Welcome, Libby!

For those of you who have been following Kerri's extended pregnancy, good news! Elizabeth ("Libby") was finally born yesterday afternoon, only 9 days overdue and after nearly a day of labor. Congratulations, Kerri and Martin!

Why I'm Considering Homeschooling

What is wrong with this country?

Truck driver kills three girls in Amish school shooting

Principal killed at Wisconsin school; 9th-grader charged

Sheriff: School shooter sent letter to say sorry

Gunman spotted, 2 Vegas schools locked down

Federal funds to prevent school violence dropping

From that last article:

"From 1992 to 2002, 261 people ages 5 to 19 were killed at school, according to federal statistics. The worst years -- 1992-93 and 1997-98 -- saw 34 deaths, and the lowest total was 12, in 2000-01."

Kelly, the Amazing Relationship Counselor

I'm a big fan of The Amazing Race. It's one of the few reality shows I really get interested in. (That and the cooking shows -- when does Top Chef season 2 start??)

I'm fascinated by the Race because it showcases the world and because it brings home the fact that so many of my countrymen and -women fall into the Ugly American stereotype. Few are the contestants who really seem to appreciate the sights they're seeing and the cultures they get to experience. Too many are those who seem to view the world with a sense of superiority and condescension.

That, however, is not the aspect of the Race we'll be discussing today. Rather, our topic of conversation is this: Why is it that at least one team on every season is a couple who's using the Race to try to work out whether they really belong together? This season, it's Rob and Kimberly. Here's what the official Amazing Race site has to say about them:

"Rob & Kimberly met while bartending in Los Angeles, California. The young couple has been dating for two years and recently moved in together. Their primary reason for running the Race is to see if their relationship can withstand the intensity and pressure of traveling around the world at such a frantic pace."

The show is constantly showing clips of Rob and Kimberly saying things like, "We're at that point in our relationship when we need to decide whether to get married or go our separate ways."

What?? I'm sorry, but I don't think any healthy relationship ever reaches that point. You're happy together, or you're not. If you both want to get married, great! If not, that's okay too. If one does and the other doesn't, well, you have some issues to work out. But don't just say to yourselves that you've been together for X years, and that's the time when you're supposed to get married, so you'd better fish or cut bait.

These couples are letting society's expectations (or, rather, their perceptions of society's expectations) dictate for them the path of their relationship. It's not about whether they're happy with each other and their relationship -- it's about whether they're supposed to be happy. And whether they're supposed to be happier if they get married.

What an incredibly bad reason to get married.

Now, I don't pretend to be a relationship expert. (Well, sometimes I do.) I do have a marriage that I think everyone should envy, but every relationship is different and needs to be dealt with on its own terms. Perhaps it's conceivable that there are couples out there for whom this kind of thinking works -- maybe it really does make them happy to do what they think society wants them to do. (It's also possible, just maybe, that we don't see the whole story with these couples, but rather just the snippets of interviews CBS thinks will make for good TV. So it isn't really fair to judge them, is it? But I do anyway.)

Get married if you want to. Don't if you don't want to. If you're not sure, work it out. Talk about it. But don't take your relationship on national television and air your differences and fears and grievances there. If you feel like your relationship needs to pass some sort of test to prove it works, maybe you've already failed the test.

The Story of Evelyn and Sophia

After reading this post over at Nanette's Underachieving Mommy, I am inspired to write about my pregnancy.

(Many of you know the story, so feel free to skip this retelling. I'll see you back here next time, when we'll discuss my incredulity at the fact that Rachel Ray is America's second-most-trusted celebrity.)

Getting pregnant was the easy part. It took only five months of trying, and that last month we weren't really trying very hard. It was December, we were stressed out and busy with holiday parties, gigs, trying to get our annual holiday CD out the door (someday, friends, we'll start that tradition back up again, but I don't think this is the year).

So we were kind of taking the month off from trying to get pregnant, which is apparently what it took to get the job done. The timing was nice -- we found out a few days before Christmas, so on Christmas Day we shared the news with our parents and brothers -- and swore them to secrecy. Not another soul was to know until we were out of the first trimester and in the (mythical) pregnancy safe zone.

Two weeks later, spotting and cramping sent me to the OB in a panic. It was a week before my first scheduled visit, but I was convinced a miscarriage was underway. Poor Airan was on a train from downtown, desperately trying to get to the hospital in time to be there for the ultrasound, but he didn't even come close. So I was all alone with the ultrasound tech when I got the big news -- two heartbeats, two little sacs, two babies.

(Ironic, because I'd just spent a few months teasing my pregnant friend Mary Beth about how she was eating for three, right up until her 20-week ultrasound, when she found out she was having twins. It was my karmic backlash -- I wished twins on MB, and I got them myself in return.)

So another round of phone calls to the parents and brothers with even more big news. Much rejoicing! And a little bit of fear -- because of my osteogenesis imperfecta and thus my low muscle tone, I was scared that my body wouldn't be able to keep it together through a twins pregnancy. My OB was optimistic, but I had doubts.

And just a few years earlier, my cousin Jim and his wife had premature twin boys who stayed in a NICU for six weeks after their birth -- I remember being terrified by pictures of those tiny little preemies, thinking they looked so tired, so world-weary, so fragile. How can such tiny babies survive in the world? But they did survive and thrive, and so I tried not to be too afraid.

At this point, it wasn't even crossing my mind that the twins might have inherited OI from me. I knew it was a possibility, but I wasn't worried. My OI wasn't diagnosed until I was seven, so I assumed that, if the twins did have OI, we wouldn't know or have to deal with it for years.

And so the first trimester went happily along, with lots of morning sickness, a queasy but otherwise fun trip to Paris, the barest beginnings of sort of starting to get ready for twins. We had OB visits every other week, with ultrasound heartbeat checks every time, so we were amassing quite a collection of in utero baby pictures.

At week 17, we got the ultrasound tech to place her bets on the babies' genders. She wouldn't give us 100% certainty, but she was 90-95% sure we had a couple of girls in there. Much rejoicing! Half the family confessed to secretly hoping for girls. (Honestly, I'd been sort of hoping for boys because I remember what a horrible bitch I was as a 13-year-old, but as soon as I got the girls verdict, I was converted. Girls rule!)

A few more weeks of happiness/nausea, and then the 20-week level II ultrasound. We should have been suspicious when the ultrasound tech, after chatting away through her evaluation of baby A (Evelyn), suddenly clammed up and was silent as she took measurements of baby B (Sophia). But we didn't notice. And when the doctor came in, all serious, asking me questions about my OI, still it didn't occur to us that anything was amiss. And then she showed us Sophia's femur, her thigh bone, and pointed out the fact that it appeared to be broken. And bowed. And not quite as long as it should be. And that was our evidence, years before I expected it, that at least one of the twins had OI.

It seems, as I write this, like this discovery shouldn't have been that big a deal. So what if Sophie has OI? I've lived my life with this disease. Yeah, it's really sucked at times, but it's never been life threatening, and it's never prevented me from doing anything I really wanted to do. (I never wanted to go skiing anyway. Roller skating, however...) And being an adorable seven-year-old trapped in the hospital for weeks on end has its advantages -- never in my life have I had such good luck getting people to bring me stuffed animals and root beer floats and anything else my heart desires.

Here's why I was so upset to learn about Sophie's (and, in a few more ultrasounds, Evie's) OI:

1) I know what it's like. I know having OI sucks. And I think, when I was growing up, it must have been much harder for my parents than it was for me. So I was scared for them and scared for us.

2) I did this to them. I knew full well that any child I have has a 50% chance of inheriting OI from me. I casually chose to believe that I wouldn't pass it on, that everything would be just fine, that we'd beat the odds. I am to blame for this, and had I not been so blase, so careless, I could have prevented this. (Here's where I choose not to think about the fact that, had we actually used genetic testing and in-vitro fertilization to avoid passing on OI, the egg(s) that became Sophie and Evie would have been discarded, and those precious girls would never have existed.)

We had only a few more weeks to deal with this knowledge before the next blow came. At my 25-week routine appointment, they couldn't get a good look at my cervix on the ultrasound. The OB did an internal exam and found that my cervix was completely effaced and I was starting to dilate. With 15 weeks to go.

Bed rest. They let me spend the first few days at home, but then (skip ahead, o ye of weak stomach) I lost my mucus plug. Airan rushed me to the hospital, where they discovered that I was having contractions. They drugged me and kept me in the hospital, dangling the promise that maybe in a few more days they'd let me go home to finish out my bed rest. Cue the amniotic fluid leak. Not a gushing flow, just a slow, steady leak. (I now understand why water torture is so effective -- especially if it were to involve your girl parts.)

No hope of going back home now. A fluid leak meant a risk of infection, so they had to monitor me and the babies several times a day to make sure we were all still healthy. At this point, the best they were hoping for was to get me to 34 weeks -- and from 26 weeks, that seems like a very, very long time to be stuck in the hospital on bed rest. Alas, I didn't get to find out just how awful that would be.

At 28 weeks, my water broke for real. Hard labor hit, and I spent the night writhing and moaning in a delivery room, hoping they could get the labor to stop, knowing we were looking at an emergency C-section first thing in the morning.

How can it be that the most terrifying day of your life is also the best? My tiny, tiny babies came into the world 12 weeks before they should have. They couldn't breathe without help, they couldn't eat, they had to be kept in incubators to maintain their body heat. That instinct that kicks in when you have a baby, the overwhelming need to protect and care for and provide -- useless. There wasn't anything I could do for them. But that's the day I got to meet them, finally got to see those little people who had been screwing up my life for the past six months (and who will continue to do so for the next 18 years), and welcoming them into the world was the best thing that's ever happened to me.

The girls stayed in the NICU for 10 weeks. The 10 longest, hardest weeks ever. In the beginning, while it wasn't exactly easy to leave them there, we knew and accepted that it was necessary. They couldn't breathe, they couldn't eat. They couldn't come home. But as they got bigger and stronger, as they were weaned off the breathing apparatus, as they learned to drink from a bottle, as they were moved from their little heater isolettes to open-air cribs, it got harder and harder to leave them there every night, to go home without them to an empty condo, a deserted nursery with two gaping cribs.

I started to lose it. Once-respected doctors became quacks, crackpots. Who let these idiots out of medical school? They didn't know how to care for my children. Nurses who had been friends and confidants became The Enemy. They didn't know how to care for my babies. I needed to get those girls home, where I could make sure they were getting the care they needed. I could feed them and change them and handle them carefully -- I didn't want those ham-handed nurses laying a finger on the girls.

Discharge came not a day too soon.

And, truly, happily, ever since those girls came home, life has been grand. Sure, we've had many sleepless nights. We have the occasional scare. Two babies/toddlers are a handful, that's for sure, and when you throw in a few special needs, things are even more complicated. But I wouldn't change a thing. The rocky path we took got us exactly where I want to be. Y'all know I'm not religious, so I won't say there was some sort of plan or destiny or any such nonsense. But we make the best of what life hands us, and I love my lot in life.

So that's the story. Still with me? Don't worry, I won't blame you if you skipped a paragraph or two. It's a long saga, and we all have our stories of hardship. I don't think mine is especially outstanding or unusual. It's just a big part of what got me where I am today, so it is (understandably) interesting to me. I hope you're not too bored, and I promise to move on to lighter topics next time.

Questions People Ask When You Have Twins

(Update: See this post for more uninformed exposition about twins.)

1) Are they twins? I concede that you might not know for sure with fraternal twins who are very dissimilar, especially boy/girl twins. But, seriously, you're looking at my girls who are practically mirror images of each other, and you're asking me whether they're twins? Do you need to have your vision checked?

2) Are they identical or fraternal? We don't know.

3) What do you mean, you don't know? How can you not know? There's a gray area, people. And we're not willing to draw blood from them just to find out whether they're identical or not. We don't really care that much. (But we think they're identical.)

4) Do twins run in your family? No. Not that it matters, especially if the girls are identical. Identical twins aren't hereditary. And all the fraternal twins I know were born to moms who don't have twins in the family, so I guess it doesn't matter for them, either.

A twist on that question: "Are twins on your side or your husband's side?" Well, neither, but if they were on his side, it would have no bearing whatsoever on whether I'd have twins. For twins to be "in your family," so to speak, you have to be a woman with a blood relation to a woman who has given birth to fraternal twins. Men have nothing to do with it. (Sorry, guys.)

[Full disclosure: Okay, so my great-grandmother had twins who died shortly after birth. We don't know whether they were fraternal or not, but I guess that could mean that maybe I do have twins in my family. I always forget about that. And, yes, my cousin and his wife have adorable twin boys. That doesn't count, because I'm not related to my cousin's wife, and their boys are almost certainly identical, like my girls.]

5) Did you use fertility treatments? [Usually this is more of an assumption than a question: Look at that, another set of fertility-treatment twins.] Not that it's any of your business, but no. I think people assumed that, since we'd been married for seven years before we got pregnant, surely there must have been fertility issues. Nope. We just weren't ready for kids those first seven years. When we finally did decide to get pregnant, we made up for lost time with our two-for-one deal.

6) [And I'm not kidding here -- you'd be shocked by how many people ask this.] Which one is the bad one? Ask me when they're 13, and I'm sure I'll say they both are.

(All you twin moms, feel free to chime in with the obnoxious questions people ask you over and over and over again.)

Can Hot Doug's Induce Labor?

The answer appears to be "No."

I invited my good friend Kerri to join me (and the twins) for lunch at Hot Doug's today. Kerri is pregnant and four days past her due date -- that little rug rat is starting to overstay his/her welcome in poor Kerri's womb. So our expedition had two purposes: 1) Kerri won't be getting out much in the near future, so this might be her last chance to visit Doug's for a while. 2) Surely a hot dog and some cheese fries can encourage the little bugger to join us on the outside, no?
Apparently not. So far, Kerri is still pregnant. I was hoping she'd dramatically go into labor in the middle of Hot Doug's, but I'm fairly certain Doug was hoping for the reverse and counteracted my hopes with his. Curses!

Kerri has a bit of a history with Hot Doug's. Kerri and her husband Martin's co-ed bridal shower was held at Hot Doug's, and during the festivities, the building caught fire and subsequently burned down. Hot Doug's in now in lovely new digs a few blocks away. I still can't believe Doug hasn't named a fire dog after Kerri and Martin. (Hey, Doug -- what more do you have to do to get a menu item named after you? Give birth in your establishment, perhaps? Because we can arrange that.)

If Kerri does go into labor within the next 24 hours, I'm going to claim credit.

(I apologize for the low quality of the pictures -- I forgot to bring my digital camera and was forced to resort to using my camera phone.)

Dyson Animal Exploits

I'm beginning to suspect a conspiracy.

We vacuumed the living room floor again this morning for the third day in a row (as part of the infestation-eradication plan, not because I'm obsessed with the Animal -- which isn't to say I'm not obsessed with the Animal). And yet again, that dust cup was disgustingly full of dust and dirt and debris. Really? Still? After three days, the carpet is still that gross?

It's time to take apart that vacuum and find what I know must be hiding in there somewhere: a cartridge full of simulated dirt that is injected into the dust cup as you vacuum to make you think the Animal is doing a good job. What other explanation could there be?

Love at First Suck: Why I'm smitten with the Dyson Animal DC15

I can't believe we just spent that much money on a vacuum cleaner. (Or, rather, I can't believe we have to pay off that much on the credit card for a vacuum cleaner.) But this is supposed to be the Rolls Royce of vacuum cleaners, and I think you'll agree that the need was great.

Here is our new Dyson Animal DC15 (accompanied by the twins). I'd heard many stories about the amazing Dyson vacuums, how they pull incredible and disgusting amounts of dirt out of theoretically clean carpets. I was desperate to get my hands on one after learning of Pepper's infestation. (Honestly, I've been wanting one for a long time. This was a perfect excuse to throw economy to the wind and just buy one.)

We began with the living room rug, which had already been vacuumed twice in the previous 24 hours (once with our Hoover bagless vac and once with the Roomba). So it should have been clean, right?

Here's the Animal, triumphant after its maiden run. You probably can't get a good look at just how disgustingly full that dust cup is. So trust me when I tell you it's totally full, probably more full that it's supposed to get before you empty it out. So gross.

We went from there to the dining room and master bedroom, neither of which had been vacuumed since [time period removed to protect the innocent]. It's just too revolting to show before-and-after pics of the Animal's exploits in those rooms, so I'm not going to. Just trust me when I tell you that it was astonishing. And in each room, neither of which is large, both of which have area rugs rather than wall-to-wall carpeting, I had to empty the dust cup three times before finishing. Seriously, it makes my skin crawl. (Or maybe that's just the fleas.)

One small complaint: The Animal's wand tool is rather hard to use. After vacuuming the couch, my arms were aching from trying to control the wand. But it did a great job cleaning the couch, so how much can I really complain?

Overall, I'm quite pleased with the Animal. Is it worth the ridiculous sum of money you have to lay out to get one? It's hard to say. I guess it depends on what incredibly clean carpet is worth to you. Those of you who reside in the Chicagoland area are welcome to borrow mine and give it a spin. I think it'll win you over.

And here, in total disgrace, is the poor, sad Roomba. If only iRobot and Dyson could get together and make the ultimate vacuum-cleaner robot! I'd pay for that.

The Infestation

Pepper has fleas. There, I said it. And, oh my god, I cannot tell you how much that fact freaks me out. The poor girl has been licking her paws and scratching her belly for weeks, but we thought it was just anxiety (see below), or maybe allergies.

That means fleas have been living here, in our home, with our children, for weeks. I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep for days; I'll be up round the clock scrubbing every surface and doing load after load of laundry, washing everything a flea might have thought about touching. I have a feeling we'll be going shopping for a Dyson Animal this evening. (I've been dying for an excuse to buy one. The Roomba is nice and all, for a robot, but it just isn't very effective on dog hair.)

I will bet large sums of money that she got the fleas from those [expletive deleted] pigeons. Yet another reason to hate the neighbors.

We found out about the fleas because Pepper had an appointment with the vet today to discuss the anxiety problems she's been having ever since we lost Puck. I thought I was going to be blogging about that today: how Pepper's separation anxiety isn't getting any better, how she's now on anti-anxiety medications, and how (let's be honest) none of us are dealing with Puck's loss very well, even with a few months to get used to the idea. But we're going to have to put those thoughts on the back burner for a while as we deal with the infestation.

I think it might be easier if we just move out and burn the whole condo down. That's reasonable, isn't it?

Call Me Madame Secretary

I am now my condo association's secretary. I have no idea what that entails, so I think the association is in a heap of trouble. Or I am. One or the other. My hope is that the secretary doesn't do anything other than take notes and look pretty, and I know I can do one of those.