July 26th, 2010

So… Our Basement Flooded… Awesome.

Thank you, Global Warming, for raining down 190 billion gallons of water on the Chicagoland area, backing up all the sewer systems, and flooding our basement for the first time in decades.

Saturday we had a Yard Sale planned.  So Friday we took all the stuff we DIDN’T want, and put it in the upstairs living room so we could haul it out early in the AM on Saturday morning.  All the stuff we DID want – you know, like our furniture, the kids favorite toys, the expensive ceramic heater, etc – all stayed in the finished basement.

At 8:00 am, the Hyphenated Husband woke me up screaming “WE’VE GOT WATER!  THE BASEMENT IS FLOODED!!!”

I run downstairs with nary an item of clothing on, with slept-in-contact lenses blurring my vision, just in time to catch my husband barreling past me with his arms full of our guitars.  The next thing he grabbed were the amplifiers. Funny where our priorities are even four years after we stopped being musicians.

I couldn’t do anything but stand there in shock.  All I could do was stare at the water and hold my hands over my mouth.  Instead of looking at my basement floor, I’m looking at half a foot of watery sewage.  I rushed to get clothes on, but instead I paced in circles because I couldn’t concentrate long enough to remember where I keep my underwear.  Then I dialed my dad’s number and bawled while I asked him to come help us do something… anything.

As if the sewer water wasn't bad enough, that's also the litter box freely floating in that sludge water.

Not really knowing what else to do exactly, I posted a desperate message on Facebook.  Then I cried a little.  Then my husband held me and said it was all gonna be okay.  Somehow I found some clothes and threw those on.  Then we called the landlord.

The landlord tells us to get a pump to get the water out, and that his insurance won’t cover anything.  We call State Farm to find out if our renter’s insurance covers anything, but it won’t cover floods either. Everything on that floor is gone forever, with no way to replace it.  Our $1000 entertainment center that we just finished paying off is trashed.  The couches are gone.  Electronics are done for.

Notice the keyboard submerged in water. Yeah - that doesn't work anymore.

We called to get a pump but there were none available in the area.  Everyone was having the same problem we were, so they put us on a wait-list for one.  In the meantime, all we could do was wait, so we decided to run and look at some new apartments.  Our lease is up in August anyway, and I took this as a sign from the universe that it is time to downsize.  When we moved into this house three years ago I was making nearly $50,000 a year.  I left that job last fall, and I do NOT make that kind of money any more.  Financially speaking, living here is just stupid anyway.

By the time we came home from apartment shopping, the water was pumped out, but left was a layer of sewage and debris.  Awesome.  I started cleaning up that night, and then Sunday, while I held the Yard Sale, HH and my dad pulled everything out of the basement and threw it all away.

So now… I don’t know what.  All we can do is recover.  Our neighbors got four FEET of water, so I should be thanking my lucky stars that it didn’t turn out any worse for us.  The timing on this is as terrible as it could possibly be, as I explained last week, but is there EVER really a good time for this?  I’m trying not to whine.  Trying to remember that Americans have lost everything, including their lives, in some recent floods, so by comparison we got off scott-free.

I also have the benefit of knowing some amazing Mama-owned businesses who bought up a little advertising on my blog to help us recover from this small disaster.  Thank you to MamaPear Designs, THING-A-MA-SLING, and Support for Special Needs for jumping in and helping a mother out.  If that isn’t a good enough reason to support their businesses, then I don’t know what is.

If you or your business need some advertising, now is the time.  I’m putting all ad placements on sale this week, BOGOF.  Buy 1 month get one month free OR buy 3 months get 3 months free!  That’s an awesome deal.  I’m very nice to the businesses who advertise on my blog, and advertising (right now especially) is a really nice thing to do for me.   See how that works out well for everyone?

Ughgh.  Floods.  YOU SUCK.

July 17th, 2010

Living with a Pint-Sized Lawyer

Last week, my mommy BFF noticed the frequency, intensity, and commitment that Jonas displays when arguing with me.  Of course he does the same sort of Yes/No tug-o-war that I think most children at his age do, but his debate skills seem to go far beyond that.  Once my friend pointed out Jonas’s funny (well, funny to her – intensely annoying to me) behavior, I started paying attention to see if other children argued with their moms the way my child argues with me.  I thought this was a preschooler thing, but I’m starting to realize that maybe it’s not.

The thing is, I try not to argue with him.  I see no point in a 32 year old woman arguing with a nearly-4 year old child.  If I say we can’t have any more cookies before dinner, then to me, that’s the end of that discussion.  To him, that is just the beginning.

First, there’s begging.  Then, there’s jumping up and down.  Then, there’s the screaming.  Next comes the negotiating: “Mommy, but if I do x,y,z, THEN can I have more cookies?” And of course, when nothing else works, he’s got persistence on his side.  He will stand in front of me for an hour or more and say “Mommy, you WILL give me cookies.  Right now!  Do you hear me MOMMY!?!?”  (This is what he was doing when my friend commented on his superb debate skills.)  Meanwhile, I go about my business, and fantasize about having one of those agreeable children that I read about on other people’s blogs.

Sometimes, He goes straight for the big guns:  Guilt.

Jonas has mastered the art of what some people call Catholic guilt, even though this is a god-less household.  I think his father’s 13 years of parochial school somehow passed into Jonas’s genetic makeup.  Here’s a list of guilt trips I hear on a daily basis.

But Grandma lets me watch more TV!

But Mommy, if you leave the house, I’ll be lost!

But Mommy, I need to eat food so I can be healthy! (when I refuse the cookies)

But Mommy, I have bad dreams in my bed.  I have good dreams in your bed!

And the list goes on. Every day, he finds a new approach, and I realize that 20 years from now, I’ll be running “Crosley-Corcoran & Sons, Attorneys at Law.”

Now, when he starts trying to wear me down, I try to be proud that my child is so passionate and committed to his views.  Maybe he’ll grow up and become a leader who hounds the present administration into giving us real healthcare. Or maybe he’ll pass federal legislation protecting breastfeeding.  Perhaps he’ll make a billion dollars selling ketchup popsicles to ladies in white gloves.  I don’t know what he’ll end up doing with this skill, but I imagine it will serve him as well as it has served me.

In the meantime, it makes me want to stick my head in the oven.

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Tell me, does your child do this?  And if so, how do you survive the day without shipping them to the nearest unsuspecting relative?

July 10th, 2010

Jonas Does the Dresden Dolls

I’ve been singing this song to him since he was a baby.  He and his brother both know all the lyrics.  One day they’ll actually figure out what they mean.

P.S. You can hear Julesy (2 yr old) singing along into a play microphone in the background.  He wouldn’t let me video tape him (as per usual.)

July 5th, 2010

A Letter to My 27 Year Old Self

Dear 27 year old Gina,

You are only 5 years older now, but that may as well be a lifetime. What you know at 27 is absolutely nothing compared to what you will come to know over the next 5 years. If I told you now that in 5 years time you would be opening your own childbirth education business, breastfeeding a 2 year old, and using the words vaginal birth in every other sentence, you would have thought I was crazy. By the way, you’re still working on your pre-law undergrad, which also means you STILL haven’t started law school yet. BUT, you also still have your 4.0 GPA, so, you’ve got that going for you.  Well done there!

In 5 years time, you will hardly have any of the same friends. Most of the friends you have now will become completely foreign to you, and you will find it difficult to have a conversation with anyone that does not involve talk of toddlerisms or toilet training. You will have joined a Mom’s Group and loved it.

Yes. You are that person.

Speaking of toilets – let me blow your mind: In a few years, you will be so thrilled by the sight of child-sized poop in a potty that you will photograph it and email it to your (now) husband. Then, you will brag (yes, brag) about it on Facebook (which is the new MySpace – yeah, MySpace is dead… bet you didn’t see that coming!) If resources would allow, you’d probably take out a full page ad in the paper to show off your son’s bowel movements. But, since you can’t afford the full page ad, you’ll just post a blog about it instead. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention – you write a whole blog dedicated to poop and vaginas and lactating mammary glands.  Also?  Feminism has an entirely different meaning to you now.

Are you terrified yet?

Well don’t be, because your 32 year old self is so much cooler than your 27 year old self.  Remember how you thought that playing in a band with Courtney Love might be the most exciting thing that would ever happen to you?  You will be wrong. Remember how you thought being featured on British television may be one of the most thrilling things you’d ever experience?  That’s small fries compared to what you’ve seen now. And remember how playing on stage in front of thousands of people gave you an intoxicating adrenaline high?  Well, that is nothing compared to the Oxytocin rush you will get from having a freshly-squeezed baby placed on your chest; a nearly 10 lb baby, by the way, which just exited your vagina in what will come to be known as one of the single most powerful things you have ever accomplished.

By the way – not to freak you out or anything, but you haven’t played a show in 4 years, and you will probably never play one again.

And unlike all those other events that relied on reporters, or fans, or famous musicians giving you a big break, the event I described above was something that your body did on its own. It created a whole human being, then pushed that human being into the world where your breasts then went on to feed that baby the only food it would need for months.  At 27, you may consider yourself a feminist, but you have no concept of just how much power your femininity holds until all of this goes down.

Just in case you’re wondering, because I know you are, your vagina and breasts have escaped this all just fine. In fact, after two children (oh, didn’t I mention, you have TWO of them now!) you don’t even have a single stretch mark on your belly.  You do have a cesarean scar though. That’s a long story, suffice to say, your 27 year old self thought elective labor induction was a good idea. Your 32 year old self knows better.

The last 5 years have been good to you. You’re a little wiser and more self-assured now. You are still as painfully insecure as you have always been, but the difference now is that your 32 year old self has the confidence to stand in front of a room full of scientists, surgeons, and experts at the National Institutes of Health and voice her opinion on a topic that your 27 year old self has never even heard of.  You’ve also appeared on national television again – this time not for anything music-related – but just for being a feminist parent.   I told you that feminism would look different to you!

All of this sounds insane to your 27 year old self, but you won’t have to wait long to see that I’m right.  If I could go back and do it over again, I’d do very little differently.  I’m pretty pleased with the way things have changed for us.  This time, I’d just try to enjoy it all a little more.   In fact, that’s probably pretty good advice for my 32 year old self, too.

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This letter-to-self is something many bloggers have been doing over the last month, so of course I had to jump on the bandwagon.  What would YOU say to yourself 5 years ago?

June 15th, 2010

It’s Too Bad I Got an Undeserving A in that Statistics Class…

So, remember back in April when I was all “Pretty please, if you think I’m not stupid or awful, can you please, like, nominate me for a BlogHer Voice of the Year Keynote Speaker slot” and 48 of you were all “Oh, yeah, I’ll totally do that, and I’ll even write some super flattering, tear-jerking, and just plain awesome things about you too” ….. Remember that?

Okay.  Good.

Now, don’t get ahead of me – I’m not here to say that your nominations worked… yet.  They won’t be announcing the finalists for that until July.   Until then, the fate of my undoubtedly fabulous BlogHer speech rests delicately in the hands of the two lovely ladies who are picking the finalists.  Unfortunately, I’ve spent the last couple of months just a teeeensy weeeensy bit obsessed with the nominations.  I’ve tried over and over to calculate the probability of me landing one of those finalist spots, but I’m not sure math will give me the upper hand – or that I even know how to do the right math to figure out if my chances are good.

By my count….

There were a grand total of 162 nominations in the Opinion/Editorial category.
48 of those 162 nominations were for me (30%?)
85 separate bloggers were nominated.
I gathered the most nominations of any blogger.  Second to my 48 nods was a blogger who had 5.
Only 3 of the nominated bloggers will be invited to speak in NY.

(does the fact that I even have these numbers frighten you yet?  I told you I was obsessed – and, I know how to use the Pivot Table function in Excel.  Somebody stop her….)

At first glance, those seem like strong numbers in my favor, but remember back in March when I somehow finished my college level statistics course with an A despite having absolutely no idea how to calculate a standard deviation?  Yeah – here’s one of those times that math mighta come in handy.  Thanks, Loyola.

Since I’m no math expert, I can only guesstimate that if Probability was picking the winners, I’d be a shoe-in, right?  But like I said, this is all up to human preference, and I have no idea whether the two pickers think my blog is dumb, or my hair is stupid, or don’t like way I review certain books.  Or maybe they think I’m totally awesome, and they’re pooling their money right now to hire a sky writer to announce that I’m a finalist.  It’s really just up to them.  Eh, who knows.  But I keep thinking that getting picked would really be the icing on the cake in, what is turning out to be, The Year of Gina.

I can only hope these ladies are better at math than I am.