I met my new OB. She is innately superior to the person I just fired because when I came in she started out by asking me a bunch of questions about my history and she didn’t make any rude assumptions. She didn’t give a shit about my weight nor deliver stupid lectures about how I should limit my calories. She can stay.

I returned the CPAP. Now my permanent medical record says I tried and failed a CPAP trial. That’s kind of awesome. Now I will stand a better chance of getting a god damn Lorazepam prescription seeing as in the opinion of the doctors who have been willing to examine my sleep… I’m hella anxious and in a lot of pain so a mild anti-anxiety med is the best sleep aid I can use.

It has taken years. But I can’t have that pill till I’m done being pregnant. I can live with that.

Acid reflux is kicking my ass up one side and down the other. I’ve vomited just about exactly once a week since the second trimester hit and I’m really over it.

Noah is in So Cal for work. Within half an hour of him leaving both kids started whining about how much we miss him. I find this kind of hilarious. We are so wrapped up in each other this can’t be sane or healthy. But we like it.

One laptop is back from Apple with a spiffy new battery. The other one is out for repair. I sent it in 57 days before the warranty expires. I’m glad it broke now.

The kids are whining non-stop today. I feel like I almost lost it in the car when one child was loudly complaining about how they were being kicked… but they sit in a high back booster seat. So there is basically no way they could feel it if someone were kicking them because it would go through two full chairs. And I could see that the kid behind them wasn’t kicking. SO STOP YELLING ABOUT HOW UNFAIR IT IS THAT YOU ARE BEING KICKED BECAUSE IT ISN’T FORKING HAPPENING.

I feel less depressed but more irritable and anxious than I did.

We are having constant conversation about how every time someone bumps into some part of your body that could be vaguely construed as sexual (like your butt or your chest) that isn’t the same thing as sexual assault.

I don’t understand why my kids have decided that every time someone trips and bumps their backside it is sexual assault but I’m getting pretty cranky about this. We are talking a lot about how there is room in this life for boundary violations that are not sexual assault. You can have a wrestling incident and not be sexually assaulted. Sometimes if someone kind of falls on your crotch… it isn’t sexual assault.

I’m really happy there are three therapists in the mix talking to the kids about that topic and not just me. I’m not sure I’m the best person to calmly talk about this topic with them.

This article is an interesting look at why Noah and I think that polyamory would be a bad choice for us in our marriage. I’m not slamming it in general for other people… I’m saying we suck at being fair with time and attention.

It’s important to understand how you fail.

I don’t want polyamory. i want to be able to perform the actions that will make me be considered “good” and that’s really god damn confusing inside my head. Sometimes in order to force myself into the behavior I believe is mandatory I take steps that look a lot like polyamory. I don’t think it is actually the same thing.

I have wonderful friends who are fun to have sex with. That’s not the same thing as poly.

I love a lot of people. What is polyamory?

Polyamory, to me, is someone other than the nuclear family getting to be more important than the nuclear family on a regular basis. Do I think that societies are best held together by monogamous nuclear families? I don’t. But I think that I have a hard time conceptualizing the needs of the people around me. I think that *I* fail to see people as complex organisms when I get overwhelmed. I think that I am already struggling with the cognitive process around observing my children as people on a life path of their own that isn’t about me or my experiences.

I don’t think I would be able to hold this model of them in my head very well if I were frequently hunting.

I want to get this right more than I want to be successfully slutty.

I want to figure out what real attachment is.

Because I’m pretty bitter about all of the “chosen family” people who have left my life. Forming bonds through sex has worked in some limited ways and it completely fails all of the other tests it has been put through. Not all of my chosen family people bonds were formed by sex. I still… don’t hear from those people any more.

I think I deserve the shunning I get. I’m not sure it is a bad thing. Now I’m not invited to parties with that crowd anymore. That crowd where I had to spend every party trying to avoid conversations with one or more people who raped my friends but my friends don’t want to explode the community so they told me and no one else. That crowd where you have to kiss the ring of the abusive bully dominant male in order to be permitted to stay.

I think my life is better this way?

There are consequences for being who you are, no matter who you are. That’s not just me. By and large I’ll take my consequences because I prefer them to the others I could manage to attain. I can only alter myself so much. I can only change the consequences I will get by so much. At some point you just get what you fucking get.

For good. For bad.

I get the veil of white motherhood. It’s a marvel to me.

I get to deal with the results of my face making people feel afraid because people like me have been historically dangerous for people like them.

I get access to more money than any one family deserves. Tax the shit out of me. No one deserves to be this much more safe than the rest of their country.

There are a lot of places I am not welcome because of my fucking mouth. That’s really ok. People deserve safe space away from me.

I believe that. People deserve safe space away from me.

Even if I “haven’t done anything to them”. They are allowed to feel like my presence is a problem. That’s an opinion folks are just plain allowed to have. That’s an experience of being alive that is true.

I really am the problem sometimes.

But I’m probably not the problem as often as I think. And I’m mislabeling some times.

I’m going through a hella fucking paranoid period and I totally feel like everyone, totally including those nice people who reached out to tell me that they love me and they would love to offer me support in some way totally hate me. Like, duh. It’s so obvious. Like, nothing could be more true.

Maybe depression lingers. But it feels more amped and paranoid and anxious.

I keep wondering why did we pick this time to have another baby? What is the long term symbolic significance of this timing? Whhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy do I want a third child so much that I’m willing to go through this?

You don’t understand how much I love this child. You don’t understand how badly I want another person to help balance the load of my attention. I’m allowed to give to my children. I’m allowed to boss them for a limited period of time in carefully delineated ways. I’m contractually obligated to provide for them. I choose to believe that by creating a new human being it is my responsibility to help them learn how to advocated for themself and figure out who they are and what kinds of support and accommodations they need in this life.

EC needs help with getting organized. I wouldn’t be surprised if she grows up and sets part of her budget for a person who can show up once or twice a year and help to clean her house. i don’t think she’ll feel bad. I think she will ruefully acknowledge that this is an area where outside help is a big deal for her. That’s how she is with most of her shortcomings at this point and I don’t really think this part of her personality will change. She’s good at acknowledging, “Ah. Here is an area where I should arrange help.” She doesn’t feel bad about it. She will cheerfully off all the areas she considers herself really strong. Life is about balance.

This period of disequilibrium is being rough for all of us. I’m amazed at how much of the kids current developmental issues are pinging big emotional stuff for Noah and me. We have scheduled more family therapy sessions for a while.

Growing up with a mentally ill parent has consequences. I’m trying to cause as little damage as humanly possible.

It’s kind of funny. Most parents cause damage. Sometimes only a little, but… it’s a pretty universal part of the parenting experience. There is this constant conflict between needs. Who matters more in any given situation?

I think that part of the reason that I want a third child and I’ll cheerfully take one at this point even though the timing is otherwise shitty is… I think it’s going to be a big deal at this developmental stage. We’ve got quite the tug of war going between the kids. Yes I’ve read a bunch of the sibling books.

It’s going to be a process. We all get to learn what it means to take turns.

Sometimes even I have to come first. But not all the time. That would be fucked up. It’s a balancing act.

There are no martyrs here. We are just people. People who screw up and try to not make that mistake again. We are people who are trying to figure out how to seriously care about the needs of other people.

It’s a process. It’s a science experiment. It’s a life.

Why do I introduce myself with the idea that I’m weird? Because that way people are prepared when it turns out to be true. Weird isn’t bad but I am going to react in unexpected ways over and over.

One reason I would like to move from this house? I’d like to be able to grow my own pot. I think that if I grew my own and processed it into pills… I would not care at all how much I went through and maybe I just don’t get to be a world traveler in this life. Later. After I’m done trying to restrict myself for pregnancy.

Lightning is coming. There’s no way around that.

But what is going to happen afterwards?

I really don’t know.