It all seems so sinister.

Meet me in the Kohls parking lot at 10am, bring the gift card.

I stare at the email and know that I will do as I am instructed. There is no mention of a trench coat but I feel like I should be wearing one - beige and belted at my waist. I want to sport a plaid felt hat and twirl a mustache (Dear God, please never let me grow a mustache no matter how much I want to twirl one).

I want to email back

How will I know it’s you? Will you be wearing a trench coat? Could you wear a trench coat, I’d be certain to spot you then. Not many Floridians wearing trench coats in the 88 degree heat. Instead I simply reply

I’ll be there.

But will I be there? There is an gnawing anxiety in the pit of my stomach. I feel this surge whenever I make plans to pick up goods via Craigslist or Freecycle. I worry about this persons intentions. Why will you sell this to me? Why do you want to give this thing away? I always scrutinize the email address, as though I can detect evil or ill will from snjmi@anywhere.yeahright.

I briefly consider bringing my dog. My huge monstrous dog that makes people quake with fear. I don’t think I can handle 30 minutes in the car with him farting and fretting. Mace would be an idea, but I don’t own any. Sadly, my first thought is

I wonder if I post a WANT ad on Freecycle for mace, would someone reply?

Everyone has found themselves on the receiving end of bad advice at sometime or another. On occasion we have all be stupid naive enough to follow. It may have caused an Ogilvie Home Perm incident, a self waxing ut-oh, or a plastic surgery boo boo of Michael Jackson proportions. Through personal discovery, I know that pregnancy is the biggest invitation for ASSvice. Friends, strangers, distant family will offer up these gems as though they are the most promising glittering piece of parenting know-how out there. Many times you will come to find out, the best ASSvice comes from folks with no children of their own, but they’ve read BOOKS! and heard THINGS! and once baby sat their aunt’s iguana and iguanas are just like scaly children, right? These folks who lay claim to your belly in a grocery store or on an elevator, groping you without so much as a ‘hello my name is,’ will tell you:

“Make sure not to hold your baby too much, it’ll spoil her”
(Let me clue you in, it’s a BABY, not an open jar of mayo left to rot in the July sun)

“Let her cry, or she’ll learn she can manipulate you”
(we all know that as soon as they shoot out of your cootch they start plotting how to get you to buy them an oompaloompa for their first birthday)

“You shouldn’t breast feed a boy, you don’t want him to think dirty thoughts and be obsessed with them when he gets older”
(*cough cough* I just can’t even *cough cough*)

“Put that baby on a schedule right away”
(Baby, you are NOT allowed to poop until 4pm, do you hear me?)

“My baby started sleeping through the night right after she was born, yours will too”
(Now remember once upon a long ass time ago they gave you drugs that completely knocked you out. Chances are the person telling you this woke up from that when their kid was five)

Despite the overflow of poor parentisms there are the occasional nuggets of truth and wisdom. Things like:

“Sleep when the baby sleeps” With my first child it was an absolute must and always. As I have added children, I’ve left this by the wayside. I’ve somehow come to the decision that sleep makes me weak and not sleeping keeps me at the top of my game, of course I was to tired to cook dinner last night and ate a pound of bacon instead.

“Never leave the house without a complete change of clothing for yourself” Just a clean shirt simply won’t do. In the weeks following childbirth, when you are still bleeding like a stuck pig, a spare pair of pants and panties can save you lots of embarrassment. God forbid you sneeze, even the most kegel-y gifted among us is hard pressed to hold in a squirt during this time.

“Have a drink” Yes, HAVE A DRINK - especially if you are breastfeeding. One glass of wine will loosen you up enough to get a good let down and wipe out some anxiety (Note one glass of wine does not constitute the entire glass bottle of wine, remember moderation mama).

“Get out of the house” Walking back into the land of the living can help keep postpartum depression at bay. So long as you aren’t dealing with a preemie or a child with a compromised immune system, leave the house at least every few days. If you can swing it, do it every day. Just a short walk around the block can do wonders for lifting your mood.

“Showers are overrated” It’s true! If you’ve showered in the last nine days, spend that 15 minutes sleeping or eating or blogging (priorities ya know). My son is 10 weeks old and I’m still going by the nine day rule, how do you think I had the time to pound this out?

I’m interested to hear what wonderful ASSvice and ADvice you have received. Drop your gems in the comments, not only for my pleasure, but for the benefit of Liz , T B , and Christina who are all ripe to drop their sprogs at any moment. Maybe laughing will kick start labor.

This may shock some of you, but I rarely wear make up.. more like NEVER. Whenever there is an occasion that I must dress up for, I have to buy all new makeup. A long once upon a time ago when I used to wear makeup regularly, it was stage makeup. I didn’t mind spending time applying glittery lilac and electric green to my eyes but I just can’t seem to bring myself to indulge in it as a daily routine. Perhaps one day when I find the masses averting their gaze and yanking small children from my path, I may consider a daily prettifying routine but for now you should be thankful that I remember to brush my hair and put on deodorant. Hop on over to Adventures In Babywearing she is sponsoring a contest called bloggers without makeup. I highly encourage you to participate. For the regular make up wearers, I bet it will be a very liberating experience.

Happy HNT, Visit Os today he could use a hug.

Despite several of us feeling hinky (extreme fatigue, nausea and even a small fever or two), the puke plague seems to have only struck Mira. She has missed the last 2 days of school from a residual fever but the vomiting only lasted 24 hours. Here’s where I’d like to thank Jesus and bleach.

I’m not typically a bleach person. The smell is overwhelming, burns my nose, and makes me ill. When I first met my husband he was a bonified bleach addict. He still has this small HUGE problem of putting bleach in unmarked spray bottles after which mass clothing carnage typically ensues. His last big bleach oops killed our brand new king sheets, half MY wardrobe and several of his things. For many moons after this incident, bleach was entirely banned from our home. I refused to buy it and the few times he bought it - I hid it. Recently I have allowed it back into my home and his overzealous love has shown it’s self on my white towels. They are all suddenly threadbare. Last week I could dry myself with no problem, today I stepped out of the tub and put a huge hole in my towel just trying to grab it off of the rack.

Bleach does have it uses- like disinfecting after a rousing round of Tilt-a-Hurl leaves every surface in sight spatter painted with germs. Heck as soon as I could I ran out and bought Lysol All Purpose cleaner with bleach. If a reviewer thinks “Using this product is like killing a gnat with an Uzi” then I knew it would surely obliterate stomach virus germs.

Is it sad that I actually had to research what cleaning product I wanted to buy? It’s been so many years since I used anything harsh that all the flashy germ killing claims made my head spin. My typical cleaning products include Method Lavender multi purpose spray, Bon Ami, E-cover, vinegar, baking soda and occasionally some Mister Clean (The electric yellow scent, it’s my one environmentally unfriendly cleaning product obsession. Of course, I can’t use it straight up and water it down in a spray bottle). Am I the only one?

Step right up folks and spin the wheel! Where will it land? Nobody knows! The sink?? MMM chunky! The floor? Dig that splat jive! The upholstered piano bench? Well, I wanted to recover that anyways. Yes, vomit is just a little cough choke and urg away. In as little as 30 seconds you bathroom can look like Linda Blair paid a visit.

That’s not enough vomit you say? Well that is the beauty of a stomach virus, my friends. For the price of one puking kid, you can infect a whole family! Just think, five gastrointestinal time bombs sharing one bathroom! Act today and we can infect your family too.

As a bonus we’ll send you a 12 pack of paper towels, disinfectant, a barf bucket, and a snazzy 8 track of mothering mantras to repeat to yourself as you scour the spew covered floors. My favorite mantra? “It’s only wet pretzels, it’s only wet pretzels.” If you order in the next five minutes, we’ll also throw in a guide to removing Technicolor yawn remnants from any surface. You’ll learn such skills as “removing chunky puke from your sink trap” and my personal favorite “removing puke from wicker weave!”

We yell, we scream, we whisper and we cry. It’s a circle. An everyday circle. What tips it off is different. Today it was washing her hair.

I am fully clothed and in the shower. I have to pin her between my knees while hurriedly scrubbing the scent of too sweet apples from her hair. I briefly wonder if when she is grown, the smell of apples will panic her. She is shaking and gasping like a fish deprived of water, only water is what started this whole mess.

One can not imagine the horror of water touching the front of her head and possibly running onto her face. It’s the same horror that strikes when a tag is itchy, when she wears blue jean shorts, when lunch at home is not served precisely at one-two-zero-zero. I talk about bravery, about how getting to go to swimming lessons means putting her whole head in the water. She flails and frets. I am certain that I must be leaving finger length bruises as I try to maintain my balance and still keep her slick wet body under the spray.

We emerge from the shower and I help her towel off. I must rake a brush through her hair while she sobs. I gently explain that we didn’t get a chance to use conditioner, her panic over the shampoo was all that I could stomach. She is dressed and skips off - for her it has ended. I am left worn and ragged, wondering if perhaps I used up all my patience during her toddlerhood.

I know that I snap more easily these days. My middle child has rarely known how placid and patient I can be. A preemptive “NO!” is more likely to escape my lips then a simple “I love you!” These are things I work on.

I am hoping over the summer we can weave a new pattern. Our home life should be settling down. The house is coming together, the end is in sight. My youngest is coming into his own, developing a groove. For 3 months it will be me and my three. My goal is to hide less, yell less, say no less. I am hoping I can relearn that less is more and hoping to build enough reserves to handle the storms sure to come with my oldest as she sails into kindergarten.

Last week was the IEP meeting. She will be going to a whole new school next year. New building, new teacher, new therapist and new friends. The bright spot in all of this newness is the hope I have for people in her new school “getting it.” For the first time she will be attending a school with an Autistic services class- someone trained in dealing with foibles such as hers. A small haven where I won’t have to defend her tiptoe walking, incessant fretting and unending need for routine.

After tucking her into bed, I hear her softly crying. “What’s wrong honey?” I curl my body into her bed and around her. “Maybe I can swim with no head in the water, I want to go to swim lessons!” I promise her that we will practice, that we will learn to be brave together. I think a lot of the journey ahead will be us, me and my daughter, learning to be brave. Her so she can face and florish in the world and me to face my own daemons. Letting go of this all or nothing pursuit of perfection, realizing that yes isn’t a four letter word, and accepting the bumps are part of the ride (sometimes the part that even makes you smile).

Day to day life sometimes bogs me down, making me forget about simpler things. So focused am I on the big picture that I sometimes forget small pleasures and dreams. Thankfully, I have my kids to remind me.

Last night in the bath tub my girls were talking about wishes. Mira asked Tessa what she wished for most and Tessa’s response made me grin from ear to ear. In a dreamy voice Tessa declared

“I wish for a chocolate milk bath.”

Every year since I first discovered it’s foil wrapped bliss, I eagerly await it’s arrival. I mourn for those years when I was afraid. Those crazy mixed up years where I thought that the chocolate shell was filled with REAL egg. Thank bunny I put on my big girl panties and sunk my teeth into it’s gooey candy goodness. We may not eat ham and pray but we certainly stuff our pie holes with at least one Cadbury egg a piece each Easter. Recently I was kvetching about how much smaller they seemed. How one simply doesn’t cut it. Comments were toss around about how my ass is bigger, thus requiring more Cadbury to satisfy it, but I knew… I KNEW something was up. Now we have definitive proof!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAkTpceAi6s]

Cadbury, oh my dear Cadbury.. How can I buy from a company that lies to children (and chocolate fiend adults)?

This doll keeps freaking me out! The baby in blue and white is Mira’s new dolly “Milky”.. yes my child named her doll “Milky”.. Milky is often left in various spots around the house, many of which are places Levi could be (like on my bed) but Milky is always left in a decidedly dangerous pose. This gives me a mini heart attack and I have caught myself rushing over, wondering how in Holy Hades my son was relocated. Yeah, me? I’m sleep deprived and a little daft.

Milky has her good points though. For one, she has yet to puke in my hair. Getting her to stop crying is a snap- all I have to do is threaten her mother with the corner. Perhaps the biggest plus of all? Milky never blows out a diaper, Levi on the other hand… total diaper carnage. It is not so much a volume thing but rather his impeccable side pooping skill. One shart and this kid has nailed his clean outfit, nailed my clean outfit, but his clean diaper? Not so much. There may be a little something around the elastic on his legs. I’m not sure if he needs to go up a size or what. He’s only 13-14 lbs and wearing a size 2 but perhaps we need to explore size 3? Does anyone out there make a diaper meant to contain a side shooter? If I can’t end this soon, I’m going to have to embroider “Splash Zone” on the butt of all of his outfits.