Where all the bologna about fertility stops.

[showmyads] When someone raises the topic of fertility, my reflex is to either figuratively or literally cup my hands over my ears and say in an obnoxious sing-songy way, "LALA LALALA CANNOT HEAR YOU, HAVE NO INTEREST, LALALALA CHECK PLEASE." Because talking turkey about fertility, with anyone, at any time, generally falls into two buckets.

The first is the Hyper-Vigilant Bucket. Fertility talk in this bucket is usually about timing and regulating and monitoring and waking up to check temperatures and peeing on PH sticks and charting and doing all manner of things that make me nervous. I'm nervous talking about this vigilance about fertility because it seems competitive. Like a biology lab report on which one is trying to get an A. Yet, I understand that many, many men and women are forced to become hyper-vigilant about fertility because leaving it to chance has not netted the desired results. I get this and I am sensitive to it. But I wonder if all of our resources, online and otherwise, have not created a more vigilant than necessary monitoring of fertility and ovulation and ultimately serves to make us more nervous than we ought to be. By nature I am not a list maker, an organizer, someone who knows where to find a ruler, someone who refers to charts or maintains them unless forced to do so. Hyper-vigilant Fertility talk gives me agita because it is anathema to the way I choose to do things.

The second is the Hocus Pocus Bucket. Fertility talk in this bucket is based on nonsense. Old wives tales. Research conducted before electricity, before birth control pills. Fertility talk herein is treated as something that one can control by avoiding certain maladies, like sitting on a cold bench or floor, or eating too much cheese.

*** The day I turned 26, I cried the entire day. There were brief interludes where I stopped crying. I spent the day in fetal position convinced that I was going to have a very difficult road to getting pregnant.

The pathetic truth about my 26th birthday is that I had not even tried to get pregnant. I was just convinced, based on my health history, and based on the ninnies at church who looked askance at me, married for a whole year and not yet pregnant, that I was going to be an epic fertility fail.

Six months later I was pregnant. I do not wax boastfully about my fertility or good fortune. If anything, I grieve continuously with those whose fertility journeys have been challenged or anguished by very real struggles. I know the private pain they carry is often too heavy to bear, to face the cruelty of another day. Conception and pregnancy have not been complicated ordeals for me, except in my own head. I was convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that I would be cursed. Based on what the Fertility Buckets had poured into me.

***

I have grappled with the nuances of Fertility Talk on my own until I read this article in this month's Atlantic Monthly. Absolutely everyone who is poised to have a baby or have a conversation about having a baby should read this article. The author goes to the raw source of data that has informed much of our fertility knowledge in the industrialized world. The data will astound you. After discussing the article with a friend who is in in her early thirties, she said, she felt so relieved and so much more peaceful about the future. And oddly, so did I. Even though my fertility journey feels over. At least for now. I felt more peaceful because of the truth of the article and because of the lack of competition it fostered. Fertility is not a sport or a magic trick. It is a blessing from which many more blessings may flow, and possibly for many more years than was once thought.

If you read the article, what did you think?

Craftin' with Kids: DIY coasters

I have a fairly high tolerance for messes when it comes to crafting. Messes involving toothpaste tubes left uncapped or Barbie clothes strewn everywhere? I'll pass. But crafting I do encourage with my children, especially when making gifts for someone else.

A recent craft I've been dreaming up was to make custom coasters using tiles and felt. I'd not done it but it seemed like I could do it cheaply enough to make a test-drive worthwhile.

Serendipity occurred upon my virgin voyage to the Southeastern Salvage which is a large emporium of a store here in the Southeast--think Home Depot meets Homegoods. I found mini-tiles for...wait for it...a nickel a piece. Bonanza!

Here's what we did.

1.) First, I cut up a garbage bag and laid it down on our tiled playroom floor so that the kids could get paint on everywhere BUT the garbage bag, including the rainbow rug and the door and themselves. Again, I am very tolerant of crafting messes. And my children enjoy the dog house where they are now sleep.

2.) The kiddies painted each mini tile with assorted acrylic paints which are a total pain to get out of their clothes, hence my son is not wearing any.

3.) After the tiles dried in the sun, I sprayed Krylon crystal clear acrylic in Satin on the tiles (to lock in the paint and keep it from chipping).

This is the moment when the cheerful hosts of Sesame Street would tell you to go get a grown-up to help you with this next part.

4.) I busted out the hot glue to seal the four mini-tiles together to form one coaster. I hot glued square pieces of felt onto the backs of each coaster to prevent scratching tables.

We gave ours to Eunis and Jeff, our bestest buddies and Tybee Island vacation pals. The coasters may or may not have gotten deep-sixed based on how flimsy and ugly they were, but we had fun making them regardless.

And that's the thing about anything worth doing. If you love the process, the outcome (sorta) doesn't matter.

[showmyads]

Kiddie Birthday Parties: Can we be real here?

I know, I know. Don't pee in the pool ya swim in. I'm taking a risk here, sharing my true feelings about children's birthday parties. My children are still quite young. They stand a fighting chance of getting invited to another birthday party in their lives. So why does their cranky mama have to go all Birthday Scrooge right now, on the internets? Well if any of our friends are reading this, nota bene: I am not talking about your party. I'm speaking globally about a few things that have been making me itch.

Thing the First about the Children's Birthday: Please don't make me RSVP by calling your phone number. Please make provision on the invitation for us awkward types to either send you a text message or respondez s'il vous plait by e-mail. Your child is in my kid's class. We have only met briefly, when I was trying to catch up on Suri Cruise's fashion forecast in the grocery aisle and you were trying to use a coupon and our kids were trying to introduce us, but c'mon. Suri Cruise. Coupons for Mr. Clean. Priorities.

Thing the Second: If your invitation includes a gift registry, I will totally comply but the whole time I will be thinking, "B-b-b-but, what will our children have to look forward to when they get married???" They will be all jaded and won't experience the thrill of saying, Do we go for the Lenox pie slicer or is OXO going to cut it (literally) for us? What the hay! Someone else is buying! Let's go top shelf! Scan!

[showmyads]

Thing the Third: If the venue of your child's birthday party involves any manner of inflatable jumping apparatus or fuzzy characters that walk around and throw tickets? I am totally sending my husband to chaperone. If I have to go, I might have to hide in the corner and bite my sleeve while whimpering something about how I almost drowned in the ball jump in McDonald's playland in 1984 and maybe that's what happened to Grimace and the Fry Burgler, too. Has anyone checked on them?

Thing the Fourth: If you invite the whole class as well as your neighborhood, extended family and the stepfather of the dog of your pilates instructor's mail carrier, you are just going to have to accept that your kid is going to cry at his/her own party. Maybe not even because he/she wants to. Because that crowd would overwhelm a politician.

Thing the Fifth: It is always helpful when invitations state whether food will be served at the party. For example, if you will be serving gummi worms, cupcakes, doughnuts, ice cream, and Girl Scout cookies with a Yoohoo chaser, followed by a pinata full of Jolly Ranchers and a send-off with the s'mores and choco-dipped goodie bags, I just like to know so I can be prepared for the diabetic coma into which my children will slip later that night. Know before you go, and all that.

I guess that about covers it. I know these are all First World requests and that every birthday celebration is a sweet one, marking the passing of another year of the life of a child who is healthy enough to celebrate.

Healthy enough to celebrate and eat a Ring Pop and open lotsa gifts.

Just be careful if you go near that ball jump, kids.

***