Now I'm No Manolo Blahnik...

Just in case you have reconciled with the idea that I'm having another child, let me show you what you're dealing with. Evidently, I thought it was okay to leave the house like this on Monday to run my errands all over town. Please note: the picture hides the fact that the one on the left has a heel and the one on the right clearly does not.

Wanna know when I realized this had happened? 20 minutes after I left the house.

People. Please.

No Argument Here

To get right off to a "TMI" moment with you, I need to tell you about something serious.

You may have experienced this yourself, or know someone who frequently TMI's you and therefore you heard it from them, but there is a bit of humor in it so I feel the need to share. Sharing is caring anyway.

When you get pregnant one of the perpetual list of things that happens to you is an alien takeover of your (how can I put this delicately?) "poo-center". You know what I'm talking about. So all your life your poo-center has been fully functional and operating of its own accord without much involvement on your part and then WHAMO, poo-center meltdown. Which is difficult to handle because you don't even speak poo-language to begin a dialogue with your "center" about what the problem is. Maybe other people who have had malfunctioning poo-centers there whole life know this language, but you are not one of those people, you poo normally (usually).

Cut to Saturday night when Grant and I had a rare, very rare "date night" out. We're getting ready to go and all of a sudden I begin to feel not so hot so I decide this poo-center thing has gone on long enough. I send Grant out to buy as much prune juice as is legally allowed to be purchased at one time and laugh my insidious little laugh. I will not be defeated by my rogue poo-center! When Grant returns I eagerly fill my glass up to the rim with prune juice and begin the consumption. 10 ounces later and not even an inkling of progress. I go back to the refrigerator and much to his horror, fill the whole glass up again. As I'm gulping down the syrupy liquid I glanced over at him sitting at the kitchen table with the most frightened look I have ever seen on his face. It occurs to me then as my brain does a quick rewind memory montage of our entire relationship starting back in high school that this moment is special. It's as special as the anticipation of our very first date, or the moment before he asked me to marry him, or the day Griffin was born.

This is the moment I realize myself in the exact instant I am living knowing full well that I am sharing it with the person I love most in this world. And it is also one of the most stripped down and nakedly honest moments of our relationship, and how it has changed and is continuing to change every day. But that doesn't have to be a bad thing, I say to myself, change is perpetual and healthy. And after the shock of this new change in our lives subsided a little, I began to see a new perspective on our life with 2 children, and I let some of those old expectations go. We function now as a couple more fluidly than we ever have, we rarely disagree on important issues, and we sleep soundly in comfortable naivete every night. So I nod my head confidently, turn to him and say, "Well. This is definitely not the pre-game I'm used to".

And You Better Believe I Left My Name, Address, and Phone Number

The other night whilst finally resting after a long day, Grant and I were drifting off to sleep when all of a sudden we heard what sounded like a barage of carbombs going off in our backyard. Needless to say, after we changed into dry pants, we were none to happy for the disturbance. I was convinced they were bombs, of course they were bombs, and if you even tried to suggest otherwise I was going to feed you to the bombs exploding just inches from our apartment. In case I haven't made my point, BOMBS.

Grant was not so convinced after the "bombs" continued for 5 or 10 or 85,000 minutes, so he wanted to go outside to investigate. Investigate the bombs? You are out of you everloving mind my friend. In case you haven't noticed, we have 1 child and another on the way and I'm pretty sure we're not set up with life insurance plans yet so like hell I'm going to let you go outside to investigate the bombs. Bomb investigation is no longer in your future, Dear One, move on.

However, that one tends not to listen to the hysterical rantings I've been prone to lately, so he went out back to see what was going on. He thought maybe it was fireworks, but we couldn't see anything so I was flying through every news channel waiting for the bomb destruction coverage on TV but not one thing was said about it. Finally, we both went all the way outside and could barely see the tops of fireworks over the tree line of central park. Turns out, the NY Philharmonic and the Shanghai Orchestra were having a concert and some ass-brain thought it would be a great idea to set off a thousand fireworks over a city of 9 million people living on top of each other at 10:30 at night, on a Wednesday.

Well. Did you ever see someone dial 311 faster than the speed of sound? Because I sure as hell did and when the friendly customer service representative asked me exactly what my complaint was, he may have heard something like this, "ARE YOU F-ING KIDDING ME WITH THESE FIREWORKS AT 10:30 AT NIGHT AND KID SLEEPING, BABY IN UTERO, WOMAN STRESS LEVELS IN PREGNANCY, NAUSEA, VOMITING, BOMBS, HUSBAND DEAD, NO MONEY, MASS DESTRUCTION, F-ING SYMPHONY IDIOTS, SHANGHAI REDICULOUSNESS, SUE THE MAYOR, DEATHSQUAD TO PARKS DEPARTMENT"!

It's been a few days and I'm still waiting for my complaint to be followed up on.

If I don't hear anything soon, I'm calling Chuck Norris. I swear I will.

And Then There Were Two

Just when you thought it would be safe for you to have me housesit for you, I wrecked the Cadillac again. Translation: We're expanding our little spiraling sphere by 1 more human and my obstetrician is contemplating early retirement.

Several blog worthy stories to include here:
At the ripe age of 23 months my firstborn has learned what it means to die*. (*Not really, it's a bad joke.) Because for all intents and purposes "The Wonder Pets" have d.i.e.d. Now I don't know if you know about these pets and how wonderful they are, but let me save you the agony. They Are Not One Bit Wonderful. If you've seen one extremely long and repetitive and annoying episode, you've seen all 4 million of them that air an obscene amount of times every day. And thank you to whoever brought them into my life, I may send some bedbugs your way.

Well, Griffin was so obsessed with "The Pets" that we watched multiple episodes a day for several weeks before vacation. Which coincided perfectly with the alien takeover of my nausea sensors which were permanently set into overdrive times a trillion. But I never made the connection until later... So after returning to our house after vacation, I decided we were exterminating the Wonder Pets from our lives entirely. And do you know what happened? Now whenever I'm unfortunate enough to hear a note of their opening song I immediately throw up. Isn't that beautiful? Also, can I send this phenomenon in to one of these TV marketing research surveys?

Comments: Your show literally makes me vomit. Please advise.

One more. I've given in to the fact that this is going to be a massive pregnancy, what with the fact that we now have 400 restaurants that deliver to my house. (Did you hear that? DELIVERY). But the interesting and perplexing thing is that the two biggest cravings I've had are for food from restaurants with 2 major problems: 1. They're both in Columbus. And 2. They've both been out of business for at least 10 years.

And my answer to these conundrums is this: Call Grant and explain the situation. If he cannot fix it, it is his fault.

And now you know my OB's pain.

Here we go again!

Wherein I Once Again Thank the Lord I Have Faith

Holy hell has it been that long? I kept thinking of you (my solo reader that may or may not be my mom) and hoping you hadn't forgotten me. It is I, and I am alive. For now.

Much to fill you in on in the meantime, starting with the fact that it's so f-ing hot right now I'm hanging out in my microwave for some relief. Also, we went on an amazing vacation to White Birch Lodge a few weeks ago and I cannot say enough about lake water swimming. Except that I'm a million miles away from it right now and that is undesirable.
Here's a pic:That's the whole fam-damly on the husband's side, plus the 3 absolutely edible babies that pretty much took control of the vacation and had there way with it from the beginning. Obviously. Griffin had more fun that you can throw a rock at, which he did, over and over and over. It was quite interesting one day how he threw a kicking and screaming fit on the beach because he couldn't pick up the 14 ton boulder that was parked in the sand so he could throw it in the water. He's his father's son, I'm telling you. Not at all like me.

Another funny story goes something like this:
3am: wake to get ready to go to airport
4am: car arrives
6am: flight to Chicago
8:30am: running up airport gate with pee* running down my arms, onto my pants, down my legs and into my sandals. *Not my pee.

There's something calming about the feel of your child's pee drenching your clothing in a public place that you're just going to have to take my word for until it happens to you. Or maybe it's the direct hand of God reaching down to pat you on the back and say, "Hey there, you're going to be alright. Some day."