It Must Be Nice....

Lately I find myself getting a little crunchier.  I don't trust big food or big pharma any farther than I can throw a bushel of GMO sugar beets.  Artificial growth hormones, antibiotics and pesticides make me nervous.  I'm looking at girls my daughter's age, with their C cups and raging hormones and can't believe that no one blames the milk.

What I really want to do is raise my own meat, buy local raw milk and make my own cheese and yogurt from it (I tried butter.....it's just impractical), buy locally ground, non-GMO, organic wheat and make my own bread....etc.

I'm in love with the idea of making my own everything.  The idea of not buying a single boxed food item makes me super happy.  I want to clean with all natural, homemade products and diaper my son with chemical free cloth.

But none of these things actually happen.  The big hurdle being that we both work.  We are a two income family and barely get by on that.  We are pretty much clinging to the lowest rung of middle class by our finger nails.

I recently discovered couponing and price matching and I love it.  I think there is a chemical in my brain that reacts to saving money the way that other girls' brains react to chocolate.  When I walk out of Walmart with a full cart for $60 I do a little dance (in my head....I don't dance in public.....you're welcome).

In our recent attempts to eliminate some of the chemicals and additives from our diets (bye bye Coke Zero....I will miss you) I have found that while I can still use coupons for some things, it's not going to be anywhere near the giant haul I used to bring home.  Unfortunately, most of the coupons out there are for things we don't really want to eat anymore.

We plan to raise cows and pigs and eat them.  We're hoping to be able to get started on that next spring.  I have intended to make my own yogurt for the past 2 weeks.  I have serious plans to compost.

In general, I have a lot of plans and ideas, and I research the crap out of ways to make our lives more natural, less chemical, and healthier.

But my problem is time.  I don't have any.  Being at work is actually more restful than being at home.  As soon as I get home it's a big push to get everything in my nightly routine completed in a reasonable enough amount of time to get a reasonable amount of sleep before I have to do it again.  The list of things that didn't get done is always longer than the list of things I accomplished, and I'm always trying to catch up on what I didn't do the day before.

I do a lot of reading online.  I find these great blogs, with great ideas.  I think "well if that chick can pull this off, I totally can". 

I realized something today.  While checking out ways to more efficiently tackle laundry, I was reading a post suggesting doing a load every night, switching it in the morning, and if you're really behind throw another load in at lunch time......when it hit me.  Lunch time?  Oh shit....this woman is a SAHM. (read: Stay At Home Mom).  Well no fucking wonder she can handle laundry.

Now don't get me wrong.  I give SAHM's all sorts of credit.  It's really freaking hard to stay home and raise kids all day.  No sarcasm there.  It really is. 

But the revelation that these ladies that write these blogs imparting inspiration and practical ideas to improve your home and life....they aren't trying to do it while working full time.  They're just doing it.  They don't have to race to the bank on their way home from work before it closes....they can just go to the bank.  They don't have to take time off of work to get their kids to the doctor/dentist/school function....they just go.  They don't have to go to Walmart at 9:00 at night every Friday after they put the kids to bed and get home at 10:30 just to have to put the groceries away.  They don't have to "find time" to shower. 

I guess I'm just jealous.  But what I would like to see is a blog written by someone like me.  Someone that is working full time, 45 minutes away from home, that has kids in day care (2 different day cares) and still manages to make her own yogurt and keep the house clean.  Any suggestions?

Kids

HA HA HA HA HA!!

This is what I found while messing around on Facebook today.

I love The Oatmeal.  The man is fucking hilarious.  And in this case....totally right.

People with children just love to try to make people without them feel the need to reproduce.

I guess I've never really felt that way.  I can't think of one instance where I even asked someone if they were planning to have children in the near future, let alone had an opinion about their answer.
Maybe it's because I have so many friends that don't have children, and aren't really planning to, but I don't have any opinions about a person's reproductive choices.  I feel like there are far too many accidental children out there that if someone chooses not to have children....well that's their thing I guess. 

Or maybe it's because neither of my children were planned.  When my daughter was born I was too young to have planned to have or not to have children in the future.  I was too young to have any real grasp on the concept of a future at all.

And my son was an oops! as well.  My husband and I were not planning on having any more kids.  He didn't want children at all.  He was cool with being a step-father....but didn't really want the responsibility of having his own spawn.  Guess I screwed that up for him.

Ignorance is Just Ignorance

WARNING!!!  TMI!!

There is way too much personal information in this post.  If that bothers you, hit your back button!!

 

 



 

I have completely lost faith in the human race.  Well, maybe just in this new crop of young adults.  I swear, they're all idiots.  I really don't remember being a complete idiot when I was in my late teens/young adulthood.  On the contrary, I thought I was a genius; that my parents were idiots; and that I was destined to save the world.  I was much deeper than I am now, and I used much bigger words.

 

LMFAO!!

 

Now I'm a mother of two (sometimes three....men are fucking children) who just wants to try like hell to keep her house clean-ish (note the key words there), not screw up my children in my attempts to raise them (so far so good I think), keep the bills paid enough to keep them from calling me, and to have a little time to herself (which never happens), and actively tries not to use the phrase "OMG" when speaking out loud.  I vote in presidential elections only, I don't do any volunteer work, and I don't even watch the news because I don't want to know.

 
So, back to the point…..and the TMI.  I was looking up home remedies for yeast infections this morning.  Yes, I have a yeast infection.  It’s all itching, burning horribleness and I just want to cut off my lady bits.  But that is not the point.

In my research, I kept coming across web forums where stupid girls are discussing their vagina problems. 

“I had unprotected sex with a guy I barely knew and now I have itching and discharge….could it be a yeast infection?  Also, he didn’t ejaculate in me…does that matter?”

She goes on to say that her vajay-jay itched and burned for 3 weeks and then seemed to be all better.  So she slept with her ex-boyfriend and now it is troubling her again.  Now there are little white bumps.  She doesn’t want to go to the doctor because her ex doesn’t know she slept with the other guy.

WTF!?!  Go to the doctor you stupid ass.  Better yet…before you go to the doctor have someone cauterize your snatch so nothing can go in or out and save the human race from the unfortunate possibility of you conceiving and spawning another fucking moron.

And worse, this was not the only such post.  Girls all over the place are asking the internet what is wrong with their cha chas.  The common response seemed to be “no one here is a medical professional, go to the doctor” so at least someone has some sense.  What would cause a person to turn to the internet? 

I know…I was, myself, asking the internet for yeast infection treatments.  But I have had a number of yeast infections, and thus know what I was dealing with.  I just wasn’t interested in stuffing chemicals in my snatch, so thought maybe there was a holistic solution.

I had to sit through health class in high school.  There was a sex ed portion, where I learned about my snatch and what it might do and when.  Of course, I also learned that condoms are a good idea, but hey, to each his own….std.

“He didn’t ejaculate in me, does that matter?”

Yes dear, the only possible way for you to have contracted a yeast infection is for your barely known suitor to cum inside you during unprotected sex. 

Does it make me a very bad person to hope she gets something deadly?  I guess maybe I’m harsh, but you really can’t fix stupid. 

Let’s just say, for a minute, that you aren’t an idiot and that you have an irritation below the belt.  Maybe you aren’t sure what it is, but haven’t had a chance to go to the doctor.  Maybe you’re looking for some information, which is something the world wide web excels at providing.  Would you: (A) Look up possible maladies on a site such as WebMD?  Or (B) Just ask whoever feels like answering in a forum?

Do you think these people feel like they’re confiding in friends when they do shit like this?  I guess I just don’t understand. 

I’m not my parents.  I grew up with a computer.  I had Windows 3.1 and thought AOL was the shit.  I used to talk in chat rooms all night and pretend I was much older than I was.

I just feel like the lack of actual human interaction these kids have because they’re too zoned into their phone or tablet or laptop is reducing the IQ of the general populous as a whole.  All of this tech is actually making us dumber.

 

Don’t worry sunshine, someday you’ll be able to just scan your snatch with your phone and an app will make a diagnosis and email a prescription to your pharmacy.  Or maybe 3D print the medicine for you right there??  But we aren’t there yet.  You still have to go to your doctor when your promiscuous ways bring the clap. 


PS - according to urbandictionary.com the correct spelling is "vajayjay", although dictionary.com does not recognize this as an actual word.  ::wink::

Flushing Toilets and Birthday Parties

I HAVE WATER!!!

Sorry.  I had to capitalize that.  It's just so exciting.  You have no idea how much you take for granted the simple ability to just flush your toilet until you can't.

I have a new found love of doing dishes....because I can do them without boiling water and filling a bucket.  Running water is truly a beautiful thing.

And in other news....

My son's first birthday party was Sunday.  We squeezed over 30 people into my parents' living room, as it wasn't very nice outside.

I got a 5" round little cake for the boy.

My daughter's first birthday party was 11 year ago.  Back then, a local grocery store offered a free cake for the birthday kid.  It was an 8" cake.  All she did with it was make a mess.  She barely ate any of it.

That's not how my little man rolls.  I'm considering changing his middle name to "glutton".  The kid ate the entire little cake.  More sugar was running through his veins than he had consumed cumulatively in his entire life. 

One minute I was dabbing frosting on his tongue to give him the idea to eat it, the next he was shoving fistfuls of yellow cake and frosting goodness into his mouth.  Before I really knew what happened he had consumed it all.

Our guests were crammed into the kitchen, watching the madness.  They kept looking on the floor for the cake that he couldn't possibly have eaten that fast. 

Not my little dude.  He ate that fucking thing.

We both paid for his gluttony later, but it was hilarious.

Happy birthday buddy.

Water Water Everywh.....or Not

Water has been a constant issue in the new house.  During the initial water test, while we were still trying to get a mortgage and stuff, the test results came back showing Total Coliform bacteria in the water.  This isn't that big of a deal apparently.  The well contractor I spoke to said that there was more Coliform on the tip of my index finger than there probably was in that water.  We had the well shocked, which was sufficient to appease the mortgage gods......but we still won't drink it.

I keep meaning to have it tested again....but I keep procrastinating (as was to be expected really).

The weekend before we moved in, the water heater stopped working.  This was the first thing to really go wrong, so we freaked a little.  It needed a new gas valve, which was a $400 part.
Thankfully, the heater was under warranty for another 5 years, so the part was free.

One day a few weeks ago I went to turn on the kitchen faucet.....and nothing came out.  I ventured into the basement to stare at the expansion tank like I knew what to do....tapped the pressure switch a couple of times, and declared it outside my means to fix.  I went to work.

My husband came home that day, did something to the pressure switch and the water came back on.

Knowing there was a problem with the pressure switch, we got a new one with the intention of installing it at some point.

Fast forward to Friday night....around 9:30pm.  I'm in the shower.  I don't get to shower half as often as I'd like to, so I was reveling in the hot water and soap.  My hair is washed and rinsed, and I'm all lathered up in my favorite body wash......

The water shuts off.   "F#%@!!!"

Happily, I'm a raging dork.  My phone was balanced on the lip of the shower door because I was listening to an audio book while I was in there.  So I wiped my hands on a towel and called my husband.

Me:  "Honey, I need you to go mess with the pressure switch on the water tank.  I'm in the shower covered in soap and there's no water."
H: "Fucking really?" Click.

So I'm assuming he stomped downstairs and messed with the pressure switch.  15 minutes go by......seriously...15 fucking minutes.  I'm still standing in the shower....soapy.

Finally the man comes in the bathroom and tells me he can't get it to work.  I'm going to have to help him install the new pressure switch.  (Well, I'm sure he could have installed it himself, but how long was I supposed to stand there exactly?)

So I wipe the soap off my body with a towel (THANK GOD I had already rinsed my hair), put my jammies on and go down to the basement.

Between the two of us, and google, we managed to install the new pressure switch.

And the water still wasn't coming on.

At that point it was 11:00 PM and enough was enough.  I was going to bed.

For some reason, he and I both determined that because there wasn't a lever on the new pressure switch, that it must be defective.

So in the morning, I drive into town to buy yet another pressure switch. 

In talking to the nice men behind the counter (who absolutely thought I was an idiot), I start to think maybe it isn't the pressure switch.

So we bypass the switch, meaning there will only be direct power from the electric panel to the water pump, no switch or controls.  The point of this is to make sure the pump is working.

No water.

After some more farting around, and google, and calling people who know more about this than we do.....we determine that our well pump has shit the bed.  Died.  Gone on to well pump afterlife. 

As in we need a new one.

So we start calling well companies.  We have a submersible well pump.  Apparently not everyone does this.  The first guy referred me to another guy.  So first I called the number on the pipe in my yard that is apparently my well.

Wrong number.

So we call the guy we were referred to.......

HOLY SHIT.  Our well is over 400 ft. deep.  So that means the company has to bring in a crane to get the pump out.  New pump, labor and materials.....$2,300.00 freaking dollars.

Yeah sure...we have that.  Just lying around.

So the short version of the next 2 days is that we are borrowing the money from our parents.  Half from each set.  We should have the cash in about a week.

Until then......I've actually done this before.  Maybe 6 months before I met my husband, the well at the house I was renting went dry.  A new well had to be drilled.  It was a long and complicated process which resulted in us having no running water for a month.  4 weeks.  30-ish days.  Think about that.....really think about it....no washing dishes.  No laundry.  No shower.  All of that can be circumvented simply by living around the corner from one's parents.  The really hard part....no flushing the toilet.

So...at the time a friend of mine came to the rescue by letting us borrow a 200 gallon water tank with a hose on it.  We filled the tank at my parents' house and drove it over to mine in a truck, and filled buckets to bring inside.

So that is what we are doing now.  Same water tank.  Probably the same buckets.  Same level of annoyance.

As my husband said last night, "It's like camping....only not fun."

It's Ok

In other news.....

Who's fucking idea was it to buy a house?  Oh.  Yeah.  Mine.

I love my house.  It's cute, and old and a little charming.  It has 5 excellent acres, and the view from the back yard is pretty damn picturesque. 

But most of all....it's mine.

I haven't even lived in it for 3 months, and already it feels more like home than the house I rented for 7 years. 

That being said.....it was a fixer upper.  That's the only reason we could afford it.  We had an inspection done.  We had a friend who is a contractor come out and look at it and tell us what needed fixing and how much that would cost.  We had a pretty good idea of what we were getting ourselves into.

Or so we thought.  Every day something else is wrong.  We worked on the house every day after work and every weekend for 2 months solid.  It was to the point where I was paying the babysitter more than going to work was worth.  I would leave for work around 8am and wouldn't get home again until 8pm.  My son was visibly upset by the lack of time he was spending with us.  My daughter's schedule was a constant juggling act.  We were so tired and so burned out.....we just couldn't do it anymore.

So....I pulled the pin and we just moved in.  It wasn't ready....but if we were waiting for the house to be done it would be years before we could move in.

So we moved in and set up a make shift bedroom in our dining room.

First night there, we found out just what "no insulation in the walls" means.  We froze.  The dining room is on the opposite end of the house from the new pellet stove we installed.  It couldn't have been more than 45 degrees in there.

My daughter's room is right above the dining room.  She also froze, but she sucked it up like a big kid and didn't say anything.  The one time in her life, ever, that she just sucked it up and didn't complain and it was over something totally reasonable to complain about. 

The next night she slept on the couch....next to the toasty pellet stove. 

My son spent most of that first week sleeping in our bed with us.

The first night, my husband brought him in bed with us at the wee hours of the morning, and the poor boy's legs and feet were icy.  The very next day I was at Walmart picking out fleece to make him a baby sleep sack (like a blanket they can't take off). 

The 2nd day we were there, my husband messed around with the heating duct and cleaned it all out, replaced it in some places, and POOF it's warm in there now.  In the duct work was enough cat hair to make two cats.  Hmmm...Maybe that's why the heat circulation sucks.

I spent the rest of that first week trying like hell to unpack.  It turns out that trying to fit a 3500 sq. ft. house into an 1800 sq. ft. house is like trying to get a fat girl into a wetsuit.
I have NO CLOSET SPACE.  I have maybe 8 less kitchen cabinets than I had in my previous house.
There isn't so much as one shelf, cabinet or closet in the bathroom.  I have an entire box of bathroom stuff that is still sitting in a box in my living room because I have nowhere to put it.

After 3 weeks of sleeping in the dining room, during one of the coldest winters in history, our bedroom was finally sheet rocked, taped and painted.  We moved our bed upstairs.

The next day we put up pet gates and brought the dogs home.  Our poor dogs had spent the previous 3 weeks in a kennel at my parents' house because I didn't want my un-neutered stud dog hiking his leg on my bed (Because I'm an unreasonable bitch like that).  I pulled into the driveway with five dogs in the back of my car, barking and drooling like....well like dogs.  My husband stood in the doorway and called the mongrels.  They all lost their minds.  Being stuck in a kennel for that extended period of time made them a little hyper, but they're home now and starting to settle down.

In general, my attitude about the house is different than my husband's attitude.  I see it as an investment, as a milestone, as the place my kids will grow up and where we will spend our life.

He sees bills and work.  To his credit.....there are plenty of both. 

 

The Boy's Birth Story

~~~~Go ahead and skip this if you're not all that interested in hearing about the birth of my bouncing baby boy.  There's not all that much funny in here.~~~~~

My son was due to be born on May 15th.  It was the longest, most miserable, most emotional and dramatic pregnancy ever.  I won't repeat what I've surely written before.  But it sucked!  It sucked so much that I tied my tubes the next day, and only regretted it for a minute in a purely philosophical way.

This is the story of the day and a half that was the culmination of the previous 9 months.

So he was due on May 15th.  On April 30th, my water broke in a series of events that I can't even believe....go ahead and read that post here....I'll wait....

So as I'm alternating between the shower and the toilet waiting for my mom to get there with pillow sized maxi pads, I called my midwife.

I was all excited, and a little breathless.  I didn't want to be pregnant for another 2 weeks.  I'd also started contracting while I was in the shower.  Not painfully, but it was there.  I'd timed it.

So I told my midwife that the contractions were 4 or 5 minutes apart and lasting about 15 to 30 seconds....etc etc.

She told me to take a nap and call them when I was closer to the 5-1-1 rule.

My mother took my daughter home with her, much to the kid's distress.  She wanted to be there when her brother was born.  I explained that this could be a long process.  I wasn't even going to the hospital yet.  When it got close I would call her in.

A couple of hours go by.  The contractions were starting to be a bit uncomfortable.  They were also about 45 seconds long and 2 to 3 minutes apart.  The hospital was 45 minutes away.  So I pulled the plug on my planned long period of laboring in the comfort of my own home, and we decided to go to the hospital.

To his credit, husband was very calm.  I didn't expect that.  I thought he'd be freaking out a little.  He calmly packed his bag while I finished packing mine.  The baby's bag had been packed for a month.

As we were driving to the hospital the contractions were getting stronger.  It was harder to focus on the conversation I was having with my husband, and every time a contraction came more water leaked out of me. (on to the two towels on top of a plastic garbage bag that covered the seat....he was pretty grossed out by the chance that my fluids might touch his upholstery)

We arrived at the hospital at like 11:00pm on Tuesday night.

I keep calling it a hospital.  Actually, it was a birthing center.  I think this is a noteworthy distinction.  It was a birthing center.  I had a midwife, not a doctor.  I had a one page birth plan, that started out as a 2 page birth plan but I pared it down to one to be less obnoxious.

I was going to do this naturally.  No drugs.  No Pitocin.  No unnecessary procedures.  No interference.  I seriously considered doing a home birth. 

So, back to the story.  We arrived at the birthing center at like 11:00pm on Tuesday night.

They were expecting me, so they take me back to their triage area so they can determine whether I'm actually in labor or not.  I was wearing a wrap skirt and a comfy black tank top and flip flops.  I was determined to remain in this outfit.

So a rather bitchy nurse takes all of my vitals and then hands me this belly band type thing.  She asks me to put it on so they can keep the baby monitors under it so as to not have to mess with straps.  I agree and go into the bathroom to squeeze into it.

The very next contraction after I put that damned thing on was the worst one yet.  All of a sudden there was a pain in my left side, just beneath my ribs, to go along with the already uncomfortable contractions.  The pain was worse than the contractions.  I said something about it to several nurses over the course of my labor, and they all said that it was probably just the position of the baby and there was nothing they could do about it.

So they admitted me and brought us to a room and what not.  I handed everyone in the world my birth plan.  Then they left us alone.  They came back often, and strapped that monitor to me.  It wasn't long before I ditched the stupid belly band.  I also ditched the wrap skirt once I ditched the underwear for easy of hoohah access.  Ditching the underwear meant I ditched the pad keeping all of those lovely fluids from soaking everything within 2 feet of my vag.  One contraction and my skirt was soaked. 

So rocking a hospital gown and slipper socks I walked around the maternity floor.  Up and down.  Up and down.  Up and down.  I sat on a birthing ball.  I took a shower.  I ate and drank and once we got into the wee hours of the morning I tried to sleep. 

By morning, my contractions had dropped down from every 2 to 3 minutes, to every 5 to 6 minutes.  By lunch time they were every 8 to 10 minutes.  I had been one centimeter dilated for 2 weeks already, and I hadn't progressed beyond that. 

My midwife came in at some point on Wednesday.  She suggested that we go home and come back when the contractions got going again.  We talked about it and decided to stay.  We were already there and the room was actually pretty comfortable and the 45 minute drive wasn't something I wanted to make if it got hairy.  So we stayed. 

Although my contractions were getting farther apart, they were growing in intensity.  Every time I had a contraction, I tensed up, bracing myself for the pain.  This was the problem as it turned out.  Instead of relaxing into my contractions and letting my body work, I was fighting it.  Hence, I wasn't dilating.

Every time they laid me on the bed and strapped that monitor to me, it was so much worse.  They wanted me to stay there like that for 20 minutes every hour.  It was the longest 20 minutes ever. 

By midnight on Wednesday the 1st (or maybe it was Thursday the 2nd.....yeah I guess it was since it was midnight) I was a mess.  I was tired.  I was in pain.  My husband, though supportive and helpful if I asked for something, had no clue what to do for me if I didn't ask for it.  He mostly slept and watched TV. 

He was sleeping when the nurse came in at around midnight.  I asked her to check my cervix.  They had been staying out of there since my water had broken to keep from transferring bacteria from hands to snatch.  But I begged.  So she did.

I was only 3 centimeters dilated.  I had been contracting for  28 hours  and I was only 3 fucking cm???

I broke.

I started crying like a little sissy girl.

Part of my birthing plan was for no one to offer me drugs, so I wouldn't be tempted.  Its easier to say yes when offered something you don't believe in than it is to ask for it outright.

This nurse asked.  She told me that I needed to sleep.  That it was ok.  She could give me something that would help me sleep and just take a little edge off the pain.  I cried harder.  I told her I would think about it.

I got off the bed and walked over to the bed/chair that my husband was sprawled out on.  I sat down next to him and sobbed.

He woke up after a minute and panicked a little. 

I told him that she offered me drugs, and that I wanted to take them.  That after all of this pain and time I was only 3 cm. and I didn't think I could go on like this without some sleep.

An emotional discussion later and I was pushing the nurse button.

I took the drugs.  She came in and gave me a shot and I fell into sweet, sweet sleep.

I could still kinda feel the contractions.  My drug fogged brain was alerted to some pain for a minute, then I was out again.

Around 3:00 am I woke up.  I had a horrible contraction, and had to go to the bathroom.  I was instructed not to get out of bed without help, but I really had to go and I was sure I could do it. 
I managed to haul my foggy self out of bed and shuffle to the bathroom.

The "I have to go" sensation had been a long standing thing.  The last day and then some had been a non-stop feeling of having to go to the bathroom.  Part of it was that I really did have to pee.  A lot.  But several times a day I thought I had to poop.  I never did poop, and the nurses all said it was just pressure from the baby's head, which had been pressed right up against my cervix for a week anyway.

So I sit on the toilet to attempt to go to the bathroom for the 20th time that day. 

And everything changed.  I started to use the muscles we all use to go potty, and I felt the unmistakable urge to push.  Which turned into a need to push.  Which changed to my body doing it's damndest to push that baby out.  If you've never had a vaginal birth I can't actually explain this to you.  If you have....you know exactly what I'm talking about.

I said "Holy shit, I'm pushing" and pulled the string in the bathroom without hesitation.

The little voice came over the speaker "what's wrong?".  Because the strings are for emergencies.  I said "I'm pushing".  And 12 people came rushing into my room. 

They ushered me back to the bed.  The rest is a vague memory.

They asked questions.  They strapped the monitor to me again.  They had me turn on my side.  On my other side.  On my hands and knees....this one was tough because the sensation to push became 10 times stronger and they kept telling me not to push.  I actually said "I don't know how you expect me not to push like this".  (I was really rude because I was still foggy from the drugs.  I apologized later.)  They put an oxygen mask on my face.

Finally they announced that they couldn't find the baby's heartbeat and I was going to have to push this baby out right now.

They called my midwife.

Through all of this my husband slept on the chair that was a bed, or the bed that was a chair...whatever.  I said "Honey, wake up!! I'm having a baby."  And he did.

They rolled me on to my back and told me to push.  They wanted me to just continuously push.  At once point the nurse between my legs said "no, keep pushing" and I said "but I'm not having a contraction" and she told me to keep pushing anyway.  Which I didn't, because I couldn't. 

When I pushed, I made noise.  Loud noise.  Xena Warrior Princess kinds of grunts and yells.  They told me to be quiet.  I ignored them.

At least twice my husband tried to leave the room to go call my mother.  Yes...really.  The 2nd time (I think) I lost my shit.
H:  I'm going to go call your mother.
Me:  The hell you are.  She can't even get here in time and I'm having a baby and you are going to fucking stand here and hold my hand!!

So finally the nurse said, "there he is, push hard honey".  And I did.  She told me to push through the burn and get him out of there.  So I did. 

Out came my son.  I pushed him out in less than 20 minutes.  They cut the cord, which was wrapped around his neck, and had him across the room so fast I didn't even see it happen.  There were nurses in between my legs, in my face and all around me, asking me questions and doing things.   All I could hear was the nurse (the same one that offered me the drugs) saying over and over again "come on baby, come on little guy, come on".  And he didn't cry.  For like 2 minutes.  Two minutes is a very long time.  I kept asking "Is he ok?  Is he ok?  Is he ok?"

Finally he cried.  It was honestly the best sound I've ever heard and I honestly thanked a god, that I've never been too interested in, for that cry.

They finally brought my son over to me and laid him on my chest.  I looked at his little, gooey, bruised face and said "Hi baby".  My husband took a picture.  Then almost immediately they took him away.  Off to the place where they keep babies they are worried about.

So the "burn" I was told to push through was actually me tearing.  Part of my birth plan was that I didn't want an episiotomy.  So even if there had been an individual around that was qualified to do it, they wouldn't have cut me.  It sucked.  Ripping is worse, don't let them tell you different.  Several stitches.  My midwife showed up just after all the excitement was over and assisted in the delivery of my placenta and stitched me up.

It was hours before they brought my son back to me.  He was small and pink and had a stupid IV in his little arm.  Apparently he took a dump on his way out and they wanted to be sure he didn't breathe in any of it.  Good call, right?   

He had bruises around his mouth and a nearly black eye from the effort I expended on pushing him out.

My husband was sure I was going to be in labor for another day or so.  I was too.  Apparently it was the drugs that did it.  I was fighting my body so hard that it took a drug induced sleep to allow my cervix to dilate.  So I literally dilated like 7 cm. in like 2 hours while sleeping.

My daughter showed up a few hours later.  My husband had called my mother shortly after the boy had been taken away by the birthing center staff and filled her in. 

The girl loved her little brother on sight, and I have the most beautiful picture of her holding him for the first time with this adoring look in her eyes.

My mother said that if I hadn't had that baby soon, she would've had to hit my daughter over the head with a large frying pan.  She was restless and worried and just couldn't stop asking about me, and wondering various things about her brother.  It was cute.  Glad it was her, not me. 

Two days later we finally left the birthing center.  The sun was shining and I spent the next fucking week in my bed with the baby, recovering from the episiotomy and having my tubes tied.

But that's another story all together.

To The Mattresses

It's been almost a month, and finally we moved our bed into the bedroom last night.  We drag the mattress upstairs.  It's a tight squeeze. 
Me:  "Guess what isn't going to fit up the stairs?"
Husband:  ::::Blank Stare::::
Me:  "The box spring."
Husband:  "Oh sure it will, watch me."

Meanwhile, it had taken squishing down the mattress a bit to get it to fit up the stairs.  Box springs don't squish.  But I kept my mouth shut.

So we get to the part where we intend to take the box spring upstairs.....we had to take it out the front door to get it pointed straight at the stairs....hubby starts up the stairs backward, I'm standing outside holding the other end.  THUD!!

The box spring hit the top of the door frame. 

We tilt it to the left.  Thud.

We tilt it to the right.  Thud.

He actually tried to squish it like the mattress.

No go.

So he starts taking apart the door frame.  One piece at a time. 

An hour and a half later, there is no door frame and the box spring is upstairs.

So I guess when he said "Watch me" he meant "watch me break the house so we can get the box spring up the stairs".

Deflated

You know when someone gives you a lecture, and it's meant to be a pep talk....to pump you up to do better....but all it does it make you feel defeated?
No?
Well that's me today.  Someone that probably meant well decided I needed this talk.  She is totally right by the way.  Not that I needed the talk.  I didn't.  In fact, it was probably the last thing I needed.  I'm overwhelmed enough as it is.  I'm tired, and sore and buried so deep in life that I'm struggling fruitlessly to just scrape away enough to see the light ahead. 
Then came this "talk".
She was right about several things that she said....not all, but several....but it didn't have the desired effect.
Now....I'm just done.  Fuck it. 
She meant it to fire me up to try harder and do better.  I don't want to try anymore.  I don't want to do any of it, let alone do it better. 
We bought a house.  It's a huge fixer upper.  Every day I get up, get my 11 year old on the bus, then go get myself ready for work.  Then I wake the baby up, feed him, change him and get him ready to go to my mother's house.  Then I get my ass to work.  I work as many hours as I can manage to.  Then I go out to my new house and work there as much as I can without pissing off my sitter.  On the weekends I have to try to find a babysitter so I can go over there and work some more. 
I have barely begun to pack.  We have pushed back our moving date twice now. 
I have so much to do, and no time to do it, and in there somewhere I have to find time to buy groceries, cook dinner, take care of my dogs and horses and kids. 
I'm completely burned out and exhausted.
Last week, my boss went on vacation.  I busted my ass trying to hold together the loose ties that he left in his wake, just trying to keep things going while he was gone.
Now I get this lecture about being focused on work while I'm at work, and I just want to slap her.
I just want to say, fuck it.  The house can sit there empty for as long as it takes to get it done.  We can move one fucking box at a time, because that's all the time and energy I have for packing. 
I'm already to the point where I can't do this anymore, and then I get a lecture. 
Sigh.....I need a nap.

Misadventures in Painting

Thursday morning I threw my back out.  That's a very vague concept...throwing out one's back.  The specifics involve a disc that hates me and every now and then decides to get angry and cause me a lot of pain in my lower back. 
It's never a good story either.  The first time I injured my back I was taking off my pants.  I bent down to slide my pants down my legs and couldn't stand up.  The second time....I coughed.  I was sick and the cough threw my upper body forward a fraction of an inch, and my back screamed at me.
This time I bent down just a little to lower my son into his exersaucer. 

The pain involved in this tiny movement is amazing.  What it means for me is probably a week of being unable to do much of anything.  Sitting hurts.  Walking hurts.  I can't actually stand up totally straight.  I can't bend over.  I can't lift much.  Getting out of bed in the morning takes several minutes....and hurts.

None of which is conducive to remodeling a house that we were planning to move into next weekend.  I was sanding the floors, and meant to continue to do so this week....but that's out of the question now.

About the only thing I can actually do right now is paint.  There is a lot of painting to do, so that's fine.  The main priority is painting the kids' rooms so we don't have to move all of their crap around to paint after we move in.

So on Sunday I was painting my son's room.  I had put two coats on the walls and it had dried.  I was moving around the room taking tape off of the trim and putting new tape on the walls so I could paint the trim.

When I had started sanding the floor in his room, I removed the floor register so I could sand around it.  I hadn't put it back yet because I wasn't done sanding in there.

I had put down a clear plastic drop cloth to keep the paint off the floor (I'm a horrible, messy, slob of a painter).  You know where this is going now I'm sure.....

So I had walked past the 6" x 10" or so hole in the floor at least 5 times by now, and had said to myself "Don't fall in the hole...."

I'm a terrible listener.

I go to pull the tape off the trim near the closet and stepped directly in the hole in the floor.  My leg instantly plummeted into the basement and stopped when my thigh got wedged in the hole about halfway to my Hoo-hah.  There was this big, metallic crash as the ducting that lets heat flow into his room fell to the basement floor. 

So I'm sitting there....thigh deep in a hole in the floor.....with terrible back pain.  I hauled myself out of the hole and plopped my ass down on the floor.  It hurt.  A lot.  There was sheet metal stapled inside the hole in the floor.....it's no longer there. 

So I'm sitting on the floor.....crying.  Crying because it hurt.  Crying because my back hurts more now.  Crying because I can't believe I put my foot through the register.  Crying because I can't do anything else but paint this stupid room.

As if on queue.....my husband walks in.

"How's the painting going?.....Why are you on the floor? ....Are you crying?....Why are you crying?"

So I tell him the story.....his response?

"Fuck!!  You mean if I'd walked down here two minutes earlier I would have witnessed that?!  Damn it!!"

I will be posting the details of his funeral later.

The Husband on Menstruation

Warning....Graphic Language and Gross Descriptions....



Picture Courtesy of Red Wombat Studio

There.....warned you.

I didn't have my period for 9 months.  That tends to happen when you're pregnant.  It was great.  Then I popped out a kid, and bled like a sacrificial bull for six fucking weeks.  I'm breast feeding...which is considered a viable form of birth control.  You aren't supposed to get your period...or ovulate....while you're breastfeeding. If that is how it went for you.....fuck off.

 A month after I stopped bleeding all over the place from child birth, I got my fucking period.  My best friend, who had a baby 9 days before I did, still hasn't had a visit from Aunt Flo and our children are 8 months old.  I hate her.

I had a bilateral tubal ligation (tubes tied) the day after my son was born.  If that right there doesn't tell you how fantastic my pregnancy was.....

I had been on birth control my whole life.  Or at least I'd been forgetting to take my birth control my whole life anyway.  Regardless of the frequency of the stuff, I was doped up on artificial hormones more often than not for the last 15 years or so. 

Armed with my fancy new tubal ligation, I no longer need to take pills to keep from having any more darling little pooping, crying, snotting love muffins.  So.....my first few periods after the boy was born were.....interesting.  Apparently those hormones were all that was keeping my uterus from hemorrhaging all over the place.  Like dying Niagara Falls red.  And I wasn't expecting it.  My cycle had always been pretty consistent.  So when I was changing feminine hygiene products every two hours, I was a little taken aback.  I didn't throw out the paper pillows they call pads at the hospital...thank god.

My husband has a dickhead's view of a woman's menstruation.  It is definitely brought on by Satan, and should be avoided at all costs.  Which is ironic, as he definitely gets his period more often than I do.

Earlier this week, I got my period overnight.  These are the events that followed:

My husband brought the baby in our bed around 7:00am, waking me up.
I had to pee.
I announced that I had to pee so that Husband was aware it was his job to keep the baby alive.
I went into the bathroom and discovered that I had made a bit of a mess.
I finished my business and stripped off my now stained pajamas and jumped in the shower.
My dear husband walked into the bathroom, holding the baby, just as I had stepped out of the shower and was drying off.
Husband:  "I thought you were just going to the bathroom?"
Me:  "I bled all over myself."
Husband:  "I know....you got it on the bed."
Me:  "Oh, well if you knew.....ugh...never mind...I will take care of that in a minute."
Husband:  "Well hurry up, I have stuff to do."
Me:  "....................."
Me:  "Honey, what would you do if I got blood on you?"
Husband:  "Probably die."
Me: "And then immediately shower to wash it off of you."
Husband:  "No, I think I would burn my skin off instead."
Me: "Ok well....fuck off...I'll be out in a minute."

He means it.  He thinks it's battery acid and would kill him on contact.  If I didn't have better things to do I would chase him around the house with a used tampon.  I imagine it would sound a lot like Goofy falling off a cliff. 





  

Shit My Kid Says....Part Deux

"Mom....My boobs hurt."

Yeah....I bet they do....you little.....
My daughter is 11, and officially hitting puberty.  It started about a year ago.  Well, to be fair, it probably started 2 years ago when I noticed that the 10 year old should probably start wearing training bras.  You see....she's a little husky.  I was too.  At 10 I totally had little fat girl boobs, and to this day I curse my mother for not slapping a bra on me.  I absolutely blame her for my less than perky state.

So she has been wearing a bra for a couple of years now.  She has been getting progressively bitchier for about a year.  To the point where, I swear, if she opens her mouth again I'm going to duct tape it closed...and throw her in her room until she comes to terms with her hormones in about 5 years.

I was a wretched teenager.  I can't believe that my mother let me live.  I used to blat that my mother was abusive when I was a teenager.  Now, I see that she was the absolute image of self control.  I deserved every one of those swats she gave me for being a wretched bitch.  (Except maybe one.....oh ok, all of them.)

My daughter is going to be every bit as bad as I was....perhaps worse.  She and I already have an antagonistic relationship.  We are so alike that we butt heads constantly.  I can't let it go and neither can she.  Now that there are hormones involved, and my patience is already thin because I have a fucking teenager and an almost toddler at the same time, I might have to pack her off to boarding school for her health.

About 6 months ago, she and I were at the doctor's office.  It was a hot day, and she was wearing a sleeveless shirt.  She lifted up her arm to fix her pony tail....and the bush of hair that peeked out from her armpit was right in my face. 

I said "Honey....when we get home I'm going to teach you how to shave your armpits."
This lesson was interesting...and came with a threat to her life if I caught her shaving her legs, and a warning that if she shaved that little blond peach fuzz on her upper lip she would end up looking like her Aunt Sybil. 

Tangent:  My mother never taught me these things.  I didn't even know arm pits should be shaved until I was about 13 and a teenage boy (go ahead a cringe...it's ok) commented on my hairy state.  He wasn't discreet about it.  (Ewww! Shave your pits!!)  The first time I shaved my legs....on my own, with no instruction....I did it with my dad's razor and sliced my legs to ribbons, followed by the worst razor burn known to woman kind.

When she started crying for no reason 2 months ago, I showed her where to find the panty liners and sent her teacher a warning email.

Last week, she says to me......you know what, never mind.  It involved her unmentionables, and funny as it was, I still don't feel right talking about her lady parts on the Internet.

The point being that the arm pits weren't alone.

So when she told me last night that her boobs hurt......I showed her where the panty liners were again.

We live with my husband (who is not her father) and a male roommate.  God forbid the poor girl have to ask my husband what to do if she gets her aunt flo while I'm not home.  Poor girl.  Poor, poor Husband.  He can't even tolerate the fact that I bleed regularly (an entire post devoted to this will be published tomorrow)....I don't think he would handle that conversation well. 

So I'm just sitting back, waiting to teach her how to remove blood stains from sheets and underwear.  It's going to be any second now.  In a text book somewhere on pre-menstrual teenagers is a picture of my daughter.....any time now.  I wonder if it was that obvious with me.