“What clothes is the baby wearing Mama?”

“Well honey, he’s not wearing any clothes right now”

“He NAKED????”

The look said it all - shock, worry, repulsion. The very thought that her darling baby brother is unclothed distresses and discombobulates Mira. I’m not sure exactly where this comes from as I am infamous for my glaring lack of modesty within the walls of my home.

“Mama, maybe we give him some clothes to wear. He has a lot of clothes”

“You’re right he does have a lot of clothes but those are for him to wear when he is born. You were naked inside of Mama’s tummy when you were a baby.”

Mira knit her brows together with concern.

“Da doctor saw my stinky butt when I came out?”

(giggle giggle) “Ummm yes, but it wasn’t stinky yet”

“Baby brother needs to put clothes on mama, I no want to see his stinky butt”

“Sweetie, how would he get clothing to put on?”

Then you see it, the bright light bulb clicks on, a shining beacon of kid logic. You know that THIS idea is golden and there will be no dissuading her from it…

“Maybe you eat the clothes and and he get them and put them on.”

Mmmm glad I’ve been buying organic.

Can someone explain to me how I managed to put on and leave the house in underwear entirely devoid of a crotch? No they were not some special naughty panties, in fact they are horrid huge granny maternity panties. Apparently the Baby Oxyclean I put in with my whites devoured everything but the elastic and somehow I managed not to notice until I was at the OBs office peeing in a cup.

Embarrassed about the situation I said a little prayer

“Please God give them no reason to ask me to remove my pants”

“We need to check you today, so clothes off from the waist down!”

ACK! Cruel fate!

You better believe I balled up those crotchless wonders and stuffed them into the leg of my yoga pants. Disaster averted. Note to self, check all panties for wholeness.

*******WARNING*********
This is a totally off color story that was related to me by my close friend, the poor dear lived it. I have been laughing about it daily and now so shall you. Please swallow that gulp of coffee or soda lest you spray it all over your monitor. The names have been changed to protect my friend (well mostly so she would agree to allowing me to relate this to you ).
*******WARNING*********

Now here’s a little story about some folks we’ll call Hank and Bess. Hank and Bess have a young son who is autistic and receives various therapies at home until he turns three. Bess is constantly cleaning like some crazy possessed lady as these therapists parade through her home several times a week. Let’s face it, anyone with children always has a mess to tidy and poor Bess has 4 kiddos in her brood - that is one hell of a mess.

Darling Bess is a petite lady who’s stature is akin to a card carrying member of the Lollipop Guild. This can make certain tasks a little more difficult. Every once and awhile, she’ll drag a chair over and clean off the top of her towering entertainment center, it’s not an everyday cleaning type of chore, right? Wrong, wrong wrong and if you learn nothing else from this tale of woe, you will learn the importance of cleaning the top of your entertainment center.

One recent day, Bess’s son was participating in his home therapies but was becoming increasingly distracted by a toy train. The therapist decided to remove the toy from the child’s reach and sight by stashing it on top of the recently-cleaned-but-not-that-very-day-cleaned entertainment center.

“Oops! I knocked something down, let me get that for you Bess”

then the crickets started, the therapist seemed frozen in time. Bess’s eyes slid over the object clutched in her hand… it, was a porno. Having anyone come into your home and uncover one of your naughty vices is bad enough but when that naughty vice is plastered with explicit photos and a raunchy title ( “Lesbian Fish Taco Gobblers” to be exact ), well one tends to be highly embarrassed.

Bess was truly flustered and then befuddled when it was discovered that the therapist had locked her keys in the car. Eye contact was out of the question and Bess was now facing possible hours with someone who could only fleetingly look at her guilt ridden face and internally scream “LESBIAN FISH TACO GOBBLERS!”

Bess called Hank, hoping they could use their roadside service to help get the therapist on her way. Hank found the whole incident not only amusing, but saw it as a possible window for some hot action replying to Bess’s torrid tale with “COOOL Maybe she will want to have a threesome with us. I am sure she would rather have that for Christmas than the basket thing you made for her!”

Poor poor Bess. She later told me she had always been interested in trying a fish taco - the dish, not the female variety - but confessed that she would never be able to choke one down now. Alas a good porno and a delicious meal have both been forever ruined for her.

Heed Bess’s advice - ALWAYS clean off the top of your entertainment center and always have a good hiding place for your porn.

I can’t wait to see the Google hits I get from this sordid tale.

Let’s hope you don’t wake up to find this under your tree tomorrow. Merry Christmas, everyone.

Don’t hate him because he’s beautiful

My 28 weeks belly. Glorious, isn’t it?

On Monday the doc took another peek at The Boy, unfortunately the pictures were not as good this time around, mostly blurs since he refused to hold still. His weight is guesstimated to be about 2 lbs 12 oz. Despite what it may feel like, it was confirmed that he only has 2 arms and 2 legs- not the eight I have been envisioning.

Onto the not so fantastic news… We have been flirting with preterm labor. Lots of contractions and pressure. Thankfully the cervix is still intact but it is a huge concern since they stopped Mira 3 times (at 31, 33, and 34 weeks).

They attempted to calm things down by prescribing Procardia, a heart medication with an off label use for stopping preterm labor…. Wasn’t so successful. Actually I had to make an emergency trip back to the doctor yesterday to get checked out again. The pressure had worsened to the point where it felt like my girly under parts were going to drop off and I was unable to stand upright.

The real moment of panic for me was when I started calling friends and family who lived close enough to get to my house right at that exact second… yeah, no one answered their phone - NO ONE. I called The Hubster 5,487 times before he picked up. I forced him to come home early, with the intention of having him watch the kids… In the 15 minutes it took him to get home I ended up at the point where I was completely unable to drive.

I have stopped the Procardia and am feeling MUCH better today. The contractions aren’t nearly so strong or close together. I’m hoping they continue this quieting trend and I can make it till my appointment next week (thinking small steps here).

All this has left me to wonder - what the hell am I going to do if I end up on bed rest or god forbid in the HOSPITAL on bed rest??

Christmas came to a crashing halt last week:

The Hubster went apeshit (really there is no kinder description for his frame of mind). Hacksaw in hand, he took my nearly 8 foot tree down to a 6 footer.

**note the burning red color creeping up his neck and blazing on his ears** Immediately after I snapped this gem he leaped to his feet, hacksaw waving, and yelled “DO NOT TAKE PICTURES OF ME IN MY UNDERWEAR FOR YOUR BLOG!” (he knows me too well).

We passed our gypsum board inspection. Gypsum what?? Basically some city dude came over, looked to make sure we properly screwed the drywall to the framing and left his John Hancock on our permit - splendoriffic right? Oh hell yes! This kicks it into high gear. We only have a set of final inspections to pass to get the monkey, otherwise known as our city’s building department, off of our backs and more importantly so we can emerge from the cave like core of our home and bask in the windowed addition of our home.

In the spirit of progress, we harness every available soul to help- child labor laws be damned….

Mixing Joint Compound

Mira Mudding baby Brother’s Room

Tessa Pitching In

Wow, Only A Little Messy!

You’ll have to pardon my extended silence, believe me I have been anything but silent this week. Mostly I have cried, wailed and railed against the useless chunk of machinery that was once my computer. Internal components went kablooey. Weird ka-chunga noises and shaking preceded what turned into an endless loop of booting, rebooting, rebooting, rebooting and never quite making it to safe mode. Sigh. Thankfully I have a computer savvy father to turn to, one with whole sale connections. According to him, my new best friend is currently enroute to my home and will have me suckling at the teat of high speed again sometime this week.

Aside from the joyful cries of “Thank you Jesus” sure to tumble from my lips when those 4 magic lights flicker back on my modem and possibly Jesus being mentioned in my chagrined confession of kissing another man/woman when my computer is delivered, Jesus has been on our mind. My youngest daughter currently attends a church affiliated preschool. They were one of the few establishments in town that were willing to place her up with the 3 year olds, despite her birth date falling past the traditional Florida cut off of September 1st.

I had my reservations about enrolling her. Growing up in a faithless house and only encountering organized religion through the overly zealous neighbors who were harvesting my soul, my perspective on Christianity was/is a rather skewed one. Happily, they keep their church agenda to the basics. My child has yet to turn to me and tell me we are evil heathens for not regularly attending a religious house of worship (unlike the writhing masses of thumpers who beat my door down on a regular basis inviting us to revivals). This week the school is having a birthday party for Jesus, complete with cake and party games. Tessa is quite proud to be bringing some apples for the lunch feast, though desperately wishes she could do more.

Today, in the grocery store, she turned to me and said “Jesus needs party hats so we wear them when we sing happy birthday to him. They will make him very happy Mama”

“Well sweetie, I bet your teachers have already thought that. All they asked us to bring is apples”

“Mama, party hats would make Jesus happy. You don’t want Jesus to be sad, do you?”

Aw Christ…

I stared at her wondering where she had fashioned this manipulative argument from. Had she been paying attention all those times I finagled pizza, movies, or other superfluous luxuries from her father’s tight wad grasp?. There she stood in isle 8 with a stack of princess party hats, batting her watery brown eyes at me, telling me that I would, in fact, be making the baby Jesus sad - me and my selfish no party hat attitude. What could I do?

I shut my eyes, took a deep breath and replied

“Who wants to go to the bakery for a cookie?”

Everywhere I go, people are quizzing me

“Do you know the sex?”
“When are you due?”

When I tell them it’s a boy their smiles deepen and they say

“you must be over the moon since you already have girls”

When I reveal my due date the smiles drop off their face, their eyes bulge and they sputter things like:

“It’s twins, right?”
“They must not have your dates correct”
“When? I think I misheard you”

I bite my tongue, toss off a nervous smile, wince a bit, swing my girth in the other direct and repress some tears. Of course one comment this weekend took the cake.

“Darn you all have to leave so soon? I was hoping the kids could play a little longer.”

“Well, we have another party to get to today…”

“Oh I thought you were leaving to go have the baby!”

Um what?

I’m only around 26 weeks…

PS you can vote in our baby name poll HERE

These are the names we are working with at the moment, of course around here, they are subject to change minute to minute.