I am not writing my blog right now because I realized mid-August that it felt like a burden instead of a release. I am too sad, navigating the twins leaving for college. I scheduled these posts that day so the blog wouldn’t be empty, but I could pull back and use the time left with the twins. A cop-out, but forgive me. Having them go is really, really hard. I need mental space to feel what I am feeling, help the kids through the transition, and sit in the quiet for a moment on the other side.

I wanted to play the kids Squeeze’s 45s and Under but I didn’t have it on my iPhone. This was after I had sung the same six or so lines of “Goodbye Girl” over and over again while I washed dishes. Maybe they didn’t really want to hear Squeeze sing it, but I wanted them to hear Squeeze sing it. Sometimes I pretend that I can’t hear them protesting while I scroll through the artists list.

Except they were spared because I didn’t have any Squeeze on the iPhone.

I didn’t really feel like listening to anything else, but I already had the music app open, so I put on Ben Fold’s Rockin’ the Suburbs. I sang loudly through the first two songs, as if that would help the twins like the album better. Because my voice warbling off-key louder than Ben Fold’s voice makes it that much more enjoyable. The twins ignored me.

“You know that one of our wedding songs is on this album,” I told them.

“Oh my G-d, do we have to listen to something in Hebrew?”

“No, it’s in English. Do you want me to skip to it? It’s a love song.”

The Wolvog rested his forehead on the table, as if mushy songs shove him downward like an upperclassman dangling his head over a toilet. “Please.”

Read the rest here.

I am not writing my blog right now because I realized mid-August that it felt like a burden instead of a release. I am too sad, navigating the twins leaving for college. I scheduled these posts that day so the blog wouldn’t be empty, but I could pull back and use the time left with the twins. A cop-out, but forgive me. Having them go is really, really hard. I need mental space to feel what I am feeling, help the kids through the transition, and sit in the quiet for a moment on the other side.

A few friends announced their pregnancies this week. I was thrilled for them even though… you know… it stings. But genuinely thrilled nonetheless for them.

After this spate of pregnancy announcements, I saw a friend’s Facebook status later in the week. She wrote that she was 22 weeks and craving a Slurpee. And my heart literally froze as I read the words on the screen. I had just seen this friend a week earlier. She didn’t look pregnant, though I couldn’t remember what she was wearing. Had she been wearing something flow-y that could hide a pregnancy? Had she dropped hints? Did she try to tell me and I literally didn’t hear her? This wasn’t someone who was just sneaking into the second trimester, starting to tell people. She was 22 weeks along, closer to delivery than she was to conception.

I spent fifteen minutes combing back through the last few months of her blog, looking for a tiny clue that she was pregnant, seeing if I had missed something when I declared Google bankruptcy. There was nothing there.

But then I started wondering if all our other mutual friends knew. If they had known for weeks and had kept it from me. And I wondered if this friend saw me in the role of the broken bitch.

Read the rest here.

I am not writing my blog right now because I realized mid-August that it felt like a burden instead of a release. I am too sad, navigating the twins leaving for college. I scheduled these posts that day so the blog wouldn’t be empty, but I could pull back and use the time left with the twins. A cop-out, but forgive me. Having them go is really, really hard. I need mental space to feel what I am feeling, help the kids through the transition, and sit in the quiet for a moment on the other side.

Last week or so, the New York Times had an article about PTSD for parents after a NICU experience that Josh forwarded to me, perhaps because I am Tums abuser whenever we need to go remotely near a hospital (though lest you think I am the only neurotic one, Josh commented recently after a doctor’s appointment that he couldn’t breathe. I think lack of lung power trumps stomachache). I think the most interesting part of the article compares the NICU to being in a war zone:

“The NICU was very much like a war zone, with the alarms, the noises, and death and sickness,” Ms. Roscoe said. “You don’t know who’s going to die and who will go home healthy.”

Experts say parents of NICU infants experience multiple traumas, beginning with the early delivery, which is often unexpected.

The article touches on other interesting points–that seeing sick children other than your own can also play into the trauma and that men experience PTSD at a higher rate than women following a NICU experience. How the NICU experience affects you later is not just the duration of time that you’re in the NICU or what your child goes through, it’s a whole host of other elements including what you observed, how you dealt with the emotions in the moment, and your coping mechanisms overall.

Read the rest here.

I am not writing my blog right now because I realized mid-August that it felt like a burden instead of a release. I am too sad, navigating the twins leaving for college. I scheduled these posts that day so the blog wouldn’t be empty, but I could pull back and use the time left with the twins. A cop-out, but forgive me. Having them go is really, really hard. I need mental space to feel what I am feeling, help the kids through the transition, and sit in the quiet for a moment on the other side.

I have been having kindergarten nightmares.

I know I’m supposed to leave those types of dreams to the kids and instead have more adult-themed nightmares. You know, like how they get to be chased by furry monsters in their nightmares and I get to be chased by axe-murderers in my nightmares. Grown-up nightmares about grown-up things.

The dreams can best be described as “rage against the machine” with the machine being everyone who works for the school system. In my dreams, I have huge, obscenity-filled tantrums on the twins’ behalf. I wake up feeling like I haven’t slept.

None of our fears have come true — their friend is in their class, their teacher seems wonderful, I even have a volunteer position at the school. And yet, I have been having these awful, exhausting nightmares.

I sound like a really fun person to live with.

Read the rest here.

I am not writing my blog right now because I realized mid-August that it felt like a burden instead of a release. I am too sad, navigating the twins leaving for college. I scheduled these posts that day so the blog wouldn’t be empty, but I could pull back and use the time left with the twins. A cop-out, but forgive me. Having them go is really, really hard. I need mental space to feel what I am feeling, help the kids through the transition, and sit in the quiet for a moment on the other side.

I woke up at 3:17 am, one child in our bed, the other still unconscious in her room. I stood by the window and stared at the trees which were being blown so hard that it looked like the tops were trying to kiss the ground. Just as I couldn’t stop refreshing the outage map, I couldn’t tear myself away from the window. The wind was so loud that it sounded like an ongoing car alarm.

The machines shut off and the machines came back on several times throughout the night, but in the morning, we had power whereas the two streets on either side of us were out. The pavement had a carpet of new, green leaves.

Suddenly, it felt like we needed a pet. Like this task couldn’t wait until it made more sense all things considered.

Read the rest here.