How it all began...

So Anna turned 3 the other day.  My "baby" is 3!!  How did that happen?  Life is going by way too fast and I always say "YES!" when Anna asks me if I miss my Anna baby. I am turning 40 in a few days (GROSS!) so unless Chuck and I hit the big Power-ball Jackpot on Wednesday and use our winnings to adopt some kids we are done having babies.   So the past couple of days have got me thinking about how it all began...

I got married a little later than most and we were hoping to start our family right away.  I knew that the odds were not in my favor since it was the first month but I was hopeful nonetheless.  I came home from work with an awful headache.  I went to take something for it but I thought what if I am pregnant?  I did feel a little dizzy in the playroom earlier in the day and I threw up a little in my mouth on the shuttle bus.  Or did I?  Was I just imagining these things because I wanted it so bad?  Maybe I shouldn't take anything.  I decide to take a test knowing full well that it was going to be negative.   Chuck thought I was nuts.   But that is par for the course.  I take the test, leave it on the counter in the bathroom, set the kitchen timer and wait.  The buzzer goes off and Chuck gets to the bathroom first and I hear this sound. Nothing I had ever heard come from him before.  I guess the best way to describe it is kind of like a gasp.  I head in to see what the commotion was.  He holds the stick up and clear as day I see the word, "Pregnant".  I stopped in my tracks.  Nothing much was said after that.  We kind of avoided each other and eye contact was non-existent.  I think we both knew in that one instant our lives had changed forever.  We were going to be parents...our lives were going to be enriched by the pitter patter of little feet, we were going to have a child that we would be able to impart all kinds of wisdom upon, that we were now going to live the all American Dream.  YEAH RIGHT!!!  I am confident that we were both thinking, "What the hell did we just do?".  OK, I know exactly what we did.  For 2 weeks straight we put all of our efforts into becoming a family so much so that there may have been an occasion when technically I may have been asleep...

But here I was pregnant.  I found out very early so I had a LONG way to go...a long, long way to go.  I started off with a local OB.  Just gonna put it out there; she was AWFUL!  I vomited for the first 15 weeks.  Everyday, all day!  Everything I ate came right back up.  When I brought it up to her she said, "well my sister puked up until the day she delivered"..really? That was her professional, medical response.  My response was to think, "Oh, she had a sh*tty doctor too?".  So for that and several other reasons I switched practices.  I was much happier.  After the puking was under control I had a very uneventful pregnancy...  Just the typical pregnancy stuff.  I did have a bout with plantar fasciitis. Not going to sugar coat it...I was enormous when I was pregnant.  Like I said before, I thought I was a cute pregnant lady in my head.  In reality I was gigantic.  One morning I woke up with the sun shining in my face, heard the birds chirping and I was thinking how life was beautiful.  I stood up to get out of bed and I had unbelievable pain in my foot.  My first thought?  Holy Sh*t!  I am so fat my foot broke under my own weight!!  I was horrified at that thought.  Of course I was home alone and had to hobble/waddle my fat ass to the doctor.  Turns out my foot was not broken, just a case of plantar fasciitis due to my "extreme weight gain" and wearing flip flops.  So going forward I was going to have to stuff my feet into sneakers.

Speaking of my enormous belly...not only did it nearly break my foot it caused "logistical" problems if you will.  Chuck constantly refers to my T-Rex arms...he thinks they are disproportionately short.  Like Cee-Lo Green if you will.  I don't agree but he is so insistent...he even shared his opinion with my nephew on Thanksgiving and man did he think that was funny.  Back to the big belly and short arms.  That is a set up for failure for one very crucial aspect of daily living.  Wiping my ass.  Yup, I said it.  I would dread going to the bathroom because every time I knew I was going to have to contort, stretch and reach into ungodly positions in order to take care of business.  Again, Chuck delighted in this and would always say, "I wash myself with a rag on a stick" when I would come out of the bathroom.  It may be a line from some obscure movie...he is good for that...but either way, it was funny once but ran its course after about the thousandth time.  Oh and my friend Amy heard of my plight and sent me a link for an ass wiper.  Yes!  There is such a thing.  Turns out this is a problem for many...I clicked on the link and was fascinated.  And to be quite honest I never laughed so hard.  I did my own Google search (which I am sure some of you will now too) and I was surprised to find out there is a whole cottage industry dedicated to cleaning asses world wide.  I will wait while you go look it up........

OK, so back to my story.  The rest of my pregnancy was uneventful until my 39 week appointment.  I went in and things were good.  I was about to step on the elevator and the nurse practitioner came running out and announced I wasn't going anywhere.  I had very high blood pressure and needed to be induced. Great.  It was Game one of the World Series...something the Red Sox don't do often so it was a big deal.  Oh, did I mention my hospital was right down the street from Fenway Park?  It was going to make for an awesome amount of traffic for poor Chuck.  He might not make it to the delivery in time!  Those sentiments would come back to bite me.  So I get all set in my room, Chuck makes it in and they induce me at 7 p.m. on Thursday night.  My contractions start getting pretty strong around 9.  But I could handle them so far.  I did have a birth plan in mind.  It included a traditional medical setting with as much stainless steel and antiseptic as possible.  I also had a plan to take as much pain medication as humanly possible.  In fact, if they could have placed the epidural at month 8 just to be ready I would have been all for that.  I wouldn't have a tooth taken out without anesthesia and that is about one millionth the size of a baby if you think for one minute I would have a baby pulled out of me without anesthesia then you are crazy.  I take a Tylenol at the first sign of a headache for God's sake.  So I say bring on the meds!!  I, however, had the one hippie nurse in all of the hospital.  I was asking for something to take the edge off...something, anything...it could be a flippin Tylenol, just something.  You know what she suggests?  A hand massage.  Betcha never would have guessed that.  She is doing a hand massage on me and teaching Chuck how to give me one. Hey lady, guess what?  Not my friggin hand that hurts.  She left and I took one look at Chuck and gave him the look as if to say, "you touch my hand that will be the last thing you ever do in this life".  I made it 24 hours without pain meds.  Yes...I said 24 hours!!  I finally got my epidural at 24 hours in.  At about 12 hours in I got this wonderful, magical cocktail known as Nubain.  It was when  a normal nurse came on.  Thank God the hippe and her magic crystals went off shift.  Back to the Nubain...It was just enough to take the edge off.  I still felt all the contractions but I didn't care! Kind of like when you have 1 too many glasses of wine and you bang your knee really hard.  You feel it but you don't give a sh*t.  You just laugh it off with your friends like it is the funniest thing that ever happened to you.  A little side note, I think at the time of discharge when you are taking your newborn home your doc should give you a prescription for Nubain refillable 12 times a year for the next 18 years.  That way you can just laugh off all the craziness that is motherhood.  Wouldn't that be  awesome?  But I digress...That was the Nubain.  It doesn't last too long though.  But it was enough to let me rest.  Because apparently 24 hours of labor is not enough.  Oh no my friends...I had a ways to go yet.

So like I said at the 24 hour mark I get the epidural.  It was magical!  It was on a pump delivering the medication continually.  I also had a button I could push every 9 minutes if I felt I needed a little more.  I wasn't feeling anything at this point and I wanted to keep it that way so every 9 minutes on the dot I pushed that button.  It would make a slight beeping noise.  Well Chuck thought that was a bit excessive, he thought if I wasn't feeling anything then I really didn't need the "extra" so I had to disguise it.  So now on top of clock watching I needed to make sure I had a cover.  I would push it and simultaneously cough or ruffle my sheets making sure to mask the little beeping noise.

I was feeling good.  What I wasn't feeling were my legs.  You could have driven an ice pick through them and I would not have flinched.  Great!  Along with that though came the inability to move my legs.  The hospital I was at was a teaching hospital.  Fine, I am all for higher education.  What I was not fine with was a parade of people coming in, pulling the sheets up and getting extremely intimate with me, then discussing my progress all the while not moving the sheets back over my "area".  There was nothing I could do.  I was so numb and we have already established I have T-Rex arms so all I could do was lay there with it all hanging out as they taught the med students about the stages of labor.  This is not the stuff they tell you about in "What to Expect When Expecting".  I had an IV in my arm, heart monitor on my chest, pulse ox on my finger, oxygen mask on my face, a urine catheter and a probe on the baby's head.. for the record she was still inside of me so use your imagination on how THAT was attached.  Not the pretty "Facebook ready" ladies I see on The Baby Story.    I swear someday I am going to write a book called, "What to REALLY Expect when Expecting!"

So I am now 35 hours in.  It is Saturday morning.  I have been in labor since Thursday evening!!    The crew parades back in and announces, "We need to talk about other ways of getting this baby out."  Other ways?  I'm not a doctor or nurse but I am only aware of 2 ways...the traditional way and a C-section.  What the hell did they have up their sleeve?  They then bring up the idea of a c-section.  They do it ever so delicately as if not to crack a fragile egg.  I told them I didn't care if they had the janitor come in and take the baby out...just get it out.  I waved the white flag hours ago.

So off to the OR we go.  Then they give me some gross drink to neutralize my stomach in case I had eaten anything recently.  Hmmm....let's see...I have been here since THURSDAY FRIGGIN NIGHT....it is now SATURDAY!!  I think my belly is clear.  As soon as I swallowed it I puked it right up.  All over my self because I was a load of jelly from all the anesthesia I had pumping through my body.  (Truth be told when I went to deliver Anna I took a tiny sip and threw most of it away...and guess what?  we both survived!!)  I get on the operating table and they get to work.  I get this unbelievable case of the shakes.  I was terrified that I was shaking so bad that my scar would be this weird Frankenstein zig-zag.  My teeth were chattering so hard I thought they would shatter, that I would have a beautiful baby to hold up in the pictures but I would have a smile resembling that of a crystal meth addict.  Fortunately my teeth held up.  Again, this is common for a c-section but surprisingly that was left out of the book.  Despite all the pain meds dripping into my spine I felt way more than I should have.  They were going to put me out completely but it was only going to be another few minutes and I told them I wanted to be awake...we didn't know what we were having and I really wanted to be awake for that.  Finally!!!  It's a girl!!!  Chuck said, "It's Sara!!!" I saw her for a quick second and the next thing I knew I could hear myself snoring very loudly.  They then snowed me with meds to finish the surgery.  I finally got to see baby Sara a few hours later after she briefly visited the NICU to get an IV and some quick tests because I had a fever.  It was amazing!!  It was worth every second of pain to hold her for the first time.  I was her mom.  Forever!!  We spent the next four days in the hospital getting to know each other.  Basking in the glory of mesh underwear (fellow mommies know what I am talking about!), napping while Sara hung out in the nursery and just getting ready to go home as a family.

Reality quickly set in once we got home but despite all the craziness we did it again two years later when we added Anna Banana to our family.  Like I said at the start of the entry, that was 3 years ago!  My baby is 3!!  I wish I could slow life down and keep them little forever!  At the same time I love the little ladies they are becoming.   Hopefully we will win Powerball tomorrow and we can afford to adopt more children because even though my blog may not always show it...I love my kids more than anything and I am so lucky to be their mom.

Is that poop or Cocoa Puffs?

Sadly that is not just a clever blog title...those are words that were uttered in our home recently...On more than one occasion if I am to be completely honest.  There were some questionable, brown balls on the floor.  Fortunately they turned out to be cocoa puff...this time!   Some other funny things that have been overheard lately...

*   "My muh-gina is going to smell like pink lemonade"  after Anna put on some new, bright pink underwear.  Um...huh?

*  Sara, "Mom, you should be our babysitter instead of mom...that way you can get paid."  Wouldn't that be nice...

*  "Mom you never let me do anything I want."  After I wouldn't let Anna squish my boobs at McDonald's.

*  After carefully inspecting her poop Anna dejectedly lowers her shoulders and very sadly says, "OH Mom!  I really wanted it to be corn poop."

*  I asked the girls what they were thankful for this year.  Sara immediately said she knew what she was thankful for; her friends.  That was sweet.  She then listed her cousins, cats and toys.  Funny, me, Chuck and Anna didn't make the cut this year.  When I asked Anna she said, "Scott Brown because he is our Senator".  Aww...I didn't have the heart to tell her that he lost the recent election and with the new senator elect we really don't have much to be thankful for in terms of politics in this state...but I digress..

Oh and again, neither of my children listed their parents on their list of thankfulness.  Hmmm...I will have to work on that for next year.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Let's Stay Together?

"Let's disband...This family is a failed experiment."  That was my husband's words of wisdom tonight.  My reaction?  To burst out laughing while reading "Going on a Bear Hunt" to Anna.  It is so true!!  Marriage and procreation  in essence is just a study in sociology.  An odd social experiment if you will.  I agree with Chuck, most times I feel like I have failed.  Not through any fault of my own.  My kid's mission's in life is to make me feel like I know nothing.  I know deep down that we are good parents...I am going to go out on a limb and even say very good parents but as with any scientific experiment their are control groups and variables.  We have two very volatile variables.  Their names are Sara and Anna.  

I was a preschool teacher for a number of years, I have worked with moms in prison, facilitated parent nurturing groups and worked with children and families in the health care setting for about 13 years.  When it comes to kids...I got this.  YEAH RIGHT!!!  When it comes to other people's kids I got it.  When it comes to mine all bets are off!! 

Typically the girls and I have a good routine.  Our days lately have been filled with playing school, enjoying the last bits of nice weather, sewing projects and just enjoying each others company.  Notice I said "our days..."  Our evenings are a bit different.  Once the sun goes down  all hell breaks loose.  I have never seen any of the Twilight movies, Walking Dead or any of those other vampire movies so I am not sure how it all works, but,  I am not entirely convinced my children are not demons.  We have a pretty standard routine that starts at 7 p.m.  Last snack and a show until 7:30.  I read them each a story, bathroom break and brush teeth and off to bed at 8.  Anna is almost always on board, some nights she even asks to go to bed before 8.  NICE!!!  Sara on the other hand turns into Sybil. She constantly interrupts dragging out the whole process, she insists EVERY night that she doesn't need to pee.  She slams the bathroom door EVERY night when I tell her she needs to try then, she grumbles about not being tired, she isn't ready for bed etc, etc....when she finally realizes I am not going to back down she stomps up the bunk bed ladder giving me the stink eye.  Then it is another few minutes of her complaining out loud about the atrocities committed against her.  I am lucky in the fact that both of them are asleep before 8:30 99% of the time and they sleep until 7 a.m.  It is all the drama that precedes bedtime every night.  It is exhausting!!

Tonight we strayed from our nightly routine.    What the hell were we thinking?  We "ruined everything" according to Sara.  What was our crime you ask?  We were trying to make them happy.  Shame on us!!!  They wanted to play school for a few more minutes and I let them.  They each had a turn being the teacher and Chuck and I were the students.  Sara read her book to us and then Anna.  Well, Anna was ridiculously funny and cute when reading her book.  Chuck made the ultimate faux pas and laughed.  Well that was it...Anna gets upset and puts her head down and crumples with embarrassment.  I suggest she pick a different book after she complains Chuck ruined it.  So she does and I smiled at one part in the story and she goes off on me for smiling.   My kids love to put on elaborate shows for us and they really get into it.  They are so cute but if we pull out the camera, show any sign of enjoyment they immediately scowl and look at us like we are the A-holes.  I have learned to keep a poker face in order to keep the peace but Chuck has yet to learn that lesson.  We are 5 years in and he hasn't made the connection...laughing results in a 20 minutes cry fest. 

So we recover from Anna's meltdown and I start to read them their bedtime story.  I had previously stated that we could play school for a little bit longer and then I was going to read 1 story that I was picking and they both agreed.  Silly me, I believed they would hold up their end of the bargain.  Once Sara realized (about 2 pages in of Bear Hunt) that I was not reading a book she chose she fell apart.  If anyone had walked into our house at that exact moment you would have thought she was reacting to finding out she eventually will grow up and have to move away from mommy and daddy.  It was THAT dramatic!!! 

So long story short...I agree with Chuck.  This experiment  has disproved our hypothesis that we would be the BEST PARENTS EVER.  Turns out we are exceptionally adequate...but I think we should hold off on disbanding just yet...because in my non-scientific observations I think that is better than most parents I have seen lately.

The world according to Anna

Anna talks all day long and I could listen to her all day long.  She cracks me up and is one funny little kid.  She has a wicked sense of humor for someone so young, but the stuff she says when she isn't trying to be funny that is her best material.  Here are some of her latest examples...

*Anna mispronounces the word litter.  She calls it glitter.  On Mondays we go for a walk around the block before her playgroup starts.  There is a lot of litter on that block.  Each week she is stunned by it.  Stunned!  "Oh Mommy!  LOOK!  Someone glittered!  There is glitter everywhere!  That isn't nice to throw glitter.  Who would throw glitter on the ground?  Mommy, it is probably the teenage boys....teenage boys love to throw glitter out.  Mommy, why do the teenage boys like to throw glitter?"

Now there is a tiny little back story about placing the blame on the teenage boys...and it may just be my fault.  Actually, it is entirely my fault.  One time a few years back Sara and I were in a parking lot and there was a takeout container dropped on the ground.  Sara asked a million questions about it; why was it there?  how did it get there? how long had it been there?  I got tired of the questions and I just absentmindedly made something up and said it must have been teenage boys.  Well it stuck with her and she passed the urban legend about the teenage boys along to her little sister.  Now Anna and Sara blame all the world's ills on the poor teenage boys.  Graffiti...teenage boys.  Broken window...teenage boys.  A shopping cart not properly corralled in the cart return...teenage boys.  Right or wrong I go with it.  I am thinking long term this may be to my benefit.  They are going to have such and aversion to teenage boys that when they are preteens and are supposed to be interested in them they will dismiss them as insignificant hooligans.   Little did I know on that night a few years back I was laying the ground work to save Chuck and I many sleepless nights fretting over our girls becoming interested in boys.  You're welcome Chuck!

Back to Anna and her funny ways....

Anna likes to pretend she is a kitty.  She will put on some kitty ears and crawl around meowing.  She really gets into it, but, fortunately for me she always reassures me that she is not a real cat...she is still Anna, just pretending.  Every single time I get the reminder as if I may actually think she is really a cat.

Her problem solving skills are second to none.  Sara always wants to play with her and Anna wants to play too but never wants to play what Sara wants.  So she will say, "OK Sara, we can play animals for a really long time and then we will play dress up for a little bit."  So they play animals for a really long time and then when Sara says they have to play dress up now Anna backs out of the deal.  Sara falls for this EVERY TIME!! This is a daily occurrence in our house.  Oh!, and another funny thing Anna does to Sara (though I am sure Sara will not agree it is funny) Anna will ask if she wants to play or do something and Sara will say "no".  Anna then will say, "Oh, good you want to play"...Sara gets pissed and reminds her she said no and Anna will go on and on saying "you said yes, I heard you.  Mommy Sara wants to play with me..she told me she did."  Sara gets PISSED and Anna just keeps egging her on with a straight face the whole time.  Again, Sara falls for this everyday.

Anna is going to be 3 in a few weeks and I keep saying I can't believe how big she is getting.  She sweetly comes over and asks me if I miss my Anna baby...

Every night before bed I tell her that there are so many kids in the world but I have the best two kids and that I am so lucky to be her mom and every night she responds with, "I am so lucky to be an Anna"...not "I am so lucky to be YOUR Anna"...just "an Anna".  It cracks me up every night.  And yes, I miss my Anna baby!!!

Say it ain't sew....

Sara has learned how to hand sew.  She wanted to make a blanket for her Barbie so we took an old T-shirt and made a few flimsy sleeping bags.  She graduated to mending Chuck's old socks and was really looking for bigger and better projects.  Her birthday was coming up so I thought that as a way to encourage and foster her budding talent we should get her a sewing machine.  I did all the research, opting for a real machine vs. a kids (the reviews said the toy ones were crap, to just get a small, inexpensive real sewing machine).  I found a decent one and had Chuck order it.  I also got a box full of fabric, buttons, ribbons, scissors, pins, pin cushions and tape measure.

Her birthday came and we gave her the sewing machine.  She was thrilled.  That night I sat with her and we both learned how to use it.  The last time I actually used a sewing machine was in my 7th grade Home-Economics class.  That was a long time ago my friends.  I have no sewing abilities and the night before her birthday while talking with a coworker I realized I never bought thread for the machine...slight oversight on my part.  But I digress...so after Sara's party we came home and set up a little sewing circle.  We made sleeping bags for her dolls and a pillow stuffed with Chuck's old shirts.  The next night I stopped at Wal-Mart on my way home from work to get some more sewing accoutrement. I figured we were having a "hurricane day" and would be stuck inside all day... I got real pillow stuffing and in my cockiness I got a pattern for a vest.  .  I am terrible at math, just ask Ms. D.  I had to take her Algebra I class two years in a row.  I had to learn how to read a pattern and then teach it to Sara.  We used her measuring tape in an effort to learn new math skills, we learned how to pin the fabric and how to sew in a lining.  So in a 36 hour time frame we learned the basics of using a sewing machine, made 2 doll sleeping bags, 3 pillows, a purse and a vest.  Not bad.

Sara wore her vest to school and really enjoyed the attention she got from her teachers.  She was on a roll.  She came home from preschool asking to make a dress.  Really?  OK, the house was clean and I had nothing else to do so we headed to Joann's Fabrics.  It is like the Promised Land of the sewing subculture.  I was so overwhelmed.  There had to be 10,000 fabrics to choose from.  I head over to the pattern area.  At Wal-Mart they were just out on a rack.  Here they were hidden away and you needed to follow some obscure numbering system reminiscent of the Dewey Decimal system.  I was not privy to the secret of unlocking the pattern code so I asked 2 ladies that were somehow able to navigate the drawers and drawers filled with old dusty envelopes that look like they have been in there since the 70's.  They both kind of looked at me like a fish out of water.  I know I did look a bit out of place in my jeans and v-neck sweater.  I should have worn the requisite elastic waist woven knit pants with a green turtle neck and applique vest which appears to be the universal outfit of the sewing set...maybe then they would have accepted me into their world.  They did finally help me understand the organizational ways of Butterick and McCalls.  Sara kept finding very complicated patterns that included pleats, bows, zippers and other things way beyond our skill set.  I got her to finally settle on a very simple  A- line smock dress...it was in the "Under 2 hours" section.  You already know how this is going to end....and it is WAY LONGER than 2 hours. 

We head over to the fabrics and Sara is in her glory.  Her first choice was no word of a lie Gold Lame.  All I could think of was the show Solid Gold and the black dancer with the super long hair.  I am sure all of her clothes were cut from this cloth.  Disappointed she moved on to the sheer, sparkly section...it took some convincing that was not a great choice since it was see-through.  After listening to her complain that I never let her get anything she wants she settled on a soft pink fabric (the same on both sides for mommies convenience when lining it up).  We get some Cheetah print fabric at Anna's request and some big, clunky diamond buttons and head home.

We (Sara and I) spend the next 6 hours measuring, cutting, pinning and sewing her dress.  A few bumps in the road...for the life of me I could not line up the front piece and back piece properly....again, the math so I just re-cut 2 of the same pieces and voila, they magically fit...(I bought 2 extra yards of material knowing that I was going to need it for mistakes I was going to inevitably make) but we got it done and she was thrilled with her masterpiece.  She wore it the next day and again loved the attention.  It really has boosted her self esteem and she is talking much more in class.  I want to encourage this talent but there is no way in hell I am going to be making new outfits 4 days a week.

With my kids I never do anything for the glory or praise I am going to get.  Anyone with kids knows that they really don't care about the back story of your parenting...they don't care about all the thought and consideration that goes into your decisions, the life lessons you want to instill or the planning and care that goes into the day to day life you provide them.  As long as their needs are met and they are happy that is all that matters to them and it should be that way.  HOWEVER, in this one case I came up with the idea of teaching her to sew, then graduating to a real machine that I researched, gathered all of the other supplies and spent hours bent over the little table teaching her, and myself how to sew...and guess who gets all the glory?

Drum roll please.....CHUCK!!!  Yes, technically he did click "purchase" on the website link I sent him but that is where his participation began and ended.  But Sara keeps saying that he is the best daddy ever for getting her a new sewing machine.  WTF!!!!

On a side note I told Chuck that if we wanted to we could have 19 kids because I am now a master of the smock dress and on all those TLC shows that is what they wear. I made one for Anna that even has pockets.  Or we could start our own fringe religion because they usually all dress alike in smock dresses.  Isn't the end of the world coming next month?  If anyone is interested in coming over to ring in the end of times just let me know your measurements and I will have Sara whip one up for you.  Bring your own Nike's and we will be good to go!!