moments as well the greenery to round out the flowering disappointments none of it lasts forever or even very long most of it is fleeting like the colorful blossoms popping up in the world we can only sort of explore and curls back up until its next bloom this post is not a complaining post it is a documenting post i don t need validation or sympathy or perspective this post is a vase collecting the flowers for in the moments that i have them we used to get flowers at the grocery story you see as a special day brightening treat when the budget allowed although this post is not the collection of cheerfulness that those bouquets were the comparison is apt the things i am sad about are not essential things they are luxuries a detour from the aisles of daily life but seeing them on our table tabled even is helpful acknowledgement reminders that these are losses we can handle i do not have a green thumb i cannot keep a garden or even a houseplant alive but the bouquet i can manage leave a comment filed under reflection tagged as current events pandemiconium march 22 2020 2 30 pm notes from a social distance well this seems as good a place as any to chronicle my thoughts about being stuck at home with more people than there are rooms with doors methinks open floor plans will not be so popular when the housing market picks back up again i wonder if phone calls will make a triumphant return in this age of texts and telephonaphobia remote work is not grating on me yet although i do miss my desk chair folding chair and folding table in the corner of the bedroom are not exactly the ergonomic dream of the apocalypse it s amusing to see the stark difference in attitudes and zoom meeting requests between my group members who desperately miss the office and its collegiality and those who are utterly thrilled to be remote and secretly okay not so secretly hope the mandate to work off site goes on for months even after the crisis resolves because it will dammit my kids are an almost perfect age for this julia could stand to be a bit older read self sufficient but neither of them is annoyingly underfoot toddlers or pissed at us for forbidding them contact with their friends teens and their academics are not so demanding that i worry about them missing out mostly i m annoyed that this is going to interfere with summer vacation and camp i do not enjoy being on facebook my feed is actually a decent mix of news creativity and support but i find the whole thing so overwhelming sometimes it s the tenuous balance between information sharing and fear mongering but more often than not it s the other parents invitation to join groups and virtual gatherings suggestions for activities and ways to help i am simultaneously grateful and embittered and behind it all there s a bizarre balance of fatalistic joking the send more wine and if i murder my children i m blaming it on virus moms and smug optimism i m so glad to be spending this time with my children and look at this amazing artwork we did that makes me want to never be friends with any of these people irl ever again except i really do like them in real life i m really glad i like the people in my family and i m really glad we decided to have that second kid things are not totally smooth sailing but we ve been okay at entertaining each other in various combinations and thank goodness we spent all that time working on our children s self awareness regarding introversion and extraversion there are those memes going around about how introverts have been preparing their whole lives for social distancing and how introverts really need to check on their extrovert friends who are probably not okay but thus far we re not seeing that pattern on either side of the myers brigs routines and regular outdoors time are our current keys to happiness related may i just say that i am very conflicted about the prospect of a state or city wide lockdown i 100 appreciate that my wife has scattered printed out crossword puzzles and word searches around the vertical surfaces of our apartment yeah we bought a printer sorry trees i am sure i have more thoughts about the current situation and other things as well but that feels like enough for now thank you to the folks out there on the frontlines and to everyone who is doing the right thing and erring on the side of caution so the frontline people can be at their best possible readiness and a giant curse word to the policymakers whose actions and inactions have contributed to and are exacerbating this period of uncertainty and danger here s a little online quiz for you fill in the blank ________________ now a apocalypse b revolution c any day we re all educators these days people 1 comment filed under uncategorized tagged as balancing acts current events pandemiconium december 31 2019 9 25 am trapped but in the best possible way clementine s holiday present to julia was a special sister sleepover and last night was the night we set up the beloved but culturally appropriative play tent in the living room our apartment is really small so that s the only non bedroom space available bedecked it with fairy lights laid out their sleeping bags placed an order for pizza and sequestered ourselves in our bedroom you can come out to use the bathroom but that s it well or to tell us to go to sleep if we re up late like 10 30 and you can get water for the night over the course of the evening we heard strains of a recorder concert yes it s that year in school for clem and while i recognize the value of the instrument in a solid music education it s not exactly the most pleasant homework she has to complete drifting over the clangs and bangs of our own media entertainment and the quiet giggles of two girls enjoying unlimited access to the girl scout cookies clem had purchased for the occasion eventually julia went to sleep did they brush their teeth probably not and clementine snuggled down with a book until far too late as per usual i was called in at various points to to assist with the noise machine fix the ties on the tent and deliver craft supplies but now i m still sequestered in my bedroom typing this on my phone wife asleep by my side and wondering if it s quiet too quiet out there i know they re awake have they eaten is hanger imminent but i will not investigate even if my stomach is ready to eat itself because what is a bit of hunger in exchange for ending the year with a bit of sisterly magic dude we made sisters 3 comments filed under uncategorized tagged as darling clementine orange blossom siblinghood august 21 2019 6 52 am having two moms is lousy well i ve inadvertently stumbled on a disadvantage to being a two mom family statistically speaking moms get head lice more frequently than dads and as the expert told us last week good moms get them more often than bad ones okay that was kind of judge y obviously it s about behaviors and choices long hair vs short being present tendency to snuggle with kids etc not inherent personality traits or gender essentialism but one looks for humor and validation where one can find it you know especially when one is elbows deep in tea tree eucalyptus and peppermint oil stuck in front of the television watching inane children s shows while your daughters hair is carefully combed through yes clementine managed to host an impressive number of head lice this summer apparently they d been building their community since before school let out resulting in approximately 150 adults several hundred nymphs and even more nits julia lime and i only had a hundred or so between the three of us i tell you this here rather than posting on facebook which is a shame really because i wanted to both recommend the local lice treatment center and make fun of their vaguely sexist video intended to reassure panicked mothers because i don t want to make all our friends itchy we did tell the friends who hang out with us most often and whose children are most likely to have snuggled with ours of course so they could do their own checks treatment it was touch and go for a while but i think clem s bff s mom is going to forgive us eventually so this is a fun way to end the summer isn t it and what s that stereotype about lesbians who overanalyze everything i mean i m not a lesbian myself but i m married to one and i do love to nitpick this just wasn t what i had in mind 1 comment filed under parenting tagged as ap101 august 2 2019 9 55 am playing anti favorites it is no secret that i am julia s favorite among her three moms i am by far the preferred one the feeling is not mutual i love her and i love clementine i love lime too but that s not the conversation we re having not equally of course that s impossible but not unevenly either lime on the other hand well that s trickier i know lime enjoys our older child s company more and there are a lot of good reasons for it three year olds are donkeybutts preschool is only a few mornings a week clementine is in school six hours a day and absorbed in her books the other eighteen i kid she does sleep every now and then when her in bed reading light runs out of charge julia is clingy and few things make one crave distance quite so much as someone who won t let you call your body or your thoughts your own clementine is coming up on new levels of independence on that embarrassed by her parents stage so quality time is at a premium absence makes the heart grow fonder and familiarity breeds contempt et cetera et cetera lime is after all the at home parent with a second child who is more challenging than the first and that s truly what it is it s not an ngp thing we established that already but here s the catch as the gp i am weirdly offended you see many of the things that rightly frustrate lime about julia are things she has in common with me the inability to stop talking the poor handling of criticism the inability to sleep for long periods of time the tendency to yell when things don t go her way or someone dares tell her no personality things nature over nurture things things i very well could have passed down to her through genes or epigenetic f...