I am soooooo not looking forward to going to Rochester next week, my mother-in-law is already making it more trouble than it needs to be. She made all these little comments to Willem like, "Well, I hope Kate understands that I can't just babysit the kids for her eight hours a day while she's out," and "She's staying a week? I thought she was only staying 5 days," and "Well, since they're coming out so close to Emily's birthday, I don't know if I'll go to her birthday party. She'll be all Grandma'ed out."

First of all, I never thought for a second that she would babysit the kids - I would never ask in the first place, and if I DID need her to do that I would have asked already, I would never assume it. Second of all, I'll only be in her house 5 days - the Thursdays on either end are travel days so we won't be there, awake, an appreciable amount of time. More to the point, I always said a week. The fact that she never listened, I can't fix that. Third of all, if SHE doesn't want to come out here for Emily's party, then she needs to say so. *Emily* wouldn't understand the concept of being tired of Grandma and she'll be sad if Grandma's not at her party - but she'll cope. So GRANDMA needs to make up her mind and not blame it on the kids. And fourth of all, bite me.

She also made a point of sending home a carton of cat treats and two wedges of Gouda cheese. Which seems innocuous enough, but they're both stupid. I don't give my cat treats. Not, as she might suggest, because I am mean and unloving and essentially Satanic, but because if you put a couple cat treats on the floor, the cat will sniff them, lick them, chew them briefly, and then spit them out onto the floor again so that 20 minutes later they get mashed into your sock because they blend into the wood floor. And the cheese, somehow she just has it in her head that "you can't buy that cheese out where you live." Huh??? I can buy any kind of cheese I want. We've told her this. We've SHOWN it to her in stores out here. And yet - she sends some home each time.

Argh.

Argh.

Argh.

I'm on my way, shortly, to get Emily from school early, so that she can have a dentist appointment.

I *hate* taking her to the dentist. She has weak enamel - it's inherited from my mom, and so she's always been prone to cavities, got her first one at 3. Plus the water at the old house wasn't fluoridated, so even though we bought special vitamins with fluoride, special toothpaste with fluoride, special mouthwash with fluoride, she still regularly gets cavities, especially in her molars. I'm soooo excited for her to get her permanent teeth in so they can put that sealant on them to try to strengthen them more.

But until then, we get trips to the dentist, in which the dentist looks at me as if to say, "Do you withhold toothpaste as a form of punishment in your house?" I'm defensive before we even show up, almost to the point where they say, "Nice to meet you, have a seat," and I say, "I have DONE my BEST, OKAY?!?!?!?"

On top of that, I have wicked dental phobia on my own. Need a Xanax before I can get into the chair. I can take Emily to appointments without having a total meltdown, but I still end up nauseous and shaky and edgy for the rest of the day. And I can't justify drinking at 9:30 a.m., so I'll just have to suck up and deal. Woe is me.

The weirdest part? Emily LOVES the dentist. Loves it. Everything about it. When I told her this morning that today was the day for her appointment, she was jumping up and down and cheering. Weirdo.

I swear, the woman is just a genius. No one else on the planet can be this consistent with ways to frustrate or shock me with their sheer self-involvement.

Tonight's episode starts with a phone call from Willem's friend Mike, to tell us that his father had passed away yesterday. His dad had been quite ill for a while, so while this was not a shock, we also weren't exactly expecting it. His family is in Rochester, NY, about 7 hours from here when not traveling with children, so I immediately flew into Planning Mode - when can we leave, where will we stay, who do I need to call, and so on? Most of which was fairly obviously, if unhappily, answered: we'll leave tomorrow around noontime, we'll stay at my mother-in-law's, and I need to call every person I have ever known in my life and a few strangers. Fine.

When I called to ask if we could stay at her house, my mother-in-law's immediate response was, "Sure, of course. When and where is the funeral mass?" So I told her, and asked, "Can you watch the kids while we go?" And she got ANGRY. Much signing and sputtering and a very self-righteous, "Well, I think I should be there too." Not because she KNEW the man who died, just because she's entitled and can't bear to miss out.

So I said, "That's fine, if you're going to go I can arrange for someone else to watch the kids." "What? Why would someone else watch them? Who else do you know here?" I explained tat I didn't think they should attend the mass, and I have other friends in the area who would be happy to help out. So then it was, "Well, I can watch them in the back of the church, and if they get loud then we'll step out."

Well..... NO. I don't think it is at ALL appropriate for my kids to be there. Children of the family, maybe, but not strangers. I told her that, and said, "Just tell me what you want. If you want to go, I'm sure my friend will be happy to watch the kids." Enormous sigh. "Oh, no, no, I guess I'll just stay home with the kids and send flowers or something. I want to have that extra time with my grandkids... *sigh*...."

Fantastic. Both guilt and pouting all wrapped into one, can't wait to get there.

Then, after I had some more time to process, I realized that it really didn't make sense for the kids and I to go. I'd like to go to support Willem and his friend, but the cost-benefit analysis of driving two kids in a trip that will take anywhere from 7 to 10 hours each way, to stay there approximately 12 hours and then turn around and come home, to stay with a woman whose hostility is tangible enough that I could sprinkle it on my breakfast cereal... it all ends up with a bit more on the cost side than the benefits side. So I end up feeling like a bad friend, but otherwise sane.

Aside from the up-sides of not unduly stressing my kids, this has the added benefit of potentially causing my mother-in-law's brain to leak out her ears. Because, assuming we don't go, now she (a) doesn't get to see the kids and (b) has to go to the mass that she didn't REALLY want to go to anyway.

And even more fun - now that I've told Willem that the kids and I won't be going, he has decided to stay at Mike's place instead of with his mother. Ooooh, is she not going to like that one little bit.

Never fear, though... my friend Jessi is having an Intense Medical Procedure done to her tomorrow, also in Rochester, so I'm planning to head out with the kids next week to help her out for a few days, after she's out of the hospital and her mother has gone home. I can't figure out a way to stay anywhere but with my mother-in-law, so I'm sure my daily bliss will simply be inexpressible.

Except that I imagine I'll find a way to express it here. I always do.

The other day, Jacob was pointing to a little sliver of soap in the tub drain and saying, "Gubbers! Gubbers?" Took me ages to figure out he meant "garbage." I like his version better.

And we call our kids weasels whenever they come a-beggin' for stuff, like bites of my food or whatever. Usually, Jacob toddles over and says, in the cutest smallest voice ever, "bites?" - but yesterday, he came over and said, "weashul?"

I didn't get married for the financial security or the legalities around property ownership. I didn't get married for the simplicity around parental rights and custody. I didn't even get married for the low-maintenance access to prurient late-night activities.

I got married so that I can sit on the couch on a Sunday evening and poke fun at "Extreme Makeover Home Edition" in horrible, politically incorrect, black-humor ways, and have my husband not only accept me and laugh, but join in. It's not that we're truly horrible people, we just recognize the value in laughing at that which cannot be laughed at in polite society, and in having someone we trust not to pass those words along to people whose opinions aren't quite so loving and accepting.

I also hve discovered the delight that lies in laughing with your spouse at your children. If anyone else (that is, my mother-in-law) points out critical or uncomplimentary or just mildly ridiculing things about my kids, I bound instantly into a 'roid rage, ready to defend at all costs and not ashamed to use weapons and cruelty to do it. But Willem and I, by virtue of genetics, can get away with it.

And, in turn, we can pass some of those savings along to you. Like, yesterday, Emily was playing with my hair, and brushed it all down into my face. Then she pushed it to one side and said, "I like it best when your hair is down like this. You look like a natural woman." Said perfectly straight-faced and serious, so I had to repress all of these Aretha Franklin comments until much later in the day.

Or Jacob, who was playing with a rubber bouncy ball yesterday and decided to bounce it off the hallway wall. While standing about a foot away. So it bounced, all right - directly back onto his forehead. He never even blinked.

These are things which are, admittedly, funny - but let someone else point out how goofy my kids are and they'll have that "Resident Evil" laser effect where for a few seconds they'll stand there looking normal, and then little chunks will start to fall off because they've been cut to ribbons.

(Okay, so, I'm not THAT protective... but it's a great visual, isn't it?)

Ohhhhhhhh I am so full. So full that I'm wishing I had been smart enough not to eat dessert, even though it was soooooo good. But five miles from home, I could lean my head against the window and HEAR my sweatpants calling me... "Kate... come home... wear me... I love you... I have no buttons or tight waistbands... I will snuggle you and protect you... come to me........."

But it was dinner at Outback, paid for by my dad, so what better excuse to shamefully overeat?

While we were at the restaurant, Willem took Jacob on an obligatory stop-throwing-silverware-on-the-floor walk around. At one point, they came upon a Jacob-height piece of artwork, like a painting but carved out of wood so it's got some dimensionality. Raised up waves on the ocean, fish, clouds, trees.... and a topless mermaid. Willem said Jacob was apparently struck blind as he faced this artwork, because he was doing his darnedest to read Braille on the mermaid. Willem kept pointing out, "See the fishies? See the clouds?" But Jacob was intent on "mermaid mermaid mermaid." That's my boy, a little lech-in-training.

Jacob has decidedly mastered 2-word sentences. We have a big wooden swing in the front yard, and he sat there saying, "Hi doggie! Where squirrel? Mimi funny." I kinda like him.

Emily announced a few days ago that she had a boyfriend, Josh. He ties her shoes for her. Willem wants to take him out back and have a "talk" with him. But never fear - they broke up today because Josh didn't like her t-shirt. Fickle bastard. She's coping just fine.

My father took an extra day off work this week (his weekends are Tuesdays and Wednesdays) because he's not feeling well. And I'm learning that I am horribly sympathy-deprived in the period immediately following an illness of my own. At least I haven't given in to the urge to taunt him about it.

Willem told me the other day that one of my blog posts was tame and unexciting. So sorry, darlin'... I can always start chatting more about our sex life...

I woke up this morning with 45 minutes worth of work due by 9:00 which I should have finished last night but when I start to head-bob at the computer, weird and wild things come out of my hands into the documents. We don't need my stream of consciousness blather mixed in with a conference of lawyers. So, I woke up and finished, frantically to beat both the 9:00 deadline and the oncoming migraine that I could feel creeping up. I got Emily on the bus and fed Jacob breakfast, but somehow neglected to feed myself.

So, 9:00 rolls around, and I send off the file, breathe a sigh of relief, thank Jacob for playing quietly (aren't light sockets neat?!?) and quick pop my antibiotic (I am, by the way, dare I say, almost better from the sinus/lung revolt I experienced) and a migraine pill. I can't take more than one and drive.

BUT, it turns out, on an empty stomach, I can't function too well on just one, either. I remembered, belatedly, to shovel some oatmeal into myself, but the drool-on-the-couch damage had been done. So, I did just that. I was awake, just dizzy and loopy. Jacob played and watched Elmo ("Hi, Momo! Momo eats!") and then around 10:50 he came over and climbed up to lay down on top of me. And promptly fell asleep.

Now, *you* take migraine meds and then have a sleeping baby on you, and see how you respond. I did the only right and proper thing - I fell asleep, too. Just for a few minutes, and then I woke up and panicked and had to rush us out the door to go pick up Emily - she was waiting patiently at school with the teacher, talking someone else's ears off for a change - and we all made it home safely and only 5 minutes later than usual.

But that little baby-enforced nap, with Jacob all warm and snoring on my belly, that was the highlight of my day.

Well, she's gone. Poof.

Not without the typical annoyances and frustrations. Like, she still won't eat anything I cook. To the point where, for St. Patrick's Day when I cooked a full Irish stew, she went out to buy stuff to make a salad, and served herself a sliver of corned beef, picked at it, then slipped it back onto the platter when she thought no one was watching.

That bears repeating.

Slipped it back onto the platter when she thought no one was watching. Ughhhhh, yick, yuck, gross. Apparently I have a fairly heightened sensitivity to anyone transferring anything from their own personal plates back into the serving dish. I also had the bile rise to the top of my throat when, another night, we were out to dinner and she held up her half-eaten eggplant parmesan and said, "I can't finish this, should I have it wrapped so you can?" Blaaaaaagggghhhhh.

Anyway, it was typical stuff like that. She also didn't eat the breakfast I made the next morning. Her loss. We eat in restaurants a lot when she's here.

Otherwise, there was a tangle of odd statements and half-lies and passive-aggressive attempts to start conversations, but nothing that a coughing fit and feigned deafness couldn't head off. All in all, a very run-of-the-mill mother-in-law visit, and I'm just grateful that she didn't try out any new tricks this time.

Among other activities (because the only way to keep such visits manageable is to be very scheduled), we went to a hockey game one evening. I had proof that boys and girls watch hockey differently - there was a fight, and the guy behind us was screaming, "YEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH, RIP HIS HEART OUT AND FEED IT TO HIM, AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH KILL THE REF!!!" Emily sat quietly through this, and then when the instigator was released from the penalty cage she yelled, "Hey, number 7, try to be nice now, okay?!?"

So. Now we're ready to settle back into a routine. Both kids have wicked Post-Traumatic Grandma Disorder now, their sleep schedules are messed up and they're whiny and entitled and irritating. But juuuuust cute enough that I'll let them sleep inside.

So, yeah, just in case there was any other possibility in the universe, I'm still sick. About to start my second round of antibiotics. Apparently the third round involves big meds named Vinnie who go after the bacteria's kneecaps.

Among the other delightful procedures I've been advised to inflict upon myself is something that the doctor poetically referred to as "nasal lavage." Because calling it "snorting salt water with baking soda until you nearly drown and generally having among the grossest experiences you can have alone in the bathroom" wouldn't be as soothing, though that would go farther toward the concept of truth in advertising.

After I do this to myself, and then gasp and pant and whimper and cling for dear life to the tissue box, I'm supposed to apply Rhinocort, a nasal spray with a big scary rhinoceros on the box. The instructions are pretty clear, but they neglect to include the warning that, after all of these nasal reindeer games, I should sleep on a towel because... well. Just, because.

So, I suppose in the nature of improvement, I can now breathe through my nose again - that particular set of sinuses is clean as a whistle, let me tell you. Cleaner, in fact. But all of the bacteria have migrated northward, up into the secondary, non-rhinoceros-reachable set of sinuses which controls my balance and, apparently, my moods. GRRRRRRRRR.

So I'm staggering around the house all light-headed and goofy, without the benefit of alcoholic enhancement. Bliss, I tell you. Sheer bliss.

And to top it off, yes, indeed, my mother-in-law is in residence. But the up-side is, between the various activities we've had planned, I've only been in her presence for about 15 minutes so far. That will change tomorrow, we're planning to go to a children's museum and then a hockey game. The anticipation is killing me.

But, to be fair, so far it has been a very pleasant visit. In the sense that, I have no good stories yet. Patience, grasshopper. I have faith that the stories will come.

(On a side note - scroll down a bit, I've uploaded a few pictures to go with some recent babble...)

Did you ever get to the point where you have the sudden, crushing realization that your life is not at all what you thought it was going to be? Yeah, well, I'm dabbling in that now.

I know, I don't really deserve to refer to it as sudden or crushing.

It's not sudden - it's been building for the past several months, as my internship applications were unceremoniously used as newly-shredded hamster bedding for the children of internship training directors, and then in the interviews I was so blessed as to be allowed to attend I was positively suffocated with an influx of patronizing-ness and barely concealed frustration that I would dare to actually try to answer the questions on their little interview forms. I'd spent a fair amount of time, both before and after that, coming to the realization that while I'm not burdened with perfect children or a perfect house or a perfect life, they're all MINE and I love them and want to spend more time around them, that is, why oh why did I spend such an obscene amount of the government's money on an education I didn't even really want, especially now that the government will want that money back which means I need a job??

And, too, it's not crashing. My life isn't what I thought it was going to be, as a child (my mother still has a thing I filled out in "kindergarten" declaring my plans to be a librarian and have a pink bedroom and eat more candy), as a teenager (GAWD, let's not go there, shall we? Suffice it to say that I'm not quite sure how my idea of what was fun and worthwhile then ever was able to mentally coexist with my lifelong aversion to the idea of being in prison via someone else's motivation.), as a grad student (Am I a profiler? Nope! Am I even a psychologist?!? NOPE!), or even as a 28-year-and-8-month-old as compared to my current 28-year-and-9-month-old status (do I have an internship? ..... N-O-P-E! But, for a refreshing change of reply, do I have chronic migraines, bronchitis and sinusitis? Yes, indeed!). No, my life is none of that stuff. But what it is, is still pretty good. My children are beautiful and healthy and affectionate, and my husband is far more supportive and patient than any of us could have possibly predicted, watching him play beer pong and seek out yet another sorority girl conquest way back when. I own a home, a car, and a stupid cat. I have employable skills. My parents and sisters provide me with enough love to justify family and enough ridicule to remember that I'm not quite as cool as strangers might thing I am. I have friends, some with children way more advanced and polite and poised and non-nose-picking than mine are and others who have been so gracious as to have children with problems bigger than mine have, leaving me with a nice little pile of perspective after a playdate.

Hardly the stuff of crashing (or was it crushing? something overdramatic, can't be bothered to scroll back up) realizations, in the larger scheme of things. And yet, somehow, right this second, it is both sudden and crashing to me. I have so many things that I want, but I can't seem to get myself organized enough to decide when and how to actually work toward those things.

Like, I want good books to read and less time on the computer playing mindless games while I wait for the current wave of depression to lift enough for me to look at my children without crying. All sorts of things there I could do to reach any piece of that goal, but what am I doing? Sitting at the computer, not reading, with a mindless game on pause in the background.

I want no debt, or at least, not such an enormous, soul-stifling load of debt. But that requires getting a job, or waiting for some distant relative to win the lottery, alter their will to me, and then immediately die. Hmm, maybe I'm just working really hard on Choice B, there.

I want real-life friends, but I find too many people to be irritating or insipid. The times I do feel a connection with someone, I immediately launch into Self-Doubt-and-Shy mode, and I let opportunities slide. My dearest friends live over an hour away, making any interaction an event that takes planning and militarily precise logistics.

I want online friends, too, but I find it a challenge to trust many people. Women are catty, men are testosterone-poisoned, and everyone just seems to revert to a stereotype when flattened into pixels and bytes. I have some close, wonderful friends online, and I am grateful for them... and I also have a pile of acquaintances whom I sometimes suspect are all having group chats while I chat with each one-on-one, just to collude and collect instances of my idiocy so that they can hit me with them all at once.

Wow, there should be a law against blogging at nearly 1:00 a.m. while waiting for the Nyquil to kick in... I'm letting all sorts of maudlin, paranoid stuff leak out tonight.

Which is another source of conflict for me... I want more people to read my blog, because somehow when I see that hit count climb up over 20 a day I feel validated and cool, but then at the same time I hate needing that validation. Wouldn't it be neat to just be able to exist in the world without worrying what everyone else thinks?? I manage it, in a lot of ways, in my life - I'm able to be decisive and take action and can take whatever criticism comes my way with aplomb and general unconcern. But for some reason, I can't remain as unruffled about this blog.

And I'm not even writing about the *really* personal stuff here.

I did not get an internship and my entire professional life is now questionable.

We still have ants. Not as many, but any number greater than 0 is too large for my taste. And of course they waited until Saturday morning to show up, so we can't call to yell at the exterminator dude until Monday.

I cannot breathe, pronounce several key consonants, or move more than three feet without worrying that I will lose significant proportions of my body weight out of my nose. I have these coughing fits that make my eyes cross. And my fever has drastically increased my minimal amount of personal space.

I have two children for whom the phrase "personal space" has no relevance to their actions.

My mother-in-law is coming to visit in three days.

Whinnnnnnnne.

I probably actually would have a drink or three of an evening, to help smooth out a few edges, except I'm a little nervous about mixing cold meds with alcohol. I have to get healthy again *someday*, right? I can get liquored up then.

(For those who don't know, I'm not a recovering alcoholic or anything quite so dramatic. I just don't like alcohol, which makes Willem sad.)

Though, to counteract the misery - I have horribly clashing beanbag chairs in my living room, but I have cute kids to go with 'em:

There is one, and only one, person on the entire planet for whom I will jump up and down, dance, and cheer when they successfully use the toilet as God and plumber intended. Not even for Emily or Willem will I get so excited anymore. But Jacob - he gets a celebration. Especially when it meant an avoidance of poop in the tub.

I took the kids to a birthday party today, they both had a blast, as was evidenced by the constant, non-stop chatter from them both - over each other and without discernible breaks to breathe - the whole two-hour drive home. It was a science party... I learned some cool stuff! I just wish I wasn't still sick, because I spent far too much of the party gazing longingly at the couch and dreaming of naps.

Every once in a while, Willem gets bitten by a Martha Stewart bug. Not so much the anklet-wearing, poncho-modeling Martha, but the housecleaning-cooking Martha. I'm okay with this.

Today, the bug bit, and Jacob was apparently also in the biting range. So they made banana bread. Very cute, very sweet - and much manlier, with lots more sound effects and crashing and grunting than when I make banana bread.

So, we are antsless, now. At least, some guy took lots of money and kicked me out of the ours for three hours this morning, and I'm not supposed to lick my floors for several days now. So I think we are antsless.

We'd only had ants for like a week, and it never got to be such an intense problem that they were swarming the keyboard or rearranging the furniture while we sat on it, but I'm squeamish about bugs in my living space. So after ant traps and sprays that I had didn't work, I called in the Big Leagues. Or, at least, someone in the yellow pages. He showed up, more or less on time, this morning, and had precisely the carriage and attitude that one would expect from an individual who has spent the past two decades dealing with powerful, deadly chemicals.

To prepare for his onslaught of insecticide, we cleared off the tops of our cabinets and underneath the kitchen sink, and had everything stacked relatively neatly in the kitchen. I was only home with Jacob for about an hour before the house became a bug slaughterhouse, but still, that was a lot more dangerous chemicals than I normally allow him to play with. (Special occasions are one thing, but this was just a random Tuesday.) So while he was imprisoned in his high chair, I pointed to the pile of stuff and said, "Jacob, DON'T TOUCH." He seemed to ignore me, but then after he got down to play he left it all alone, so I didn't pursue the point.

Fast-forward to 10 hours later, we're all in that Twilight Zone between bathtime and bedtime, just wandering around chaotically. And I noticed that Jacob kept walking up to the pile of stuff in the kitchen (now markedly smaller, just the cabinet-top stuff and not the dangerous chemicals anymore) but not pestering it. Then I actually paid attention to him: he was walking up, putting his hands within about 3 inches of the pile, and saying, "DOAN TOUCH. DOAN TOUCH." Apparently it made an impression on him.

He also told his first joke the other day. We were all goofing around and being silly, and then it was time to brush teeth. I said, "Okay, let's go! Where are your teeth?" And he giggled and said, "Floor!"

Goofball.

Emily, so far, has avoided the cold that Jacob and I are so gleefully sharing. I'm hoping that particular trend continues, no reason to subject her to this. She still hasn't missed any school days, and while I have no desire at all to push her towards a Perfect Attendance record (have those parents never heard of Mental Health Days, at the very least?!?), I would love for her to have a perfect kindergarten year. But tonight she told me, "My throat feels like it's about to explode and my nose is going to run off my face."

Drama queen.

I don't know where they get it.

Jacob, sweet and precious little sharer that he is, has decided that he doesn't want to go through this particular head cold alone, so he passed a little on to me. Awww. So, while I can still type as usual, if I were to try and say my family's names out loud, it would be "Ebily, Jacuuhb ahd Willub."

Fantastic.

But the up-side is, when both Jacob and I are feeling yucky, I can unabashedly dose us both up with meds and ice cream for the night... Willem can claim creative rights for the catchy little title, but until he starts his own blog most of his wittiness will continue to be blatantly stolen and posted by me.

So, while Jacob got Benedryl and some half-gallon variety, his mom is about to get Nyquil and Ben & Jerry's. It's tough when age and life experience causes us to raise our standards...

I'm having one of those days where just going through the motions is a challenge - making peanut butter and Fluff for lunch was a major culinary endeavor and I couldn't even dredge up the energy to take a nap while the kids slept.

But I was able to find the energy to nigh-on panic this morning, and to laugh at myself for it, this morning.

Having weaned just about a month ago, and switched from the minipill to the birth control patch, my cycles are all over the place. Add to that some major stress lately, between my health and the internship snafu, and I'm left with symptoms like nausea, heartburn, fatigue, and so on. In other words, early-pregnancy symptoms, even though I KNOW I'm not pregnant.

But since when has anything remotely related to hormones ever been logical?

Besides, the meds I'm on for the migraines are not fetus-friendly, so if I was pregnant I would want to know as early as possible.

So, I took a home pregnancy test this morning. One of those where there are two windows, one which always gets a line and one which only gets a line if you're pregnant. So I peed on it (What a weird way to take a test. Can you imagine if the SATs had a urination section along with the analogies and essays??), and left it on the sink, such that - *I thought* - the control window was on the left and the only-if-pregnant window was on the right. And then I left to get dressed.

Came back in the bathroom 3 minutes later and nearly died on the spot, seeing that very dark red line, we're talking blood-red, menacing, scary red line, on the right. My mind quite literally went blank. Then I realized, no, it was spun around - the line was in the control window, which was on the right, and the only-if-pregnant window was blessedly, virginally white.

Nothing like a negative pregnancy test to reinforce that I'm definitely not quite ready to have a third, just yet...

Jacob has entered into the parrot stage of development. He still finds enunciation to be overrated, so it's not always a successful parrotting, but he does it every chance he gets. Tonight's fun game was for him to push in between Willem's knees while Willem was sitting on the couch, and Willem would press his knees together and announce, "Squish!" Which was apparently high humor in the under-2 and over-30 (ha ha) set. Jacob would gasp, turn red, then catch his breath and go, "Quish! Quish!"

I like him.

Emily, on the other hand, was not full of sweetness and light today. Tres moody and sensitive. Dunno what was up with her, but it's always a delight to get a trial run in the teenager era.

To offer some pseudo-closure, internship-wise, I did not get placed, at all, anywhere. Yeah, it sucks. No, I can't think of anything that anyone can do to help me feel better about it. But I honestly do appreciate the support and indignation I've been getting from friends and loved ones. If any one of you could arrange to be on the training committee at any decent, APA-accredited site by this time next year, that would probably be helpful...

And in wicked lovely news, I found out tonight that my mother-in-law is planning to visit in about 2 weeks. Oh, bliss and delight. Apparently she called and talked to Willem several days ago, and asked, "What days would be best for me to visit?" So he checked the calendar and told her around March 15-18, because he's got that whole week off from school and Emily has that Thursday and Friday off. So she called tonight to say, "Okay, I think I'll be coming out from March 12-14."

Wait, huh? Did you FORGET that you'd agreed on different days? "Oh, well, I didn't think a few days' difference would matter." Willem casually mentioned that we would not be willing to take Emily out of school for three days just because his mother didn't want to take our preferences into consideration when visiting our house, so she was going to "think about it some more." Hah. Sure you will. Like she ever gave it any thought in the first place.

Yippee...