I don't need a baby, I'm a wife

This article on CNN.com caught my eye today: Women who mother their men.

I've been with my husband for just under five years; married for three. I admit early in our relationship I mothered the heck out of him. I'd pick up his clothes off the floor, put them away, make his lunch, etc. Today, he's lucky if I kick his dirty clothes under the bed so they're out of sight (and out of my mind).

As I grapple with the decision to stop trying to be pregnant, hearing that I'm already mothering helps me not feel like I'll motheringless

My 11 year old won't eat junk food

I'm at my wits' end with my stepdaughter these days. In trying to help her eat healthy, I think I have laid the groundwork for an aversion to anything with a fat content.

Six months ago, she was taking ham and cheese sandwiches to school for lunch. At the time, she worried that the cool kids would think she's a dork for bringing a brown paper sack lunch. She bawled over the fact that she didn't have any American Eagle clothes and that she looked "hideous."

But something has happened. She's developed an aversion to food over 100 calories. She's loaning her $50 American Eagle Christmas present sweatshirts to girls who don't know what return to sender means. She nears tears when I tell her to eat peanut butter crackers before her track meet..."But they have a gram of trans fat in them STEPMOM!"

"Yes, they do, but so do a lot of things and you've not died eating those have you?"

Her responses cite Women's Health magazine articles and or books her mom has with impressive PhD's in them. I've told her numerous times that she will not become fat or obese if she eats these foods in moderation, and like every pre-teen, she's got an answer for everything.

I fear that she's going to become anorexic. A family friend viewed food a similar way. She wound up leaving high school for a year so she could rehabilitate herself from the anorexia she plunged herself into...all because she didn't want to be fat. Three years after she came back from rehabilitation, she still battles the demons.

Am I ruining my stepdaughter's life because I encourage her to eat foods that have a trans fat in them? Should I sit by and not say anything when her mom hands her a chicken nugget and she refuses to eat it because it's fried?

Is her attitude healthier than mine and am I just jealous?

This is the part of (step)parenting that I fear the most. If she were my biological child, I would have pushed for her to start seeing a counselor and to work with her to figure out why she's so scared of food. But she's not my biological daughter. It's not my decision. It's my job to back up her parents.

I'd give anything for someone who has experience in this to shoot me an e-mail and tell me how I could handle this...

I Quit | Selfish Stepmom Confession

I am quitting clomid. I am quitting trying to have a baby. I am quitting thinking about what being pregnant would have been like.

I, officially, quit.

I'm quitting, I've found, because I'm selfish.

A girl grows tired of only seeing one pink line on a pregnancy test month after month. I'd rather have my sanity back. I'd also like to travel and would like to sleep in -- or sleep naked -- on the weekends when kids aren't in the house. I like knowing what empty-nest syndrome feels like in my 30s. I like it when my husband goes out of town and I have the house to myself in the evenings because my stepkids are, rightfully, with their mom.

I am a selfish stepmom.

If I ever went to a counselor, I wonder if they'd tell me I'm merely deflecting my real feelings: that I'm in a deep state of denial about the infertility and have built a wall around my true feelings.

Wall or not, I'm moving on with my life....without my own biological children; and man does it feel liberating.

I am in love

Is it me or does it seem pretty rare anymore to read an article or a blog post about something good? Amid the thousands of personal blog posts being published today, most of them are probably lamenting something negative -- a crappy work day, something the butthead husband said, kids' hectic schedules, etc.

I'm taking back the blogosphere and proudly announcing....I actually love my husband.

Amid his quirks, he's a really good guy. He actually notices when I get haircuts and loves my eyeglasses. He thinks I should wear them more than I do.

Even though he jokes that I made him take me, my guy was the first to suggest that we go to France on our own. Before I'd committed to a date, he'd already booked our tickets.

He's a swell guy. I think I'll keep him around for a while.

So that's it...the not-negative-blog post.

xoxo

My new job | Things I've learned as a digital editor

It's been a month since I started my new job. In that month, I've learned (or remembered) more about HTML coding than I ever thought possible and I'm now venturing into a new coding language: Cascading Style Sheets (or CSS). My husband insists I can become a User Experience master (a person who designs usable web pages) if I can master this kind of programming language. Who am I to not try and master one more thing?

I've also learned a bunch of new Photoshop tricks. As you can tell, I'm still trying to master the art of blog/website masthead design. I've got a long ways to go.

Part of my training has included a relationship with the | straight line | key. Not many peple know of this key. It usually resides above the enter key of most keyboards, right below the backspace key. It's a handy little sucker and looks rather stylish and sophisticated.

I've also become fascinated with Twitter. While that isn't part of my job, it's been a very fun and cool outlet for seeing what friends and wish-they-were friends are up to. You can following my Tweets (the active verb for your Twitter messages) on Twitter or by looking at that sidebar thingy over there.

Why do I write all of this jibberish? So that you won't think you've stumbled upon the wrong blog when you visit (and visit again) and see different designs or widgets.

I see London, I see France | Part Deux

Any On the Cusp reader would know I read my horoscope nearly every morning. I don't live my life by it, but I am entertained when there are coincidences with my life.

That said, today's horoscope struck me as a tad worrisome:

There are several reasons why travel now is complicated. Hanging out with family in the privacy of your own home is better entertainment.

Why might this worry me? Because Aaron and I booked TWO TICKETS TO FRANCE for October. We threw around the idea of doing an NIU trip but quickly discovered we could do it cheaper and on our own schedule if we booked it ourselves.

I don't remember the exact cost but do know it was really economical. We're flying into Paris and taking a train or renting a car and heading down to the French Riveria...Nice, Cannes, St. Tropez, Aaron and I are going to parlez-vous some francais around town for a week in late October.

And I couldn't be happier.

This trip caps off a monumental decision I made this week: to stop trying to get pregnant. This was my last round of fertility drugs; last ultrasound, last progesterone injection. I'm going pharma-free this summer and hopping back on the Pill in the Fall -- just in time for France.

I'm doing what I've always done when things don't go as I'd planned: I divert my attention elsewhere.

Shook me all night long.....

I love the Midwest. Within 24 hours, we've had gorgeous 76-degree weather and an earthquake.

I thought it was the cats scratching themselves on the bed; turns out that shower door shaking and bed rocking was actually something.

It surely never is boring around here.

I see London, I see France

I think Erin's going to leave on a jet plane in the Fall and hit the French Riveria.

NIU, my alma mater, hosts several trips a year to cool destinations. Usually around 100 people, including myself for a couple of trips, head out to desitnations like Rome (New Year's 2002); London (New Year's 2003) for a really good deal. You don't have to be an NIU alum which is great when I want to take my husband with me.

The Clomid isn't working and my baby hopes have faded... Now it's time to do what people who don't have children do: travel.

I may go by myself or I may see if Aaron or a friend wants to come. I just know I want to relax and do things on my schedule...in Cannes.

A year ago on The Erin Experiment | On the Cusp

Blogs are an awesome way to see what in the heck you were thinking or doing in your past. I ventured back into the vault to see what prophetic, witty ditty I had to say this time last year....

Everybody's Free (to Wear Sunscreen)
A few of my favorites:

• Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked.
• Don't worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.
• Do one thing every day that scares you.
• Don't waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long, and in the end, it's only with yourself.
• Be kind to your knees, you'll miss them when they're gone.
• Dance. Even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.
• Be nice to your siblings; they are your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Ironically -- or is it symbolically? -- I've printed a copy of the column/lyrics and have them hanging up at the office as well as a few charmers posted on my desktop. For a few days I assigned one of them to be a signature for my e-mail but pulled it down when I feared people thought I was trying to tell them not be jealous of me.

It's funny, but I don't feel like I've made much progress from where I was this time last year. Maybe I have; maybe I won't; maybe I'll look back on this time in my life and wonder how I had it so together for such a naive person.

Thank god for Twitter

I only recently created a Twitter account. I mostly did it to see what the fuss was all about.

As has become typical for Social Networking sites these days, Twitter ransacked my gmail account and proposed a few folks I should invite to follow me at Twitter. One of those folks was my husband.

My guy is a geek. A total and complete geek. I don't mind it, in fact I'm a geek myself.

Predictablly, he's taken Twitter by storm and has been chronicalling his every decision while he's been out of town this week: "Do I use this or this code?" "Do I have lunch with this programming rock star or that one?" "Should I should drink more or less tonight?"

When he left for his business trip on Saturday, I told him to call me if he missed me and that he didn't need to call me every night like is usually the case when one of us goes out of town.

Apparently he's taken me up on the offer to not call or check in; in fact most of the correspondance I've received from him has to do with whether or not I've paid a bill or cashed a check.

Thanks to Twitter, I can see that he's having a good time -- almost too good of a time it sounds..."must remember to go to right hotel this time" (I'm paraphrasing).

So to the Twitter gods out there, and to me who turned him on to it, thank you Twitter for letting me know what my husband has been up to while he's been out of town.

Now if only Twitter had a body guard service...

Who will save your copy at 5 a.m.?

It's somewhere in the hour of 5 a.m. on Tuesday morning. I've been up since 4:45 re-building website content.

"Why?" you ask.

Because I didn't get it done last night once I got home from work, got home from an hour of track-shoe shopping for my stepdaughter and finished making lunches. I did, however, manage to rebuild an e-blast which is what took up the better part of my evening when I wasn't stepmothering.

And so describes what my new job has been like.

For some reason I thought it would be less stressful than the last one; OH MY GOD was I wrong. My body feels like a trash heap: when I'm not throwing coffee and diet soda down my gullet to stave off hunger, I'm eating everything in sight. And yes, I bring healthy snacks with me to work: I've got my bananas, granola bars, pomegranate/apple sauce, etc. to tie me over if I'm in a pinch.

I'd also thought the close proximity to my gym would make it much easier to get several workouts in a week. HA!!!!! I barely have time to eat my lunch at my desk -- leaving is a luxury I can't afford lately.

My pants are snug; it must be time to starve myself again

I broke the news last week that I was divorcing my food.

I was doing really well last week; I worked out a few times during my lunches and ate sensibly. But then I went out of town with my husband.

We went up to Minneapolis so he could attend and speak at Twin Cities Code Camp. Rarely did a moment go by where there wasn't some sort of free food around so I ate it...and I gained back any weight I may have lost last week. I couldn't go a weekend, apparently, without being separated from my food.

To make matters worse, when I got home I saw my ass in a pair of capri pants I'd just put on. The sight nearly made me vomit (which wouldn't have been a bad thing come to think of it).

So here I sit, at my kitchen counter. It's 65 degrees outside in Chicago and my ass is parked on a kitchen stool. Well, that's what it was going to be doing (that and some coding for work) until I put these pants on. Now, my ass is being hauled outside for yard duty (also known as a workout).

Gah!!!!! I need counseling to get through my weekend rough patches.

Be kind to your girls

My cousin called me last night to tell me she'd been diagnosed with breast cancer. She's 33, a mother of 4, and her mom had -- and survived -- the same diagnosis when she was 33 as well.

I hadn't heard from my cousin in a while so it was nice to hear what she'd been up to even if what she's been up to is MRI's and preparing for radiation therapy.

She'd called because she wanted to remind all of us -- the other female cousins -- to get their mammograms and do self exams. We have a family history of breast cancer and -- thankfully -- everyone has survived it in part because they all caught it early.

As for me, I got my first mammogram last year before starting to try and get pregnant. It came back just fine but then again, my mom is the only one who hasn't had cancer. I worry that our lot in life will be something unsurvivable like heart disease or a brain aneurysm.

In honor of my cousin, I'm sending out this public service announcement to get your boobs checked out and be kind to your girls.