When you wake up and it is raining, nay pouring, one should consider pulling the covers right back up over their head.

When you wake up to stormy weather and a head cold, complete with fever, bed is probably the best place to be.

When you wake up discover it is pouring, you have a head cold, and then manage to spill 32 oz of cran-grape juice on your white tile kitchen floor 5 minutes before you absolutely must leave or your children will be late for school, one should simply peel off their cran-grape soaked clothes and crawl back into bed, not shower off and schlep children to their respective schools nearly 2 hours late.

When you wake up and it’s raining, you have a head cold, have splatter painted your kitchen cran-grape and your kids were 2 hours late to school, the blood lab tech will inform you that the seemingly simple two tests ticked off on your sheet will require 11 viles of blood - ELEVEN

When you wake up in the driver seat of your car after having 11 viles of blood forcibly removed from your body and it is STILL raining, you should drive home immediately and not leave again (I mean after the wooziness has passed, of course).

This is Baby Boy’s face as of last week. I like to think that he is yawning and not yelling “Mother!! What the ***bleep*** are you doing to me! Stop smashing me with that f*cking wand thing, damn it!”

I go back in 3 weeks for another ultrasound. Apparently the boy is growing an entire week ahead weight wise. If there is an upside to being a high risk pregnancy, these pictures are it. You may now commence with the obligatory OOOing and AHHing.

Do you ever look at one of your children and think “where did you come from,” refusing to believe that either you or the man you love could have produced such an interesting specimen of a person. You swear up and down that you never colored on walls, dumped your mother’s files, or drop kicked dog poo while wearing flip flops. Yes you read that last one right. Saturday, I caught Tessa in the back yard stomping and drop kicking softball sized dog turds, fresh ones.

Mid-stomp I hollered “Freeze!” and in slow motion her foot dropped, plop, into doggie soft serve. “Tessa come here!” As she neared I started gagging, it was clear that was not her first dance in the poo patch. Her toes were caked, her pants- correction her sister’s pants that she decided to wear without asking- were dookie dirty, her sister was screaming and having a justifiable conniption fit facing her feces spattered pink pants, and Tessa’s hands.. oh her tiny baby hands were brown with darker half moons of poo crusted under her petite nails.

I scrubbed that child with Dr Bronner’s peppermint soap, praying the entire time that the poop had not found it’s way into her mouth. I also pondered…. where had this little heathen child come from. Sure I had my moments as a child and The Hubster had a few infamous moments of hammering batteries and bleach drinking, but lord oh lordy - where did this little blessing come from?

Why the $25 DVD/CD player works better than our $300 one? Trying to play a DVD on the Onkyo? Better pray there are no scratches, smudges, specks, flecks or even anything pondering landing on the surface of your DVD. I have an entire CD holder crammed packed with DVDs and CDs that Tessa so kindly rubbed together creating massive scratches. With my $25 target Memorex score, there is hope we may see/ hear them again. Today as a test run The Hubster popped in Madagascar. Our Onkyo wouldn’t even load the previews or menu anymore, on the Memorex we watched THE ENTIRE MOVIE!! And get this… it didn’t skip, like at all - not even once!! *faints*

So someone please explain to me why a $300 piece of electronic equipment can not function as well as a $25 piece? It’s not like it started out working fabulous and has just aged poorly- it was always extremely picky about how pristine the surface of your CD/DVD was. For me it was a real disappointment as I owned an incredible Onkyo for 6 years, hell my Onkyo receiver is STILL going strong and it’s been at least 10 years.

*shrugs* I hope this Memorex keeps delivering because I for one am sick and tired of my Blockbuster rentals skipping at the pivotal movie moments. I’ve missed chick fights, professions of love, dirty jokes, and much much more.

“Christmas tree, mama! Christmas trees!! Let’s stop n get one!”

“I promise we’ll get a Christmas tree after Thanksgiving”

(collective kid moans groans, pissing and whining)

“Thanksgiving will be fun. Your Auntie and uncle and cousin are coming over. Mama is cooking a big turkey for us to eat with..”

“We don’t eat turkey silly mama. D’hey covered in gross feathers!”

“Um, yes when they are alive turkeys have feathers but when they are um… No longer alive we pluck off the feathers so we can eat them”

“But mama, do we take off the beak? The beak be crunchy yuck”

(gagging a bit)”um yes when the turkey is no longer alive they remove the beak and feathers”

“It have no foots when we eat it right?”

(gagging more) “Right, when the turkey is no longer alive they remove the beak and feet, then pluck the feathers off”

“What about the squishy eyeballs? We take those off too? That’s a super super bright idea mama, no eyeballs right?”

(fighting to keep down hastily consumed fast food) “You are absolutely right my dear (gag) When the turkey is no longer alive they remove the beak, eyeballs and feet. Then they pluck the turkey so we can roast it for Thanksgiving dinner.”

“MMM I bet it tastes super yum with no beak or foots or squishy eyeballs or feathers”

Well, I’m sure it would have had we not had this conversation. Happy Thanksgiving everyone, courtesy of my 4 yr old and the rest of the Finding Yourself Family.

My little wombling has the hiccups. Pretty standard fair for most babies to be, except my little one is sitting on my lower intestines happily hiccuping away. Thus it feels like my ass has hiccups. Do you have any idea how disconcerting it feels to have butt hiccups?

Moms Rising does great work on the behalf of mothers everywhere. Currently they are running a petition that I find to be of paramount importance. Most breastfeeding mothers have a story or two or five about how they were mistreated while nursing in public or felt too intimidated to even try. Recently a mother was kicked off of a Delta Charter flight for nursing her 22 month old as they prepared for take off. You may also remember a recent skirmish involving Victoria’s Secret, yes the store that makes it’s money almost exclusively on the concept of keeping breasts off women’s knees (which coincidentally is where they end up from nursing).

In a country where the government spends a tidy sum of money creating campaigns to promote breastfeeding such as:
National Breastfeeding Awareness Campaign — Babies were Born to be Breastfed
And in a country where our doctors also enthusiastically back the practice you would think that there would be clear, concise, well promoted, nationwide laws protecting the rights of breastfeeding mothers.
“Sign this petition to tell Delta Airlines to get a clue and be supportive of breastfeeding mothers. And tell Congress it’s time to pass the Breastfeeding Promotion Act, which amends the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to protect breastfeeding mothers. Clearly this law is needed now!”

CLICK HERE to sign

The passage of the amendment would be a boon to all women and particularly helpful to working mothers. By getting companies on board with breastfeeding at the employee level, the attitude of acceptance will trickle down and help mothers everywhere.

Have a wonderful weekend.

We are back from Thanksgiving “dinner” cuteness overload fest at Tessa’s school. I wish I had a million more pictures and I was yearning to video Tessa singing the Mr Turkey song but this melon headed two year old was blocking her! Now honestly, if you head rivals the size of the good year blimp and you have no intentions of singing don’t just stand there and blot out the sun. Really You should run straight to your mother and eclipse the back part of the room.

You can stop sending the bereavement Ecards for my family. I’m still alive and kicking I’ve just been out of control busy this week. Actually I will post more in a few hours when I get back from Thanksgiving “dinner” at my daughter’s preschool as well as her shot appointment and a turkey buying expedition.

Twenty Three Weeks of belly

My how we have grown.

In other tummy news, I have a fantastic link for my gluten free friends
Cinnamon Swirl Coffee Cake . It rocked everyone’s socks in my house be they gluten free or not. Capello, I thank you from the now satisfied depths of my belly.

In non tummy related news, the wedding this weekend was lovely, beautiful, and fantastic. I promise to post pictures as soon as I have some in my possession. Thankfully I did not find myself the center of uninhibited naming sessions and though my belly was fondled a bit, it was not nearly as much as I had feared. Mira made a darling flower girl and the bride, oh my the bride. She made her entrance down a glass elevator and I could not help but tear up at the sight of one of my closest friends blooming in all her glory.