Sunday, October 02, 2016

I lied to my daughter

My kids know who Santa is and that if they want to get paid by the tooth fairy that they got to dig through my purse for coins. I have tried not to lie to my kids, but a few months ago when something in a box, high on a shelf in my bedroom, began to vibrate, I lied.

She said "what's that?"
I instinctively responded "a toy."
She asked to see it.
 I said "no, its for Christmas."
She said " Please can I see it? I wont tell anyone."
"No, its a surprise."

She has no idea what kind of surprise it is. Its the kind she'll figure out someday, sometime after she's married (I hope), in the middle of love making she'll pause and say "Oh MY. I just figured out what was vibrating that day in my parents' bedroom. All this time I was waiting for a remote control toy for Christmas."

Then, depending on her maturity and age, She will either by grossed out or impressed. Grossed out, because youngsters like to think sex is for the young. Or impressed because your grandparents still do it, and you hope, for their sake that personal lube is sold by the gallon at Costco.

I've always wondered why old people shop at Costco, its not like they have a small army to feed, but every Tuesday by 10:30 am there are lines of old couples checking out of Costco, each with 2 items in thier carts.One is the gallon of lube. The other is an item they picked up just to make it look like their only reason to go to Costco was not the lube.

And that, my friends, helps me to understand why people look forward to retirement and cruise ships.

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

It's hard being a 10 month pregnant woman. Everything is sore. You're nauseous, but you can't eat, there is no room, yet you have heartburn and runs, and baby extends from your knees to your sternum. Then there is the sweating, always too hot with the internal heater heating your body ( the size of Godzilla) with enough BTUs that New York could become tropical.Your feet won't fit into your shoes nor your belly into maternity clothes. Every other step feels like a contraction and if baby moves or kicks the sensation is so big you can't breathe.
The baby belly is stretched so taught that your belly button disappears and when watermelon look at your belly they bow down in awe.

Then there is the changing of the hormones. It's kinda like pms, combined with cramps, multiplied by the work it takes to move the train engine size belly to do anything. . . Yes, I'm an ornery person trying not to bite your head off. Part of it is you can't sleep! For longer then it takes your kidneys to process an ounce of urine. And to move that pregnant belly out of bed 100 times every night, just so can pee takes some expertise in pre planning because of you move wrong in the slightest your extended, twisted and already sore abdomen muscles will send jolts of the most exquisite pain to the nerve center that you won't be able to move for another full five minutes- and on top of that you'll have to change your underpants, which at this stage of the game is nothing short of fun either.

Ok, enough with this pitty party, what I'm trying to say is that even though We feel like crap and the only thing we'd even dare go up in a beauty contest against is Thomas the tank engine, that we need your support. We need you to cuddle us and express to us that we are prettier than a train ( in fact I'd advise you don't you words like "train," "elephant," or "watermelon" when telling us how pretty we are.) rub our sore backs, bring us chocolates, and act like our watermelon, train size bodies turn you on, even though the chance of copulating around that thing drops every day. Baby us a little, spoil us a little. Pregnancy is not easy - we need your support

Sunday, February 07, 2016

Wild Things

This weekend felt like some pages out of "Where the Wild Things are." Where after wild rumpuses he wanted to be where someone loved him best of all, so he gave up being king of where the Wild Things Are and jumped into his boat and set off to sail for over a year and a day and into the night of his very own home where his found his supper waiting for him and it was still hot.

I came home to a loving family from what felt like far away across the world, to kids who cleaned my house and baked me a cake and gave me presents of dragons and bangles, and just had to hug me to death. Some would think I would be coming home to the wild things, but it felt as magical as the ending of the book always feels. "And it was still hot,"

Pregnancy secrets, we won't tell you in person

1. We bring an extra change of underwear to our exercise classes.

2. It still thrills us when our toddler falls asleep across our belly or on our chest.

3. Nothing fits comfortably, which is why we strip to almost nothing the minute we walk in the door. What fits where changes every minute of the day. Sometimes it depends on how to baby sit or if our breasts are going through one of their 10 pound moments.

4. You stink, the garbage stinks, the food smells either stinks or makes us drool. Fresh air can stink. I stink. Flowers stink, soap stinks,

5. Pregnancy makes you horny, and hungry, and horny and hungry, and of course tired. So all you want to do is pretend it's your honey-moon and eat, sleep and make love, over and over and over.

6. I love questions about parenting but hate about which kid is easier, boys or girls. In general there are a few similarities between girls that are different then boys, but each kid is so different, that I would have to tell you a detailed history of my child rearing days, and with 8 kids that would take all day, so I will just shrug and shake my head at you, unless, of course you want a day- long treatsie.

Wednesday, January 06, 2016

Pregnant with #8

Yesterday I heard this baby's heartbeat for the 1st time. It was good to have proof that the last 16 weeks of morning sickness has not been in vain. Being pregnant with #8 made quite a few people gasp, especially those who know we already have 4 with special needs. My husband and I, of course, have been wondering when should we get fixed and stop having babies. We knew we had to wait for after Arwen (she came #7, not #5, like we thought she would). And Arwen has been the dreamy, happy, cutie pumpkin that inspires us to smile and laugh at all the world holds. She is the child we wouldn't mind repeated. When she was born it didn't feel right to get fixed yet. 2 years later we could feel one was missing- the classic counting up the kids, and they are all there, but somehow one is missing. And sure enough over the full moon in September, we were horny little march hares and just couldn't get enough of each other without caring about birth control, when the time is right to conceive it is really really hard not to.

Yes, I have plans for my future. I am going to school full time in pre-med studies, pulling straight As. I am just your average almost 40, pregnant mother of 7, pursuing her pre-med studies, hoping to become a medical researcher MD at the Mayo clinic and revolutionize something useful and needful. Understanding autism would be fun, applying ground breaking research in neurology and dealing with the related fields of dyslexia and anxiety, but bringing dentistry into the new millennium would also be a worthy goal. Most likely, I will probably end up working on something that I can't even fathom at the moment.

When my first was born, I knew that I had found what I was born to do. I was born to do 2 things. First was to have babies (check, that can be counted as accomplished, mostly, I think), the second was to be a doctor or midwife. Because my first has autism, and required all hands on deck his first 12 years, I couldn't devote the time to continue my schooling until 13 years, and 5 kids, later.
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So with all of this background and thoughts running through my head, I woke up this morning feeling like I want to have babies forever. Which, of course is a big cannon ball in the ships of logic. The advantage is, that I am mortal, and I assume I will follow a mortal course and nature will make it impossible for me to continue child bearing at some point. If I look at my grandmas: one had her last at 44 (thanks to birth control), and the other was pregnant at 50 (in 1956, and the doctors thought it was a tumor, until it starting kicking). If fertility actually declines as you get older (I haven't seen any personal evidence of that yet), then supposedly I should have less children in the next 10 years then in the previous.

So logic or feelings? Well logic has a major flaw. It has to have all the pertinent facts to draw a safe conclusion. Feelings, has a tendency to take into account, things we do not see or understand at the moment. And when in doubt, follow the path of love.

I like the simple things in life. The laughter of children, the work of daily living chores, the snuggling of a sleeping child on my chest, and a good bowl of beans while studying a physics text.

I dream of travel, of serving a mission in other countries and bringing clean water to villages. But I know happiness, no matter what circumstances you are in comes from within, and the life within me has the potential to bring me great joy.