Does my blog smell? I have the same number of readers as usual this week but many fewer comments. I was just wondering if my blog smelled and people were leaving after a quick read instead of hanging around to chat about grabbing the world by the balls or at least the underwear by the elastic.

Not to be needy or anything.

But you’d tell me if my blog smelled, right?

It is a dark, grey dreary day here, reminiscent of a 1980’s Weird Science-like weather. My post earlier this week about coveting has made me think about Frankensteining out the perfect blogger–as much as the woman in me is interested in building the perfect person who is assertive and creative with brushable hair (alas, the pain of the curly-haired), the writer in me is interested in piecing together all the traits I admire in so many others. So I present to you, a work in progress, my perfect blogger:

Lori’s enormous heart
Allison’s sweetness
Lindsay’s sassiness
Leah’s brassiness
Bea’s philosophical nature
Julie’s wittiness
Alexa’s sense of humour
Julia’s circumspection
Niobe’s thought-provocation
Calliope’s spiritedness (and boots)
Flicka’s spirituality
Tash’s bluntness
Cecily’s brashness
Chicklet’s dirty little mouth (though not her itchy cha cha)
JJ’s sense of community
And it’s a toss-up for me between Rememberella and Vee’s layout (which is also a sense of aesthetic)

And that, of course, is only the start. I found enormous hearts, brimming with love here, here, and here, and it is good to know that there are back-up parts, but it made narrowing down the ingredients very difficult. As I started skipping down the blogroll, I realized how enormously important everyone is on it.

Similar to the butterfly effect, when any blogger disappears from the blogosphere, it creates this gap, this missing piece, this small hole. Words fall differently, support comes through new paths. I would just hate for anyone to take that for granted, to miss how integral they are inside the kaleidescope and how much they would be missed if they were gone. Not to get all weepy and kumbaya on you.

What traits would you include (and who currently holds them) if you were Frankensteining together the perfect blogger?

children mentioned towards the end…

While I was out running errands today, I decided to do something nice for myself. It was sort of one of those make-your-own-garden-grow, Candide-like moments of wanting someone else to show up with a treat but knowing that you have to put on your big girl panties and buy your own candy sometimes. The other thing that brought out the self-pinook* was finding my school’s Wikipedia entry and finding almost every single one of my classmates names under famous alumni AND NOT MY OWN. Which really wouldn’t matter that much to me except for the last time I was up at my grad school for a conference, I was staring longingly at everyone else’s books while I had to stand there saying, “nope, I put writing to the side for a bit. Just doesn’t go that well with fertility treatments.”

I am a famous alumni, damn it. The people at my local food store treat me like a rock star. The people at the post office know my post office box number before I say it. How much more famous can you get?

I swung by an organic market and picked up a bar of dark chocolate with orange peel as well as a no-foam latte at Starbucks. As I was ordering, my conversation with the 14-year-old barista went something like this:

Barista: What would you like, Ma’am?
Me: I’ll have a no-foam latte.
Barista: Ma’am? What size?
Me: Oh…a grande. A grande no-foam latte.
Barista: Thank you, Ma’am. Ma’am, that will be $3.56.

I have many pet peeves and perhaps I will list them in a different post, but towards the top of my list is people calling me “ma’am.” Ma’am conjures up steel-haired uni-boobness (you know what I’m talking about–that matronly breast shelf?). My hair is far too greasy and far too covered with a bandanna to be called ma’am. I am wearing non-sensible shoes that are as far away as you can get from ma’am. This should count for something.

I’m not sure what I would rather be called, but I can say with certainty that I would rather be called Snatch than ma’am.

Barista: What would you like, Snatch?
Me: Hit me with a no-foam latte.

Being called ma’am ages me at least fifty-eight years. I need those 58 years. According to my graduate school’s Wikipedia entry, I haven’t done jack yet.

The Wolvog decided this afternoon that he would like to give up his diapers. Which would be a great thing if I had finished Elizabeth Pantley’s No-Cry Potty Training Solution. I was planning on reading the book during Pesach. But when a man decides to grab his underpants by the elastic and declare his ability to control the flow of his urine, you listen to him. You throw caution to the wind and slap on a pair of underpants and then follow after him asking if he needs to urinate every 8 minutes.

We got through dinner and jumped into the car, still diaperless. As we drove home, I proudly thought to myself, at least one thing has gone easy. Why were you stressing so hard with this? I called back to him a few times, “how is the underpants situation unfolding?” and each time he barely looked up from his Playmobil catalog to mutter, “fine.”

I was still pretty pleased with myself as I unbuckled his seatbelt; that is until I saw the large wet spot against the hip denim Britax Roundabout.

He is in bed now. I’ve been soaking his pants. Thank goodness that this Snatch bought herself some chocolate earlier today.

*pinook: there really isn’t a word like it in English. It means special care. TLC. Someone help me out with a better translation.

Being part of Team On the Road is pretty much the coolest thing you can possibly do this spring and there are many ways to be an athletic supporter. Most do not even require you to lace up your sneakers or put on a sports bra/jock strap.

I’ve created five levels of participation and named them after types of candy. I am in the process of creating a massive participation thank you list with links for categories 2–5 and need to embarrassingly ask for a favour: if you do something from this list beyond donate money to March of Dimes, please email me and let me know. I’m trying to keep track of everything but I must admit that there are times that I’m reading something in Google Reader and then not marking it in a different space…I am pathetic and I am asking for help. So please let me know the highest candy bar you fall into on the list so I can place you accordingly (if you fall into multiple categories) by emailing me (jelly beans or #5 is the highest category).

Peruse this list and see if there’s a way you can join Team On the Road:

1. M&Ms (colourful, happy, cheerful): leave a comment below cheering on Team On the Road (yes, that’s it, simply leave a comment for all walkers and honourees for Team On the Road) that I can cut-and-paste into our thank you post.
2. Twizzlers (fun to eat and low fat): write an email and send a link to the story and site to your office mates, friends, or family.
3. Snickers (good, solid candy that is as salty as it is sweet): take this code and place it in a blog post talking about Team On the Road. Refer people to this post (the one you are currently reading) so others can join along and help out. Simply click over, highlight the correct code, hit copy, take it back to your blog, and paste.
4. Hershey Kiss (a sweet candy that signifies love): take this code and place it on your blog’s sidebar to ask other people to join or help out. Simply click over, highlight the correct code, hit copy, take it back to your blog, and paste.
5. Jelly Beans (plentiful and happy; a small handful or two fists of jelly beans are both great to have): donate to the team by giving anywhere from $1–1 million. It’s not the amount that matters; it’s the show of solidarity both for the March of Dimes and for the honourees on Team On the Road-OR-join Team On the Road and add Lennox and Zoe to the people you are walking to honour.

Forgot to add: if you would like to participate anonymously and not have your first name or blogging name listed, please let me know.

Prematurity, and hence children, are mentioned, but it is all for a good cause so please stick with this post if you can…

I wrote that last post and it kept making me feel like I was forgetting to do something. I hit publish and then scanned the words again and had this nagging feeling that didn’t hit me until over 24 hours later–prematurity…problems…ah shit I never kicked off my fundraising for March of Dimes.

I was purposefully vague with the owner of said personality quirk or problem in the last post because I do think about how the ChickieNob and Wolvog will one day stumble upon this and say, “you told them about that?”

(though, it doesn’t stop me from repeating this conversation between them at the breakfast table Saturday morning:
ChickieNob: How do babies get out of their Mommy’s belly?
Wolvog: The Mommy goes to the hospital and yells “oh crap” and the baby comes out.)

Because they may read this one day, I would hate for the owner of said quirk to read this and feel self-conscious–especially if it is a quirk that they age out of and have no memory of in the future.

I cried a lot writing that post and cried a lot trying to read it aloud to Josh and cried in the subsequent discussion about said quirk. Oh, and I cried when Josh broached the topic that led to the post in the first place. It is a strong race, but I think by now, I have cried equally for infertility and prematurity. And while I’m a weepy person by nature, there is something about our children–those not-yet, those gone, and those here–that brings out this visceral, almost animal-like cry.

This quirk (do you like how I am calling it a quirk now, essentially moving it down to an eccentricity instead of the problem that will most likely need addressing) is most likely a result of prematurity, a result of a brain forming in a body that is still supposed to be quiet within the womb rather than subject to the high stimulation of the outside world. We have had a range of problems that we have dealt with in turn due to this factor–it began with bradycardia and heart monitors and then moved to three-and-a-half years of mild problems addressed by physical, occupational, and speech therapists.

I truly hate writing that because I feel like those who oppose fertility treatments or the result of multiples from fertility treatments use paragraphs like that as fodder for their arguments. The reality is that I would have most likely had a singleton with the same prematurity and the same problems. They were ejected from paradise prematurely due to IUGR which can occur with a singleton birth or a multiples birth. A stronger case could be made that I shouldn’t be trying to procreate anymore, but that argument can be met with the fact that the premature birth of the twins led to the testing that found the clotting disorder that could make me susceptible for a stroke down the road and can be addressed with blood thinners in future pregnancies. Their prematurity may have essentially saved my life because without their early birth, the hematologist would have never asked for 22 vials of blood and tested for a clotting disorder.

We just wrapped up our final therapist after three-and-half straight years of therapy. We didn’t have a great end meeting and I went home and raged about it to Josh, finally ending with, “I am so fucking sick of everyone telling me what is wrong with my children. Their whole life has been about what is wrong and no one wants to talk about what is right. And so much more is right.”

That, of course, is an exaggeration. There are plenty of people in their world who focus on the positive, but hearing what is wrong is acutely painful because it all goes back to the fact that it was my body that ejected them early. And even though my rational mind knows that it was out of my control, my heart can’t forgive myself for setting them on this path. And, at the same time, I can’t apologize because regardless of what I know now, I would do it all over again.

I am walking this year in the March of Dimes walk for four children. Two sets of boy-girl twins, two sets of parents who found each other back in 2006, two friends who would have never known anything about each other’s life if not for the Internet.

Last year, we walked for our friend’s child who had just come home after 111 days in the NICU. We figured they couldn’t walk that year and they would in the future, but he needed honouring in the moment. So we were Team Yoan/ChickieNob/Wolvog. And you guys were so generous. With your help, we raised over $1000 for the March of Dimes.

This year, we are walking for two children you know. Two children whose lives–albeit short–rocked our world. Lennox and Zoë have the type of mum who would have gotten them at an early age giving back to the world. She has a huge heart and she cares about the world so deeply. If they were still here, she would have taught them that sense of giving back through all of her love and the world really is a smaller place because they aren’t here.

I am walking for Lennox and Zoë this year for a larger reason too that was mentioned by Snickollet in a post she wrote the last day her husband was alive. She wrote: “GH and I are both avid travelers. He’s always been somewhat annoyed that I’ve been to more US states than he has. We both love to cross new states off our list. Today he told me that he’d like it if, when I travel to new states after he is gone, I bring him along for the ride.”

And that idea stuck in my mind when I broached Allison with whether I could walk for Lennox and Zoë. It is their own road trip and if you are doing the March of Dimes walk this year and you would like to join along, to take them figuratively to another place, please let me know and I will pass along the design I am making for our t-shirts so we can mail our shirts to Allison and Shannon after the walk. I’d also like to know if you’re joining Team On the Road so Allison and Shannon can see how much money was raised overall in honour of their children.

This is a long post about my own guilt and fears as well as a friendship that crosses five large states and brings together two parents of twins who would have never met each other if not for infertility and the Internet. And all I meant to do was ask you to support Team On The Road which is what I am naming this long, strange trip that brought together the ChickieNob and Zoë and the Wolvog and Lennox as well as Shannon, Allison, Josh, and myself. We are taking things virtually on the road and asking you to help out the March of Dimes by giving what you can–it does not need to be more than a few dollars because every bit counts.

We were recently speaking at Chez Nous about what makes up each individual personality–what is a character flaw and what is a character trait and what is a major problem that needs addressing. Can we change who we are and should we ever change who we are? I’m not talking about the things that we can categorize as an actual problem that is affecting our lives across the board, but the small parts that make up our personalities. I think we have a way of always pushing people towards happiness; thinking that we should want to be happy 100% of the time if it’s a possibility. And I think we also push people towards positive character traits; thinking that we should only want the positive ones to be part of our daily make up even though the negative ones usually also hold a silver lining.

I spent a large portion of my life wishing to be my older sister and I still struggle with internal comparisons (it certainly wasn’t external–this was my own doing). It is hard to wish to be someone you’re not and still continue to feel comfortable in your own skin. It took a long time for me to enjoy myself as an individual who is very very different from my sister and like myself even though I’m not my sister. Does that make sense? I mean, how could I like me if I liked my sister better and wanted to be like my sister but I could never be like my sister? You see the Catch-22 in all of this and how happiness came from stepping outside and liking myself as well as liking my sister, even if I didn’t have the traits that I coveted so badly in her.

I don’t want my children to go through that.

And they are very different from each other.

I think it’s natural to covet. Especially when you see someone rewarded or seemingly rewarded for a trait. For instance, someone is very studious and they have great concentration and can work for long periods of time and they earn an A. And someone who struggles to maintain concentration will never receive that A, perhaps. And then the question remains, is a lack of concentration a character flaw (that should be accepted, but perhaps pitied) or a character trait (it’s just who the person is in the same way their hair is brown and they run quickly) or a problem that needs addressing.

The things I wish for are rarely physical (except for hair that could be feathered back in the early 80s. I really wanted hair that could be feathered, but you can’t feather curls). I know that a flat stomach, smaller breasts or red hair are not within my control unless I’m willing to resort to surgery and dye. I was born with my physical traits somewhat decided by genetics. But what about my personality? How was that shaped? And if it was shaped, I should be able to keep molding it, right? Taking on the traits I see and covet. Only it isn’t that simple. You can want to be funny. Either you’re funny or you’re not funny. And if you’re not funny, it doesn’t seem to be something you can just pluck out of a book and learn.

You can want to be laidback or not care so deeply or not be thin-skinned or be more circumspect–but these things seem so much harder to control and mould than physical traits. There aren’t shortcuts or ways to work around them. Your personality traits–whether you are fearful or brave, a worrier or someone carefree, optimistic or pessimistic–feel a little set in stone. Yet if we aren’t born one way or the other and we are shaped by our experiences, when did our experiences cease to keep changing us? When did our personalities settle?

One of our children has an element to their personality and we are unsure if it is character flaw or a character trait or a problem that needs addressing. On one hand, it creates a sweetness and on the other, it creates an impediment. And though I never worried about stirring G-d’s pot when I was cooking up these babies, I find myself very tentative about impacting their personalities–something that will also be with them for life–and trying to change something without knowing the impact of what happens when you move a character trait. Do the rest tumble down after it, reforming like a kaleidescope into a different person?

I wonder what personality traits they will covet in the future. If this child will even see this part of their personality as a problem.

There are certainly ones I covet for myself right now.

I think if I could choose only one to pick out of the bag at the next Secret Santa Personality Grab Bag, it would be bravery. I wish I were more courageous–and not just about crickets and mice. I wish I didn’t let fear play such a large role in the decisions I make.

Many questions rolling around in my head tonight.