100 things about me – UPDATED

My 100 post came and went a long time ago, which I guess is the standard time to make one of these, but I didn’t. Suddenly seized by the desire to have a 100 things post of my very own, I am using 2008 as an excuse. So without further ado…

1. I don’t use soap. I shower and use shampoo and a facial exfoliant but I don’t use soap. I don’t like the dry itchy and tight feeling that it leaves behind. For the longest time i only used hot water and a face cloth on my face too, but now I’m a grown up and I moisturize so I use a cleanser too. (Well, until we spent almost a year in a house without hot water. Soap helps a lot when you only have cold water to get clean in. I now use a body wash.)
2. I love soap, especially handmade rustic looking scented soaps. I always stop to smell and touch and often buy. I have bars of soap stashed in drawers and linen cupboards and storage boxes and suit cases. They make things smell good.
3. I am obviously fascinating starting out with soap and all. You will be awed by my scintillating personality, witty conversation skills and my exciting life.
4. I learned sarcasm at my mother’s breast. And terrible puns which I now eschew almost religiously as a result.
5. I am a reading addict.
6. Almost every single thing I have learned that is worth knowing so far was learned by trial and error.
7. I hate living with the fallout of error.
8. I am slowly learning to accept life’s imperfections.
9. My last two three 5 babies were born at home with midwives in attendance. (The last two were born in Thailand, and were unassisted births.)
10. I joked after the boy that I was going to handcuff myself to my bed if I had to, but there was no way I was going to birth another baby in a hospital unless it was a medical emergency.
11. The handcuffs weren’t necessary though I did fudge a bit on times for the Girl’s birth in order to give me enough time to labor in peace. (They give women a 16 hour window and then want to take you in to the hospital for antibiotics in Canada if your water has broken. My water hadn’t broken yet, but we thought it had at first, so I lied about when because I knew I was going to be slow getting started. Long story.)
12. I studied to be a Doula once, I’ve attended women in labor, which is perhaps why I felt confident enough to take on more responsibility in my own labor the second time around.
13. I still think I would like to be a midwife someday, or at least a childbirth educator, after my babies are much older and I could leave them to attend other babies, something I’ve only done once since the Boy was born.
14. It’s been more than 6 [now 8] years since I have slept without a child in some form or another in bed with me.
15. I don’t mind at all.
16. I’ve only had 10 periods in the last 7 years. Breast feeding is kind to me. [nope, the last several months have been normal so I can’t say that any more.]
17. But I have terrible morning sickness and depression when I’m pregnant, so I guess it evens out. [The last two pregnancies have actually been really good in this department. Either I’m getting better at this whole pregnant thing, or boys really are different from girls.]
18. That’s when I learned to knit. Knitting is a good distraction from nausea.
19. I was a music major in university.
20. I majored in voice and piano.
21. I didn’t finish my degree.
22. I took some time off after my second year and went to live on a church floor with some other girls and feed homeless people in this crazy communal living words in red type of experiment. It was one of the hardest, and best years of my life.
23. I met my husband that year in Mexico.
24. I never went back.
25. My professors told me I was wasting my talent.
26. It was the closest one of them ever came to giving me a compliment.
27. One even threatened to kidnap me (jovially) and make me practice and let me read and study philosophy, I assume eating and sleeping would be permitted as well as attending to personal hygiene, and promised that in two years I could be performing on world class stages if I wanted.
28. But I didn’t want it anymore. I spent two years trying to convince myself that music mattered enough to devote my greatest energy to it, and I had been unable to do so. It felt like a vain and silly pursuit.
29. I was searching for a life that was more meaningful than that.
30. I guess I still am.
31. I still admire people who achieve excellence as musicians and artists. I enjoy listening and looking. And, you know, there’s Bono, but I didn’t have much chance of being a rock star as a classical musician did I?
32. Every so often I feel a pang of longing for the life I once had locked in a soundproof practice room for 6 hours a day rehearsing and perfecting and perfecting. But that’s mostly when three four kids are screaming at me all at once and I’m trying to THINK.
33. Even if I was handed the chance to go back to school I wouldn’t take music again.
34. I would probably study education
35. Or economics and third world development.
36. Or writing.
37. Or midwifery, but only after I’m finished waking up with my own babies.
38. That could be a while, I want another one. [I got another one and am pregnant with number 5, which was a total surprise.] {And now we have 6, also a surprise. Yes, We do know how that happens.}
39. After that I am seriously considering taking on foster care. Kids in the foster care system are, IMHO, the most neglected demographic in this country and the most in need of people who are willing to love them. (Not that there aren’t a lot of great foster families out there, but there are 30000 kids added to the system every day in this country and a lot of them have rotten childhoods in the shuffle. If I’m still here in 10 years (North America) I want to take on foster kids. [I probably won’t still be here. We plan to move moved to Thailand in March, 2013.]
40. We decided before we had kids that we would one day start and run an orphanage.
41. That’s still one of our dreams, though it has been revised based on what we now know about raising children. Like we now understand that it’s always better for kids to grow up in stable families. [We have now started an organization [thecharisproject.org] that works to support birth families so that kids don’t end up in orphanages, and find foster families for kids that need them.]
42. I hope to spend my retirement holding babies no one wants in any case. There are orphanages in Africa that say they just need more people to hold the babies when they cry. (My new end goal is to make it so babies don’t go to orphanages at all and still have their mothers to care for them.)
43. I think I’m qualified.
44. It’s been a steep curve learning to be a mom, but sometimes I get the hang of it and remember to ask for help.
45. I like to cook.
46. I’m a little bit passionate about health and nutrition.
47. I’ve discovered that I can sew, and I’m not too terrible at it.
48. I’m mostly not sentimental, but sometimes I am seized by fits of sentimentality.
49. I usually get over it before I get too silly.
50. I am still defining myself against my mother. How did you guess?
51. I once used grammar as an excuse to break up with someone. I couldn’t imagine raising children together and them talking like him.
52. I didn’t really like him that much anyway.
53. My grammar isn’t perfect by the way. I didn’t say that. But his was awful.
54. I am the only person I know who needed a surgical procedure before I could lose my virginity.
55. I often make people uncomfortable by offering way too much information.
56. I’m not good at superficial relationships. They either go deep very soon or they don’t last long.
57. I just don’t really know how to make small talk. Or at least, not for more than 15 minutes or so. [I’m getting better at this. Well, not small talk, but listening to people and remembering that it’s not about me and to listen is to show love. Just didn’t realize it could apply to more social settings as well.]
58. After that I start wanting to stick bamboo sticks through my ear drums, or feign narcolepsy.
59. If someone wants to talk to me about something important to them or how they really are feeling, I am usually a very good listener.
60. I can shower while holding a toddler.
61. I can mostly dry off from a shower while nursing a baby.
62. Once or twice I’ve managed to get dressed while nursing a baby.
63. I can also prepare most of a meal, vacuum and sweep while holding a toddler.
64. I can’t put in contacts while holding a baby though. Unless the baby is tiny and I am using a sling.
65. I’ve nursed other people’s babies for them. With their consent of course. Anything to keep a baby from crying.
66. My MIL has on occasion nursed my babies when I’m not there. None of them would really take a pacifier, but they would accept her substitute for a while.
67. I have 3 4 6 children.
68. They are all the smartest most beautiful child ever.
69. I am a night person.
70. I hate waking up in the morning.
71. I don’t like going to bed because late evening is when my brain seems to work the best and I’m at my most productive.
72. I keep trying to wake up earlier so that the whole process will move itself ahead a couple of hours and I’ll not be so tired, but it doesn’t seem to work that well.
73. I’m 5′ 4″.
74. I’ve always wished I were 3 inches taller.
75. And since it’s wishing I’ve gone to wish that those three inches were in my legs.
76. Then I’d be completely happy with my body. yah right.
77. But, when kissing my 6′ husband I still find myself wishing I were taller, then I wouldn’t get such a bad crick in my neck. Perhaps I should get platforms for wear for the occasion.
78. I tend to be frustratingly deliberate in the way I do things.
79. It’s frustrating for everyone else that is.
80. I like the way I do things.
81. I have a tendency to congratulate myself on finishing something.
82. I tend to tell everyone about it when I do finish something.
83. My best friends tease me about it.
84. I have a really bad day when I can’t get even one thing completely finished.
85. That’s when I started to feel annoyed by everything.
86. Well, that and when I’m hungry.
87. I’m hypoglycemic.
88. I never talk about anything important or emotionally laden on an empty stomach.
89. My marriage has been saved several times by these three little words, “Have you eaten?”
90. If I haven’t I tend to be somewhat irrational.
91. Oh, and sometimes I throw up and get dizzy too.
92. My eyes are brown.
93. So is my hair.
94. I only own 5 pairs of pants. (I have no idea how many pants I own, why is this even in here?)
95. And ten sets of shoes, a lot of which are flip flops. (Only flip flops now.)
96. But I have really nice (read, would be very expensive if he bought it here) jewelry, thanks to my husband.
97. I usually wear it with jeans, rather than not wear it at all.
98. I know how to put a sari on.
99. It takes a long time and a lot of mistakes before I’ll give up on someone.
100. If I decide I like you, you’re stuck with me for a very long time. Even if my feelings are hurt when you don’t return my calls I’ll still keep putting my heart out there and care about you. It’s just the way I am.