They really don't want to know

It is a pretty standard question:

"So, how're you doing?  How was your weekend?"

At work I'm involved different projects and work with different groups.  Some of the people I interact with I only see once every two weeks or so.  They are my peers:  girls my age, although at different life stages (married, unmarried, children, no children, etc).  We had a group experiment yesterday morning and two girls I haven't seen in a few weeks were there.  Of course, the first thing one asks is:

"So, how're you doing?"

I was honest in my answer and summarized what's been going on (house issues, family issues, financial stuff, insurance stuff, health issues, etc).  Honestly, its a lot.  A lot at once.  But I wasn't too negative.  After all, it is what it is.

But how does one respond when you actually get a REAL answer to that question and it isn't a good one?

"Wow....that sucks...."

And conversation stopper, right there.

So I've concluded that people really don't want to hear how you're doing, unless its good.  At least, the casual acquaintances do not really want to hear it.  They want to hear that things are good, laugh about a good movie everyone saw recently, maybe chat about BP oil, and move on.  But really heavy personal stuff?  Nah.

Problem is, its hard for me to censor myself because I have a lot on my mind right now.  And I can't answer 'things are great', because they aren't.

How're things?

"Oh, a tree fell on my house and insurance isn't covering it all.  I'm living in the Money Pit and everything around me is breaking down.  My family life is a huge stressor right now and I don't know exactly how to respond.  And I think the only possible thing that could make the situation worse is if my husband or I lost our jobs."

OR

"Things are great!  Have you seen that new Leonardo movie?  I heard its great."


Gotta learn to just choose response 2 and keep quiet....

I'm losing it.

I'm losing it.

Seriously.  Losing.  It.

The tree branch crashed into the house Saturday morning.  Took out part of our deck, part of our (new) roof.  And did some damage to our neighbor's house.

The tree guys came yesterday and removed the branch.  They left the wood, but removed the branch.  The insurance assessor came over to take a look and to give us an idea as to what was covered.

Branch removal from the house:  covered.
Damage to the house and deck:  covered.
Removal of debri:  covered up to $500 (its going to cost more than this).
Removal of the tree itself:  not covered.
Fixing the lawn if we remove the tree which will be totaled because they have to bring in a crane to do it (which we really have to do because its dying and is going to a) either fall or b) negatively affect the resale value of the house):  not covered.
Payment of deductible:  obviously we have to do.

This is an extra 5K or so we weren't expecting.  We had been planning on getting rid of the tree and paying for that, but now that part of it fell, not only do we have to pay for that, BUT we have to pay the deductible on our insurance (and possible our neighbor's insurance because we're good neighbors) and pay to fix up the lawn once they ruin it with the truck and equipment.

I'm upset because I was expecting them to cover tree removal.  Jason is going to double check with them today, but it looks like it won't be covered.

So there is this $$ to worry about.

My surgery in September, which isn't covered by insurance:  more $$ to worry about.  Plus the ramifications of the surgery itself.  Already partially paid for that and unfortunately even though it is 'elective' surgery, it is severely affecting my emotional state so I really can't cut this out.

Our nanny expenses are going to go up once Nicole gets back because we a) pay her more and b) are going to do it legally which means covered an extra 10% for taxation purposes.

Oh, and did I mention my parents are having issues, which is affecting my emotional life right now?  And that Jason sprained his rotator cuff when he woke up by the sound of the tree hitting the house on Saturday?  Plus lots of work stress that is going on right now, for both Jason and myself?  And that my nanny is freaking out because she realized that the branch could have fallen on her or the kids (it fell right where they play)...and of course if I stop to think about that I have a panic attack myself.

I. Am. Seriously. Losing. It.

I'd say things could get worse, but I feel like I'd be tempting fate if I said that.

"The tree is broken...Daddy will fix it"

And off she goes!!

I have not had a chance to write recently.  Things have been pretty much the same.  The heat has been brutal, so we've been spending more time outside:

Zev LOVES this splash pool that my grandfather bought for him.  Give the boy a bucket and either some water or some mulch, and he's a happy camper for at least two hours.  Note the crazy hair:  I don't know what we're going to do with this.  We're not going to cut his hair until he's three (Jewish thing) and it gets a bit unruly (we tell him he has 'crazy hair' and I put 'shmotz' in his hair every morning).  The boy looks like Kramer most of the time.  Eh, at least he's not trying to hit on any women...

Girls are both close to starting to cruise around.  Meorah is very adept at the 'swimming/Superman' movements babies do right before they are able to pull themselves along the floor.  Its funny watching her:  she gets on her tummy and is trying so hard to move around, then gets really frustrated and starts to yell.  She just ends up spinning herself in a circle.  Tzelia does the same thing:  both are great at getting on their tummies, and then they get stuck there.  I tell them they just need to learn to roll back over, because every time I flip them back, they just immediately roll onto their tummies again.  Not too bright. They'll have to get by on their looks.

Jason and I had our five year anniversary a few days ago.  We had a babysitter come over and went out for lunch.  Such a small thing, but really enjoyable.  The night before, I asked him what his favorite moment in the last five years was.  His response:  seeing my reaction to that first 'real' ultrasound when I was pregnant with Zev.  That would definitely be up there for me, too.  Other highlights:

1) Telling Jason I was pregnant with Zev (we did infertility treatments for all the kiddos, so it wasn't a complete surprise, but still fun to share)
2) Our vacation to Yosemite.  Beautiful hiking and the first time I stayed in a bed and breakfast.
3) Walking around the city after our wedding in our wedding garb and people stopping us to ask if we had just gotten married.  Well, duh!
4) Honeymoon in Jamaica, even with the horrible horrible sunburn I got and the...intestinal bug we both got
5) Telling Jason we were having twins (granted, also a yucky experience because we were in the ER at 2 in the morning because I was bleeding and we had Zev with us, but still rather fun)

More of course, but those are a few of the (clean) highlights.

Got some bad news yesterday:  the tree in our backyard has to come down ASAP.  There is a new crack in it, so it needs to come out immediately.  The tree is a few hundred years old and the largest tree in the neighborhood.  We will lose ALL our shade in the backyard, and our entire landscaping was designed around this tree.  It is very upsetting.  But it would be more upsetting if the tree fell on our house (although, as Jason said, it would mean we could get a new fridge!  Ours sucks) or someone else's house.  There is an extra 3K we were hoping to hold off on.  Not to mention the extra $$ to redesign the backyard, which we'll probably put off until next year.  We're in the Money Pit.  The tree, my surgery, one of our cars needs to be looked at, we just replaced our roof....I could go on.  Jason did just get a new job that came with an over 20% salary increase, but come on people!!  In addition, when Nicole comes back to work for us in Sept, we're going to start taxing her, which means our out-of-pocket expenses for her are going to go up 10% since we have to cover her Medicare and SS.  Sigh.

Think I'm going to take a personal day tomorrow.  Too much crap to do and I can't do it with three rug rats around.  While I do 'enjoy' this time, part of me is really looking forward to when they are more independent...

on a positive note

To follow up on yesterdays rather negative post:

So there are definitely good moments in there....

As a funny story:  Meredith has been taking the kids out to community playgroups that are run by our town's family center.  She took them to a rather big one the other day, and (of course) people were asking about the girls.  "Are they twins", "Are they yours", etc.  She told me a few people started inquiring about what Jason and I looked like....since the girls look so different in coloring, people were trying to ask (in a nice way) if Jason and I were a biracial couple.

I thought that was rather amusing.

And FYI, no we are not.  Although Meorah does have my pink-ish coloring and light eyes, while Jason is one of those people who tans very easily and can get very dark, attributes Tzelia obviously shares.

I don't know where Zev got his light brown hair from, but he also has a pink skin tone although he has very dark eyes.  So I guess he's a cross between the two of us.

I'm trying not to feel so negative.  I think I'm just emotionally exhausted.  Work is also very busy, so I really don't get much of a break.  People tell me to stop pumping in the middle of the night, but honestly...its about the only 'me' time that I get.  If it means slightly less sleep for half an hour of uninterrupted time, I'll take it.  Jason himself has been going to bed later and later just so he too can have a little personal time.

Gotta take it when you can.

This is hard...

'Nuff said.

There are days I feel like I'm living someone else's life.  I never thought I'd have three children.  I never had a maternal instinct when I was younger.  Never wanted kids.  But then I met my husband and we got married.  And I realized I wanted a 'family' with him.  A 'family' is different than 'a baby'.  Had I never gotten married, I probably never would have heard the maternal clock ticking away...

And now I'm in a family of five.  Even in my original (and naive) daydreams, it never included three children.  One, maybe two.  But three?  And two at once?

And this is hard.  A toddler can be hard.  One baby can be hard.  Two babies can be hard.  But all three together....

My husband and I like to joke:  people with one baby have it easy.  Suckers.  People with a toddler and one baby?  Bah.  No right to complain.  The only people who have it worse are people with higher order multiples.  To them....I bow my head.

There is no break.  Someone always needs something.  To be held, to be fed, to be read to....

It never ends.

I know it will get easier.  I know these years are the hardest.  But I feel old...and when it does get easier, I'll be even older.

It sucks.  It really does sometimes.

Of course I love my children and I wouldn't change a thing....or would I?

Sigh....

Happy Fourth of July! Finally a good weekend.

A nice long three day weekend.

It was in the 90s here in Boston over the weekend.  Oppressive heat.  I wanted to do something to celebrate the fourth, and we ended up going to a local park that was having some parades and other activities.  Zev was really too young for those, so we spent most of the time at the playground that was there.  But wow, it was hot!  Tzelia ended up getting very overheated, so we left on the earlier side.  Post-nap, we let Zev play in the splash pool my grandfather bought him...which he loves.

No fireworks for me.  I played trombone for over 10 years and could probably play the 1812 Overture in my sleep.  No interest in listening to that again.  But it was still a celebratory weekend!  Three reasons:

1) Jason and I got a babysitter to come over on Saturday and we went out to lunch....alone!!!  Two hours with no babies!!!  We decided we have to have her come over every other week or every third week so we can get out and do that more often.  Just to stay sane...

2) On Monday the 5th we had Meredith come over even though we weren't working and...I went to the movie theater!!  I haven't been to a theater in probably a year and a half. You could hold a gun to one of my children's heads and I still wouldn't be able to tell you the last movie I saw.  How sad.  We saw Toy Story 3, which was entertaining.  I probably would have preferred something a bit more 'high brow', but I was ok doing the more 'light and brainless' movie.  It was cute.

3) One of my insurance appeals came through!!  Whoo-hoo!  I was having problems with insurance covering the girls' formula.  Initially when we were on Jason's insurance it was covered 100%, but when we switched from an HMO to a PPO it stopped being covered...only they didn't tell us.  So we kept getting formula delivered to the house every month.  After three months of that we got a bill and found out we owed over $1000.  Ummmmm....no.  So I appealed, arguing that we were never informed that it stopped being covered and I wasn't going to pay for it.  And they granted my appeal.  Go me!!

I'm still waiting on one more appeal (short term disability related to my pneumonia...I should hear soon....)

I feel much more rested.  And...the girls actually went to bed around 7:30pm the last few nights rather than the 9pm they had been doing all last week.  I'm hoping that was just a phase and we're back to an earlier bed time.  Because I seriously couldn't take that late bed time anymore.  It meant no dinner until after 9pm and I just can't last that long.

Totally unrelated, but Zev has started saying something which is really cute.  When you tell him not to do something or you say something he doesn't like, he'll say:  'Don't say that'.  "Zev, don't go over there, you need to stay near mommy".  "Don't say that" (said in a soft, upset voice).

He really is an adorable little boy.  A very happy baby.  And so are the girls.  They actually are following in his footsteps:  they wake up happy, sleep well once they go to bed, and are pretty easy babies.  Too bad I won't be having any more kids, because I must be genetically blessed.

So tiring....

Is it bad that I'm dreading going home?


The girls have decided that they no longer want to go to bed at 7:30pm, which they've been doing rather consistently for the last three months or so.  No.  Now they would prefer to go to bed around 9:30-10pm.  But they would also prefer to be held from 8pm until then and need a lot of help to actually go to sleep.


Fantastic.



And throw Zev on top of that, who now goes to bed around 8pm.



Suffice it to say the last few evenings have been...hellish.  Tiring.  Dinner ends up being around 9pm, during which I am finally pumping and then I crash.  Time to chat with my husband?  Yeah, not-so-much.  Time to myself?  Uh-huh...  Jason gets around that one by staying up even later, but since I end up pumping again in the middle of the night, that is a no-go for me.



I didn't think things could get more overwhelming, but there you go.  I now realize how important that extra hour or so we had of quiet actually was....



I'm hoping this is just a temporary phase.  Or I really will go absolutely insane.  We will have a bit of a respite this weekend.  Tomorrow we're having a baby sitter come over around Zev's nap time and Jason and I are going to escape for a lunch date.  And on Monday, although we are not working, we are still having Meredith come over and I think we'll (gasp) go see a movie.



I seriously cannot remember the last movie I saw in the theater.  You could hold a gun to my head, and I still couldn't think of it.  Its probably been around a year.  Sad, I know.



Other update:  surgery is scheduled!  I decided to get my diastasis repaired and will be having that done on 9/22.  It made sense to wait until after a big project was over at work, as well as the Jewish holidays.  The recovery is a 6 week recovery, with the first 2 weeks rather hard-core.  I get to come home with drainage tubes.  yay!  And not allowed to pick up anything heavier than my purse for those initial weeks...that would include toddlers and babies.  We will need help, and our family has agreed to be available for those first weeks post-surgery.  Its going to be rough, but I admit to being happy that it is scheduled.  I've been really miserable while dealing with this problem and I'm looking forward to getting it fixed.  I just hope we're able to get the help we need:  Jason can't be a single dad again, so we'll need nightly help for at least the first week, if not the first week and a half.  I'll be out of work for about 2 weeks and on restricted activity for the full 6 weeks...but at least I know what that feels like!



No plans for the fourth.  There are some kiddie activities around the area and we may try to hit them.  But, as I've said before, getting everyone out of the house sometimes just isn't worth the stress....

WTF??

I'm too annoyed to post why I'm annoyed.  But let me just say:  WHAT THE FUCK??

Are people really that self-absorbed?

Really.  I've seriously had enough of people right now...