The awesome thing about having a fractured spine

is that my insurance company is paying for me to have a nanny. Every day for three hours a day. For a YEAR!!!!

I cannot describe the vast surges of joy this causes me. Or how much I love my insurance company. Geico-oh-geico let me write a poem for thee . . . Or maybe just say that you're AWESOME.

[post edit: actually Geico lied about the nanny. and they SUCK.]

Ho Ho Hoax

So, Santa, of course, showed up at our house.

I'd been trying for weeks to build up my two-year old. We talked about Santa, we talked about Christmas. My husband didn't like to talk about Santa because he felt like a big, fat fraud. I never felt like a fraud, though. I'm all about the metaphors and Santa freaking rocks.

Well, when Christmas morning came and I led my little boy out to see the Christmas tree I said, "Oh, look! Did Santa bring you presents?"

My two year old looked at me, all confused, then looked at his dad. "No," he concluded. "Mommy did."

Lovely.

But--maybe to make up for it--today when he was crying I said, "Kido, I love you so much. Do you know I love you? And lots of other people love you, too. Do you know who else loves you?"

I paused and my two year old answered, "I know! Santa . . . Santa Claus. He wubs me."

Long live the metaphors!

My sister and I have a "Charmed" obsession

We started watching the series from the beginning a few weeks ago--since my messed up back means I spend a lot of time in bed--and we're racing to get through all 7 seasons. Sometimes we watch five or six episodes a day.

Well, the other day my two year old came up to me and said, "Mom, let's watch Charmed!"

My sister and I were happy to oblige.

Well, at one point in the episode two of the characters started making out.

My two year old cozied up to me and said, "Ah! I LOVE the kissing!!!" At which point he started passionately making out with my arm.

I don't even want to be around when this kid gets hormones.

I'm almost too embarassed to post this

but the other day I was nursing my baby girl and my two year old came up to me. He said, "mom, those are your boobs."

I said, "You are so right about that, kid."

Then he looked at them and said, "Can I touch them?"

And I said, "you most certainly may not."

And he said, "But I want to EAT them!"

The Palace

Or, the "goddess palace" and my best friend and I call it, is FINISHED! And it's beautiful. Just really beautiful.

What it is: a tuff shed that we insulated, dry walled, and wired with electricity. And when I say "we" I mean my best friend. She did all the work. I just sat there watching her most of the time. Fractured spine and all. Oh, and I hired an electrician. My best friend wanted to do the electricity herself, but she is frankly a crazy person.

Why we built it: Ever hear of the whole "room of one's own" concept? That's what this is. Only it's a shed. It's a beautiful (and I do mean beautiful) place where no babies are allowed. There are bookshelves, a fridge, a microwave, a loft with a bed, a lazy-boy, a 10-ft. long desk, and some other stuff. The first time I stood alone in it after it was finished I started crying.

And it was SO FUN to build. Seriously. You wouldn't think that dropping a small fortune on dry wall and nails and staple guns would be fun, but it was really, really fun. It reminded me of when I was in third grade and my friend Tiffany and I would secretly play Barbies together. We knew we were supposed to be too old for Barbies, and we knew we couldn't *tell* anyone that we did it, but we did it anyway.

Yes, I have a fractured spine

At least, two doctors said I did. One told me I had a broken vertebrae and then went to the hallway to confirm with his doctor friend who also thought it was broken. But there was this one radiologist who disagreed and said it could be something else (because no one thought to take pictures--they thought my back pain would magically go away!-- until, like, months after the accident, so things change after months and things that look like they might be fractures can apparently be confused with I dunno what). I don't know what they wrote in my medical file. But they all agreed that my spine is messed up. I think he was saying I have a ruptured disk, a herniated disk, a torn disk, and an assortment of ripped ligaments all along the cortical, thorassic, and lumbar spine. Something medical and horrifying like that. It's that drunk dude's fault who hit us in that really bad car accident just after my baby was born. I actually got subpeonaed for the first time, by the way. Pretty exciting. I'm a witness for the prosecution in a criminal jury trial. It's almost like I'm the star of my very own TV show! I can't decide what to wear... :-)

My two year old cussed out his nursery leader

Just when we thought he might be getting over the "sh*t"s he brought them out again.

At church.

Prayers to the Virgin Mary

We were driving home from California this week and the kids were HORRIBLE. My little girl screamed for 6 hours straight and my little boy was despondent because we left the DVD player at grandpa's house, and also, my back hurt like a mother*&%er. A drive that should have taken 9 hours was taking closer to 16 because of all the stopping we had to do.

Well, on one of our stops we went to a Wal Mart where we walked around all bleary eyed. We had been praying and praying for hours, hoping that things would get better. But they hadn't.

Then on one of the ailes we found a Virgin Mary candle.

I picked up the candle and said, "Well, God, if *you* won't do anything..."

We lit the candle to the Virgin.

The kids fell asleep and slept till home.

Mommy is so proud moment number 687

My two year old's aunt took away his juice box because he was squirting it all over the car and he was pissed. He yelled at her and shook his finger at her. Finally he just held his breath for a second and then yelled, clear as ever, "SH*T!!!!"

And then when we couldn't stop laughing he just said it over and over and over, which wasn't great, either.

I'm not sure who taught him that particular word. Even though I do swear (a little too much) that doesn't happen to be one of my words. Unless I don't know myself as well as I thought. Hmm . . .

My baby girl laughs now

and it's hillarious. She's one of the girliest looking girls I've ever seen. She has these long eyelashes and pink cheecks and a bashful little grin.

But her laugh comes out as this deep-toned, gutteral force of air that sounds vaguely like she's going to puke.

Not girly at ALL.

This is a really disgusting post

Seriously. So if you don't want to be disturbed, stop reading NOW.

I've been having this horrible nightmare. In it, my vagina is stuffed with bug larva. They just keep plopping out in these slimy clumps everywhere I go. They're oozes of spherical bubbles with squirming worms inside. The spheres all stick together and make an awful glurp-glump sound as they plop out.

I think it's rooted in the fact that I call my little kidos "bugs" and that I'm absolutely terrified of getting pregnant again.

So gross.

Somewhere out there is going to be a fabulous wig

I cut off more than a foot of my hair today and donated it. It used to go to my butt. Now it doesn't even go to my shoulders. It's awesome.

Plus I dyed it. Woo hoo! I've never dyed it before in my whole life. It's really blonde now.

My computer is going into the shop

It's supposed to take a few weeks. What they need three weeks for when all they have to do is replace the "n" key, don't ask me. Point is, I won't be on for a few weeks. Come back, though!

In praise of the VW passat

My husband and I were in a bad car accident Friday night. We were coming home from seeing Superman (without babies, thank goodness) and getting off the freeway onto the four lane divided highway thingy that is 7200 S.-West-of-the-Freeway, when an out of control drunk driver came from behind. I'm not exactly sure what happened, but we were hit once from the back, then there was some spinning (and some screaming), then we were hit from the side, then we skidded over the median and into oncoming traffic all the way across two lanes and up onto the opposite sidewalk and almost into a ditch but not quite. Thank goodness the oncoming traffic was able to stop because let me tell you there's not much freakier than seeing six or seven sets of headlights coming straight for you as you're totally out of control (and screaming ). The side air bags deployed and my husband's window was shattered. The whole back of the car was mushed in and the side pretty messed up, too. All four tires exploded and there was oil leaking from somewhere in the car.

Afterward were shaking pretty dang bad but were really surprised to be walking around. [Not quite as surprised to see the drunk dude stumble out of his car and try to run away from the cops who were *right there*, but whatev.]

Turns out our car (a VW Passat)--which we bought for the sole reason of its being the cheapest used car we could find at the time--is one of the safest cars you can get. It's mushed now, but we walked away and think we want another one just like it.

Anyway. If we had skidded across the median about three seconds later than we did, we could very well be dead because we would have hit two cars head on. It's frankly kind of weird to be in a situation that could have been so deadly. I don't know if the fragility of life is supposed to teach you to just hang on through tough times or to do whatever it takes not to have tough times because life is so short.

[post edit: my back hurt a lot after this, but the medics and the hospital thought it was the type of injury that would go away. but it didn't. it might never go away, they tell me now. blah.]

sleep deprivation taking its toll

Awhile ago I had to write down the date on a form of some kind. I looked at the line and wrote, without hesitation, "Oct. 27, 1983."

And it took me about a minute and a half to even notice my mistake.

Not ready to give in

Awhile ago my two year old was really, really mad at his dad and new sister. He yelled at them, shook his finger at them, and eventually collapsed in a screaming, sobbing heap on the floor.

I picked him up and asked if he wanted to say a prayer to help him feel better. He said yes.

Mommy: "Heavenly Father"

2yrold: "Fadur"

Mommy: "Thank you for home"

2yrold: "Sink oo for om."

Mommy: "Thank you for my family"

2yrold: "Sink oo," [pause][angry voice] "for mommy."

Ways to melt your mommy's heart

The other day I overhead my two year old walking down the hallway. He was holding a picture of the new baby and talking to himself.

"Me bee-bee sister . . ." he was saying. "CUTE!"

At least she's not a vampire

The day my new baby came home from the hospital, my mom and I were home alone with her. She'd just eaten and was trying to burp. But, since she was only two days old, she wasn't very good at burping and was instead making this weird sort of choking/gasping type noise. I was slightly disturbed by the noise, and even more disturbed by the fact that it had been at least 15 seconds since her last breath, but I had to pee, really, really bad. So I handed the baby over to my mom and ran to the bathroom.

Before I could get beyond unbuttoning my pants, though, my mom was screaming.

Now, and this is embarassing, my first thought was, "Woman! What's the matter with you? She can't be dead *yet.*" Because, as we all know, it takes at least three minutes to suffocate.

But she was still screaming. Kind of a lot.

So I grudgingly buttoned my pants back up and walked back to where my mom was.

The sight I saw was kind of disturbing. My mom was holding up my two day old baby and the baby had blood running out of her mouth and down onto her nightgown. Lots of it.

I don't even remember if I went pee because we were both totally freaking out so much that we just rushed out to the car and started for the ER.

When we got there, though, everyone reacted with less than alarm. They looked at the baby. Then they asked to look at my nipples.

"Yeah," they said. "There's no reason to worry. She's not throwing up her own blood. She's throwing up *yours.*"

Which is, in its own way, equally as disturbing.

"Yeah," they said. "This happens all the time."

Which immediately made be wonder 1) Why hadn't I heard of it happening ever before? and 2) Why the punks at the hospital didn't warn me it *could* happen.

They sent us home and told me to use a breastpump until my nipples were less scabby.

Daddy hold IT!

There's a new hirearchy in our house. Our two year old decides who's the most important to him at any given time. The loser must hold the baby.

Usually I "win" and my two year old points his little finger at me holding the baby and says, "Daddy hold IT!!" (Yes, he calls the baby "it." My husband thinks this reveals his inner feelings about the baby. I think it reveals the fact that my not-yet-very-verbal toddler hasn't figured out pronouns yet. Maybe it's a combination of both.)

But on the few occassions when my toddler decress, "Mommy hold IT!" my husband starts doing this annoying little dance and saying, "yes! I win! I win! yes!"

All very disturbing.

We banished the baby

We had about three days straight were our newborn just screamed and screamed and screamed. I was completely exhausted and depressed because I thought to myself, "well, here's *another* colicky one . . ." Then we discovered a trick: we turned the radio on (really loud) tuned to static and sat her in her chair facing a blank wall. She started cooing and smiling and then fell asleep. The only problem was that the static was SO annoying for the rest of us. So (confession time) we just left her there. We strapped her alone in her chair and let her stare at the blank wall. All day.

When I told my mom this she was horrified. But the kid seemed to like it. Crazy chiquita.

(Thankfully for my mom's sake, we found that the trick works almost as well if we put headphones on her. So she isn't *completely* banished anymore.)

Names of body parts

I was changing my two-year old's diapers one day and he was pointing out all his body parts to me.

"Ear," he said, pointing to his ear.

"Good job, honey!" I said.

"Nose," he said.

"Good job!"

"Eye," he said.

"Good job!"

Then he pointed down to his little penis and frowned. "DON'T TOUCH!" he named it.

I didn't know what to say to that.

Buying Fat Pants

I had to buy fat pants the other day. At a bonified "fat ladies" store. Here's how it went:

I walk in. The saleslady asks me, "Can I help you?"

I say, "Yeah. I'm so freaking fat now that I have to shop at this store and I need pants because I'm fat."

Her response: icy silence. It's at this point that I realize that she's at least four sizes larger than I am. She points silently at the clearance rack of pants and walks to the back of the store.

Because the baby strapped on my chest could wake up at any moment, I hurry to try on as many pairs of pants as I can and choose one. It costs $50 which is depressing.

Then I go to check out. The large sales lady asks, "This all?"

I open my mouth to say, "I sure as heck hope so. I hate being so fat and pray to heaven this comes off before the pants wear out."

But I think better of it and just nod.

Speedy Delivery

Baby number two has made her arrival. And it was FAST.

One minute the doctor was in the room saying that I was barely dilated to a 5 and it would probably be 4-6 more hours and the next minute (actually, just under 20 minutes later) I was crying/screaming as my mother in law was putting on rubber gloves to deliver the baby herself because it didn't look like the doctor *or* nurse was going to make it in time. Meanwhile I was totally panicking because A) WHY wasn't my epidural working? and B) WAS MY MOTHER IN LAW REALLY GOING TO DELIVER MY BABY? ***SERIOUSLY?!***

But she's cuter than I expected her to be. Is that horrible? To expect your baby to be ugly? I also expected her to be a pain in the &%^, but she's not so bad so far. Knock on every freaking piece of wood this side of the Atlantic. She's sleeping right next to me as I type, making those cute little newborn sighs. I may hate babies, but I confess, I don't hate her that much at all. :-)

Oh, and by the way, my mother in law didn't have to deliver the baby. The doctor rushed in just in time. Thank goodness.

I'm dilated to a three

That's where most people get to have an epidural.

For me, it means I've got like two more weeks.

[insert lots of swearing here.]

Anyone have a trampoline?

We just got maternity coverage so I can go in to labor any time I want! Except, if that were entirely true, I would have had this baby last week because I seriously WANT to get her the heck out of me. She wants to get out, too. Every day she tries to claw her way out with her bare hands. Guess she's about as fed up and cranky as I am.

With my last pregnancy now was about the time when I started to get seriously crazy. I kept trying to run away to Wendover and having to turn back because I'd start having contractions in the middle of nowhere. Of course, by the time I got back to Salt Lake the contractions would have stopped and I'd just go to Barnes and Noble. I'd drink hot chocolate, read books, and ignore any and all frantic calls from my husband and/or mother in law. I had a lot of rage.

I'm not nearly as interesting this time, though. I just yell at people. I did throw up last Tuesday. But that's just gross, not interesting.

I got a hemorrhoid

And that's all I need to say about that tragic subject.

Turns out they *can* hurt you

I asked my doctor if a fetus could do any real damage. He paused and then said, "Well, yeah." Then he sort of mubmled, like he didn't want to tell us the rest. But he finally said, "They can break ribs, bruise your internal organs, cause internal bleeding . . ."

I said, "Um . . . is there anything you can do?"

He said, "No, not really. But if you think she's broken one of your ribs, let us know."

I told him he was a wicked, wicked, man.

Do crazy fetuses mean bad babies?

I read somewhere that they do. It makes me really depressed because my toddler was a dang hard baby. And this new baby is bruising my guts. She writhes and turns and does flips. She pokes her little butt out so hard and so far that I'm afraid she's going to burst through one of these days. My stomach literally aches. All day. All night. Can a baby kick so hard that you start to bleed internally? This is a question becomming painfully urgent.

Maybe I should have seen it coming. At one of the first ultrasounds my doctor started laughing almost uncontrollably. "I've never seen a baby so young so active," he said. And neither had we. I watched in disturbed awe as she shook her hips and threw her hands over her head like she was doing the Macarena.

One of my friends once was prescribed a half a cup of beer every night to calm down her crazy fetus.

I've never wanted to get drunk so badly in my entire life.

My one year old is two now

I guess I have to change my profile. He's still crazy, though. Right now he's riding his tricycle around the living room while watching "The Incredibles" on his personal DVD player and "Baby Einstein" on the big DVD player. He's also singing to himself. And not a song from either DVD. I don't think he's normal.

When is a hint a hint?

I've had a lunch scheduled with a friend every Thursday for the last five weeks. Every Thursday I show up and she doesn't. She usually then calls with frantic excuses and reschedules. This has happened five times in a row. Is she trying to tell me something? Or is she just a flake? How can you tell?

I know I said I wasn't going to talk about my toilet

but I can't stop myself. I cleaned it the other day. As I was panting, leaning over the thing, getting dizzy because my belly is so huge, and gagging a few times, it occurred to me that I hadn't cleaned the toilet since before I was pregnant. Seven or Eight MONTHS ago. (Toilets make me throw up when I'm pregnant.) You may think that my husband might have cleaned it in that time. But he didn't. He thinks it's 1952 and men don't have to clean toilets. After I finished scraping scum from the floor around the toilet I yelld at him. A lot. He still won't clean the toilet, though. I've already had to clean it again myself.

My stretch marks have stretch marks

I was looking at my belly the other day and noticed that the tips of my faded old stretch marks from last pregnancy are growing bright pink edges.

How sad is that?

Nesting much?

Here's a list of stuff I've done in the last week:

1) filed my taxes early in case I give birth too close to April 15
2) cleaned out my two cars
3) sent my crib out to be re-painted
4) spent $600 at Baby's R Us on diapers, formula, and baby Ibuprofin
5) became obsessed with sconces and spent an hour at Pier 1 agonizing over which sconce should be hung in my living room
6) actually cooked a meal. twice.
7) did 17 loads of laundry
8) moved the baby's dresser across my bedroom
9) arranged the baby's changing table
10) packed two diaper bags full of newborn diapers and wipes.
11) went on a scavenger hunt for nightgowns, which are, apparetnly, gauche these days.
12) flew to CA for said nightgowns. finally found two at the Carter's Outlet in Vacaville, CA.
13) was then slightly mortified when my mother in law showed up with 6 nightgowns that she found right here at TJ Max, SLC
14) set Roomba out three times to vacuum and re-vacuum my carpet
15) cleaned up my baby boy's room
16) started cleaning out the garage
17) couldn't sit still at church because I desperately wanted to finish cleaning out the garage
18) then had an emotional breakdown because when I finally got home from church I was too tired to clean out the garage
19) became obsessed with finding the right pot/plant combination to go over my fireplace
20) designed and then sewed a new bedspread for my bed
21) laid out the fabric to sew matching pillows

And, oh, I could go on.

I need a colonoscopy

That's what my husband told me on my birthday. "You're practically THIRTY!" he said. (I turned 27.) "It's REALLY IMPORTANT!"

He was totally serious, too.

But I haven't made any appointments yet.

Hey I won a writing contest!

$100 for best personal essay. Woo hoo! You can find it online here and they're going to publish the essay this spring. Steve's friend from high school just won a freaking Newbury for her book, which kind of makes my little prize look like doggie crap in comparison. But, really, there wouldn't even have been cause for comparison had the two prizes not been given out at roughly the same time. It *does* bother me that she won a Newbury, though. Not because she doesn't deserve it; she does. She's a fabulous writer. It's just that . . . well . . . I think that part of success is believing that something is *possible.* Steve's friend always made me think that it was *possible* that I'd publish a book someday. I mean, she's about my age. She has a baby boy about my son's age. We live in the same part of Utah. We both have a Master's degree. We write the same kind of fiction. She's just like me--only successful. And I always thought the fact that she'd published a book meant that I might publish a book someday, too. But then when she went and won the freaking Newbury, it occurred to me that, no, maybe she's just an anomaly. Because the Newbury . . . that's HUGE. It's more than even really, really, great writer's can aspire to. (It's the YA equivalent of a Pulitzer or something.) But, anyway. Enough about her and her now-fabulous-career. I won a little writing contest and it made me feel really good.

Things of the world

I've been obsessing today about what it means when it says, "seek not after the things of the world." I'm fairly sure it does not mean go out and become a homeless person since the "world" looks upon such things as bad. But if you try to succeed at your job does that mean that you're worldly? It can't. Because otherwise we're a whole church of hypocrites, for one. And for two, all we have to work with on this planet is 24 hours a day and a lot of that goes into your job. If you can't find a way to work a job that is of some service to humankind, then you've kind of wasted a huge opportunity to do the whole heavenly work thing. But then, where does the world end and the heaven bit begin? If I'm doing a good job at my job, presumably I'm more servicable. But then, if I'm doing a good job, don't I get a raise, usually? Don't I usually get more respect from peers? And aren't those "worldly?" Is it possible to do the one without doing the other? They say you can't serve both God and Mammon. But don't you kind of *have* to? Unless I'm wrong about becomming one of those homeless people, that is? Any thoughts?

I peed my pants

really, really bad. I was in the car and I had to stop and open the door to puke. But every time I heaved, I peed. And I'm not talking about little tiny squirts, either. I'm talking huge, humiliating, gushes of pee. After about 7 heaves I was done puking, but was completely soaked from the waist down. I hate being pregnant.

I hate babies

This is a particularly disturbing thing for a pregnant woman to realize about herself. I could live my entire life and not look at a baby. People hold out their new babies for me to hold and my gut reaction is, "Do I *have* to?" I hear that hating babies is ranked up there with hating puppies and might put me on the same level as Hitler. But you know what? I also hate puppies. They pee all over the place. They smell. They jump on me and slobber. Blech.

Turns out I'm a horrible person

This entire pregnancy I've been filled with an alarming amount of rage. Rage and bitterness that some alien creature usurped my body for its own evil purposes. Then I found out that I was having a little girl. Suddenly, I realized that I was only bitter because I was imagining a *boy* baby in there sucking the life out of me. Ever since I found out it was a girl I've been all peaceful and smiley. Truly I disgust myself.