For Chell

For those who don't know already, I am a miscarriage survivor.
I say survivor for a very specific reason.
I survived.
I don't have a badge or a ribbon or a medal, but any mother who lives through the loss of a child, is a survivor in the truest sense of the word.
Any mother whose arms are empty due to a loss is a survivor.
Any mother who still rises in the morning and goes through her day, however dazed, rather than laying down and not moving is a survivor.
Even six years later, it is as though a part of myself is missing, as though there is an injury unhealed.
I went from the highs of joy to staggering out of a cloud of confusion and blinking at the light of day.
I was decimated by pieces of shrapnel declaring that I had lost my baby at 8 weeks 3 days gestation.
Having an early miscarriage seems to invite people to make the following comments:
"You'll have other babies."
"It was for the best. Obviously something wasn't right."
"Thank goodness this happened sooner rather than later."
And other in sundry statements that make my hackles rise and make me bare my teeth.
And I do bite, just so you know.
If you have never suffered a miscarriage, count your blessings.
I cannot speak for my husband, but for me it was the most devastating experience of my life.
From the moment I knew I was pregnant, I loved that baby as passionately as I love my children now. That baby was my child, my life, and my joy.
That baby existed, even in an immature form.
For me, it was everything.
I went through all of the emotions. The sorrow, the anger, the confusion, the guilt. I raged at how my body failed my child. The one place that baby should have been safe it wasn't, for whatever reason.
Even after all these years, when I look at my children at the dinner table, there is one face missing. I know now that there always be one empty place at our table.
Just like there will always be an empty place in my heart.
The pain does get better. Slowly, it stops being all encompassing. One day, you do laugh unexpectedly. After a while you think about it less, although most likely you will still think about that baby ever day.
But eventually, it is bearable, like an old wound that has healed over badly.
After enough time, you are tender to the touch, but no longer crippled by the blow.
After a time, I knew I was blessed to have that child with me for even the briefest of times. I will hold the memory of that small flicker of life close to my heart, understanding that when I get to wherever I go when I finally drop over, there will be a little voice asking,
"What took you so long? Where's my dinner? What did you get me?"
And maybe it will add, "I've missed you, Mom."
I've missed you, too, baby.
This post is dedicated to an amazing woman I've never met in real life but who touched my heart over a cable modem.

The tea in China

With the price of tea in China, and here, and everywhere else, how am I, an enterprising young mother with a smokin'' hot bod (okay, a little fantasy, because in real life I'm an exhausted older mom with a so-so bod!) supposed to afford to bring home the bacon?
The price of groceries is ridiculous.
The only food that is affordable is the food you don't want to eat. It's the food you shouldn't eat. It's the food that you don't want your kids to eat.
I love fresh fruits, veggies, pastas, etc. My kids love them as well. (The Man is a meat and potatoes man, but I'm slowly but surely bringing him around.)
But with the fact that the dollar is stretched as far as it can, knowing I'm squeezing the penny for everything its worth, how are we, middle income Americans, supposed to survive?
Obviously, we're not rich. (I have three kids and a husband--do you really think I have any money left?)
But we're not poor either.
We're in the unfortunate middle. We make too much money to qualify for any aid, but too little to be comfortable.
We're squooshed from all sides.
So how is the middle class supposed to survive when the economic future is so bleak?

The ways of the world

I've heard it all my life-- the world works in mysterious ways.
It buck at the system, but even I know it's true.
For example, a family friend I haven't heard from in years just happens to reappear right at the time I need services she can provide?
A lump sum of money just happens to appear right as we need it for a bill?
Your child tells you he loves you bestest of all and gives you a hug right as you wonder why you ever thought you could be a parent?
The world works on its own timetable, it's own schedule, it's own path. And even though I fight it, occasionally throwing myself on the floor, kicking, screaming, and making a general fuss, I occasionally stop long enough to realize that whoever the person upstairs is, they might just know what they are doing.
I just wish they'd let me know.
Hey, I'm OCD, what can I say?

The formula equation

Obviously, I've not raised any formula fed kids.
I'm not opposed to formula for everyone else's kids. Just not mine.
My boys both had exactly two days worth of formula when they were newborns, since my milk takes over five days to come in.
But, aside from those little blips, my kids have had only breast milk until they reached one year of age, and then they went to cow's milk.
But, even as devoted as I am to breastfeeding, those coupons and free samples are very tempting.
In the middle of the night, when your baby won't eat and won't sleep, they look like salvation in a bottle.
And I think formula companies plan it that way.
It's a slippery slope that, once started, can snowball into a formula only child.
I personally find it strange that hospitals give out a breastfeeding only bag with formula samples.
9just an FYI, the formula only stays in my house until my milk comes in and then I either donate it or ship it off. I do the same with the coupons I get in the mail.)
these samples are taking advantage of the weakest point in any parents life, making it an easy alternative, even though its not what they may want to do.
Formula feed for breastfeed--it's a personal choice and, even though I am pro breast for myself and mine, I'm not pretending to know what's best for anyone else.
But I do think it's a rather sly way for formula companies to enter a home and, perhaps, stay for the duration of that babies early life.

A pox on our family

More specifically, chicken pox.
My baby is covered in spots that are rapidly breeding, making more baby spots, who then grow into adolescence and becomes breeders. Boo is broken out in rash all over, and Bug is thus far unscathed.
The boys were vaccinated, so, hopefully, if they have it, it will be mild.
Punk was not, and she looks it.
We are awash in a sea of calamine lotion.
I'm waiting for the plague of locusts to arrive.

The Look

I thought I had officially mastered The Look.
You know the one I'm talking about.
It's the look you give your kids when they have scaled the furniture, strapped on a set of tissue paper wings, and prepared to fly.
It's the look you give when you catch your son feeding his broccoli to the dog.
It's the look you give The Man when he's said something so amazingly stupid that words have failed you.
It's like the expression Cruella De Ville gives while chasing down those puppies in her big old coupe de ville (get the pun?) in 101 Dalmations (or Damn nations, as I say it!)
I can make my children stop mid air and rethink their actions--it's too blasted late, but that fraction of a second when reality sets in and they realize that wasn't too smart is priceless.
I can make my husband back slowly from the room, hand cupped protectively over the boys (and not my kids. They, he so magnanimously decided, are on their own!)
But my daughter is immue.
Give her The Look (yes, it needs to be capitalized) and she laughs.
Increase the intensity? She crows!
Get down on her level and give her The Look? She pats my face and smiles.
It must be a girl thing.
It must have to do with female hormones.
It must be a test from the universe.
I'm so throughly and totally outgunnned by my pint sized Mini Me that even The Look has failed me.
Oiy Vie!

Things to think on

"Move over, bubby! I'll show you! This is how you drain the lizard right!"

PMS times 30!

Okay, I have been waiting on a certain vistor since before July 4th--Aunt Flow has decided to visit everyone else on the planet but me.
I have 30 days of pent up PMS to unleash on someone, somewhere, and The Man says he doesn't want it. (In fact, he's cowering under the furniture and thrusting the kids into the line of fire, figuring I won't maim the fruit of my loins. Stupid man. Two of those are MALE!)
I don't know who I have to speak with. I don't know who I have to bribe. I'm willing to hunt down a virgin to sacrifice (which might take a while these days!).
All I want is what is rightly mine as a member of the female sex.
I want my period. Period.
After a month of cramps, bloating, and irritability (way more than normal, which, if you know me, is very bad!), I think it's time Aunt Flo stops by. Whoever has her, tell her to pack her bags and catch the next Greyhound. I will be waiting on the porch for her arrival.
And hurry. The Man's back is killing him from crouching under the table for so long.

Big juicy cosmic raspberry

That's what you get when you have three children, one of which is sick.
The universe thumbs her nose at you and suddenly the other two fall ill.
All three of my heathens are running unexplained fevers of at least 102.
As if one sick, fussy child wasn't enough, now I have three. Two of those can't tell me what hurts, the third is a hypochondriac.
Yup, big juicy cosmic raspberry.

The invisible cord

When your baby is sick, be he 2 or twenty, a mother should be able to be with him.
Boo's sick. Running a nice temperature, and I'm at work, turning over the parenting duties to Nurse Cratchett (the Man's nickname for the day).
Punk's also running a low grade fever.
I should be there.
I should be the one pushing fluids, taking temps, giving Tylenol. I know they are in good hands, but those hands are not my own, so its not the same. It's not all right.
If I was there, I would know with every fiber of my being they were all right.
The umbilical cord, although invisible, allows me that knowledge, that if I am there, no matter what, they will be fine.
I will breathe for them if needed. I will push the blood through their veins with just the strength of my will. I will fight the infection with ever thing I am.
It might just be a small viral infection, but to me, its unfathomable that I am not with my children right now.
Because if I am there, just like when I carried them in my body, I know they are safe, whole, and fine.

Me and the Kitten--Hanging in there!

Have you ever noticed that when the world goes wonky, it's the world's fault and not your own.

Meaning, I'm not the crazy one. The other how ever many billion people there are in the world are crazy.

I'm sane. And I tell myself that at least a dozen or so times a day.

The reason for this?

My children. My husband. My mother.

First, the children.

Punk is happy until I walk into the house, at which point she wants me and my attention and will accept not substitutes.

Boo has been whiny for almost a week now. And I don't mean just whiny as in a little annoying. I mean the variety that has you wondering if you should take the child to the doctor and have him checked sort of whining. About everything.

And then there is the amazingly helpful only when he wants to be, Bug. My OCD baby. He's part of the reason Boo is whiny, and he's a force to be reckoned with on his own. I think I've posted enough of his antics that you get the idea.

As for my husband, who still doesn't have a nickname, let's just say it's been lovely having him at home, but it's time for him to go back to work.

Spending all day with three small children has made him eager for adult conversation.

I spend all day talking to people. I don't want to talk when I get home. Do you see the problem?

I now know how Ward must have felt about June, Wally, and the Beave.

And then there's my mother. She has a boyfriend, although she won't say he's a boyfriend--she and he are the only ones who don't think there's a little something extra there. The boyfriend calls her every night, takes her out when he runs errands, goes out to dinner with her, but he's not a boyfriend. I lay awake wondering if I'm going to have to have the Bird and Bee's talk with her, because, you know, it's been a while and things have changed.

So the rest of the world, especially my own little familial portion of it, is crazy.

And even though I'm still sane, its only by the barest fingertips.

Like that stupid kitten on the poster, I'm just trying to hang in there!

Losing the pounds

I'm not a fan of the scale.

After three babies, I tend to cringe at even the merest sight of any device designed to declare me an inadequate and overweight specimen of womanhood.

Besides, mots days I feel like I either need to be weighed on a big fish scale (think Shamus) or on one designed for large semi trucks.

Do you see my problem here?

My husband and kids don't help. The Man (still no new printable nickname) has a belly pudge, but is still fit and trim. (Loathe him!) And my kids are cute and chubby, because, well, they are still babies and baby fat only looks good on a baby.

So here I sit (around the house--sorry, couldn't help myself) abstaining from the deliciousness of chocolate and sweets, ice creams and cakes to try and lose weight.

This is wholly and utterly unfair. I carried all three of our children, survived one labor and three c-sections, breastfed the boys for a year and am both breastfeeding and donating milk this time. I should be given a Get Out of Fat For the Rest of My Life Card.

Do not pass go. Eat all the ooey gooey deliciousness you want. Enjoy life to its calorific fullest, not some pale by comparison Slim Fast shadow of an existence.

Mine must have gotten lost in the mail.

White lies or bad parenting?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25593236/

I always try to tell my kids the truth. I will not lie to them, but I will phrase info in such a way that it is appropriate for their age and ability to understand.

But lying would be easier at times.

Wait a minute. I do lie to my kids.

I'm a horrible parent.

While I might not fib about the state of the world, religion, or that too much candy will rot their baby teeth, I do lie about Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth fairy.

I let my children believe those lies.

So when is a lie a lie? In the above story, was the mother's lie acceptable, or should she have told the truth and survived the ensuing tantrum? Is allowing our children to believe in fictional characters any better than a lie of omission or a lie to prevent a temper tantrum?

Is a lie always a lie?

Things to think on

"Are you pumpin', mommy? Are you pumping milk for Sissy? I need milk! Can I have a cup?"

I Just Don't Understand

Is it just me or does it seem wrong that a murderer would request to be released from prison because they are dying?
Um, you killed someone. You were sentenced to life in prison. You need to finish your life in prison.
I recently read the story about one of the Manson murderers requested an early release from prison due to brain cancer.
She helped stab a pregnant woman to death forty years ago.
Do you think the family of Sharon Tate has forgotten?
Why should you be allowed to die in a comfortable bed, surrounded by your family when you took another person's life, and that of her unborn child, brutally and painfully?
Why should your death be any easier?

You know someone's out to get you

When all three kids have summer colds and the baby is teething.
When your middle child has developed a taste for human flesh and occassionally nibbles on his brother.
The baby is happy and laughing until you walk through the door and then becomes the amazing velcro child--stuck to me all night.
The chihuahua waits until you just get the baby to sleep, crawl into bed and shut your eyes to have a seizure and pee everywhere.
You wake up in a panic realizing its raining outside and you've left the car windows cracked.
A cat decides the only place he can sleep is right up against your face. And then he must groom himself before he rests.
Your son wanders in to tell you its time to wake up.
The alarm goes off.
And it all repeats the next night.
I think someone's out to get me.
I'm waving the white flag. I surrender!

When words all on deaf ears

My husband (whose nickname for this post I will not type for fear my own mother will come through the keyboard and wash my mouth out with soap) has evidently fallen deaf.

No he's not deaf in the normal "I'm you husband and I'm just ignoring you" kind of deaf.

He's afflicted with the much worse kind, the "no matter what you say I know what you actually said" kind. I actually think its a variety of deafness with a subset in dementia.

I have pointedly told him things only to find him doing exactly what I asked him not to. And then arguing with me about why he did it and how I said it was okay.

Um, hello! Anyone at home in there?

I will point blank tell him we can't afford to do something only to find that he's made an appointment after our conversation to do just that thing.

So he's either got a death wish or is insane. He'd better plead insanity and at least hope for a lighter sentence.

Am I the only one suffering with this? Please tell me there's a medication or a support group or something!

HELP!

Not so silent wonder

"Marsha! Marsha! Marsha!"

I was oh so kindly reminded last night by my husband (who will have a new nickname in the next few days--Stubby just wasn't working for me!) that Boo is getting the middle child syndrome.
My blue eyed beautiful baby boy is sandwiched between an unusual, older brother and a demanding baby sister, and he's the quietest of all three children, so his milestones, although celebrated, are often more expected.

He is the second son, mimicking Bug's activities like a faithful shadow. He is a fantastic older brother to Punk, demanding her needs loudly and repeatedly, in case the crying baby wasn't enough of a impetus to get moving.

He is gorgeous and brilliant and loving. He is an amazing snuggler who loves his thumb (rightee, just so we are clear) and his bear and blanket. He runs like Charlie Chaplin on an acid trip, and when you look at him too long, he asks "What?" in such a way I know the teen years will just be a joy.

Boo is the reason I even have even an iota of faith in myself as a parent. After Bug's rather traumatic birth, breastfeeding problems, and PPD, having Boo was a Goddess send. He allowed me to really enjoy have a newborn, and infant, and being a mother, laying to rest some of the fears and disappointments that my own expectations with Bug generated. (Isn't it nice that we create these fairy tale experiences only to have them shatter under the weight of reality? Someone should have slapped me senseless when I was pregnant to prevent those delusions.)


Every morning, around 5am, I hear Boo meandering in to crawl into our bed, murmuring a sleepy good morning as he, his bear, and his blanket all curl up beside me, smelling of baby boy and sleep sweat. (And morning breath, but people in glass houses, you know.) If I'm lucky, (and if Punk is feeling magnanimous), I will be allowed to curl around my middle child for a few minutes, enjoying the solid weight of him, remembering the strangely liquid, jerky feel of his oh so tiny frame right after he was born and comparing that to the sturdy boy I now hold.

Parenting Boo is an honor, although most certainly tiring, frustrating, and hair pulling at times. It is a gift I never expected and now could not imagine my life without.

My children all are mine for some unfathomable reason, but when I thank the Divine for my gifts, I always think of them this way: Bug is my heart's prayer, Punk is my life's joy, and Boo is my soul's salvation.

Toilet Training Triumph

Bug did it! (He did it! Hooray! Definitely too much Dora.)

He's officially potty trained.

In undies every day.

Pull ups at night, just in case.

He "drains his lizard" (Snicker--it works!) as needed and hasn't had one accident thus far in his pants. It's been close a few time, with Stubby and I frantically running him to the bathroom. Or one time, his daddy letting Bug's bare white butt glow in the dark while he peed outside on the Fourth of July. (The boy, not the man. Just to clarify, Stubby's posterior is pale, but fuzzy.)

So today we celebrate the passing on the torch as Bug joins the world of big people, knowing that his diaper days are long gone. Until he's old and has to move into Depends, that is!

Yea Bug!

Way to pee!

Literary Love

If there is something I love more than my husband (sorry Stubby!) and almost as much as I love my kids, its a good book.

I will happily wile away the hours immersed in a book, getting up only for snacks, drinks, and necessary trips. I am even such a nerd I keep books in my car to read at any variety of stops, such as waiting at the Sonic for my morning beverage (a Route 44 Vanilla Coke--yum!).

Books are a deep seated love affair in my family. We are all avid readers. I hope to pass this particular OCD behavior on to my kids, and Bug is certainly showing the early signs.

I am also a loyal reader. If I loved one of your books, I will probably buy the rest of everything you've ever written.

At any given time, I have a hoard of 600+ books in our hours, and a few times a year, I take them to a used books store for credit. Which I use to buy new books.

Its a vicious cycle.

A few of my fave authors are:

http://www.jacquelinecarey.com/

http://www.noraroberts.com/

http://www.its.caltech.edu/~gatti/gabaldon/

http://www.jamesclemens.com/

http://www.melanierawn.com/

http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/

So check out some new authors and maybe get a few new favorites, or tell me about your own faves so I can go shopping!

Pint Sized Ghost Whisperer

My oldest boy could give Melinda Warren a run for her money. (Ghost Whisperer on CBS--one of my fave shows, BTW!)

Stubby and I noticed when he was very young, he seemed to see things that we didn't. No biggee, kids are a little wonky anyway, so he'll grow out of it.

(We live in my grandparents old house, just so you've got the full picture here.)

As a baby, we would walk into the room and find him staring raptly at one corner, giggling, smiling and pointing.

Nothing was there.

As a toddler, same activity, same corner.

Still nothing there.

As a preschooler, he can now tell us. Stubby has witnessed him jabbering away to something, dragging his younger brother over to introduce him, and pointing out Punk.

He tells us its my daddy, his peepaw, and my grandparents. He's even pointed out pictures of my grandparents (he never met grandpa and grandma died when he was 1 1/2) and tells us that they live in the stars with peepaw. He also says they come down and tell him stories and that they love him.

I admit that it could just be an overactive imagination, but it could also be that my super bright boy is seeing family members we have loved and lost. I truly believe that if we are love passionately and wholly by someone in life, they would come back in death just to check in.

Stubby and I see no harm in it, as long as Bug isn't developing any problems with it.

What do you think? Do you believe in ghosts? Do you think children are just more attuned?

The perils of parenting

I won't tell you how many times I have woken in the middle of the night, heart racing, afraid to move.
It's a parent thing, I know. I lay there, my mind spinning in thousands of improbable circles, what ifs making me want to jump to my feet and also making me unable to draw a full breath.
Why?
It's my kids. Yes, my happy little heathens.
At least once a week I wake terrified that Punk has stopped breathing or the boys have been kidnapped.
It's immobilizing, laying there, knowing that if I check they will be fine, knowing that if I move the horrible truth will become clear.
I have lain perfectly still for a good half hour waiting for my kids to make a noise before I could breathe again and move my body to check on them.
(And to clean up the new wet spot in the bed.)
I think it must be only a mom thing (although, if I'm wrong, feel free to correct me) because my husband sleeps blissfully (snoring loudly) beside me and never wakes up terror stricken.
Maybe its because I have known these lives since their first moments, since that wee little spark of life flickered and took hold. Maybe because I have nine plus months of parenting more than my husband my body is more attuned to their needs, and that attachment causes these night terrors.
Maybe I'm just crazy.
Okay, no maybe there.
But maybe it is because we are forced to raise our children in a world of fear, where the monsters in the closet are actually your neighbors and you can't allow your kids alone outside anymore for fear someone will take them.
Maybe it's because I have to look my boys in the face and teach them to be wary of strangers. I have to try to make them understand without making them so scared they can't function.
Maybe its because every night on the news a baby is killed by an abusive boyfriend, a child is abducted, or something equally horrifying happens.
Maybe my night terrors are a manifestation of the world we live in. A world made up of darkness and fear and sorrow, where the only points of light are battering against the darkness, their efforts valiant but far too weak.
Maybe my night times wakings are because the bogeyman is real and, one day, might just decide to visit our home.

Burning question

Okay, I may burn in hell.
I'll just state that fact up front.
It's a possibility, I guess, but I'm at peace with my own spirituality. (And if I believed in hell, I might be a little more fearful.)
But some of this organized religion shit really ticks me off. It makes me irritable when I'm sitting through a sermon and I hear about "tithing."
I feel like I'm watching a snake oil salesman, or a politician, try to ply his trade for money, taking the unsuspecting rubes for coin.
The minister today actually said that tithing opens a window to heaven, and the more you give, the more opportunity you have in heaven.
Translation? For enough money, you can buy your way into the afterlife.
I may be a little rusty on my history, but I seem to remember a time, oh, about four hundred years ago, when priests took bribes to pray for rich people to enter heaven.
Tithing today doesn't strike me as very different.
The sections of the Bible that mention tithing have always seemed as though greedy person added them to make sure the church had a source of income.
If you believe and choose to give, fine. That's your choice. I have a hard time believing any source of Divine power cares how much we give to a church, if any at all.
I think the Divine is more concerned with how we live our life.
Are you a good person?
Are you honest?
Do you put others before yourself?
I'm not talking about the Ten Commandments here, just basic human decency.
I, for one, refuse to line the pockets of any religious organization. I think the Big Guy/Gal will understand if I choose to feed my kids and pay my bills and not to donate ten percent (or whatever number it is) of my salary to line the pockets of the church.
I will tithe the way I always have. I will drop change in the Salvation Army bin, donate to veterans associations, hand someone in the grocery line change when needed. I will be polite and grateful and respectful. And I will teach my children to give of themselves, not to just give their money.
I may be the only person who finds tithing an abhorrent practice, and that's fine. My rights end where your nose begins, but it does just seem rather political and unsavory for an organization dedicated to the maintenance and elevation of the human soul.
Maybe its just me.

Spit happens

Okay, as mothers, we all know that shit, and spit, happen.
We've all reached one unsuspecting finger into the edge of a diaper only to pull out a brown, not so fudgilicious digit.
I've even had my oldest son paint the walls with poop and disgustingly declare at one time that it "Tastes good, mommy." Shudder. There's not enough Scope and toothpaste in the world to make me feel comfortable kissing that mouth for at least a week. Maybe longer.
Today was the day that spit happened. Specifically, to Stubby.
Being the bystander today made for a very good day.
I'd fill up Punk on the good ol' boob juice, think it was safe to hand her off, and when he took over, the puke came out.
(Truly, I wasn't trying to make her spit up. No matter what he says I didn't do anything to make it happen. Four times. Twice at church.)
It was all Punk, leaving yummy cottage cheesy curdles all over her beloved Daddy, then grinning just to make sure they were still buds.
She was having a good time.
Stubby wasn't.
Oh well. You can't win them all.

Girlfriends

Have you ever really thought about about how much you rely on your friends?
I admit, I lean heavily on my family. Stubby and I have been rather dependent lately and we're hugely grateful to my mother and his brother and sister in law for everything. We'd have been SOL without them this past month.
But I'm talking about your friends.
My best friend lives in Arizona. We e-mail almost every day, talk as often as we can. She is truly my souls sister and is there for me when I'm spinning around in circles but can't seem to just fall down. Occasionally, after one too many glasses of wine, she falls down with me.
But there is this other group of wacky, wild women I converse with more than I do my husband, and I've never met them in real life. But I know their hubbies names, where they are, their kids names, and details of life that I might blush to hear in real life. (Okay, maybe not, but I would certainly have popcorn!)
I just find it amazing that, without ever meeting, I can have some of the dearest, nuttiest, most loyal people in the world ready to drive down here to kick the can of the guy who injured my man.
Friends come in the strangest ways, and, lucky for me, I like strange.
Thanks ladies. All of you.

Happy, er, July 5th?

Okay, I'm a day late and a dollar short. (Okay, lots of dollars short, but in for a penny, in for a pound! Done with the cliches now. Promise!)
My July 4th was a bit of a pain in the uterus. Aunt Flo decided to tease me with a hint that she might think about considering a visit sometime in the near future. Did you get all that? Good, 'cause I don't think I could repeat it.
So I was lounging around on my brother in law's couch while everyone else was outside having fun.
Except for Punk, who proceeded to throw a one hour fit right after we arrived and refused to allow me out of her sight for longer than it took to quickly pee and return.
Let me clarify--she refused to let my breasts out of her sight. I think she could have cared less about the rest of me.
Independence Day to Punk means Mommy's Utter Servitude Day in baby. No one bothered to translate for me. Thanks!
So I spent my day hoping my uterus would just fall out and I could kick it under the couch where no one would notice and imitating a National Geographic woman with her orangutan titties hanging out, only covering up with brother in law strolled, in surreptitiously trying not to look until he figured out he wasn't going to see anything tattooed with his brother's name.
On a happy note--Bug and Boo had a great time and so did my husband, who will now be referred to as Stubby.
Because of his fingers, you dirty minded pervs!
So HAPPY JULY 5TH!

Things to think on

"Mommy, my Mr. Wiener hurts! I need to go potty now!"