Take care of business

Uh. Not so much. I try, but I have far to go.

Getting the health insurance straightened out. Been flaking on it. Even the small steps I took are major steps for me around my insecurity issues with “the man” and his “insurance.”

I don’t know what that means.

I haven’t gotten much sleep today, so I don’t know what I’m saying.

One of the problems with having two kids and no car is grocery shopping. Particularly when you live in a walk up apartment.

It’s almost prohibitively complicated. I can’t buy too much, because I can’t haul it all back if it doesn’t fit in or on the stroller. Tied to that, I can’t buy groceries that are too bulky or too heavy—like bulk toilet paper or lots of cans. And I can’t use a shopping cart because I can’t push the stroller and the cart at once. And there’s nowhere to put the double stroller if I were to put the kids in the cart.

I usually use the handbaskets to carry the groceries in the store, but if I put it on the stroller, it can be tippy or dangerous for the little one in the lower seat. And if I carry it, it kills my hand, and the stroller is difficult to navigate through the aisles.

The double stroller also does not fit through any of the checkout aisles, except for the express lane. Plus, I have to remember that at the end of shopping, I’m gonna have to haul all bags, a baby, a toddler and myself back up the stairs to my apartment.

This is all on top of the normal fitting grocery shopping in between double naps, diaper changes, meals, and screaming fits.

But!

I think I have figured out a sort of technique to simplifying the grocery shopping technique.

Bring my canvas shopping bag instead of using the plastic bags. Then, not only can I carry my groceries home on my shoulder, I can also shop using the bag instead of the store baskets, which are hard to wield while steering.

Also, limit my shopping items to ten items or under, so I can just go straight to the express aisle. Then I can buy some of the bulky things I need, too. And everything will fit in my bag or on the stroller, and I can carry them up the stairs with baby while wrangling the boy to climb the stairs himself.

This basically means I have to go to the grocery store a lot more often. But soon, perhaps, the boy will be able to walk to and from the store without trying to run off (he walked all the way home today, and did pretty well.) And soon he will be climbing stairs without me having to follow quite so close behind him lest he stumble.

I do think lots of things will get easier when G is able to motor under his own power without such eagle-eyed supervision. I won’t always need the double stroller and can use the more manueverable single. Or skip the stroller altogether and just put the baby in the carrier and bring a shopping cart. It’ll almost be like shopping like a normal person.

(In case anyone is interested in my child transportation modes, I use a Phil & Ted E3 with toddler seat, a MacClaren Triumph, and an Ergo Baby carrier. All excellent and sturdy options for getting babies around a city. The Phil & Ted is a technological marvel. The Ergo is the bestest carrier, and doesn’t hurt your back. And the Mac is super convenient and sturdy. I recommend them all—just not for grocery shopping with two itty bitty littles.)

We need to put Sean’s old cat to sleep. She is nearing the end and has stopped using the litter box, stopped going outside, stopped grooming herself. She’s terribly skinny although still eating.

We might not even put her to sleep (except for the not using the litterbox thing with crawling children is kind of bad) but we have to move. She’s never lived anywhere else, and I don’t think the shock of taking her away from her territory would be kinid to her, particularly in her condition.

Sadly, I think this is the end. And I have to find a vet that will do the job, and not be too expensive. I’ve been looking, but I think I just found a place that might do.

Call Dr. Trigo!!!!

—There! I did it. And made and appointment for today even. Not only did I call, but I made and appointment and I will have taken Ivy to her new doctor all in one go.

Adults shouldn’t be afraid of this kind of stuff, right? Why am I?

I know a lot of people don’t want to grow up. Don’t want to be an adult, but I don’t believe that being an adult means you have to lose the child within you.

For me though, being an adult not only means doing the things that I am afraid of, like trying to get published or dealing with money/savings/insurance, but also dealing with the things that I am responsible for but maybe don’t think are that important. Like watering the plants or going grocery shopping. See, those things are not necessarily “meaningful” actions, but they are important.

I guess adults take care of the living, they aren’t just swept along in life. It’s being the active participant, rather than the passive one. It’s being the passenger, not the driver.

No one’s going to take care of this stuff but me, so I’d better stop wishing that someone else would so I don’t have to deal. It’s a more powerful position to be in.

Make a budget.

Get insurance straightened out for me, G, Ivy.

Make Ivy an appointment with her new doctor.

Make appointment with whatyoucallit to get an IUD because I am done having kids, and might have a nervous breakdown if I accidentally get pregnant.

Basically, face the things that make me a scared little girl who want wants to run and hide.

I am an adult; 36 years old, mother of 2, a High School teacher, although not one now, and yet, there are certain areas of life where I just curl up in a fetal position, with the blankie over my head going “no, no, no, no, no…”

It mostly has to do with money, with forms, with official grown up things like health insurance or the government. Of course I also go into hiding when I think of getting my writing published.

But I don’t really have the luxury of being a flake or a child about these things. I am an adult with the responsibilities of an adult. What I do does not affect just me any more, it affects my children.

I may have a hard time believing that I am the mother of two kids sometimes, but I am. And I have to take care of them. And I have to take care of me, too, if not for my own sake, simply because I’m worth it, then for my kids’ sake, because they need to have a healthy, strong, successful mom who is there for them.

Sometimes, when I get small and scared, I remind myself to be an adult. I don’t always want to step up to the plate, so sometimes I have to goad myself, like a bully. “Do it, you wuss, be an adult.”

It’s worked a couple of times, maybe I can keep doing it and I’ll get in the habit of acting like an adult when I need to.

Just to be clear, being an adult does not mean being boring or narrow minded or unadventurous or unhappy or any of that. I truly believe that grown ups can be just as full of wonder as children, just as spontaneous, they just also take care of what needs to be done.

Maybe I should also give myself a goal about childlike wonder to balance out the adultifying.

I seem to live in some alternative time frame where nothing is terribly important until the last minute….where everything can be put off until tomorrow…tomorrow. My island attitude has helped me in many areas of my life, but now that I am (gasp!) almost 40, and the mother of 2 children, it’s time to TCB.

I have a short attention span, and am easily distracted by things like…oh, the computer. I’m a bit too dreamy and simply lack that certain gene that most others around me have. It’s sorta like being a pothead without the pot.

Hmmm….I’ll need to figure out some strategies. Not sure where to start. Guess I’ll get off the computer and make some important phone calls I’ve been putting off.