I'm so sorry I didn't announce the giveaway winner yesterday.

My entire family has a horrible cough AND a stomach virus and we've all been puking round the clock. Nice visual, I know. Random.org selected dosomegreen as the winner.

Congrats and contact me with your address info so I can mail you your prize. Gotta go vom!

Read more...

Momversation Monday: Is Valentines Day Important to You?

Today's post is part of the discussion over at Momversation about Valentines Day.

I feel like I got hit in the head by a sledgehammer, I am soooo sick, so I'm going to keep this short and sweet.

On my first Valentines Day with my husband (then boyfriend), I told him I wanted him to plan something and surprise me. Back then he was a pretty insecure guy, and I was his first girlfriend and a little bit scary, so he had no idea what to do and wound up not doing anything. It. rocked. We spent our first Valentines Day parked in a car, up at make-out hill, drinking hot chocolate and listening to music. At one point we got out of the car and slow-danced. He gave me that year's cliche gift--The Notebook, the movie, which had strategically come out on DVD that February--and a pot of daisies, which I LOVED, and which weren't cliche at all. A) They were daisies, a virtual weed and my favourite flower. B) They were potted so they lasted WAY longer than the long-stemmed roses that all the other girls got that year. I was disappointed that he hadn't planned anything, but since it was our first V-day together and I didn't want to show my true colours JUST yet, I pretended I didn't care.

The next year I told him he'd better plan something to make up for the previous year's Valentines Fiasco. I had shown my true colours, he was way more secure with  himself, and we had a super fun but decidedly unromantic time. We went to the Mongolian Grill, where we were the only people there because everyone else was somewhere super-fancy. We shot pool, played arcade games and mini-golfed at a sports bar. We took our traditional hot chocolate drive up to make-out hill and talked and listened to music. He got me blue roses, a box of chocolates, and "our" movie Guess Who, about a black girl who brings home a white boy.

After that, the details get hazy. I guess that's how it gets over time, things just don't matter as much once you've been together forever and you know you're loved. Things become routine, and that's okay, because I can still spout off a list of wonderfully romantic things that my husband has done for me over the years, and wonderfully romantic times that we've had, and they don't all have to be consolidated to one arbitrary day.

Last year was our last Valentines Day as a couple without kids. We wanted to badly to go out with a bang, but as we were broker than broke, we spent the day cuddling in bed, drinking cheap wine with cheese, listening to music by candlelight, and watching chick flicks. It was disappointing. It was blissful.

Last year we toasted to "next Valentine's Day", because we'd asked my mom to baby-sit for us. We booked the date a full year in advance. We just knew things would be better this year, and they are. We planned a fancy dinner, maybe a movie or a play, and most of all what we knew would be some much-needed time to ourselves.

Except that, just like on our anniversary, my mother is in the psychiatric ward again. I will spend my Valentines Day with my husband and son, which isn't the worst way I can think of to spend it. I will pray that God will make my mother better. Mostly because I love her and I want to see her overcome this. Partially because I miss having a mom I can call on for help.

I am so sick right now, and tomorrow my husband will be at school for twelve hours straight. I will be at home alone with my baby and no one to help me. I need my mother. I need to be able to call someone to baby-sit, or for recipe help, and I need to know that there is someone out there in the world who loves me as much as I love my son and who will be THERE for me when things go wrong. This is selfish. I know this. It should be all about her, not me. I am acting like a child, but maybe when it comes to your own mother you never really grow up.

Is Valentines Day important to me? Yes. But for now it will have to take a backseat to other things, like getting better, taking care of my baby, and schlepping my son back and forth from the psych ward three towns over.

Is Valentines Day important to you? What are your plans?

Read more...

Flame Free Friday Confession: Pregnancy Bytes

I hated being pregnant. Hated it. It surprised the hell out of me, too. I was one of those people who, even as a teenager, used to dream about being pregnant and couldn't wait for it to happen to me. I thought that I would look adorable, that I wouldn't get stretch marks (my mom didn't) and that I would feel overjoyed at the miracle of knowing that life was inside me.

\To be honest, when it happened, it kind of freaked me out. And when I could see my sweet Baboo rolling around in there, I thought it was kind of gross. I usually enjoyed feeling his kicks when they first started up, but if you know my baby, he's a mover and shaker and he went NUTS in there several times a day. After half an hour of crazy, non-stop kicking, I just wanted him to calm.down. It hurt. And it still hurts. We bedshare and I consistently wake up because I'm being kicked in the leg/stomach/head. This child!

For the trimester of my pregnancy, all I could eat was oranges and cucumber, and all I could drink was water. All of my favourite things made me ill, and even the SMELL of coffee made me want to vomit.Then in the second trimester my appetite came back with a vengeance and I ate two breakfasts, two lunches and two dinners daily. In third tri my appetite started to level out, but at that point food was my only comfort and I force fed myself two lunches every day because I just enjoyed eating that.much. Sad, no?

Then there was the sciatica. The horrible, horrible back pain. People did NOT GET IT. They were all like "You're barely showing, how can your back hurt that bad?" And I was all like "BECAUSE AN ENTIRE PERSON IS LIVING ON.MY.SPINE." I had a regular sized baby, people, and guess what: If he isn't pushing my belly way out, it's probably because he's ON MY SPINE. ON A FREAKIN NERVE. And we were poor and didn't have health insurance so there was no chiropractic or massage for me. By the end of each day I was limping home, and sometimes, I kid you not, I would honestly just collapse. My legs would literally give out on my way to the car, and I'd just fall down.

"I'm sure some of you are reading this and thinking, so what?"

And I understand, and you are right. So what, indeed? I did not have a high risk pregnancy. I wasn't going to weekly ultrasounds, stuck on bedrest or dealing with a sudden onset of pregnancy related diabetes. Compared to a lot of women, my pregnancy rocked. But here is the truly flammable part:

Many of these women who were high risk and went through crazy complications would be willing to do it again in order to have another child. I, on the other hand, am seriously considering adopting. I hated my run-of-the-mill pregnancy THAT MUCH.

My womb is empty, and I kinda hope it stays that way.

Read more...

Writers Workshop: Motherhood is another word for Ambivalence

This morning I'm participating in Mama Kat's pretty much world famous writers workshop.

BAM!

Ten Things I've Learned Since Becoming a Mom:

1. How to ask for help (read: lateral pass my baby to my husband/mother/crazy lady down the street as I run screaming for a bubble bath and a bottle of wine at the end of the day)

2.How to function on next to no sleep. For 6 months straight. And actually enjoy the hallucinations that sleep deprivation brings.

3.How to make dinner while dancing and singing La Cucaracha for the entertainment of my fussy baby, who will ONLY stop crying at the indignity of being imprisoned in his high chair if I'm making a fool out of myself the entire time.

4. How to use a Moby wrap. May not seem like a big deal to you, but when I got that thing as a shower gift, I was like "huh?" And I wrapped myself up in it and got stuck like a female Spiderman who lost control of her own web. And now I can throw it on in public in 5 seconds flat, and people look at me like I'm some kind of Ninja. Which I sorta am. Heh.

 

5.That it's possible to go a ridonculous amount of time in between having sex, even if no one is cheating or deployed. And that it doesn't mean that you don't love each other.

6. That its possible to lose all interest in shopping for grown up clothes, in grown-up stores, and that retail therapy can be even more therapeutic if the items are miniature and say "I love my mom" on them. (Doesn't hurt that all grown-up clothes in question will eventually just get pee or spit up all over them anyway).

7. It's possible for someone who was formerly against all forms of elective plastic surgery to be putting her "grown up" clothing money away to save for a boob lift.

8. Taking well over a hundred pictures a day can be fascinating, even if they are all of the same subject, when the subject is your Sweet Baboo.

9.It is entirely possible to want to sell your baby to a traveling circus one moment, and miss them like crazy when you finally get a break.

10. I've also realized that this ambivalence will probably follow me throughout the rest of my life.

Happiness that he's crawling will be accompanied by frustration that he's destroying the house. Pride that he's got teeth shadowed by desperation to stop the biting. Amazement that he's starting school will be clouded by pangs when I think about the fact that his teacher gets to spend more time each day with him than I do. And let's not even talk about his high school graduation, moving out of the house, getting married, having children. I'm glad I will have this blog, thousands upon thousands of photos, and lots of memories to look back on when that day comes. He makes me crazy, but I never want him to leave. Ambivalence is the word that most characterizes my new role as a mother. That's something I was very surprised to learn. When it comes to how being a mom makes me feel, I'm torn.

How about you?

Read more...

The Bachelor: Sarcastic Comments from the Hubbs

My husband is wonderfully sarcastic and has me in stitches throughout ever Bachelor episode. Here are some of the highlights:

In response to Jake telling Tinley, who finally got one on one date, "You've been really patient,":

"And by that he means she didn't try to force him to kiss her like that other girl."


In response to the age of the "contestants":

"Why are they all 23? Isn't that a little young to be so desperate?"

In response to Vienna saying, "Ali's not gonna break up Jake and I.":

"Maybe that's because you're not together?"

<-------Vienna

<-------Ali

In response to Jake saying, "The woman I marry will be the last woman I look at":

"Are you planning on blinding yourself? How are you going to fly a plane with your eyes closed?"

When Tinley said, "I could let go. . .of my heart. . .and just let it. . .fall. . .in love. . .with Jake":

We looked at each other and just burst into laughter.

When Jake described a two on one date as "almost awkward":

"Really? It's almost awkward? It's almost as though you weren't meant to be dating 5 women at once. . ."

<---the two girls on the date that was "almost awkward"

When Corrie the virgin got sent home immediately after telling him she was saving herself for marriage, and then Jake explained his decision by saying "Something's missing":

"Is it sex?"

Then elaborated by saying "I'm afraid she wasn't going to be able to open up completely":

"You dumped the virgin because you're afraid she might not be able to 'open up'? As far as euphemisms go, that one doesn't leave much to the imagination."

Poor Corrie.

...And those are the comments I have to put up with while indulging in wonderfully trashy tv. Tune in next week for more!

Read more...