my history of spawning: to spawn more? that is the question

i have four children. for as long as i can remember i have wanted six children. i don't know why. due to unforeseen circumstances (e.g., life) i now have four children that all over the place age wise.

i got pregnant my freshmen year in college. most anyone would have said i was not at the best age to have a child. i was not crazily messed up but i was immature and 'in search' of myself. i decided to have my daughter. sometimes i do see my decision as a decision of self preservation. i had my daughter at 19 and i had to be somewhat stable...well, as stable as one can be at 19. i only missed one semester of college and i got married to her father. i graduated from undergrad in 4 years and then decided to go to graduate school in philosophy.

when my daughter was getting ready to go to kindergarten i got baby fever again and decided 25 was old enough to have another kid. i was still in grad school and my husband was just doing odd jobs but i figured what the heck. i had my son in 1995 and we were shit ass broke. i think we were living on like $1000 or less a month. i went back to grad school and ta'ing.

by 1998 i realized that i just couldn't imagine going through life with my husband. for some reason up until my late 20's i still though life had do-over's. i started realizing it didn't and i made the decision to get a divorce.

i met my second husband in 1998. we were both in grad school together but he was applying to medical school. luckily he ended up getting into medical school at the school we were both attending and he didn't end up moving away. i got a real job and he started medical school. we wanted to make sure we could make it through medical school and we got married in between the spring and summer semester in May of 2000.

He has always been a good step-dad but was always leery of having kids of his own. With me working full time and him in medical school kids were out of the question anyway. I decided that whenn he started residency would be the best time for us to have a child. During his last year of medical school: I got my IUD pulled out in october, i was pregnant by december, i was doing and adjunct professor gig that ended in May, he graduated in May, he started his surgery residency June 1st, and I had our twin boys on July 24th. My daughter was 13 and my son was 8.

Residency has been very hard on our marriage. Money has been tight and my husband works A LOT. We also have twins. My husband knows he wants more kids and most of the time i want more but i am getting older. If we had more kids we would have to wait until he is done with residency--June 2008--we would actually have decent cash flow for once in my adult life and he would have to work less. BUT....i would be 38! My daughter is going away to college this fall so i would have a college sophomore. I don't know if i have it in me.

today i took the twins grocery shopping with me because we just got back from vacation and we had no groceries in the house. as we walked in carter asked for goldfish which made me think of my ex-niece who used to insist on tomato soup w/ goldfish crackers in it for lunch. this made me think she is now 20 and as the youngest of three children her mother is no free to do what she wants and doesn't have some toddler asking for goldfish and i thought that was so sad.

then i went grocery shopping and my children were f-ing monsters. finn was grabbing food off the shelves and tossing it. i ended up buying three things of snack pack fruit containers coz he tossed them to the ground and broke them. he then proceeeded to start pulling his brother's hair.

maybe it might be nice to not have someone asking you for goldfish.

we have returned

(this is a picture from Sugarloaf Mountain in Marquette from August. Now image it covered with A LOT of snow.)
a short review of our vacation to the UP:

-tuesday night. i had some beers and fell asleep knitting crunched on the couch with the dog. it was the night before we were to leave and i had to meant to get all our clothes together but i ended up ^

-wednesday morning. woke up relatively early and started a load of laundry and gathering stuff to pack. decide to get a $5 pizza so we don't have to stop on the road to eat right away. drop off dog at ex-husband's house. don't get out of lansing until 3pm.
-wednesday 3pm-midnight. we drive and have good conditions until about Germfask. The last 2 and 1/2 hours of the drive is through blinding snow and blowing snow. my sister had her sauna on when we get there and i take a nearly 200degree sauna at 1am.
-thursday: did a little thrifting. went to the college i went to undergrad and walked around. my husband does not understand why anyone in her right mind would go to college somewhere that goddamn cold. frank came over with some polish sausages and games. we ate and played some card games. Family Business was a lot of fun.
-friday: took finn and carter to the children's museum. went back to my sister's and cooked up some creole food and decorated a bit and some friends came over for our mardi gras party. it was small but fun. went to a local ishpeming bar after and some of the group karaoked---not I!
--saturday: woke up feeling a bit hung over and not really ready for a 400 mile car ride home. finally left town at about 3 and almost our whole trip was full of shitty weather and shitty roads. we got home after midnight. i walked straight up to bed and went to sleep.

this is the last day of my husband's vacation. it was his little sister's bday while we were away so we are going over there for cake and present opening.

i haven't worked out in over a week. i need to work out. it is like i can feel the weight coming back....seriously. i am slowly inflating.

we didn't end up going to detroit yesterday to go to the human body show at the detroit science center. we were really going because we thought my 11 year old would really dig it.

we planned on going to today since we are leaving for the UP tomorrow. finn has a bad cold and i thought that harry would have a much better time without his 3 year old twin brothers. they do make everything more difficult and kind of a hassle. so....we had to go and get my husband's car from the high school parking lot because my daughter is using it this week while my husband is on vacation. we haven't told her so she will have quite a shock when she goes to the lot to jump in the car either for lunch or after school!

so my husband and eldest son are gone for the day and it is me and the twins. my immediate job is to find my keys. if i had just misplaced my keys perhaps that would not be so horrible but i haven't been able to find my driver's license for over two weeks. i am starting to think i suck at the barest minimum of life skills.

after i find my keys i have to search for my birth certificate so i can go and order a new driver's license.

I need some sun

my husband is officially on vacation. Friday afternoon found me in a mood that made me want to jump in our mini-van and just drive south. I started checking out the weather around the country and checking out family cottage rentals in the warm area. Of course these were just pipe dreams and where are we really going? Somewhere colder and with much more snow and 400 miles more northernly--the Upper Peninsula! No $$$ for a real vacation.

We brought F/C to the planetarium on campus yesterday afternoon for their family show, Mister Rogers Neighborhood Meet the Sky. Luckily it was short but after that was over they turned the lights off and did the tour of the night sky and what you can look for. Carter was having none of it and started pissing and moaning so i grabbed our coats and tried to find the exit in the pitch dark. I found the door by walking against the wall and looking for an opening. So, i exit and find out i have exited out the back door and find myself outside the building and locked out. We had to walk all the way to the front of the building and we find that the front door is locked because there is a show going on! I had no keys to the car so Carter and I were stuck outside waiting for the show to get over. Luckily we were only out there 10 minutes until someone saw us and let us in!

We then went to the Dairy Store on campus. MSU makes it own ice cream on site and it is delicious and cheap. I know it is February and cold but i hadn't had any of their ice cream in months and needed it.

We are pondering a day trip to Detroit today to bring the 11 year old to the Human Body show at the Detroit Science Museum. I was hoping to hit the Art Museum which we haven't gone to in over a year but it is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays--damn them.

Carter's new stage is to run around and collapsing on the ground repeating, "You don't love me....you don't love me" if anything happens that he doesn't like or if we say no to him. Endearing.

a target hit

i HAD to go to target today.
*my son's orchestra concert is tonight and i had to buy a white oxford.
*i was already there and i remembered i should probably get a gym bag now that i have been going to the gym regularly. i always stroll by the end aisles to see what they have popped into clearance. i found a small fabric reebok gym bag with argyle print on it for $4.50.
* I also got a lock for the locker because i end up leaving my i-pod (usually not mine but my husband's because he has a spouse who was loving enough to buy him an IPOD for xmas. i have my 2 1/2 year old mini whose battery lasts about 35 minutes on full charge) in my gym bag while i shower.
* i also remembered my sister and brother in law are coming in town to visit this weekend and thus we should probably try to get some of the toys off the floor so that one can walk across the living room floor. so, i bought a bookcase and just had to haul it into the house and now must assemble it. (how old will i be when i buy furniture i don't have to assemble?)
*i got some foam stickers for my 3 year old twins and some markers. i know in my heart of hearts they need markers like a hole in the head but they love them so.

what i didn't buy but wanted to:
* a REAL pair of headphones. i hate those damn earbuds. they hurt and they suck. i just want a pair of headphones.
* a pizza stone. for some reason i have felt a solid and growing urge to own a pizza stone. somebody said that they make frozen pizzas taste good. i don't remember who said this but i know i have heard it said.

Must now assemble my bookcase before i have to go pick up the twins from their grandfather's house. Wish me luck.

it is cold and my kids worship john lassater

it is 8 degrees out but with wind chill it 'feels like' -6. february is the month in which i just feel i need to flee Michigan and wonder why i haven't moved out of this godforsaken state yet. besides that i live in Lansing which really has nothing to recommend it. ok, it is the capital of Michigan but i don't have a state job i don't give a rat's behind. besides downtown pretty much shuts down at 5pm. all the coffee shops, most of the food places. i don't venture there much even though i live a 5 minute drive from downtown. i go there to go the district library.

we do live near a college town. it is nice to have a huge college library to get stuff from. i wish we could take more advantage of some of the stuff that goes on on campus like the campus movies---$2 to see movies that were showing only a couple months ago.

we are watching toy story again. my twins are such fanatics that they have watched all the bonus disc stuff and are huge john lassater fans. whenever john lassaster comes on they yell--"John Lassater". they will even dress like john lassester--they will put on a print hawaiian shirt and say, "I'm John Lassaster."

by the way the soy ginger chicken i made from Everyday Food magazine was super. everyone loved it. it was a crockpot meal so easy.
http://www.marthastewart.com/page.jhtml?type=content&id=recipe5120012&layout=edf&edfParentCat=cat17924&subStyleType=recipes&catid=cat17924

plans for today:
work out, maybe
clean house, uggh
got a coffee shop and embrace silence
make some food
go to harry's orchestra concert at 7pm
work on my plot to take over the world
start the great american novel
do some laundry
brush my teeth
hit a thrift shop