I thought it was time for a little update on the baby bean and all things pregnancy-related. You know, because it's basically all I think about anymore and I'm determined to drag you down with me.
First, let me tell you that The Hunger? It's gone. It took it's ball and went home. Last Monday, I woke up and my stomach wasn't growling uncontrollably. I got to work and I made my normal "two pop tarts, peanut butter, and grapefruit" breakfast. I could only finish part of it. Later, I realized it had been 3 hours since breakfast and I was only then starting to feel hungry. I wasn't nauseous, I wasn't dizzy, and I wasn't an enraged beast with claws of death coming to eat you. I was simply...back to normal. This has continued for 8 days now, and I have to be honest - I'm a little freaked out. All my uncomfortable pregnancy symptoms disappeared overnight. I hear this is normal, that one day you wake up and realize you don't feel like barfing while simultaneously sizing up the neighbor's cat for tenderness and grill-ability. However, I was under the impression that this particular change typically occurs around the end of your first trimester, at 13 weeks or so. Last Monday, I was at 9 weeks and 3 days. And here I am today, at 10 weeks and 4 days, eerily un-hungry and non-pukey. What the hell?!
I hate to sound ungrateful and all, but IS MY BABY GOING TO DIE BECAUSE THE HUNGER IS GONE? Not only is The Hunger gone, but with it went The Fatigue. I never got around to posting about The Fatigue because I was just too damn tired.
I just have this sneaking suspicion that something is going on here...there is no way I'm getting off this lucky. My girlfriend Claudia would disagree - she told me at 5 weeks that I wouldn't get sick because I had no doubts about being pregnant at this point in my life. Which is true. But still...I'm the person who sits on the dumping end of The Universe's crap chute when it comes to stuff like this.
Let me just tell you - if my boobs weren't so damn big, I'd be terrified that something is wrong with the baby. Gray actually called me Hooters the other day, and under normal boob circumstances this would have been an extremely hurtful joke. This time, he kinda meant it. He keeps grabbing them like they're some kind of plaything for expectant daddies. He requests to examine them, you know, to see if they're still getting bigger. Oh, and he has confirmed that the nipular area is most definitely getting darker. YIKES! (Pregnant nipples scare me a little. I walked in on my sis when she 9 months pregnant, naked in the bathroom, and OMG her nipples were the size of Antarctica. They seriously were threatening to annex Australia.
Three's no cramping, no spotting or bleeding, nothing to indicate that anything is wrong. Not only that, and aside from the huge cans (ok, fine - marginally fuller cans), I can feel my giant uterus. When I'm wearing pants that are a bit tight in the waist, which is anytime I'm wearing pants, I can feel them mushing all the baby-related organs in there. And it hurts! I can't sit leaning forward. I get all light-headed every time I stand or sit up. And the crying - enough with the crying already! A guy in my class last night was telling me that he wanted a cherry Pepsi and the machine gave him a Dr. Pepper. I shit you not, my eyes welled up and I had to explain that I'm not crazy, nor am I a spokesperson for Pepsi - I'm just knocked up.
I'm trying to be grateful for the lack of morning sickness, really I am. Every time someone asks me how I'm feeling, which is about twice a minute, I tell them that I feel great and I've been really lucky so far. But secretly, I'm thinking that I can't wait for my OBGYN appointment on Friday so that I can hear my baby's heartbeat and know beyond a doubt that there is nothing wrong with my child.
As for The Hunger? We had an intervention and it ended up feeling kind of jerky about how it had been treating me, so it checked itself into a 30-day rehab program up at Hazelden. In the meantime, my original, Regular Appetite is back on duty, and I've been catching up with him. His mother was in the hospital, but now is home and doing fine, thank you for asking.
In conclusion, there is a lot of food in my pantry that will now be consumed at a regular eating pace, and therefore will last us until the End of Time. Crazy coincidence, End of Time and The Hunger used to play softball together in college. Small world!
Get Boned.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
Deep Thoughts on Sneezing
I don't particularly care for sneezing. It's not that I find it unpleasant so much as that I always need to sneeze when it's inconvenient. Also, the whole thing seems a little violent for my tastes. Sneezing isn't just exhaling air, it's exploding air and slime and germies all over the place. Gross.Times when sneezing is most inconvenient; therefore, times when I'm most likely to sneeze
- While I'm peeing. If you consider the muscles in your body that are involved in the mechanics of a sneeze, you'll see why this is a problem. There's all kinds of clenching and seizing up and sqwinching (it's a word, I looked it up. Maybe.) Sneezing causes the urine stream to likewise explode from whence it came, meaning it gets your ass and thighs all wet (if you're fortunate to be sitting on your own throne at home, that is....if you're hovering in public, well, you can imagine the mess - people sneezing mid-stream in public restrooms has contributed to the OCD disorders of millions of women around the country who cannot touch any bathroom surface without a germ-killing paper towel to protect them). Also, it reminds me of how much of my life I've spent doing involuntary and useless things like peeing and sneezing.
- While I'm applying mascara or just after mascara has been applied. If you've ever wanted to poke your eyeball with a stick full of mud, try this at-home alternative, courtesy of Maybelline. OUCH. And need I mention the mess this makes? The main problem with this scenario is that once you get to the mascara portion of your makeup routine, you've generally already applied your concealer, foundation, powder, eyeshadow, eyeliner, etc. You can't remove just the wayward mascara without taking all 15 layers of makeup with it, and that results in a Q-tip shaped hole where your real skin is showing through. Perhaps folks will think it's a teardrop tattoo? And god forbid you're applying waterproof mascara. If so, you might as well start over because you're going to need to use eye makeup remover and afterwards you're going to have to shower to get that oily crap to come off your skin.
- While I'm driving. This one is fairly self-explanitory, but if it's never happened to you, let me just say that when you sneeze YOUR EYES CLOSE INVOLUNTARILY. It's been a long time since I took drivers ed, but I'm quite sure I remember the part where they told us to always drive with our eyes open. At all times. Screw text messaging while driving - I say seasonal allergies are the real Road Killers.
I'd also like to point out that a sneeze feels remarkably similar to an orgasm. Again, with the clenching and the closing of the eyes and the tingling. The biggest difference is that during a sneeze, the explosive portion of the festivities is taking place in your face and not in your pants. Clearly it's not exactly the same, but the similarities are undeniable and I'm suddenly CREEPED OUT remembering that my dad likes to sneeze - tries to sneeze - encourages the pre-sneeze to develop into a sneeze by looking at bright lights and waving his hand around in front of his face (although I'm not sure what that does to help it along). I'm going to pretend that he likes sneezing because he's an attention whore who just wants people to tell him "gesundheit", and not because he's a sex fiend who sneezes because he can't get laid when I'm in the room.
Let me clarify that while I'm not fond of sneezing, I'm extremely partial to orgasms. It's just that I'm not likely to do the latter while I'm trying to drive or pee or put on makeup. If orgasms were going around messing with my day, I might feel differently about them.
Of course, there are the embarassing snotflyingfrommynoseinfrontofcuteboysinmyclass stories. I can't relive that one from 6th grade without a shudder even now. I'm pretty sure everyone still remembers that too, because I still remember the kid that puked up creamed corn at daycare in the 2nd grade. I'm totally going to have to avoid Blake Bryant at my next reuinion. I know there were at least 3 other witnesses, but I think I've blocked them out of my memory. Trauma and all that.
Next time: Deep Thoughts On Hiccups
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Goin' to the Chapel
Saturday we attended the wedding of our friends Dawne and Justin. FINALLY. It seems like they've been planning this thing for decades! Anyhow, it was a beautiful ceremony (mostly because it was closer to 45 minutes than to an hour) and the bride was radiant (possibly from the copious amounts of Dayquil she was taking to counteract the infection) and the reception was very lovely (thanks to the killer turkey feast). I am so happy for these two kids and hope their marriage outlasts my first marriage by at least 6 months!
This was the first wedding that Gray and I have attended together and it was unexpectedly delightful to have him along. In case you haven't gathered this information for your own self yet, Gray is not your typical, standard issue specimen of the male species. He's...evolved, shall we say. Or you might say he's a nerd (MY NERD), and you'd be right about that too. In any case, Gray is unlike most men in that he is sensitive and selfless and goes with me to do girlie things because they make me happy, even if he'd rather not go. He doesn't get jealous EVER and is friends with almost all of his ex-girlfriends. He likes to hang out with his mother and likes to spoil me rotten, no strings attached. He is very much like most men in that he doesn't want anyone to know. (It's getting harder and harder for him to keep up the tough guy persona the longer he keeps taking the book on pregnancy and childbirth to work - voluntarily - to read on his breaks. Also, I'm having to beat a lot of women off with a club but I don't mind. Apparently the sight of an involved father is a huge turn-on.) One day, he will hopefully realize that being wonderful is nothing to be ashamed of, and he can be an example for all the other men in the world. Hey, look at Gray! He's not an asshole and yet - shock and awe - he's also not gay!
Anyhow, during the wedding we held hands and grinned and exchanged loaded glances at one another. He paid close enough attention to the ceremony to notice one part of the vows that he wanted to discuss with me later in the day. He made small-talk with my friends Mark and Pete who rode with us to the blessed event, and he tasted the punch to make sure it wasn't spiked before he gave it to me. What surprised me the most, though, were the comments he made all night long: "At our wedding, we should _____!", and "What do you think about ___for our wedding?" I'm not sure what I was expecting - perhaps the stereotypical man pouting in the corner waiting for the torture to end while getting hammered on the free beer scenario - but he definitely surprised me. A man who is even fun at wedding...who knew? It was like Christmas!
Dawne and Justin's wedding featured country music. We're not big (or little) fans of country music, but Gray enthusiastically suggested that we play heavy metal at our reception. Under threat of veto, he quickly elaborated that he would find songs that were "acceptable" from our heavy metal bands and would intersperse them throughout the night. He was even suggesting songs for our first dance together. It was almost too cute and I nearly broke down and ate his face right off. It was so surprising, in fact, that I felt compelled to ruin the joy just a little bit by saying things like, "You have no concept of how expensive that is going to be." What a killjoy!
One other important revelation from the wedding on Saturday: With regards to panty hose, the literal translation of control top, from Latin, is "what you're trying to control just comes out of the top". I had serious set of quadruple boobs going on, thanks to the hose that went up over my navel.
Congratulations Dawne and Justin! I hope you get a lot of use out of that strap-on we got you! It will come in handy when you come to our heavy metal orgy wedding. But don't worry! Gray will totally cry during the ceremony.
This was the first wedding that Gray and I have attended together and it was unexpectedly delightful to have him along. In case you haven't gathered this information for your own self yet, Gray is not your typical, standard issue specimen of the male species. He's...evolved, shall we say. Or you might say he's a nerd (MY NERD), and you'd be right about that too. In any case, Gray is unlike most men in that he is sensitive and selfless and goes with me to do girlie things because they make me happy, even if he'd rather not go. He doesn't get jealous EVER and is friends with almost all of his ex-girlfriends. He likes to hang out with his mother and likes to spoil me rotten, no strings attached. He is very much like most men in that he doesn't want anyone to know. (It's getting harder and harder for him to keep up the tough guy persona the longer he keeps taking the book on pregnancy and childbirth to work - voluntarily - to read on his breaks. Also, I'm having to beat a lot of women off with a club but I don't mind. Apparently the sight of an involved father is a huge turn-on.) One day, he will hopefully realize that being wonderful is nothing to be ashamed of, and he can be an example for all the other men in the world. Hey, look at Gray! He's not an asshole and yet - shock and awe - he's also not gay!
Anyhow, during the wedding we held hands and grinned and exchanged loaded glances at one another. He paid close enough attention to the ceremony to notice one part of the vows that he wanted to discuss with me later in the day. He made small-talk with my friends Mark and Pete who rode with us to the blessed event, and he tasted the punch to make sure it wasn't spiked before he gave it to me. What surprised me the most, though, were the comments he made all night long: "At our wedding, we should _____!", and "What do you think about ___for our wedding?" I'm not sure what I was expecting - perhaps the stereotypical man pouting in the corner waiting for the torture to end while getting hammered on the free beer scenario - but he definitely surprised me. A man who is even fun at wedding...who knew? It was like Christmas!
Dawne and Justin's wedding featured country music. We're not big (or little) fans of country music, but Gray enthusiastically suggested that we play heavy metal at our reception. Under threat of veto, he quickly elaborated that he would find songs that were "acceptable" from our heavy metal bands and would intersperse them throughout the night. He was even suggesting songs for our first dance together. It was almost too cute and I nearly broke down and ate his face right off. It was so surprising, in fact, that I felt compelled to ruin the joy just a little bit by saying things like, "You have no concept of how expensive that is going to be." What a killjoy!
One other important revelation from the wedding on Saturday: With regards to panty hose, the literal translation of control top, from Latin, is "what you're trying to control just comes out of the top". I had serious set of quadruple boobs going on, thanks to the hose that went up over my navel.
Congratulations Dawne and Justin! I hope you get a lot of use out of that strap-on we got you! It will come in handy when you come to our heavy metal orgy wedding. But don't worry! Gray will totally cry during the ceremony.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Let Jesus What?!?!?
Today is the first day of autumn and I'm kind of bummed about it for a couple of reasons.
1) There is a very limited number of days left in the year that will not require the use of a heavy, winter coat or involve the scraping of ice from car windshields...and...
2) Halloween season is upon us.
Now, this gets a little confusing because fall is my favorite season of the year and Halloween is one of my favorite holidays of the year. I feel like I'm having some kind of crisis of faith, if it's possible to compare my nostalgia for the summer that is gone with the collapse of an entire belief system. My lack of enthusiasm about fall and my wavering excitement for Halloween is starting to make me question everything I've ever believed like that The Beatles are bigger than Jesus and like that women should never wear pleated pants and that money really CAN buy happiness and that I'd be happy to prove that theory if someone would just give me some damn money already.
I'm not ready for winter this year. It's cold and it's dark and it sucks. I haven't had enough recovery time since last winter when I wanted to drive my car right off a bridge round about mid-March. Normally the smell of the autumn air and the sharp slant of the light and the bright leaves are enough to make me love this time of year. But not this time, no sir-e. It's just simply not enough this year. All I can think about is my twice-weekly commute to the Twin Cities for school, in the dark, on the icy roads, to take ALGEBRA for christ's sake. That's like driving cross-country to have your fingers chopped off several times a month. And to top it off, I will be facing the cold, bitter winds of winter without my standard coping mechanism - alcohol.
Halloween is a slightly more complicated issue. Gray loves Halloween and spends the entire year "geeking up" for it. He is obsessed with all things Halloween related, specifically with horror movies. He loves to collect them. To watch them. To make ME watch them, too. It's not that I don't enjoy a good horror flick every now and again. It's just that I like to laugh sometimes, and for some reason - watching someones head get cleaved in half or some abomination come tearing out an unsuspecting belly or a little girl's head spin around, those things don't make me chuckle. I know, it's a head-scratcher.
September and October in our household are devoted almost primarily to horror movies because Gray says the Halloween starts September 1st. Apparently he's on the same calendar as all the major retailers who start selling costumes around the 4th of July. Anyway, that's 60 days of nightmare-provoking movie carnage - a bit much for my taste. This year, I tried to convince him that I couldn't watch any horror movies because they are bad for the baby. Hell, he thinks everything else on earth is bad for the baby, so I thought he'd totally buy it. But alas, he did not.
That is how I saw Night of the Living Dead and The Exorcist this weekend. Also, Shaun of the Dead, but I don't consider that a horror movie as it is a spoof and I laugh more than I jump. Anyhow, I had managed to go an entire 25 and a half years of my live without seeing either of those movies. Gray ruined that record in one weekend. And had it been totally up to him, I also would have seen the balance of the George A. Romero series, possibly a couple of slasher films, and Nightmare on Elm Street 3000, just for good measure. Fortunately, I had some say and was able to sneak in some HGTV and some That 70s Show to counteract the nightmares. Dude, when Reagan crawls down the stairs on her fingers and toes!!!
OMG BRAIN HEMORRHAGING JUST THINKING ABOUT IT!!
So the entire weekend was not lost to senseless gore and violence after all. But there are 6 weeks left before Halloween for Gray to desecrate the last shred of my childish innocence and goodwill towards mankind. I'm sure by November I'll be wearing those creepy pupil-less contact lenses and telling everyone I pass, "Let Jesus fuck you!" Oh god that movie man! Maybe I shouldn't have kids after all, on the off chance that something Gray forces me to watch this month permeates the mucus membranes and invades our baby's frontal lobe and causes a predisposition to demonic possession...
Or maybe they can test for that in the amnio.
1) There is a very limited number of days left in the year that will not require the use of a heavy, winter coat or involve the scraping of ice from car windshields...and...
2) Halloween season is upon us.
Now, this gets a little confusing because fall is my favorite season of the year and Halloween is one of my favorite holidays of the year. I feel like I'm having some kind of crisis of faith, if it's possible to compare my nostalgia for the summer that is gone with the collapse of an entire belief system. My lack of enthusiasm about fall and my wavering excitement for Halloween is starting to make me question everything I've ever believed like that The Beatles are bigger than Jesus and like that women should never wear pleated pants and that money really CAN buy happiness and that I'd be happy to prove that theory if someone would just give me some damn money already.
I'm not ready for winter this year. It's cold and it's dark and it sucks. I haven't had enough recovery time since last winter when I wanted to drive my car right off a bridge round about mid-March. Normally the smell of the autumn air and the sharp slant of the light and the bright leaves are enough to make me love this time of year. But not this time, no sir-e. It's just simply not enough this year. All I can think about is my twice-weekly commute to the Twin Cities for school, in the dark, on the icy roads, to take ALGEBRA for christ's sake. That's like driving cross-country to have your fingers chopped off several times a month. And to top it off, I will be facing the cold, bitter winds of winter without my standard coping mechanism - alcohol.
Halloween is a slightly more complicated issue. Gray loves Halloween and spends the entire year "geeking up" for it. He is obsessed with all things Halloween related, specifically with horror movies. He loves to collect them. To watch them. To make ME watch them, too. It's not that I don't enjoy a good horror flick every now and again. It's just that I like to laugh sometimes, and for some reason - watching someones head get cleaved in half or some abomination come tearing out an unsuspecting belly or a little girl's head spin around, those things don't make me chuckle. I know, it's a head-scratcher.
September and October in our household are devoted almost primarily to horror movies because Gray says the Halloween starts September 1st. Apparently he's on the same calendar as all the major retailers who start selling costumes around the 4th of July. Anyway, that's 60 days of nightmare-provoking movie carnage - a bit much for my taste. This year, I tried to convince him that I couldn't watch any horror movies because they are bad for the baby. Hell, he thinks everything else on earth is bad for the baby, so I thought he'd totally buy it. But alas, he did not.
That is how I saw Night of the Living Dead and The Exorcist this weekend. Also, Shaun of the Dead, but I don't consider that a horror movie as it is a spoof and I laugh more than I jump. Anyhow, I had managed to go an entire 25 and a half years of my live without seeing either of those movies. Gray ruined that record in one weekend. And had it been totally up to him, I also would have seen the balance of the George A. Romero series, possibly a couple of slasher films, and Nightmare on Elm Street 3000, just for good measure. Fortunately, I had some say and was able to sneak in some HGTV and some That 70s Show to counteract the nightmares. Dude, when Reagan crawls down the stairs on her fingers and toes!!!
OMG BRAIN HEMORRHAGING JUST THINKING ABOUT IT!!
So the entire weekend was not lost to senseless gore and violence after all. But there are 6 weeks left before Halloween for Gray to desecrate the last shred of my childish innocence and goodwill towards mankind. I'm sure by November I'll be wearing those creepy pupil-less contact lenses and telling everyone I pass, "Let Jesus fuck you!" Oh god that movie man! Maybe I shouldn't have kids after all, on the off chance that something Gray forces me to watch this month permeates the mucus membranes and invades our baby's frontal lobe and causes a predisposition to demonic possession...
Or maybe they can test for that in the amnio.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Peep Show
There are two bathrooms that I use at work, and lately my grapefruit sized uterus is sending me to each of them at least several times a day. Bathroom A is down the hallway from my office past about 1/2 of my co-workers and near the kitchen. Bathroom B is past the other 1/2 of my co-workers, out in the main hallways by the reception desk. I like to "share the love", if you will, between bathrooms because I'm more than a little self-conscious about how often I'm seen going into one. As it is, I'm sure that everyone thinks I have some kind of irritable bowel issue, or possibly an eating disorder. I pee A LOT. This isn't entirely new...I've always been one to drink a ton of water or coffee or tea during the work day, and have to frequent the bathroom more than most folks do. I came to think of the far stall in the bathroom of my former employer as "my" stall and would get secretly miffed when someone else had the gall to use it for themselves.
But now that I'm with child, I've gone from peeing once every 1 to 2 hours to peeing once or twice every hour. So I try to split my time between bathroom A and bathroom B, hoping it will appear that I'm peeing half as much as I am actually peeing. I love both bathrooms for different reasons. Bathroom A is a private bathroom - no stalls, no sharing of potty noises, and no trying to fart quietly lest the person in the stall beside you think you're some kind of an animal. Bathroom B is a two-stall affair; however, it's got lovely aesthetics and is almost always vacant. Both A and B have auto-flush toilets, auto-on sinks, and auto-dispense paper towel holders. I love those modern features.
Unfortunately, I am finding that the auto features are causing some unexpected issues in my day-to-day life. For example, on several occasions I have been in bathrooms elsewhere - home, public, friend's houses - and forget that their particular toilet does NOT have the auto-flush feature. It's rather embarrassing. Also, last night at school I ran into the bathroom for the 3rd time during a single class, and while washing my hands I forgot that the sink did not automatically turn itself off. I left it running the entire time I was getting paper towels, drying my hands, and checking myself in the mirror. "What IS that obnoxious noise? God, someone should really do something about that rushing water sound!" Um...whoops? At least I noticed before I left the bathroom entirely!
I was in Bathroom B the other day, the one in the lobby, taking care of business when another woman came into the bathroom and entered the stall beside me. I finished up, buttoned up and the wonderful auto-flush did it's thing. Then I opened the stall door and walked towards the sink. That's when I realized something was amiss. Imagine how dumb-fucking-founding it was to be staring directly at the woman in the next stall. She was PEEING WITH THE STALL DOOR OPEN!!! She even glanced up at me and smiled before realizing that, hey, this isn't Bathroom A! There is another stall in here and there is also another person in here and OMG that person is watching me pee! She frantically slammed the door shut and apologized, saying she couldn't believe she hadn't thought to shut the damn stall door. I just kind of laughed, washed my hands and got the heck out of there.
I can totally understand where she was coming from though. I bet her primary bathroom has auto-closing stall doors. It could happen to anyone!
But now that I'm with child, I've gone from peeing once every 1 to 2 hours to peeing once or twice every hour. So I try to split my time between bathroom A and bathroom B, hoping it will appear that I'm peeing half as much as I am actually peeing. I love both bathrooms for different reasons. Bathroom A is a private bathroom - no stalls, no sharing of potty noises, and no trying to fart quietly lest the person in the stall beside you think you're some kind of an animal. Bathroom B is a two-stall affair; however, it's got lovely aesthetics and is almost always vacant. Both A and B have auto-flush toilets, auto-on sinks, and auto-dispense paper towel holders. I love those modern features.
Unfortunately, I am finding that the auto features are causing some unexpected issues in my day-to-day life. For example, on several occasions I have been in bathrooms elsewhere - home, public, friend's houses - and forget that their particular toilet does NOT have the auto-flush feature. It's rather embarrassing. Also, last night at school I ran into the bathroom for the 3rd time during a single class, and while washing my hands I forgot that the sink did not automatically turn itself off. I left it running the entire time I was getting paper towels, drying my hands, and checking myself in the mirror. "What IS that obnoxious noise? God, someone should really do something about that rushing water sound!" Um...whoops? At least I noticed before I left the bathroom entirely!
I was in Bathroom B the other day, the one in the lobby, taking care of business when another woman came into the bathroom and entered the stall beside me. I finished up, buttoned up and the wonderful auto-flush did it's thing. Then I opened the stall door and walked towards the sink. That's when I realized something was amiss. Imagine how dumb-fucking-founding it was to be staring directly at the woman in the next stall. She was PEEING WITH THE STALL DOOR OPEN!!! She even glanced up at me and smiled before realizing that, hey, this isn't Bathroom A! There is another stall in here and there is also another person in here and OMG that person is watching me pee! She frantically slammed the door shut and apologized, saying she couldn't believe she hadn't thought to shut the damn stall door. I just kind of laughed, washed my hands and got the heck out of there.
I can totally understand where she was coming from though. I bet her primary bathroom has auto-closing stall doors. It could happen to anyone!
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Apparently I do know how to use them
Me: Want to go skirt shopping with me tonight?
Gray: For SHORT skirts?
Me: Maybe...I have to be able to wear them to work though.
Gray: Oh. Can we buy short skirts for you to wear when you're not at work?
Me: Uh, sure. So you want to go?
Gray: I am SO in for the skirt shopping!
Gray: For SHORT skirts?
Me: Maybe...I have to be able to wear them to work though.
Gray: Oh. Can we buy short skirts for you to wear when you're not at work?
Me: Uh, sure. So you want to go?
Gray: I am SO in for the skirt shopping!
Laundry Door Mat
Gray has decided that it is no longer safe for me to clean or do laundry. He's OK with me cooking, go figure. So this has resulted in some frustration for me. It's one of those situations that makes me take a long, hard look at myself in the mirror and fight the urge to cover the whole thing over with a blanket so I'm not forced to deal with what I see.
I am a control freak. I want everything to be done my way. If it is not going to be done my way, then I'd really rather just do it myself. It's not that my way is the best way, it's just that your way frankly sucks.
So now that Gray is cleaning (I use the term loosely to mean occasionally wiping down the toilet seat with a tissue) and doing all of the laundry (when we're both down to one lone sock each and a pair of underwear between us), I have had to try and let go of my control over those things. I am kind of surprised at how difficult this has been, especially considering my initial reaction to this arrangement was "HELL YEAH!" and "WASH YOUR OWN BOXERS BITCH!" and "YEE HAW!" I was looking forward to taking a break from the endless piles of dirty clothes, which are more intimidating than ever since our laundry room is now on a different floor and requires actual quarters to operate the machines. Believe it or not, between the two of us we could amass between 4 and 8 loads of dirty clothes in between laundry days, and I would often spend an entire Sunday washing, drying, folding, sorting and putting away clothes. I didn't think I was going to miss scrubbing the toilet or taking out the trash or vacuuming or dusting. I even considered buying a giant french maid costume for Gray to wear while performing these domestic tasks, because let's be real - that's a turn on to everyone, man or woman.
However, once he began to take on some of the chores, the evil control freak in me began to appear. The bathroom wasn't being scrubbed enough for my standards. The toilet was beginning to alarm me just a bit. The kitchen sink hadn't been bleached in weeks. The trash...it was full of broccoli! The laundry was piled up to my waist. I had a very hard time not taking over and just doing these things myself. I'm not an unreasonable person - I just want things to be, you know, sanitary. Not crawling with e-coli and feces.
What we failed to discuss when making the new domestic arrangements was the former state in which Gray used to live. To say he was a typical bachelor (not the metro sexual variety) was putting it very mildly. He lived in disgusting filth. He washed his clothes as little as possible, and then threw the clean ones on the floor of his closet. He never took out the trash, and instead would pile garbage on the counter and other surfaces when the can began to overflow. It. Was. Disgusting.
So, in comparison, I suppose he is keeping our place spectacularly clean. And to be honest with you, if I were still in charge of the cleaning and I decided to skip a Sunday and not scrub the bathroom, not only would I be OK with that, but Gray would never ever give me a hard time about it. So I'm starting to wonder what in god's name is wrong with me, woman?!
The first time Gray attempted to do the laundry without my help resulted in sort of a do-over situation. I had separated the piles of dirty clothes and counted how many loads it would take to wash them all. I made sure we had enough quarters to account for all 5 loads of laundry. I put all of the detergents and fabric softeners together with the laundry bags. I basically set it up so any idiot could have done the laundry that night. I told him that he needed to do 5 separate loads. If he tried to squeeze the clothes into 4 loads, nothing would get clean and they wouldn't dry properly, and oh-my-god don't mention the wrinkles we'll have on our hands! He assured me everything was under control.
When I arrived home, he was cheerfully folding all 5 of the loads of laundry in the living room, extremely proud of himself and sort of beaming. I cautiously surveyed the scene. Everything appeared to be it's proper color and size. I congratulated him on a laundry job well done. And then I started to help him fold. It was then that I realized many of the items of clothing were still damp-bordering-on-wet. My heart sank.
I looked at Gray and asked, "How many loads of laundry did you do?"
"Four."
I pulled a pair of my work pants from the bottom of the damp heap of clothing - they were hopelessly wrinkled and twisted. As were several other pairs of my work pants and his work shirts.
"Honey, I told you it was going to take 5 loads to wash all this - they loads you did were too full! Nothing got totally dry and the pants are all totally wrinkled!"
"You never told me that. Look, the pants are fine - we'll just iron them."
Clearly he does not grasp the difference between a wrinkle and a dryer-induced wrinkle. The kind of wrinkle that is basically "baked in" and cannot be undone by an iron.
"No, all we can really do is re-wash these pants. It's OK, really. Just next time, don't shove so many clothes in!"
I also explained that by inserting another quarter into the dryer, it adds 12 minutes to the machine. In case he ever wanted to avoid mildew in the clothing, that is. I've been living on 3 pairs of pants for a week now, waiting for the re-do on the wrinkled disasters from last week.
Last night was Gray's laundry night. He likes to do laundry on Mondays because I'm at class, and he's got both Monday night football and WWE Raw to watch while he's folding clothes. Let me just highlight just a couple of the differences between his style of laundry and mine. When he arrived upstairs in the laundry room to start the wash, he found that 4 of the 6 machines were already occupied. In a situation like this, I would use the 2 available machines, then take the remaining laundry down the length of the building to the other laundry room and use the 4 machines in there. That laundry room is never occupied, but it's a bit further of a walk.
Gray decided that he would wash two loads, then once those went in the dryer he would start another 2 loads, and then once those were in the dryer, he would start the last 2 loads. That means that instead of 30 minutes for the washer and one hour for the dryer, he was going to spend 4 and a half hours washing and drying laundry, and then fold and put those clothes away in three batches. The control freak in me was, well, FREAKING out when he told me his plan. I calmly reminded him about the other, empty laundry room. He said he didn't want to walk that far. Oh yeah, because spending 3 times as long is so much easier than walking 50 yards down the damn hallway.
But I choked down every instinct inside of me and said, "Hey, I'm not doing the laundry - you're doing the laundry so you do it however you want." It was so very healthy of me. Anyhow, I got home, ate some melon, watched a sitcom, then went happily off to dream land while Gray stayed up until 2:00 in the morning folding clothes. I think THIS might be nature's way of preparing him for the demands of an infant. Truly, how better to practice caring for a cranky, hungry, crying infant who pees all of the time and doesn't let you sleep at night....than to care for a cranky, hungry, crying pregnant woman who pees all the time and keeps you up all night doing laundry.
Nature is magical!
I am a control freak. I want everything to be done my way. If it is not going to be done my way, then I'd really rather just do it myself. It's not that my way is the best way, it's just that your way frankly sucks.
So now that Gray is cleaning (I use the term loosely to mean occasionally wiping down the toilet seat with a tissue) and doing all of the laundry (when we're both down to one lone sock each and a pair of underwear between us), I have had to try and let go of my control over those things. I am kind of surprised at how difficult this has been, especially considering my initial reaction to this arrangement was "HELL YEAH!" and "WASH YOUR OWN BOXERS BITCH!" and "YEE HAW!" I was looking forward to taking a break from the endless piles of dirty clothes, which are more intimidating than ever since our laundry room is now on a different floor and requires actual quarters to operate the machines. Believe it or not, between the two of us we could amass between 4 and 8 loads of dirty clothes in between laundry days, and I would often spend an entire Sunday washing, drying, folding, sorting and putting away clothes. I didn't think I was going to miss scrubbing the toilet or taking out the trash or vacuuming or dusting. I even considered buying a giant french maid costume for Gray to wear while performing these domestic tasks, because let's be real - that's a turn on to everyone, man or woman.
However, once he began to take on some of the chores, the evil control freak in me began to appear. The bathroom wasn't being scrubbed enough for my standards. The toilet was beginning to alarm me just a bit. The kitchen sink hadn't been bleached in weeks. The trash...it was full of broccoli! The laundry was piled up to my waist. I had a very hard time not taking over and just doing these things myself. I'm not an unreasonable person - I just want things to be, you know, sanitary. Not crawling with e-coli and feces.
What we failed to discuss when making the new domestic arrangements was the former state in which Gray used to live. To say he was a typical bachelor (not the metro sexual variety) was putting it very mildly. He lived in disgusting filth. He washed his clothes as little as possible, and then threw the clean ones on the floor of his closet. He never took out the trash, and instead would pile garbage on the counter and other surfaces when the can began to overflow. It. Was. Disgusting.
So, in comparison, I suppose he is keeping our place spectacularly clean. And to be honest with you, if I were still in charge of the cleaning and I decided to skip a Sunday and not scrub the bathroom, not only would I be OK with that, but Gray would never ever give me a hard time about it. So I'm starting to wonder what in god's name is wrong with me, woman?!
The first time Gray attempted to do the laundry without my help resulted in sort of a do-over situation. I had separated the piles of dirty clothes and counted how many loads it would take to wash them all. I made sure we had enough quarters to account for all 5 loads of laundry. I put all of the detergents and fabric softeners together with the laundry bags. I basically set it up so any idiot could have done the laundry that night. I told him that he needed to do 5 separate loads. If he tried to squeeze the clothes into 4 loads, nothing would get clean and they wouldn't dry properly, and oh-my-god don't mention the wrinkles we'll have on our hands! He assured me everything was under control.
When I arrived home, he was cheerfully folding all 5 of the loads of laundry in the living room, extremely proud of himself and sort of beaming. I cautiously surveyed the scene. Everything appeared to be it's proper color and size. I congratulated him on a laundry job well done. And then I started to help him fold. It was then that I realized many of the items of clothing were still damp-bordering-on-wet. My heart sank.
I looked at Gray and asked, "How many loads of laundry did you do?"
"Four."
I pulled a pair of my work pants from the bottom of the damp heap of clothing - they were hopelessly wrinkled and twisted. As were several other pairs of my work pants and his work shirts.
"Honey, I told you it was going to take 5 loads to wash all this - they loads you did were too full! Nothing got totally dry and the pants are all totally wrinkled!"
"You never told me that. Look, the pants are fine - we'll just iron them."
Clearly he does not grasp the difference between a wrinkle and a dryer-induced wrinkle. The kind of wrinkle that is basically "baked in" and cannot be undone by an iron.
"No, all we can really do is re-wash these pants. It's OK, really. Just next time, don't shove so many clothes in!"
I also explained that by inserting another quarter into the dryer, it adds 12 minutes to the machine. In case he ever wanted to avoid mildew in the clothing, that is. I've been living on 3 pairs of pants for a week now, waiting for the re-do on the wrinkled disasters from last week.
Last night was Gray's laundry night. He likes to do laundry on Mondays because I'm at class, and he's got both Monday night football and WWE Raw to watch while he's folding clothes. Let me just highlight just a couple of the differences between his style of laundry and mine. When he arrived upstairs in the laundry room to start the wash, he found that 4 of the 6 machines were already occupied. In a situation like this, I would use the 2 available machines, then take the remaining laundry down the length of the building to the other laundry room and use the 4 machines in there. That laundry room is never occupied, but it's a bit further of a walk.
Gray decided that he would wash two loads, then once those went in the dryer he would start another 2 loads, and then once those were in the dryer, he would start the last 2 loads. That means that instead of 30 minutes for the washer and one hour for the dryer, he was going to spend 4 and a half hours washing and drying laundry, and then fold and put those clothes away in three batches. The control freak in me was, well, FREAKING out when he told me his plan. I calmly reminded him about the other, empty laundry room. He said he didn't want to walk that far. Oh yeah, because spending 3 times as long is so much easier than walking 50 yards down the damn hallway.
But I choked down every instinct inside of me and said, "Hey, I'm not doing the laundry - you're doing the laundry so you do it however you want." It was so very healthy of me. Anyhow, I got home, ate some melon, watched a sitcom, then went happily off to dream land while Gray stayed up until 2:00 in the morning folding clothes. I think THIS might be nature's way of preparing him for the demands of an infant. Truly, how better to practice caring for a cranky, hungry, crying infant who pees all of the time and doesn't let you sleep at night....than to care for a cranky, hungry, crying pregnant woman who pees all the time and keeps you up all night doing laundry.
Nature is magical!
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Broccoli and Hair - An Affront to Mankind
I've begun to notice that I must shave every single day to avoid looking like I haven't shaved in 2 weeks. I have not done due diligence with my legs though, because it's been a chilly late summer here and I'm wearing pants every day anyway. This might be changing soon, however. A friend of mine has convinced me that the only way I'll be comfortable for the next 6 weeks or more is to buy SKIRTS! and lots of them. At this time, I literally do not own one skirt aside from my wedding dress, and frankly that is just to fancy to wear to the office every day.
I went shopping to find a dress on Saturday. I've got a girlfriend who's FINALLY getting married next weekend, and I needed to find something appropriate to wear to a nice, Catholic wedding. Unfortunately, I appear to be at that stage of my pregnancy where absolutely nothing fits properly. Every dress I tried on was bursting at the waist seams; however, the boob area of said dress would hang off of my meager chest in folds. (It seems my bust is not keeping up with my waist these days...) So I broke down and tried on a lovely pink maternity top which I had happened to see on a previous visit to the store and thought it was super cute. I also tried on some of the pants just to, you know, see what all the fuss is about. Many of the mommy bloggers have mentioned that they pull out the ole maternity jeans the moment they get a positive on the E.P.T. Well in my case "chubby" clearly does not equal "big enough to look pregnant or to wear the maternity clothes, ha ha ha you moron!"
So I relayed my tale of woe to my BFF Jill and to another mommy friend of mine. BFF Jill just laughed her ass off at my expense, which was super helpful! I think she's finally glad that I'm going through what she's gone through 4 times and saying 'told you so!'. My other mommy friend said she went through the same thing when she was pregnant a couple of years ago. Her solution? SKIRTS! She said she already owned a couple of hippie skirts (I'm assuming she means the kind that are long and shapeless and generally have a pattern that you have to be high to appreciate), but that she also got a great deal at Old Navy on some cute skirts that actually fit and made her waist look reasonably proportional to her shoulders, so she bought one in every color. She said those terrible gaucho pants were also popular at the time, but that she refused to wear them on principal.
So it looks like I will be headed to Old Navy and some other stores before too long. Hopefully this terribly weather warms up until mid-October so I can justify going bare-legged another month or so. The downside to the skirts, of course, is that because of some major raging hormones I will have to shave my legs every single damn day. I would advise everyone, including my loving Gray, to stay the heck away from my killer armpit hairs. They have come to take over the earth, and they just might do it - my razor appears to be powerless to stop them.
Speaking of raging hormones, I had a bit of a meltdown last week. And by "a bit of a meltdown", I mean I broke the fuck down and bawled my eyes out for 20 minutes, alone, in between bites of Taco Bell, and laughing at how ludicrous I was being. Knowing it was a huge overreaction did nothing to stifle the sobs, however. I was swept away in a wave of self-pity, nausea and exhaustion. Oh, and snot and stuff.
I was returning home from school at about 10pm when The Hunger showed up and started beating up my stomach. The Hunger punched me in the balls several times and then it started doing somersaults in my brain. I had planned to make a quick meal upon returning home, but quickly realized there was no time for that kind of nonsense. So I hauled ass to Taco Bell and ordered the usual: one hard shell taco and one bean burrito with extra extra onions (the arm pit hair is not the only reason you might want to avoid me these days).
Food in hand, I thought I would be just fine waiting until I was on my own comfy couch before chowing down, but on the walk from my car to the front door of the building, there was a moment there where I was pretty sure I was either going to puke or pass out right there on the sidewalk. I actually wondered to myself how long I would have to lay there before someone saw me and came to help. Luckily, I made it to my apartment without either puking or passing out, but when I opened the door and stepped inside, the smell of BROCCOLI smacked me across the face and made my stomach roll again.
DAMN BROCCOLI! It was in the garbage can, where I had put it the night before because the smell made me sick and there was no way that broccoli was going onto my salad. So I threw it out and forgot all about it. Well, now the entire apartment smelled like broccoli and it was all I could do not to run away screaming in the other direction.
Gray was out for a boy's night and The Hunger was kicking my ass. I was exhausted from a long day at work and stressed out by my night class. I had driven 45 minutes home, nearly been sick on the walk inside, and now I was alone in my smelly apartment and I just lost my shit right then and there. I had a nice little sob fest in my taco.
Since that breakdown, I have shaved my arm pits 6 times. SIX WHOLE TIMES. Amazing the things that pregnancy has done to my body, and lucky for me I'm just getting started! Fortunately, there's a good reason for going through all of this - an amazing, awesome reason - and right about now, that reason is about the size of a grape. I love my little grape!
I went shopping to find a dress on Saturday. I've got a girlfriend who's FINALLY getting married next weekend, and I needed to find something appropriate to wear to a nice, Catholic wedding. Unfortunately, I appear to be at that stage of my pregnancy where absolutely nothing fits properly. Every dress I tried on was bursting at the waist seams; however, the boob area of said dress would hang off of my meager chest in folds. (It seems my bust is not keeping up with my waist these days...) So I broke down and tried on a lovely pink maternity top which I had happened to see on a previous visit to the store and thought it was super cute. I also tried on some of the pants just to, you know, see what all the fuss is about. Many of the mommy bloggers have mentioned that they pull out the ole maternity jeans the moment they get a positive on the E.P.T. Well in my case "chubby" clearly does not equal "big enough to look pregnant or to wear the maternity clothes, ha ha ha you moron!"
So I relayed my tale of woe to my BFF Jill and to another mommy friend of mine. BFF Jill just laughed her ass off at my expense, which was super helpful! I think she's finally glad that I'm going through what she's gone through 4 times and saying 'told you so!'. My other mommy friend said she went through the same thing when she was pregnant a couple of years ago. Her solution? SKIRTS! She said she already owned a couple of hippie skirts (I'm assuming she means the kind that are long and shapeless and generally have a pattern that you have to be high to appreciate), but that she also got a great deal at Old Navy on some cute skirts that actually fit and made her waist look reasonably proportional to her shoulders, so she bought one in every color. She said those terrible gaucho pants were also popular at the time, but that she refused to wear them on principal.
So it looks like I will be headed to Old Navy and some other stores before too long. Hopefully this terribly weather warms up until mid-October so I can justify going bare-legged another month or so. The downside to the skirts, of course, is that because of some major raging hormones I will have to shave my legs every single damn day. I would advise everyone, including my loving Gray, to stay the heck away from my killer armpit hairs. They have come to take over the earth, and they just might do it - my razor appears to be powerless to stop them.
Speaking of raging hormones, I had a bit of a meltdown last week. And by "a bit of a meltdown", I mean I broke the fuck down and bawled my eyes out for 20 minutes, alone, in between bites of Taco Bell, and laughing at how ludicrous I was being. Knowing it was a huge overreaction did nothing to stifle the sobs, however. I was swept away in a wave of self-pity, nausea and exhaustion. Oh, and snot and stuff.
I was returning home from school at about 10pm when The Hunger showed up and started beating up my stomach. The Hunger punched me in the balls several times and then it started doing somersaults in my brain. I had planned to make a quick meal upon returning home, but quickly realized there was no time for that kind of nonsense. So I hauled ass to Taco Bell and ordered the usual: one hard shell taco and one bean burrito with extra extra onions (the arm pit hair is not the only reason you might want to avoid me these days).
Food in hand, I thought I would be just fine waiting until I was on my own comfy couch before chowing down, but on the walk from my car to the front door of the building, there was a moment there where I was pretty sure I was either going to puke or pass out right there on the sidewalk. I actually wondered to myself how long I would have to lay there before someone saw me and came to help. Luckily, I made it to my apartment without either puking or passing out, but when I opened the door and stepped inside, the smell of BROCCOLI smacked me across the face and made my stomach roll again.
DAMN BROCCOLI! It was in the garbage can, where I had put it the night before because the smell made me sick and there was no way that broccoli was going onto my salad. So I threw it out and forgot all about it. Well, now the entire apartment smelled like broccoli and it was all I could do not to run away screaming in the other direction.
Gray was out for a boy's night and The Hunger was kicking my ass. I was exhausted from a long day at work and stressed out by my night class. I had driven 45 minutes home, nearly been sick on the walk inside, and now I was alone in my smelly apartment and I just lost my shit right then and there. I had a nice little sob fest in my taco.
Since that breakdown, I have shaved my arm pits 6 times. SIX WHOLE TIMES. Amazing the things that pregnancy has done to my body, and lucky for me I'm just getting started! Fortunately, there's a good reason for going through all of this - an amazing, awesome reason - and right about now, that reason is about the size of a grape. I love my little grape!
Friday, September 12, 2008
Am Scared for our Youth
I was on my way home last night from Slow Torture and Death, otherwise known as College Algebra, when I got a phone call from Sara, a friend of mine who lives in North Carolina. She wanted to tell me a funny story. I was skeptical about the level of "funny" she was referring to, but that might have just been the cranky pregnant lady inside of me who didn't want to "socialize" with "people" just then. Anyhow, this friend of mine said she had gotten in trouble at her 12-year-old son's school yesterday. That's when my ears perked up. I love it when adults behave badly in the presence of children.
Peter's* school called her earlier in the day and requested a meeting. The teacher said that Peter had said something in class that they needed to discuss, and she felt it would be best to do that in person. So Sara went up to the school and met with the teacher. It turns out that the teacher was in the middle of giving The Talk with the class...you know? The Talk. The one about the pee-pees and the wee-wees and why god gave them to you and how not to go around sticking the pee-pee in the wee-wee and making a wah-wah? So this teacher asks the class of 12-year-olds to please raise their hand if they would like to share what their mom and dad have shared with them on the topic of sex.
(Important info: It turns out that Peter has been having his first wet dreams recently, and he and my friend have discussed what this means and that it's normal, etc. Also, his older friends have told him all about the joys of self-stimulation, but he was worried because when he tried it himself, apparently it hurt. So Sara gave him some advice and they talked it out. End of story, right? Um, no.)
So Peter raised his hand and proceeded to tell the class, "My mother says that lotion is going to be my best friend because I can't get lotion pregnant, I don't have to pay lotion child support, and I don't have to meet lotion's parents." Can you see perhaps where this is going? I bet you can't, just wait.
So the teacher explains this to Sara, and then she actually says, "In this school, we teach abstinence." As in - your son is a dirty whore and will rot forever in the throes of fire and brimstone for touching his happy place when he's alone. Chain him in the basement immediately.
Needless to say, a parent that is open enough with her son to tell him all about the joys of lotion is NOT going to take kindly to this type of moral judgement by a member of the school faculty whose job is to teach the facts, not to shame the adolescents. So Sara tells her, look lady - In my house, we practice realism. There is no boy on earth who doesn't masturbate, and it's not only totally normal and biologically healthy, but it's also one of the great joys of life!
Then this teacher (clearly scandalized at this point) wants to know what Sara would think if it was her DAUGHTER performing this abomination, what would she have to say then? And of course, Sara says she'll do what every other mother would do and go buy her a vibrator. Now, I'm not sure that every other mother would do that, but it certainly seems healthier than super gluing the whole area closed until she's married.
To cap off this lovely conversation, Sara tells the teacher that she needs to go home tonight and ask her very own husband if he has ever masturbated. Because guess what? He has! And based on your feelings about sex, I'd guess he's probably done it at least twice since you left for work today!
What I want to know is, when did it become the teacher's job to teach children that masturbating is wrong? Shouldn't this be a sort of impartial biology lesson? I guess I didn't realize that abstinence pertains not only to sex with another person (or animal, whatever floats your boat), but also to your own 10 digits. That seems a little over the top for me when the benefits of abstinence are a decrease in teenage pregnancy and STDs. And no, this was not a private school. This was a public school, paid for by the great people of North Charlotte.
I'm suddenly very interested to know the sex education policies in my school district!
*Her kid isn't really named Peter, but I thought it would be appropriate to protect the identity of the minor as well as provide a fortunate play on words for the story. But then again, her name isn't really Sara either. I'm clever like that.
Peter's* school called her earlier in the day and requested a meeting. The teacher said that Peter had said something in class that they needed to discuss, and she felt it would be best to do that in person. So Sara went up to the school and met with the teacher. It turns out that the teacher was in the middle of giving The Talk with the class...you know? The Talk. The one about the pee-pees and the wee-wees and why god gave them to you and how not to go around sticking the pee-pee in the wee-wee and making a wah-wah? So this teacher asks the class of 12-year-olds to please raise their hand if they would like to share what their mom and dad have shared with them on the topic of sex.
(Important info: It turns out that Peter has been having his first wet dreams recently, and he and my friend have discussed what this means and that it's normal, etc. Also, his older friends have told him all about the joys of self-stimulation, but he was worried because when he tried it himself, apparently it hurt. So Sara gave him some advice and they talked it out. End of story, right? Um, no.)
So Peter raised his hand and proceeded to tell the class, "My mother says that lotion is going to be my best friend because I can't get lotion pregnant, I don't have to pay lotion child support, and I don't have to meet lotion's parents." Can you see perhaps where this is going? I bet you can't, just wait.
So the teacher explains this to Sara, and then she actually says, "In this school, we teach abstinence." As in - your son is a dirty whore and will rot forever in the throes of fire and brimstone for touching his happy place when he's alone. Chain him in the basement immediately.
Needless to say, a parent that is open enough with her son to tell him all about the joys of lotion is NOT going to take kindly to this type of moral judgement by a member of the school faculty whose job is to teach the facts, not to shame the adolescents. So Sara tells her, look lady - In my house, we practice realism. There is no boy on earth who doesn't masturbate, and it's not only totally normal and biologically healthy, but it's also one of the great joys of life!
Then this teacher (clearly scandalized at this point) wants to know what Sara would think if it was her DAUGHTER performing this abomination, what would she have to say then? And of course, Sara says she'll do what every other mother would do and go buy her a vibrator. Now, I'm not sure that every other mother would do that, but it certainly seems healthier than super gluing the whole area closed until she's married.
To cap off this lovely conversation, Sara tells the teacher that she needs to go home tonight and ask her very own husband if he has ever masturbated. Because guess what? He has! And based on your feelings about sex, I'd guess he's probably done it at least twice since you left for work today!
What I want to know is, when did it become the teacher's job to teach children that masturbating is wrong? Shouldn't this be a sort of impartial biology lesson? I guess I didn't realize that abstinence pertains not only to sex with another person (or animal, whatever floats your boat), but also to your own 10 digits. That seems a little over the top for me when the benefits of abstinence are a decrease in teenage pregnancy and STDs. And no, this was not a private school. This was a public school, paid for by the great people of North Charlotte.
I'm suddenly very interested to know the sex education policies in my school district!
*Her kid isn't really named Peter, but I thought it would be appropriate to protect the identity of the minor as well as provide a fortunate play on words for the story. But then again, her name isn't really Sara either. I'm clever like that.
Naughty Naughty Son
Last night I had a dream that I was a kid again, and I went out to my family’s shed in the backyard to look for something, I can’t remember what. When I opened the door, there were two children’s jackets on the dirt floor of the shed, half-covered with leaves and debris. I recognized them immediately as belonging to the two boys I’d seen on the news. The boys were missing and hundreds of people had been searching for them for weeks. I felt my stomach drop into my shoes as I realized that my brother had killed them.
In the dream, my brother was McCully Culkin, circa The Good Son. I knew that he had seen me go to the shed, which we hardly ever used, and I knew I had to act as if I hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. Maybe he would think he had hidden the jackets well enough that I hadn’t seen them. So I rooted around in the shed, pretending to look for whatever it was that I had gone out there to find, and then I turned to leave.
As I shut the door, I saw my brother across the yard. He stared me down for a moment before he turned and ran into the house. He knew I had seen the jackets. He knew that I knew he had killed those boys and had kept their jackets as some kind of sick trophy. And he was planning to do something to keep me from talking.
I raced after him into the house and he was waiting – he leveled a pistol at my chest. Before I could think, I grabbed his hand that held the gun and we began to struggle.
That’s when I woke up and decided that I wanted to have a different dream now please. It was a weird combo of Rob Zombie’s Halloween and The Good Son, with a creepy blond kid going around causing trouble and killing people. And of course, there was McCully Culkin, who appears in most of the movies that unsettled me as a child.
What the hell do you suppose that dream meant?
In the dream, my brother was McCully Culkin, circa The Good Son. I knew that he had seen me go to the shed, which we hardly ever used, and I knew I had to act as if I hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. Maybe he would think he had hidden the jackets well enough that I hadn’t seen them. So I rooted around in the shed, pretending to look for whatever it was that I had gone out there to find, and then I turned to leave.
As I shut the door, I saw my brother across the yard. He stared me down for a moment before he turned and ran into the house. He knew I had seen the jackets. He knew that I knew he had killed those boys and had kept their jackets as some kind of sick trophy. And he was planning to do something to keep me from talking.
I raced after him into the house and he was waiting – he leveled a pistol at my chest. Before I could think, I grabbed his hand that held the gun and we began to struggle.
That’s when I woke up and decided that I wanted to have a different dream now please. It was a weird combo of Rob Zombie’s Halloween and The Good Son, with a creepy blond kid going around causing trouble and killing people. And of course, there was McCully Culkin, who appears in most of the movies that unsettled me as a child.
What the hell do you suppose that dream meant?
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Stouffer's Whore
I am, as we speak, consuming an entire tray of Stouffer's frozen macaroni and cheese for my 2nd meal of the day. An entire tray. 4 servings of golden goodness, down the hatch and into my bottomless-pit of a stomach. At one time. And would you like to know why I'm not feeling guilty about a binge of this proportion? Why I'm not batting an eye at my gluttony? I'll tell you why. It's because by this time yesterday (ten minutes to noon), I was on my THIRD meal of the day already. So today, I'm lagging by an entire meal and that means I can chow down with the peace of mind that I am only marginally the pig I was yesterday.
I was prepared for the physical challenges that come along with being in my first three months of creating an entire human being from whence there was none. I was ready to face bloating and gas, astounding fatigue and the inability to sleep through the night, and the good possibility that I would spend many weeks with my head inside of a toilet bowl. Those are all things I signed up for at the beginning of this ride. I even made room in my mind to allow for all kinds of other minor discomforts that some women face, such as sore boobs, mild cramping, and moodiness (which also turns out to be a gigantic understatement - demon spawn might be more appropriate here).
I did not, however, read about The Hunger. I've never shied away from eating a big steak and potatoes meal in favor of a teensy salad or a plate of fruit. I've never had a problem with being too thin, shall we say. However, The Hunger that has taken over my body is unlike any hunger I've ever experienced before. When it strikes, I am completely helpless to deny it's demands. It takes me from completely satisfied and not thinking about food in any capacity...to a warning churn of the tummy that indicates that the tummy is once again empty (or angry, I'm not sure which)...to being so ravenous that I'm likely to eat the face off of anyone who enters my line of sight. This transformation seems to take anywhere from 5 minutes to 30 seconds, and so help me god if I do not put some sort of food (fluids don't work) into my stomach IMMEDIATELY!
Consequences of not putting some sort of food into my stomach IMMEDIATELY include:
Nausea
Stabbing pains in the tummy area
Loud growling noises
Headache
Dizziness
Anger
Crazy Anger
Insane, crazy anger
Inconsolable weeping
Needless to say, The Hunger has come as quite a surprise to me. I did not stock up on food to appease for the beast within my belly, as I was fully expecting to be incredibly ill for at least several weeks during this period of my pregnancy. BECAUSE THE BOOKS WARN ABOUT PUKING BUT NOT ABOUT THE HUNGER! I have to say, The Hunger is turning out to be much more expensive than the puking would have been. I have gone from eating an orderly, budget-friendly 3 meals per day...to eating a ludicrous, budget-busting 6 or 7 meals per day.
We're talking, one breakfast at 7, another at 10, lunch at 12 and again at 2 or 3, a small meal after work around 4:30, dinner around 6, another dinner around 8, and very possibly a snack at bedtime. And I wake up in the morning with The Hunger roaring inside of me.
I asked my sister, mother of my wonderful niece, if she had experienced The Hunger. I was telling her how the beast takes over and takes me from full to ravenous in about 5 minutes. And do you know what? My sister finished that sentence. She knew exactly what I was talking about, and said I can expect this to last through the entire pregnancy. So now she tells me! I guess I have that to look forward to!
My biggest concern is that The Hunger will leave me post-partem, but the habit of shoving all manner of food stuffs into my face for the entirety of the day...well wouldn't that bite if it didn't leave along with The Hunger?
I was prepared for the physical challenges that come along with being in my first three months of creating an entire human being from whence there was none. I was ready to face bloating and gas, astounding fatigue and the inability to sleep through the night, and the good possibility that I would spend many weeks with my head inside of a toilet bowl. Those are all things I signed up for at the beginning of this ride. I even made room in my mind to allow for all kinds of other minor discomforts that some women face, such as sore boobs, mild cramping, and moodiness (which also turns out to be a gigantic understatement - demon spawn might be more appropriate here).
I did not, however, read about The Hunger. I've never shied away from eating a big steak and potatoes meal in favor of a teensy salad or a plate of fruit. I've never had a problem with being too thin, shall we say. However, The Hunger that has taken over my body is unlike any hunger I've ever experienced before. When it strikes, I am completely helpless to deny it's demands. It takes me from completely satisfied and not thinking about food in any capacity...to a warning churn of the tummy that indicates that the tummy is once again empty (or angry, I'm not sure which)...to being so ravenous that I'm likely to eat the face off of anyone who enters my line of sight. This transformation seems to take anywhere from 5 minutes to 30 seconds, and so help me god if I do not put some sort of food (fluids don't work) into my stomach IMMEDIATELY!
Consequences of not putting some sort of food into my stomach IMMEDIATELY include:
Nausea
Stabbing pains in the tummy area
Loud growling noises
Headache
Dizziness
Anger
Crazy Anger
Insane, crazy anger
Inconsolable weeping
Needless to say, The Hunger has come as quite a surprise to me. I did not stock up on food to appease for the beast within my belly, as I was fully expecting to be incredibly ill for at least several weeks during this period of my pregnancy. BECAUSE THE BOOKS WARN ABOUT PUKING BUT NOT ABOUT THE HUNGER! I have to say, The Hunger is turning out to be much more expensive than the puking would have been. I have gone from eating an orderly, budget-friendly 3 meals per day...to eating a ludicrous, budget-busting 6 or 7 meals per day.
We're talking, one breakfast at 7, another at 10, lunch at 12 and again at 2 or 3, a small meal after work around 4:30, dinner around 6, another dinner around 8, and very possibly a snack at bedtime. And I wake up in the morning with The Hunger roaring inside of me.
I asked my sister, mother of my wonderful niece, if she had experienced The Hunger. I was telling her how the beast takes over and takes me from full to ravenous in about 5 minutes. And do you know what? My sister finished that sentence. She knew exactly what I was talking about, and said I can expect this to last through the entire pregnancy. So now she tells me! I guess I have that to look forward to!
My biggest concern is that The Hunger will leave me post-partem, but the habit of shoving all manner of food stuffs into my face for the entirety of the day...well wouldn't that bite if it didn't leave along with The Hunger?
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Long Time, No See
It has been a long time, faithful readers. I'm spacey like that, hard to know when I will lose interest in a project - especially one involving a long and painful story about my ex! So I'm happy to report that this time, I have good news - A Happy Story! - to tell you. After days and exhausting, sticky days of trying to get pregnant (I know, boo-hoo for us), Gray and I conceived our first child! We're very excited, obviously. We've been wanting to have children for a long time. I guess to be more specific, I've been wanting to have children for a long time. Gray simply didn't run screaming in the other direction when I broached the subject with him. Really, what more could you ask for in the future father of your spawn?
And so now I am writing to tell you all about this happy little journey we're about to begin! Don't worry, I have been warned by many about how difficult pregnancy can be, how painful the labor, and how exhausting a newborn will be. I've heard many times that 6 weeks is not long enough to take off from my job, because after 6 weeks I'll only have just begun to rub my eyes and ask what the hell just happened here and why is there drool on my chin? I've heard all about the trials and irritations and endless questions that toddlers and young children will inflict upon us. I'm truly more worried about Old Gray, as he's no spring chicken anymore and needs to lose maybe 30 or 40lbs to keep up with a child. I've read blog after blog about motherhood, and pain and the joy that goes with it. It's probably slightly unfortunate that the parents who write blogs about their children, such as Mrs. H.B.A. of dooce.com, are such talented and witty writers. I say this only because they make the most horrifying experiences sound funny and certainly less awful than truly they were, and the reader think to herself, "If H.B.A. can get through THAT and come out the other side with a pants-wetting tale for us readers, than SURELY I can face such trials with a sense of humor." I guess I'll be finding out if that is true before too long.
What I wasn't prepared for in this whole experience, granted I'm only at the beginning and am sure to have at least a dozen more surprises by the end of my second trimester at least, is the amount of anxiety I've had when pondering the possibility of miscarriage. It's pretty common, from what I read - something like 10% of pregnancies in the first trimester (don't quote me on that) end in "spontaneous abortion" - is that not the worst term you have ever heard!?! I have no reason to think that this might happen to me or my tiny, tiny child - I'm not a high risk pregnancy, I don't have a history of miscarriage (true, I don't have a history of pregnancy either), I don't have any illness, we didn't have a difficult time conceiving, etc. However, it seems that since I've become pregnant, not only have I begun to notice all of the expecting mothers around town, all of the babies everywhere I turn, but also I seem to be hearing a lot of stories about women who have recently miscarried.
I can think of 3 stories, all of which came from reliable sources, to women I know at least peripherally, and it scares the living bejesus out of me. What is it about the news that someone you know is now pregnant that compells you to regale her with tales of your HORRIBLE 14 day labor that resulted in a C-section and a child with a severe case of the Cone Head? What makes you think a newly-expecting woman would want to know that your sister's brother's mother's freaking dentist just had her fourth miscarriage in a year? Because let me tell you, as a newly-expecting mother, I DON'T WANT TO KNOW! I am content to read my little medical books about the warning signs I need to watch for, and then store that information away in the trunk in my brain labeled "No way in hell is this ever going to happen to me!".
Unfortunately, Gray is also reading said medical books, which resulted in one very expensive Google search last week. It's the only Google search that I'm aware of that resulted in one panicked, puffy-eyed trip to the Emergency Room for ultrasounds on a baby that is TOO SMALL TO EVEN BE SEEN BY AN ULTRASOUND, and blood tests that did nothing to make us feel better about the fact that small, painless cramps do not equal miscarriage. But we did get a doctor who felt it crucial to tell us at 1:30 in the morning that he could not rule out an ectopic pregnancy and that there is a fair chance that this was a serious situation.
In the midst of this, Gray says to me that if something goes horribly wrong and this child isn't meant to be...we'll try again and everything will be just fine. But the problem with that, see, is that I don't want a different child - I want THIS one that I fell in love with the moment I saw that blue line on the EPT.
It was not, in fact, a situation at all (serious or otherwise) unless you would call it a First Time Parents are Terrified by all of the Miscarriage Stories and are Jumpy as Hell" situation. When I saw my OBGYN two days later, he was kind enough not to laugh and point at us, and to poo-poo our sheepish exclamations of how we overreacted like lunatics. Better safe than sorry, he says. Thanks Doc, that's why we pay you the big bucks! That, and the fact that you have magical hands that worked my sister's vagina like silly putty during her delivery, banishing tearing and epesiotomies with the touch of a finger.
So now, here Gray and I sit, in the middle of my first trimester with a baby that is smaller than my thumbnail, wondering what our child will look like and sound like and grow up to be. This tiny little baby, capable of wreaking all kinds of havoc on my gastrointestinal system, so far hasn't disturbed anything except my enjoyment of coffee (don't worry, just decaf) and made me gassy enough to power a Hummer. Oh, that and the fact that I've never been so exhausted in my life - getting up off the couch after 4pm is like running a marathon!
So check back in a bit - by spawn and I will be updating you with far more information than you'll ever care to have. In honor of all of the current political festivities, I may just call these updates The State of My Uterus addresses. Why not? It's catchy :)
Have a docious week!
Zippy
And so now I am writing to tell you all about this happy little journey we're about to begin! Don't worry, I have been warned by many about how difficult pregnancy can be, how painful the labor, and how exhausting a newborn will be. I've heard many times that 6 weeks is not long enough to take off from my job, because after 6 weeks I'll only have just begun to rub my eyes and ask what the hell just happened here and why is there drool on my chin? I've heard all about the trials and irritations and endless questions that toddlers and young children will inflict upon us. I'm truly more worried about Old Gray, as he's no spring chicken anymore and needs to lose maybe 30 or 40lbs to keep up with a child. I've read blog after blog about motherhood, and pain and the joy that goes with it. It's probably slightly unfortunate that the parents who write blogs about their children, such as Mrs. H.B.A. of dooce.com, are such talented and witty writers. I say this only because they make the most horrifying experiences sound funny and certainly less awful than truly they were, and the reader think to herself, "If H.B.A. can get through THAT and come out the other side with a pants-wetting tale for us readers, than SURELY I can face such trials with a sense of humor." I guess I'll be finding out if that is true before too long.
What I wasn't prepared for in this whole experience, granted I'm only at the beginning and am sure to have at least a dozen more surprises by the end of my second trimester at least, is the amount of anxiety I've had when pondering the possibility of miscarriage. It's pretty common, from what I read - something like 10% of pregnancies in the first trimester (don't quote me on that) end in "spontaneous abortion" - is that not the worst term you have ever heard!?! I have no reason to think that this might happen to me or my tiny, tiny child - I'm not a high risk pregnancy, I don't have a history of miscarriage (true, I don't have a history of pregnancy either), I don't have any illness, we didn't have a difficult time conceiving, etc. However, it seems that since I've become pregnant, not only have I begun to notice all of the expecting mothers around town, all of the babies everywhere I turn, but also I seem to be hearing a lot of stories about women who have recently miscarried.
I can think of 3 stories, all of which came from reliable sources, to women I know at least peripherally, and it scares the living bejesus out of me. What is it about the news that someone you know is now pregnant that compells you to regale her with tales of your HORRIBLE 14 day labor that resulted in a C-section and a child with a severe case of the Cone Head? What makes you think a newly-expecting woman would want to know that your sister's brother's mother's freaking dentist just had her fourth miscarriage in a year? Because let me tell you, as a newly-expecting mother, I DON'T WANT TO KNOW! I am content to read my little medical books about the warning signs I need to watch for, and then store that information away in the trunk in my brain labeled "No way in hell is this ever going to happen to me!".
Unfortunately, Gray is also reading said medical books, which resulted in one very expensive Google search last week. It's the only Google search that I'm aware of that resulted in one panicked, puffy-eyed trip to the Emergency Room for ultrasounds on a baby that is TOO SMALL TO EVEN BE SEEN BY AN ULTRASOUND, and blood tests that did nothing to make us feel better about the fact that small, painless cramps do not equal miscarriage. But we did get a doctor who felt it crucial to tell us at 1:30 in the morning that he could not rule out an ectopic pregnancy and that there is a fair chance that this was a serious situation.
In the midst of this, Gray says to me that if something goes horribly wrong and this child isn't meant to be...we'll try again and everything will be just fine. But the problem with that, see, is that I don't want a different child - I want THIS one that I fell in love with the moment I saw that blue line on the EPT.
It was not, in fact, a situation at all (serious or otherwise) unless you would call it a First Time Parents are Terrified by all of the Miscarriage Stories and are Jumpy as Hell" situation. When I saw my OBGYN two days later, he was kind enough not to laugh and point at us, and to poo-poo our sheepish exclamations of how we overreacted like lunatics. Better safe than sorry, he says. Thanks Doc, that's why we pay you the big bucks! That, and the fact that you have magical hands that worked my sister's vagina like silly putty during her delivery, banishing tearing and epesiotomies with the touch of a finger.
So now, here Gray and I sit, in the middle of my first trimester with a baby that is smaller than my thumbnail, wondering what our child will look like and sound like and grow up to be. This tiny little baby, capable of wreaking all kinds of havoc on my gastrointestinal system, so far hasn't disturbed anything except my enjoyment of coffee (don't worry, just decaf) and made me gassy enough to power a Hummer. Oh, that and the fact that I've never been so exhausted in my life - getting up off the couch after 4pm is like running a marathon!
So check back in a bit - by spawn and I will be updating you with far more information than you'll ever care to have. In honor of all of the current political festivities, I may just call these updates The State of My Uterus addresses. Why not? It's catchy :)
Have a docious week!
Zippy
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