What is it with goats around here?

For some reason, when I decided to write about being mad, this is the first thing that came to my mind: Mad Sesame Street goat.

I can't help it, I get mad at pregnant women. And women with small babies. And women who are  gonna just pop that next one out, whenever they decide. Not all of them, mind you, and not all the time.

I can still be happy for a friend who is pregnant or has a new baby. I can even handle the gonna-poppers okay.

But not all the time. Not when I'm in my own little world, trying to think of other things in my day, and I get caught unawares. When I'm happily spinning some tale of meaningfulness of something I'm about to do, workwise, or otherwise, and I turn a corner and there they (or she) is. Whoever she is. Pregnant women I don't know, I stay away from. Pregnant women I do know, depends how much we have in common. I can have entire coffee or lunch dates in which my throat doesn't catch, and where I even hold a newborn. And it is nice. And I'm not spiraling down some dark slide.

Other times, I can't. I think it is mostly the caught-unawares times that get me verklempt. For a while I've been trying to stop feeling mad or sad (I'm guessing the mad is just a less powerless feeling to substitute for sad), trying to understand why I react that way. I try to feel more grateful for the one kid I do have. For the fact that I am amazingly privileged compared to so many women around the world.

But not only is that goat singing about being mad, he's saying me that it is okay to be maaaad. Today, I'm going to agree. It's okay. It is okay to just go away. It is okay not to stick around. It is okay for others to be happy and me to not be sometimes. It is okay to be mad (although not okay to throw a grown-up tantrum where cups and mean words go flying...I've never done this, I'm just checking in that this would, indeed, be in bad form).

You tell it, goat. Tell it.

There is another part of this, though, that is also hard to navigate. That when I actually tell people that I'm having a hard time getting pregnant, they often switch into fixing mode and start firing off questions about what I'm doing to change my situation. I know I do it to others, too. That doesn't help. Especially not from someone who has not been through this. I have not spoken up in order to ask for help fixing my problem - I have a husband and some doctors working hard with me on that front. We're set with the working on the fixing. I have spoken up because I'm not going to be able to smile the "yeah, I know, right?" smile along with the group on this one. It is okay just to say "Oh, I'm sorry" to me and we go on to some other topic of conversation. I don't do it because I want to make someone feel bad, but I also can't just sit with a half-smile and not nod. That shit just gets awkward after a while, and soon people think you're mad at them for something they did.

And technically I am, but it isn't something they did to me.

And there have been many times I've stuck my foot in my mouth in a similar situation, and just wish I'd known earlier that I was talking down a road the other person really didn't want to travel. And the further down that road I talked in the end, the worse I felt. Because there are so many other things to talk about on any given day.

I'm not really mad anymore. I'm not sad right now. I'm also not easily incorporable into some groups. And that's okay. 

Saying sorry

My kid is crying. Not screaming. But crying pretty loud. It has been a few rounds of asking her to do things and her ignoring me, and continuing to play to stay in the bath, or, or, or. One of those evenings when nothing I say is listened to. When she screams my name from the bathroom instead of saying the "I'm sorry mama" I've asked for. I'm the only parent on duty tonight, and I get that she's tired and that I'm tired, but I'm not finding my way out of it right now.

I haven't gotten and "I'm sorry", a "please" or a "thank you" for most of the afternoon. There have been loud protestations of "I get all the dessert! Not you get any! Or I won't eat any!" There have been ice creams and trips to the park to play in the sun and special dinner pies from the English pie lady. There has been a lot. And not enough.

And how to teach a child, and only child (is this the problem? probably not all of it), to share instead of throwing a fit when she can't have all the dessert on the table? Or to say she's sorry? Or to say please or thank you? Does it come later than 3 1/2 years old? Does all of it come later?

Because it isn't coming tonight. I'm close to crying myself. As soon as I engage again, she starts playing or not listening. And I don't think this is all conscious on her part - or at least it isn't meant to piss me off more, it just does. But I have no idea to get an I'm sorry.

Even though I give them - if I've hurt her feelings, if I've yelled, if I've hurt her by accident while I'm stopping her from hitting me during a tantrum. I say "sorry." I want her to hear it, to know that it is important to say, to learn it, to remember being told her feelings matter.

And I guess that is what this is about at some level. My feelings not mattering.

Yes, I go to a dark little place where I'm the kid again, and again, my feelings don't matter enough for some adult in my life to say and actual "sorry" that ends there and not a "sorry, but...". Or someone who can't say "I love you." And although my husband is great with the "I love you"'s, he's still learning to say "sorry" as well.

It is now 8:15pm and A is asleep, and it took some 5 minutes after the one book we had time for, after she gave me a big hug and a kiss on the chin, after I told her that a big hug and a kiss on the chin could be our special secret code for "I'm sorry", after she told me she didn't say she was sorry because sometimes she is shy, after she told me she said "enschuldigung" to a baby the other day for squeezing her hand too tight, after we talked about if she says "sorry" to any of her friends ever, after I talked about how sorry can mean "I wish I could take it back" or "I didn't mean to hurt you" or "I want things to be ok between us again."

After we both calmed down and sat on the bed, after I raised my voice and told her that if she can't say she's sorry to friends she's not going to have any (yes, I know, I'm sort of dying a bit inside to see myself write that right now), after I raised my voice and said something like "Why can't you say I'm sorry? Why can't you just say it?!"

I'm going to have to apologize for that last part tomorrow morning.

(Before you unfriend me, or decide I am scum or some such thing, I did actually have the presence of mind to tell her that it is wonderful she is learning to apologize to her friends and other kids and she will have friends. I know that one was a mistake to say in the first place.)

If I could've recorded the smell, I would have.

The dog would have loved it, probably. But as for us humans in the house - the smell of whatever the backed up drain was spewing into the kitchen sink, from the plumbing direction of the washing machine, wow. Intense. And not a good intense like balsam or orange blossoms. Not even the "depends on your personal taste" intense like some people's liberal application of perfume or aftershave. We're talking puuuuuutrid. Foul. Rank. Disgusting. Nauseating.

You get the point. Third time this month the repair guys have had to come clean the kitchen plumbing. This time, they came with an electrical camera and snake. Let's see how long the freshness lasts this time. And yes, repair guys, I know about not putting grease down a drain. I also know I was half-expecting you to pull out a whole, belching goat with that snake and say "Well, see, here's yer problem. Ya gotta goat in the pipes. Ain't nobody got time fer that. Always gonna have problems when there's a goat in the pipes."

The goat might even say that. This kind of goat would. 

Didn't happen. But I did sit in my living room for hours. On my laptop. Attempting to be productive. Checking everything I walked near the pantry whether Computer Guy was at work.

See, we have a view from the dining room into the courtyard of our building. And all the apartments. I think their dining rooms face ours. And there is this guy. First time M noticed him - well, the first 20 times - it just bummed him out. Here was M, drinking a coffee and feeding a toddler and not getting work done, and here was Computer Guy, again, working at his computer. Typing while leaning towards a screen, looking at the keyboard, looking at the screen. On and on for hours.

We come up to have breakfast at 7am or 8am, he's sitting there working. We have lunch on weekends, ditto. Us dinner, him typing. The man rarely stops. But then M realized, the man rarely stops, and pointed him out to me, and I'm now convinced that either he's hiding out and trying to crack some code (a wormhole may appear at his apartment soon) and it would have been better that I not report on him like this on the internet, or he's addicted to some role playing game.

That latter option is not very likely though, as he can still seem to afford rent for that apartment and is never shouting at the screen or doing joystick moves. So, the part of me that watches shows like the Mentalist is thinking we should not even try to figure out what he's doing because in the season finale we're going to wind up hostages in some Swiss bomb shelter, wishing we'd payed attention to the other apartments instead.

Hei Pipi Langstockings, la la la la la la la!

One of A's best friends got her a Pipi Longstockings book for a birthday gift last year. Two books, actually, one in English and one in Swiss German. And at first A was too young to understand them, but she's gotten into them lately. She and this friend, L, are like two peas in a pod, and at daycare they will drive the teachers a bit nutty singing the Pipi song. So much so that they wind up relegated to the nap room to sing ad nauseum. I approve of this solution.

I also highly approve of Pipi. She's the strongest girl in the world. Stronger than the strong man at the circus. She can carry her horse on her shoulders. She wears mismatched socks, plays "don't touch the floor" around her kitchen furniture, gets eggs and hot chocolate in her hair when she cooks, and is generally a bad-ass.

And last weekend, when we had to go under the train station to get to the tram, and A had her scooter with her, she didn't ask us for any help with it. She hauled that thing up on her chest, and headed down some steep stairs. As only a proud 3 year old can do. And all she said, pleased as punch, was "I'm strong like Pipi."

My little girl was trying to emulate a female role model by being strong. And liking her own strength. Feeling good about it.

In this underpass, filled with Beyonce's new clothing like for H&M that makes you wonder are they selling clothing too cheaply or selling female sexuality too cheaply (answer: both), my daughter was only concerned with how great it was to be able to carry one's own scooter by oneself.

I love Pipi Longstockings.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I hope it rains.

This morning A and I spent a few hours at her best friend's house, and while the girls ran around the apartment keeping each other gloriously busy and happy, I got to talk with L's father. And have coffee. There is very little not to love about your 3 year old kid having a best friend, when the friend's parents are also good fun to hang out with.

I told L's father about our balcony garden that I've been slowly buying plants and pots for. Lots of toddler parents have the same first goal for their balconies - kid-proof the railings. Mine is a 15 foot long stretch of what could be a seating space for guests, edged with a tiny, 10" high rod, and then 6 stories of empty space down to the hard concrete. Not good for kids, dogs, or even slightly physically uncoordinated guests. So there are now 10 plastic IKEA pots up there, filled with soil, low and wide, and really not going anywhere soon.

There is, however, no faucet on the balcony.

This means that when I went to fill the pots with dehydrated IKEA soil, I had to make 50 trips to the kitchen faucet and back. This doesn't bode well for the trees and bushes I'm hoping to put in soon.

Sure, the roof of the balcony is open, and that will water things when it rains (except, actually, those 10 IKEA pots which have a overhang above them which just manages to keep the water out of them. Great.

And my experiment in harvesting water was a good reminder that it is all about surface area. Put a small garbage can out on your balcony and if it rains 3cm, you get about 2 cups of water at the end of the day. I need to collect rain from more of the balcony area. But how? The roof doesn't leak into our balcony - and it really should if the the architects weren't going to put in a tap. Upside-down umbrellas over buckets, with a hold poked in the middle to funnel the water? Kind of clunky.

Which is when it hit me - a table that is slightly concave, that funnels water into a middle column or pot. And chairs or ottomans that also do that. Fill the seating and eating space with furniture that harvests rainwater! I was going to be rich. Or at least well known in the eco-community.

But it is times like this I've learned that if I've thought of it, so has someone else. Turns out, not too many people, though. And there is still room to make it look different.