I feel like my head might explode with all the things I am trying to remember. Wednesday morning I realized at 7:30 am it was Caroline’s turn to bring snack to school, so we drove to the grocery store for Goldfish crackers and milk, drove home, put Evan on the bus, dropped Caroline off at school, drove down to the beach for a Christmas photo shoot, drove home to meet Evan’s half-day bus (since the LAST half day I totally forgot him – Mother Of The DECADE!!), threw him in the car, drove back to Caroline’s school for pick up, drove to the post office, drove to BJ’s for essentials (Diet Coke, cheese and milk), then finally stopped at Moe’s for lunch. LUNCH. Because all of that was before 12:30 pm.

The rest of this week is also half-days which means more racing around to make it to pick up, plus my parent-teacher conference on Friday. I have two newborn clients I’m just waiting to become outside babies so I can schedule their sessions, a handful of families to do Christmas photos for, a cool press event in NYC on Monday and a husband who is about to go into shift work that will last probably the rest of the year. ALL OF 2013. I’m not sure I’ll survive it with my sanity, let alone with a house that doesn’t look like a tornado hit it, because that’s what it looks like now. Like a storm of boxes and My Little Ponies and couches rained down on my family room. I made the mistake of building Evan a “city” out of empty Amazon boxes and now I can’t throw any of them away or he freaks out. Smooth move, genius. Let’s turn trash into something we have to keep!

Because posts about how I am SO BUSY and don’t have time to blog are boring, I will make it up to you with a video of Caroline from a couple weekends ago. The kids are obsessed with the Cups song and E is pretty proud of himself for knowing how to do it, so this actually happens a lot around here. And don’t try to tell her she’s doing it wrong, she won’t believe you.

This past week has really testing my parenting skills. I don’t mean in a “care and feeding and keeping them mostly alive” way – that I can handle. I mean in a “Mommy, who is God?” kind of way. Those question make an alarm go off in my head that blares: WARNING WARNING! Code red question alert, run away or distract with candy immediately! I guess I shouldn’t be surprised this stuff is starting to come up, since 4 1/2 and almost 3 are ages known for ALL THE QUESTIONS but it doesn’t change the fact that in the moment I freeze up and I never know what to say.

The first one was at the park last weekend, while I was taking pictures and Evan was supposed to be helping but wanted to pout instead. Evan is an expert flouncer – he would win the gold, silver and bronze flounce medals in flouncing and the Flounce Olympics – and was trying to flounce himself away from me…right into the graveyard at Fort Shantok, which is part of the Mohegan tribe’s sacred burial lands. NOT A GOOD SPOT FOR FLOUNCING. (For the record, the graveyard is 100 feet from a playground and a baseball field, it’s not like we climbed a fence to go tromping through it on purpose.) I hissed at him not to go in there but he kept inching further away from me until I said “That is a GRAVEYARD. Stay OUT.”

Stupid, stupid Suzanne. Of course then he wanted to know what a graveyard was and WHY do they put dead people there and are there STILL dead people there and what HAPPENS to dead people once they’re in the ground and does that mean HE is going to turn into dirt TOO???

I managed not to mention zombies.  HIGH FIVES.

We both survived, and I think I’m the only one of us who’s still concerned about it, so it wasn’t the worst conversation ever. But it certainly wasn’t a shining moment in using my words.

The second one, which is way harder, is Evan’s bus situation. His best friend since before he was even capable of having friends is on his going-home bus, but there have been some problems with teasing. The good news is Evan isn’t the ringleader and after I found out he was involved we had a good talk and he apologized now he knows he’s supposed to tell people “Those are not kind words, be nice to my friends!” The bad news is four year olds forget stuff and some parents are more involved and some are less involved and when the only adult there is a bus driver whose job it is to DRIVE the bus it’s easy for someone to get their feelings hurt.

In an attempt to separate the troublemakers, Evan ended up with an assigned seat next to a kid he doesn’t know. The bus driver – who is very nice – told me Evan was upset the first assigned-seat day, so I asked him why he couldn’t be friends with the girl he was sitting with. He said,”I don’t want to sit with her, she has yucky boo boos on her face!”

My brain said: “Aaaaaaagh alert alert, your child is a jerk! Fix it! Fix it now!!!”

My mouth said: “Evan! That is not OK! You be nice! To everyone! Even people with…who…different! Everyone is different! We are friends with everyone even different people!”

“OK Mommy,” said Evan.

I composed myself and we talked about it again later. I must not have done too badly, since the next day he told me he sat with (that same girl) and they were new best friends and the bus driver reports that he’s been good. It’s only a 15 minute bus ride, I don’t want it to be the most stressful part of his whole life. It’s crazy to me 4 year olds even know HOW to be mean to each other on the bus – at home the meanest thing Evan ever does to his sister is not share toys. He wouldn’t have any idea how to hurt her with just words and it scares me that pretty soon he probably will. I’m going to need to read a book or watch a YouTube channel or get in touch with Mr. Roger’s ghost somehow to help me navigate this life lesson stuff.

Can we just go back to babies that never sleep and when to introduce finger foods? That seems less likely to cause permanent damage.

Last week, I was pregnant. It didn’t stick, which I feel I need to mention right away so no one jumps to congratulate me only to feel bad about it later. I’m not pregnant now. I was pregnant, now I am not.

I had such a great reveal story, too. We’ve been trying for a long time now, almost a year, and after another month of negative tests at the end of August I decided to just give up until October. October marked 12 months of no babies, so my doctors would finally talk to me about fertility testing. With E’s crazy work hours the chance of getting pregnant without charting and calendars and schedules were almost zero…but that didn’t stop me from bringing a couple cheap pregnant tests to Atlanta just in case I was late. Even though I wasn’t trying my brain has been automatically keeping track of the days and….maybe…?

On Sunday morning, just before breakfast at the Type-A conference, I peed on a stick. I stared at it for 30 seconds but only got one line. Of course I only got one line. I’m doomed to only get one line forever. I set it on the counter and left. When my roommate Miranda and I came back up to the room a while later I picked it up to throw it away (because ew, what was I thinking?!)…and there was a second line. TWO LINES. I screamed “Miranda!!!” and threw the door open and she was standing there smiling at me.

“I know!” she said. “I saw!”

“But there was one line! There was only one line this morning!” I said.

“Right before we went downstairs, I saw it and though ‘Hey, that an HCG test, not an ovulation test’! I didn’t want to say anything!” Miranda said.

“Aaaaahhhhhh! You saw! You didn’t tell me! Oh my god! Two lines! But we gave up – I’ve been trying for so long, we gave up!” I rambled and laughed and cried and she hugged me and I was so so happy.

My roommate knew I was pregnant before I did. I called E and informed him he was actually the THIRD person to find out, but not to feel bad since I was the second.

Isn’t that a cute story? My own mini 2-hour version of I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant. I couldn’t stop myself from telling a few friends (and a few strangers) right away, but promised myself I’d wait a respectable amount of time to announce it officially, since the books tell you to wait. Now I know why people wait.

On Monday I got another positive at home, with a fancy digital test. I took a picture of it, just to prove to myself it was real. On Thursday morning I wasn’t feeling particularly pregnant – which is pretty normal, it happened with both of the kids – so I peed on another stick to reassure myself.

One line.

I tried the digital test. Not pregnant. I started to worry, but with no symptoms one way or another I couldn’t do anything. I called the doctor to ask if they could confirm, but the office on base won’t even test you until 2 weeks after your period is due, so I had another 8 days before I could go in. I asked Dr. Google, I asked my Facebook chat friends, but no one had a magic crystal ball that could tell me anything. So I waited and crossed all my crossables and prayed and wished and tried to lie as still as possible, as if just NOT MOVING could make this pregnancy stick.

It didn’t work. It unstuck, and now I am back where I was at the end of August, with one line on the test. I don’t feel like I lost a baby – at not even 5 weeks I think it’s only considered a chemical pregnancy and I didn’t have enough time to absorb the news, let alone get attached. It wasn’t a baby, it was the promise of a baby. Or may the suggestion of a baby, since no one is promised anything, especially by their own bodies. I didn’t pin any pregnancy reveal ideas or make any lists or imagine nursery themes or browse Etsy for cute hats or think of clever ways to put it on the blog. There wasn’t any time. I haven’t lost a pregnancy before, and I’m not exactly sure how I’m supposed to feel, but it’s mostly just kind of disappointed. I was really looking forward to being pregnant. Those 4 positive days have thrown my hormones and emotions totally out of whack though. All I really want is a couple of hours of alone time to lie in bed and feel sorry for myself and eat a pint of ice cream, but I haven’t had the chance. E is stuck at work close to 100 hours a week – that’s not a typo or an exaggeration – so he barely even knows what’s happening and can’t be here to talk or help or keep things together. He’s under so much stress already dumping all of this on him seems completely unfair.

And as if that disappointment wasn’t enough, I have a slightly horrifying, extremely personal medical thing that flared up again the second I got a positive test and by Saturday was almost unbearable. I’ll spare you the details but it involves a scalpel and stitches in a very sensitive (not thoroughly numbed) area and possibly major surgery in a few weeks, which I don’t know how I’m going to schedule since E can’t even get out of work to watch the kids for my urgent appointment, let alone something that’s not considered an emergency. Throw in the government shutdown and the threat we might not get paid (and the reality that the reenlistment bonus installment E gets each October is nowhere to be found) and I’m sort of stressed out. All of THAT on top of the non-pregnancy means I feel like everything sucks right now. I wish I’d never taken that test. I never would have known and the status quo of no baby never would have changed.

It’s all just…shitty. It’s shitty. I feel shitty.

1, A Crime Story: Once there was a woman traveling with two small children. Her greatest fear was rest stop bathroom lines, since small children often do not alert you to their potty emergencies until the chance of getting pee on one’s self is at threat level red. The woman never asked to cut in line or skip ahead, but when it came her turn to use a stall with her two small children she made sure all three of them used the facilities to prevent stopping again 5 minutes down the road when someone who insisted they did NOT need to potty suddenly realized they DID need to potty. One day, at a busy rest stop in Maryland, a lady dared to glare at the woman and mutter “Ugh, FINALLY” when the woman emerged from a tiny, tiny stall dragging two kids. And then the woman murdered that lady with her mind. The end.

2, An Important Lesson: This one time, at my mom’s house, I was too lazy to get my toothbrush out of the car so I figured I could just rinse my mouth with the fancy mouthwash she keeps in a glass decanter next to the sink. This turned out to be a terrible, terrible choice, since I’m pretty sure whatever was in that decanter was NOT mouthwash. I don’t even want to think about what it was, but I can still taste it 24 hours later.

3, An Art Film: Girl gets up at 5 am to photograph beautiful sunrise. Girl realizes 5 am is REALLY FRICKING EARLY and hits snooze until at least 5:45. Girl finally gets out of bed, into a kayak and heads out to take some pictures. Girl notices totally perfect family of swans that appear to have been ordered from central casting specifically to make her pictures even more amazing. Girl takes photos of swans with her zoom lens until she realizes she can’t focus on them anymore because there are 5 giant swans charging at her through the water. Girl panics, tosses camera into the kayak and paddles as fast as she can away from the vicious swans. Girl realizes this is a sign 5 am is stupid and sleeps in the rest of her vacation.

4, A Comedy:
Idiot: Hey, let’s take my iPhone out to the float and take some pictures of you jumping off! It has a waterproof case, it will be fine!
Kid: OK!
Idiot: *Jumps in the water* OK, now can you hand me my phone?
Kid: OK! Here Mommy, catch! *throws phone into water*
Idiot: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! *scrambles frantically to catch phone as it sinks into 9 feet of water*

Postlude: The idiot caught it before it sank and immediately took it back to shore, where everyone laughs at her. IDIOT.

5. A Sappy Movie: I pretty much have the best parents ever. A lake house for us and the kids, amazing child-watching skills, super generous, and generally just really fun to be around. My 16 year old self certainly didn’t think I won the parent-lottery, but my 31 year old self knows I did.

This post was going to be full of sidebars and parentheticals, so I’ll try to sum them up with a general disclaimer: like I’ve said to many people and had quoted back to me by astute readers – one person’s hard does not invalidate someone else’s hard. I am not saying “Woe is me! Pity me! This is the WORST EVER!” I am saying “These are my feelings and maybe you have some feelings and we can talk about our feelings and maybe braid each others hair if you want or you can call me a spoiled douchecanoe if you want and either way I will understand.” Because, feelings.

I have been on a cleaning tear (Tear might be too strong a word. More like a cleaning small rip in the corner of a page) for a couple of weeks. My housekeeping skills are not great and in general everyone is fine with that situation. The children certainly don’t care. But things reached a point where I didn’t even want to open the door for the pizza guy. Every time I would look at the pile of mail by the door or the pile of school papers on the piano or the pile of birthday decorations on the table I would freeze. Where to START? What’s the POINT? Why should I even BOTHER?

When one thing in your life feels hopeless and out of control, it’s easy for that to reflect into other things, and in this case the mirror was clearly my house. The thing being reflected is bigger than a few stacks of paper though. I’ve been off birth control and hoping for a baby for 9 months now without success, even though it feels like everyone around me is getting pregnant and having babies. Tons of babies. Babies everywhere. You get a baby and you get a baby and YOU get THREE BABIES! (True story, a friend from high school is having spontaneous triplets.)

There’s a whole online world of trying-to-conceive message boards and secondary (tertiary?) infertility boards where people talk about this stuff, but because I never had any trouble the first two times I’m mostly unfamiliar with them. To be totally honest, until I started talking privately with some of my friends about how I’m struggling, I had no idea how much planning COULD even go into getting pregnant. Ovulation sticks and fertility apps and trying disgusting information involving mucus became things I Googled on a regular basis. The biggest surprise was how many people casually mentioned “Oh yeah, I used those OPK sticks to have my daughter”. I think a lot of people err on the side of privacy when it comes to their baby-making-attempts (because, yeah, no one wants to know ALL THAT and no one owes the internet their medical history) but it gives the impression if it takes more than 5 minutes you’re sort of a weirdo. A “Surprise! Pregnant!”-baby (which I am totally guilty of) is more blogable than endless “Not pregnant! Again!” posts, so someonr announcing it when it happens means you don’t really know what people have gone through. I’m a tiny bit concerned that the IUD I had after Caroline was born caused some sort of terrifying, permanent problem (Dr. Google totally agrees) but before we’ve been trying a year no real medical professionals (Dr. Google obviously got his degree online) want to talk to us.

I realize 9 months isn’t that long to be trying, but when your friends who said “Yes! We’re trying too!” back in November are actually giving birth to their babies it feels like forever. I also realize I have two beautiful children so complaining about not having a baby is going to sound selfish and disgusting to some people. But two was never our plan and close together is so much fun, I liked the idea of adding more sooner rather than later. I guess that “Man plans, God laughs” adage is pretty apt, although I if anyone embroiders that on a pillow for me I’ll punch them in the face.

So instead of thinking about my sad, empty uterus constantly I’ve been cleaning. CLEAN ALL THE THINGS. It’s part super-premature nesting, part feng shui and part at-least-this-is-a-problem-I-CAN-solve, but it’s helping. Sort of.

Yes, it’s definitely helping. Just looking at that room and knowing all the birthday decorations (from APRIL, good God woman, you’re so lazy) are put away makes me feel better.

I’ve got the guest room and the kids’ rooms to tackle next, including a couple of terrifying closets I haven’t fully opened in years. I even wrote a garage sale on our calendar and I’ll be running in and out of the house throwing stuff in the yard all day. Maybe space – a space, lots of space, many spaces – will leave room for more good things to come in. It’s better to think about it as space than as emptiness. I’m tired of empty.