GUEST POST: Holy Mother of God! That Baby is Going Home with ME??!! by Jenny Hansen

Since Myndi is due to deliver Baby Girl Shafer TODAY, I’m holding down the fort at her place. Y’all should SEE what she keeps here behind the scenes of her blog. I could play in these tiaras for days!

In honor or Myndi’s big event, I thought it might be nice to include tips on Labor and Delivery and the products my honey and I liked during pregnancy and beyond. But there’s something else she’ll be up to in a few days that’s the bigger event for most parents.

What about that moment when you’ve delivered the child and the hospital releases you to go home? Or when you have a home birth and the last childbirth professional walks out your front door?

I remember looking at the nurses rushing around our room, trying to discharge us from the hospital and shooting my husband a look that begged him to “please get them OUT of here for a minute!”

Thankfully, he got the memo and asked for a few minutes of privacy to feed the baby. The second they left, I started crying.

Disclaimer for the new and future moms: You’re going to do that spontaneous weeping thing a lot more often than you expect.

When a new mom builds up hormones for 9 months and starts offloading them at a rapid pace (after the baby is born) emotions can get a little rocky. Especially, if you were a high-risk pregnancy (which thankfully is NOT the case with Myndi), you’ve been worrying for MONTHS.

Even if a new mom doesn’t get official post-partum depression, new parents can expect to be exhausted and, well…emotional.

Look how BIG that car seat looks!

I remember looking at my hubby over Baby Girl’s head, with big crocodile tears pouring down my face, and  saying, “We’re actually going to take her home? Now?”

Him: “Well, we’re not leaving her HERE.”

Me: “I know that!”

Him: “It’s going to be fine.”

I wanted to ask him, “How do you know?” But the hardest part of being a new parent is the realization that NO ONE really knows what they’re doing, especially you.

You can take every parenting class in the world (and you should, just to get some comfort with the basics) and your new child is still going to stump you with some issue that you’ve got no answer for. Probably in the middle of the night. It doesn’t even matter if you’ve already had a few, like our pal Myndi. You’ve never had this baby.

Photo: www.babydon.com

You are now in charge of keeping this little being safe and there will be a moment of terror, sometime in that baby’s first few weeks of life, when you wonder how the hell you’re going to do that.

I can give you some practical tips to help you get a little more sleep, but I cannot help you wrap your brain around that concept of 100% responsibility for the safety and well-being of your first child.

But I’ll be happy to listen while you vent.

Did any of you parents have jitters the first time you were alone with your new baby? What do you remember as your “what in the world is this child doing” moment? For any of you who are pregnant now, what are some of the things you’re worried about? We’d love to hear about it.

*Pssst…if our questions rock hard enough, maybe Myndi will show up with a baby update!*

Jenny

About Jenny Hansen

Jenny fills her nights with humor: writing memoir, women’s fiction, chick lit, short stories (and chasing after her toddler Baby Girl). By day, she provides training and social media marketing for an accounting firm. After 15 years as a corporate software trainer, she’s digging this sit down and write thing.

When she’s not at her blog, More Cowbell, Jenny can be found on Twitter at jhansenwrites or at her group blog, Writers In The Storm. Every Saturday, she writes the Risky Baby Business posts at More Cowbell, a series that focuses on babies, new parents and high-risk pregnancy.

EXTERNAL CRAZY

Something about a woman in the later stages of pregnancy brings out the crazy in people around her.  Not just the crazy, but the stupid.  The ridiculous.  The outstandingly inappropriate.

The starting point for external crazy begins when a pregnant woman’s stride changes from the normal one-foot-in-front-of-the-other gait to the waddle-side-to-side-with-one-hand-on-the-small-of-your-back march.  Every pregnancy I’ve had has testified to this.

Cafe Press. Click here to see!

With my firstborn, a lady came up to me in a Wal-Mart, put both hands on my belly uninvited, slipped into a seance-like trance for a moment, and then told me my baby would be born without eyes.

With my second, a grandmotherly woman gently patted my belly, and then my hips and butt-cheeks, and told me I was made for breeding.

With my third, at a wedding shower, my own grandmother told me that she and I needed to stick together throughout the party because we were the fat girls in the room.  (This woman has a knack for snark…like the time she told me how pretty I looked…followed by the phrase, Isn’t it amazing what makeup can do for a person?)

So now, here I am, about a month away from the glorious act of giving birth.  I’ve got a waddle that any duck would be jealous of, a belly that puts Santa to shame, and Lord Almighty, the crazies are out to get me.

I’m a meal planner.  If I wasn’t, we literally would never, ever eat at home.  Meal planning saves my culinary hide, time and time again.  The downfall to this, however, is the massive grocery shop I do twice a month.  I spend an ungodly amount of time in the ginormous supermarket around the corner from my house, waddling from one end to the other, precariously stocking my cart like it’s a mobile, volatile game of Jenga while trying to keep my lovely three-year-old from accidentally toppling over the giant display of Velveeta.  Or freeing the tank of lobsters, who she feels would be much happier out of the water.  Or from opening every box of cookies, fruit snacks, pop-tarts, or whatever junk food happens to be within her reach.

Grocery shopping is stressful.

Yesterday was grocery shopping day.

Thankfully, we made it through the experience without incident…until we got in line to check out.

As I was putting my groceries on the conveyor belt, my lovely belly decided it was time to pull out its favorite labor-conditioning activity: Braxton-Hicks contractions.  Anybody who’s had multiple kids knows these contractions get stronger with each consecutive child.  It’s not actual labor – it’s just a pregnant woman’s body’s way of reminding her that, This thing you’re about to experience?  You know, popping a kid out of your lady-bits?  Yeah.  It’s gonna hurt like hell.  I’m sure there’s a more practical, biological reason for the fake contractions, but at that particular moment, I didn’t really care what it was.  At that point, all that mattered was that my abdomen had begun to clench down like a snapping turtle jacked up on Red-Bull and reptilian angst, and I was juggling a glass jar of milk in one hand, a carton of eggs in the other, and a bag of apples in my teeth.

I set my stuff down and drew in a deep breath, knowing the contraction would pass in just a moment.  Then I could pay for my groceries and get the heck out of Dodge.

Of course, it was at that moment that the checker (who had previously ignored my presence altogether) decided to glance at me.

Click here to see Kristen Wiig rocking it as Target Lady

Checker: (loudly, to no-one in particular) Oh my god, she’s going into labor!

Me: (still trying to breathe) No, I’m not.

Checker: Yes you are, you’re going into labor!

Me: No, I’m not.

SweetZ: Mommy? Is the baby hurting you?

Me: (patting her head while directing mean thoughts to the cashier) No, honey, I’m fine. 

At this point the pain begins to taper off, and I quickly resume putting groceries on the conveyor belt.

Checker: (distrustfully) You’re sure you’re not going into labor?

Me:  (irritated) Nope.  Not going into labor.

Checker: ‘Cause you know I’m not delivering your baby.

Me: (to self) No shit?  (to her, firmly) I’m not going into labor.

Checker: (after a brief moment of beautiful silence)  I took a human sexuality class once.

Me: (to self) Oh, lord.  (to her) Really?

Checker: (stops checking groceries) Yeah.  In college.  I hated it.

Me: (to her) Oh.  (to self) Why has she stopped ringing up my groceries?  What’s SweetZ doing?  (look around and spy SweetZ raiding the candy display)

Checker:  Yeah.  It was my first class of the day.  I hated it.  It killed sex for me.  It’s why I never had any kids.  The whole thing was disgusting.

Me: (pulling four suckers, five candy bars, and two packages of gum out of SweetZ’s hands and putting them back in the display)  That’s too bad.

Checker: (eyeing my belly distastefully) Not really. (resumes ringing up my groceries)

At this point, the guy bagging my groceries decides to chime in.

Bagger:  I took a human sexuality class in college, too.

Checker:  Really?

Bagger:  Yeah.  I loved it.

Me: (to self, digging through wallet, pretending to look for debit card) Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up.

Bagger:  I took a human sexuality class in college, too.

Me: (to self) Why is he repeating that?  (looks up)

Bagger: (is staring me down)  I took a human sexuality class in college, too.

Me: (nodding slightly)  Cool.  (to self)  Why?  Why, why, why??

Bagger:  I loved it.  You want your juice in a sack?

Me: (timidly, hoping I’m not about to agree to some weird double-innuendo sexual favor; I really just want SweetZ’s apple juice in a sack) Yes, please.

Checker:  I hated it.  Disgusting.  (looks at my bag of parsley)  Is this cilantro?

Me: No.  It’s parsley.

Checker:  Parsley?  (for some reason this seems to annoy her.  She looks at my belly once more, eyeing it like it’s a homemade explosive about ready to go off)  You’re sure you’re not in labor?

Me:  (exasperated sigh) Nope.  Not in labor.

Needless to say, when the bagger asked if I needed help out, I declined.  That had to be one of THE MOST uncomfortable grocery store conversations I’ve ever had.  Ever.

Okay, so it’s time for you to dish and make me feel better.  I want to hear your awkward grocery store moments, pre-natal or not.  Bad attempts at flirting in the produce aisle?  Shelf stock-boy stalking?  Devil children roaming the store unattended?  If you have a memorable grocery store moment, this is the place to share!

A Hard Bit of Future to Wait For

Many of you lovely readers already know we’re gearing up for the arrival of baby number FOUR here in the Shafer house. Only a couple more months now until sweet baby Girl makes her appearance, and it’s got me thinking about the absolutely inevitable:

Childbirth.

I’ve done it three times before, and lived to tell the tales. You’d think I’d be cool as a cucumber, totally zen. But, ohhhh, baby. I’m not.

‘Cause here’s the thing. Every single one of my childbirth experiences was as different as the children that emerged from my womb.

Offspring number one? I was determined to not feel a thing. Not an ounce of pain would I endure. I mean, come on. This was 21st century, people. Surely medicine had advanced to the point that women no longer needed to feel pain when delivering new humans to the world? Surely Genesis 3:16 (you’ll give birth to your babies in pain) was an antiquated, outdated notion.

Wrong. Either I had the world’s worst anesthesiologist, or epidurals weren’t meant to work on me. Because no matter how many times they re-adjusted the epidural (three times), or administered more meds (a lot), all they managed to accomplish was deadening my legs. Not my abdomen.

There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. And expletives. Lots and lots of expletives.

Once the whole ordeal was over (nearly 23 hours from the time my water broke), I remember holding my little baby boy in my arms, trembling, shocked at the fact that (a) something so tiny could hurt so much, (b) that I made it through alive, and (c) that in a couple days’ time, I’d be sent home with this needy little human, where it would be my sole responsibility to keep him alive.

Terrifying.

Thankfully, that boy is now ten, very much alive, and has never caused me even a fraction of that kind of pain again, emotional or otherwise.

The second time around, I was a little older, and a little wiser. No way in heck was I going to ask for an epi, and no way in heck was I going into the delivery room unprepared. Boy number one weighed nearly ten pounds when he was born, making the delivery much harder than it ought to have been, so we monitored my nutrition and Bouncing Boy #2′s weight carefully. A week before my due date, I was induced. Everything progressed normally. The pain, when faced head-on with the right tools to deal with it on my own, while not easy, was totally manageable. I remember holding my second son in my arms, trembling in shock that (a) I’d done it pretty much on my own, (b) I wasn’t keeling over in residual pain, and (c) I wasn’t terrified to take him home. Sure, it hurt, but (and yeah, I get it, this sounds weird) it was a good hurt. A productive hurt. A hurt worth its weight in gold.

Liberating.

Then, nearly four years ago, I was preparing to do the same with my third child. A little girl. SweetZ had decided she wanted to be breech, but I was having none of that. Determined to avoid a c-section at all costs, I opted to try external version…which is just a fancy way of saying let a doctor pretend he hates your abdomen for an hour while he tries to get your baby to turn around.

It sucked. So bad. And in the end, SweetZ never fully turned. Instead, she lodged kinda crooked-like, which ended up playing a big part (not the whole part…there were lots of very scary moments toward the end of my pregnancy with her) in the fact that we ended up in an emergency c-section…

Where my epidural failed in surgery.

When it was all over (I still shiver thinking about it) I remember holding my tiny girl (the smallest of all three) in my arms, trembling in shock and (a) wondering when the morphine would begin to kick in, (b) thinking how grateful I was that she was healthy, and (c) wondering when the heck the morphine would begin to kick in.

Oh, so scarring.

So now, I’m sitting here, belly swollen, contemplating the fact that very soon I’ll be delivering another bundle of joy. This sweetie is so active…sometimes she’s breech, sometimes she’s not. She dances and spins, kicks and caresses, and has no idea how much it stresses me out when I can feel her head bobbing around under my ribs…or how much I rejoice when I feel her feet kick those same ribs. I’m not scared of the pain of childbirth – I can deal with it. In fact, I welcome it – especially in light of the pain a person feels when the effects of an epidural wear off and you’re strapped to a table, cut open.

I’m blessed with an OB I love, and a husband who’s more supportive than I could ever ask for. I know we’ll do everything we can to avoid the OR (though there’s no way in heck I’ll mess with version again). But it’s a hard bit of future to wait for, not knowing how it’ll turn out. Not knowing if I need to steel myself for something wholly unpleasant that’s utterly out of my control, or if I’ll end up getting to do it the way I want – with some hard work and pain, but natural.

I want to hear from you – what were your birthing experiences like? Were you scared? At peace? Were you that pregnant woman I love to hate who never felt a thing and was holding your baby in your arms after 15 minutes of pushing? Or can you relate with my topsy-turvy birthing experiences?

And, hey, Dads – I want to hear from you, too! I know my hubster has plenty of opinions about how our deliveries went down!

ROW80 Check-In: Week 3

First of all, let me say to all you who stopped by and left the sweetest, most encouraging words last week, THANK YOU.  I’ve gone back and re-read all your encouragement several times throughout the week – it’s meant so much to me.  If I could squeeze each and every one of you, I would.  Thanks, so much, from the bottom of my heart.

Last week’s check-in turned out to be the start of a week-long pit-stop for me.

With some carefully-worded guidance from my sweet, enduring husband (who knows full-well just how ugly my pregnancy listening filter can make any words, no matter how kind), I decided to all but cut myself off from the web, and focus on the most pressing issue at hand: our homeschool curriculum.

Thankfully, after two months of tears, tripping down the wrong paths, pulling out our hair, etc., I think we’ve finally got it figured out.  The week has been spent diving into this new curriculum, and I’m seeing all the signs that we’ve found one that works: the boys are happy and willing to do their work, sweetZ’s tickled to have her mommy-time back, and I’ve got a couple spare hours a day I can devote to writing/blogging/WANA-ing.  This coming week will really be the true test for all that, since I didn’t write a sentence – blogging or otherwise – last week.  Instead, I snuggled with my girl, napped when I was tired, and had fun helping my boys along.  I’ll add back in my writing responsibilities this week, and see how it goes.

Even though last week was less-than-stellar, goal wise (with the exception of the wholesome brekkie thing, and the reading thing), I’m satisfied.  Some problems, if you don’t stop everything to fix them, will grow into something wholly crippling.  This was one of those problems.  Any homeschooling parent lives with a constant nagging shadow following them around – the fear of somehow failing their kids in a way that will cripple their chances at becoming a successful adult.  It’s a powerful fear, one that will bring me to my knees faster than just about anything.  Last week was one of those weeks, but I’m finally feeling that burden beginning to lift.  Phew.

Hoping your week went well, sweet friendlies!  Sorry I’ve not been to any of your blogs over the past week, but I’ll get back into the swing of blog reading in the coming days.  Much love to you all!

ROW80: Check-In, Week 2

Puppy hiding under desk. I want to join him. Thanks, Google images, for the pic.

It was one of those weeks.

Somehow I managed to meet my goals – writing for at least 30 minutes every day, being prepared for that writing, getting in physical activity, doing something good for myself, reading a little every day.  I got it all in, but I felt like I was clawing my way into it the whole time.  The triumphant feeling I had last week has deflated into something resembling a canned-pea-green deflated balloon.  Ain’t pretty.

Sometimes things come easy, other times…not so much.

I’m not sure this coming week’s going to be any easier.  We’re having curriculum issues for my boys’ homeschooling…and it’s taking its toll on me.  With a new little one coming in a couple months, and a sweet three year-old girl vying for my attention, we’re having to make some adjustments.  We haven’t found our stride yet this semester.  Not even close.

Educating your kids at home is a huge undertaking.  One I’m glad to do, because I see the fruit of it on a daily basis.  I don’t think it’s right for everybody – not by any stretch.  I’m not sure it’s always going to be the right choice for us.  And I’m becoming increasingly aware of how thin I’m stretched these days.  An infant is going to stretch me even further.

Not sure where we’re going to land.  And that’s pretty stressful.

Sorry for the disjointed post.  Frayed doesn’t begin to describe how I’m feeling, and it’s making it hard to focus on any one thing for long.

Which probably means I’m completely nuts to add another goal to my ROW80 list, but I really like this one, and I think it’s doable, and I think it will help me feel better…hopefully.

The hubster and I are wanting to steer our nutritional habits in a more healthy direction.  These kinds of changes can be a little intimidating, but we’re taking it in baby steps, changing one thing at a time.  For the next thirty-odd days, we’re changing the way we eat breakfast – no refined, processed foods.  Hopefully in a month a few bad habits will be replaced with new, healthy ones, and we’ll be ready to add another baby step in the direction of more wholesome, healthy eating.

Also, I’m finding that my five minutes of activity just isn’t enough – my body wants to keep going, so I think I’ll go ahead and give it what it wants.  I’m gonna tweak this goal a little.  Instead of 5 minutes every single day, I’m going to aim for 10 minutes (still going with the test-mile theory here – 10 min. may be far less than what I want to do that day, but on the days when I’m blech, at least I’ll get those 10 min. in) five days a week (instead of seven).

I hope my other ROW80 friends have had a wonderful, lovely week!!  Wishing you all lots of happy, happy ROW-ing!

Swelling Insanity

Something happens when a woman becomes pregnant.  Duh, right?  At first, the excitement over the miracle of new life can be beautifully overwhelming – the thought of feeling those little kicks inside your belly, the cutest little teeny-tiny booties you’ve ever seen, the anticipation of holding your newborn for the first time.  Oh my goodness…it’s euphoric.

But eventually reality kicks in.  Morning sickness.  All-day sickness.  Bizarre cravings.  Bizarre cravings that must be satisfied now.  Swollen ankles.  Swollen fingers.  Swollen…everything.  If it has a name, and is attached to a pregnant woman’s body, it can (and will) swell.

Maybe that swelling has something to do with the significant amount of crazy that accompanies pregnancy.  Maybe the little part of the brain where crazy is normally kept, heavily guarded and only released very occasionally for good behavior, swells, too.  I don’t know what, or how, or why it happens, but during those nine months, the crazy is unleashed.  Suddenly, what began as a euphoric journey into the magical kingdom of Giddy-Happy-I’m-Building-a-Freaking-Person-Here takes a sharp, un-signalled left turn into the third-world dystopian territory of How-Could-He-Eat-Cereal-In-Front-of-Me-When-He-Knows-I-Can’t-Stand-the-Smell-of-It-He-Must-Hate-Me-and-Our-Baby.

Some days are better than others.  Some days I’m able to keep the crazy contained, and do damage control for previous unsavory actions.  This usually involves apologizing for things that I know I’ve done in a hormonal stupor, but sound utterly foreign to my ears:  ”I’m sorry I insisted I sleep with both your pillow and mine.  And that I wouldn’t let you have any blankets.  And that I made you stare at me, unblinking, until I finally fell asleep.  And that when you tried to gently pull your pillow out of my hands when you thought I was asleep that I clawed you with my fingernails.  And that now we’re in the ER waiting for you to get stitches.”

I’m a normally happy, sweet girl.  But the deeper I get into each pregnancy, the crazier I get.  And since we’re working on offspring number four, the crazy has spawned it’s own sort of crazy.

Examples:

*While at Barnes and Noble this weekend, I spotted a book about cupcakes.  A normal person would look at a book of cupcakes and think, “Huh.  Look.  A book about cupcakes.”  My thought was, “Huh.  Look.  A book about cupcakes.  I want a cupcake.”  I glanced over my shoulder at the good folks around me.  I swear on the slice of pepperoni pizza I’m eating right now that every single person in the store was holding a half-eaten cupcake, with frosting smeared on their upper lip, moaning in gastronomical pleasure over how good the cupcakes were.

“Why does everybody have a cupcake but me?” I asked Thomas, glaring at him, because obviously my cupcake-less status was all his fault.

“What are you talking about?” he asked, taking a huge bite out of a chocolate cupcake with white frosting.  My absolute favorite.

“Can I have a bite of that?” I asked.

“A bite of what?” he asked, licking frosting off his fingers with great relish.  Bastardo.

“Your cupcake!” I said impatiently, reaching for his cupcake and snatching it out of his hands.  He stared at me in shock, mouth gaping open as I crammed the rest of his half-eaten cupcake into my pie-hole.

“Ugh!” I grunted, spitting it out.  It was disgusting.  Terrible.  Tasted like paper.

I looked at the half-masticated mess in my hands.  It wasn’t a cupcake at all.  It was a Nook brochure.  Confused, I looked around.  Nobody was eating cupcakes.  They were looking at books, talking quietly with each other, some sipping on coffee.  But no cupcakes.

Not.  A single.  One.

I still want my freaking cupcake.

*While I was making a salad last night, the hubster sat at the kitchen table to keep me company.  He cracked open a beer and continued chatting with me.  Now, a normal person would think, “That’s nice.  He’s having a beer.  Maybe I should offer to fetch him a coozie.”  My thought was, “I can’t believe he just opened a beer in front of me!!  Doesn’t he know that if I even smell alcohol, our child will be born with severe birth defects?”  I stabbed the head of lettuce with my knife, called him a jerk, burst into tears, and fled to the bathroom where I sequestered myself for 45 minutes.  Thirty of those minutes were spent sobbing over the fact that I’m the only one who cares about the health of our unborn child, five of those minutes were spent missing the cold, refreshing taste of beer, another ten were spent vengefully cleaning the toilet with the hubster’s toothbrush, and the last five were spent unconscious in an impromptu power nap.  Once I regained consciousness, I stumbled back into the hall, no memory of the incident at all, wondering why my husband and three children were staring at me like I was wearing a vest made of C4.

And guess what.  I still want my freaking cupcake.

Someday soon, our little bundle of joy will enter the world.  The crazy sector in my brain will shrink back to it’s normal size, and life will continue on.  And I (hopefully the hubster, too) can look back on that time fondly, knowing it was all in an effort to add a little more innocence, a little more sweetness, a little more hope to the world.  Because kids are, and always will be, one of the biggest reasons to have hope for the future.  They are absolutely one of the most beautiful blessings we can receive in this life.  The forays into Crazy-Town will have all been worth it for the sake of a new little life.

But if somebody doesn’t get me a cupcake, pronto, there will be blood.

In the Nick of Time…New Year’s Resolutions Unveiled

I’ve struggled whether or not to publicly declare my New Year’s resolutions.  I’m a giant commitment-phobe, and the thought of saying “Hey, look at what I’m gonna do!” to anybody other than my son’s stuffed whale (the only person I tell all my secrets, hopes, and dreams to), has me breaking out in a cold sweat.  Because if anybody besides me or Whale knows my intentions for the next year, I might actually have to follow through on them, or face the embarrassment of failure.

Blech.  Forget it.  I’m ending this post now, right now.  *runs from the room screaming* *trips on something in the hallway* (Whale is on the floor, staring up at me with his dark, soulful eyes) *sighs heavily, picks up Whale, and shuffles back to the computer*

Okay, I’m back.  So.  New Year’s resolutions.  Here they are:

(1) I’m not going to nit-pick my body.  I’ve been blessed with excellent health, am in the process of making my fourth child…this body has been good to me.  Do I have stretch-marks?  Yep.  Are my arms and tummy flabbier than I would like?  Yep.  Do I sometimes still get a zit or two?  Yep.  But this body has been good to me.  Time for me to return the favor.  I’m going to use it.  I’m going to sweat, and breathe deeply, and sometimes, I’m going to be sore.  But through the process of getting back into shape after this last baby, I’m not going to nit-pick my body.  I’m not going to imagine what it would look like without the battle-wounds childbearing often places on a woman’s body – instead, I’m going to cherish those reminders of the three (soon to be four) most amazing children any parent has ever been blessed with.  Children who exist because I’ve been blessed with a body that could carry and nurture them to term.

(2) I’m going to admit that I’m a writer.  This is a silly little thing that shouldn’t be difficult, but is.  There’s this little irritating voice in the back of my head that says I should wait until I’m published; but this little ‘pastime’ of mine has quickly evolved into something that’s no longer a hobby…no sane person would spend this much time, effort, emotion, tears, determination, and did I say time, on a hobby.  I’m a writer.  It’s what I do.  I may not be the best writer on the planet.  Heck, I may not even be a good writer, yet.  But I’m a writer, working hard every single day to be a little better at it than I was the day before.

(3) I will finish my first book this year.  I will allow myself to put an end to the edits, to the modifications, to the obsessive going over, and over, and over each page, and be done with it.  I will allow myself to finish working on it, and be proud of it.  I will set a deadline, and meet it.  Suck on that, commitment-phobia!

(4) I will play.  With my kids, with the hubster, with my friends.  I will make time to romp, to laugh, to be frivolous, to be loud and live with mirth.  I will not get so caught up in my own life that I forget to enjoy the lives of those I love.

That’s it.  That’s what I’m planning for this year.  The over-achiever in me says the list is too short.  The commitment-phobe says it’s too long.  The tiny little part of my brain that is actually sane says it’s just right.

How about you, dear friendlies?  Do you make New Year’s resolutions?  Or do they scare the shiza out of you?  Or both?

The Death of a New Year’s Repeat

New Year’s resolutions give me the heeby-jeebies. Big time. And yet, every year, I find myself making them. And breaking them, almost immediately. It’s a sickness. Someone should make a pill for it.

For the past, oh, I don’t know, say gazillion years, one of my New Year’s resolutions involves running. That I’m going to start running. Keep running. Find my stride. Enter races. Place in said races.

*Enter daydream sequence here* Que music: Chariots of Fire, of course. It’s a rainy race day; but true athlete that I am, no amount of drizzle will keep me from putting one foot in front of the other in an effort to be the very best I can be. The finish-line ribbon is just ahead. So is one other runner. Some Amazon with long, sculpted legs of steel. She looks like she was bred to run. She’s probably been running since infancy. She doesn’t know how hard I’ve worked; she can’t understand the obstacles I’ve had to overcome (yes, in my daydream, sheer laziness is a plague one cannot blame oneself for; it’s simply a mountain to climb. I told you this is a sickness). My legs pump faster, harder. I cross the finish line first, barely. My opponent weeps out of joy for me.

Seriously. This daydream has to be brought on by some kind of chemical imbalance. Big pharma, where are you when I need you?

Anyway…

I used to run. Two miles every day in high school through my first year of college. I loved running. Not because I was good at it, or fast…oh, no. Not at all. In fact, I believe my running style could best be described as Drunk girl slowly being chased by no one. But it was just me, solitary, on some lonely country road in south-central middle-of-nowhere Kansas. Endless skies. Dusty gravel. Pretty, simple country birds. Cows. Sometimes a tractor or truck would pass by. But it was such a quiet, simple place to be. I’ve never loved running because of how I felt doing it; I’ve loved it because it was a way to be totally, utterly alone.

These days, I’m never really alone. It’s not for lack of opportunity – the hubster is awesome about letting me have ‘me’ time whenever I want/need it. I don’t take him up on it as often as I should – not because it’s something I don’t want, but because I find when I am alone, I still can’t shut off. I can’t get there like I used to. I can’t find a way to get to that flat-line buzz I used to have all those years ago, as a teenager running alone in the country. Maybe that’s one of the caveats to being a grown-up: you can never fully shut off like you could when you were younger. Too many burdens in daily life to accomplish it.

This year is nearly finished. I’m going to turn thirty-three in a few days. And I’m thinking, once again, about what I want this next year to look like. I know I’ll find my way to New Year’s resolutions; it’s compulsive, I can’t help it. And running will probably make its way onto the list again. Not as an ill-fated foray into escapism, but as a means to other ends (namely, shedding baby weight after #4 comes in April). Because I think I may have finally come to terms with the fact that the thing that I was striding for in running is something that’s out of my grasp…something I’ve lost in my adulthood, that has its place only in childhood – that short, short time of life when trouble can be forgotten by simply putting one foot in front of the other.

I know that sounds like a dark and gloomy place to start the new year, but really, I don’t feel that way. I’m as hopeful about this coming year as any other that has passed. I’m just done chasing that particular rainbow. I may never be able to travel through this life without the burdens adulthood places on my shoulders, but I’m strong enough to carry them. I don’t need to escape them. And that feels pretty good – recognizing my own strength, and not shrinking away from life and the curveballs it’s guaranteed to throw at me on more than one occasion during the next 370-some-odd days.

I want to hear about you, sweet friendlies. Does the year’s-end prompt introspection in you? Are you replacing New Year’s resolution repeats with newer, improved resolutions? Don’t be shy!

Happy Hausfrau: Unleash the Power of Grapefruit

I’m many things – a wife, a mom, a writer, a teacher, a cook.  But I’m also a housewife.  And I don’t want to be a crappy housewife (a little nod to one of the crappiest songs – and videos – of 2011.  Seriously, it makes Rebecca Black’s Friday sound like something Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote).

I’m always on the lookout for things that will help me do the hausfrau part of my life a little better.  After more than ten years at it, I’ve grown very fond of certain kinds of things.  Things that are useful.  Things that are simple.  Things that are green, that I don’t have to be afraid of storing under my kitchen sink where eager, small hands can find them.  And swallow them.  Nobody wants their kids to swallow this:

Over the years, I’ve developed a fondness for trying new things, even if they seem a little off at first.  Even if the hubster doubles over with laughter in the grocery store when I tell him I’m buying grapefruit to clean the bathrooms with.

Him: You’re buying grapefruit why, again?

Me: To scrub the bathroom sinks and tubs.  The kitchen, too.

Him: With a grapefruit?

Me: Yes.  And salt.

Him: A grapefruit and salt?

Me: Yes.  I don’t like the way the cleaners smell.

Him: Your smeller’s broken.

Me: Shut up.  I’m very busy and important.  (Stomps off toward the baking aisle in search of salt)

Right.  So, here it is.  The other day, I was cruising through the ginormous time-waster that is Pinterest, and came across this blog, which detailed how to clean your bathtub with nothing but a grapefruit, salt, and some elbow grease.  It immediately piqued my interest because (a) totally safe and green cleaning alternatives get my blood pumping, and (b) I cannot tolerate the smell of any cleaners thanks to the preggers hormones that have made my sense of smell as strong as a bloodhound’s.  I decided immediately I would try it.

I did a couple things differently than the tutorial.  First of all, they let their bathtub go uncleaned for a month.  Ew.  Ew, ew, ew.  I can’t do that.  Just thinking about it eebs me out, big time. *shivers*  Secondly, I used the salt I had on hand.  No idea if it was kosher or not.

Okay.  Here’s what I started with:

 One grapefruit, halved.  Salt, poured into a bowl.  I didn’t measure it.  I just poured what I thought I’d need.

I started with the kitchen sink as a test.  I dipped the grapefruit in the bowl, sprinkled salt around the sink, and got to scrubbing, ‘juicing’ the grapefruit as I went.  The salt and the grapefruit juice mixes to form a kind of grimy paste, and it scrubs beautifully.  Once the sink and fixtures were scrubbed, I rinsed them and dried them off.  Sparkly and clean!

But I was still a little skeptical.  My kitchen sink gets scrubbed several times a day (OCD much?), so it was time to move onto something a little more challenging.  I moved upstairs to my bathroom.  Even though we scrub our tubs once a week, I had noticed a couple days a go a little bit of mildew growing in some of the grout of the tile in my shower.

I went to town on it, and was amazed at how well it cleaned!  Same deal – dipped the grapefruit in salt, sprinkled salt around the tub, and scrubbed.  This time I simply wiped down the walls and tub with a damp rag.  It was amazing to see how the mildew and soap scum came right up.  Added bonus, when I was all done, I chopped the grapefruit and sent it through the garbage disposal.  Now my kitchen smells delicious.

I’m so stoked about this one, you guys!  Not only does it work (take that, T-man), but it works well, is totally green, and is budget friendly.  I cleaned my kitchen sink and two bathrooms (not the toilets) with one grapefruit and about a 1/4 cup of salt.  Here’s the price layout:

1 bag of grapefruit (about 10 in a bag) $4.00

1 container of salt (I’m guessing about 2 C. of salt in each container) $.50

I can clean 8 kitchen sinks, 16 bathrooms, and have a couple grapefruits left over to eat, for $4.50.  Not too shabby!

The Happy Hausfrau tried it so you don’t have to…but this is one cleaning alternative you should totally give a try!

The Grinch is Pregnant

This time of year you can find my family and I snuggled up on the couch in front of a fire, watching Christmas movies.  We have our favorites we re-visit year after year: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  Elf.  White Christmas.  Anything colorful and loud, with lots of singing.

I’m in a store and singing!  I’m in a store and I’m SING-ING!!!

Saturday night was the yearly kick-off of our tradition, and first on our list this year was ‘The Grinch’.  Not the cartoon version, but the waaaaaay-over-the-top-with-Jim-Carrey version.  We love this movie: fabulous costumes, a heroine so doggone sweet you just want to pinch her cheeks until they burst, and of course, the reason for the whole thing, the hairy, mean-spirited, cranky, smelly, but deep-down good-guy, Mr. Grinch.

As we were watching the flick for the umpteenth time, something dawned on me.  I don’t know why I didn’t pick up on it before.  It’s so frigging obvious.

The Grinch is Pregnant.

No, you say.  The Grinch is a dude, you say.  Even if it were physically possible in Who-biology for dudes to carry offspring seahorse-style – the Grinch hasn’t had a relationship, or a fling, in…forever!

Don’t care.  Doesn’t matter.  All of your arguments are moot, because the evidence is overwhelming.  Maybe it’s the immaculate conception of Who-mythology, I don’t know.  But the evidence is glaringly obvious.

Item #1:  Wouldja just look at that belly?  Unless Mr. Grinch is a heavy drinker (and there is no evidence pointing to that), or his diet contains an overabundance of high fructose corn syrup – which I suppose is a possibility, given the combination of the Who’s collective sweet-tooths (word?) and wastefulness (have you seen what they’ve done to Mt. Crumpit, where Grinchy gets all his food?), there’s no other explanation for it.  Even accounting for the high fructose corn syrup theory, there’s one more part of the Grinch’s anatomy that points to his ‘condition’.  Any woman who’s ever been pregnant knows one of the first signs of expectancy is a little visit from The Titty Fairy.  And the Grinch is no exception.  Sure, they’re hairy and green, but Mother Nature’s pre-natal blessings are unmistakably there.

Item #2:  The Grinch’s taste in food is…strange…to say the least.  At one point we see him wolfing down an uncooked onion, skin and all.  At the end of the film, when all is right in Whoville and Mr. Grinch is carving the roast-beast, he asks “Who wants the gizzard?”  A cry of  ”I do!” is swiftly denied, as the Grinch declares himself eater of said gizzard.  This is indicative of pregnancy for two reasons: (1) Only somebody with seriously screwed up taste-buds (aka, a pregnant person) would enjoy eating gizzards (I call liar on anybody else who says they like ‘em), and (2) Only a pregnant person would be mean enough to offer food, renege on the offer, and then eat it in front of the person he/she just jipped.

Finally, while being honored as the Holiday Cheermeister, we see him gorging himself on pudding, fruitcake, and fudge – which he does almost violently, shouting such phrases as Bring it on! and That all you got? between mouthfuls.  Only one brand of person eats with such voracity: a pregnant one.

Item #3:  Mood swings.  And lots of ‘em.  From euphorically happy to crushingly depressed; hateful and revenge-filled to helpful and downright sweet, Mr. Grinch runs the gambit of emotions.  Something, I daresay, every pregnant woman is familiar with.

Item #4:  The Grinch decides to attend the Who’s Christmas festivities, because he feels he deserves an award.  Pregnant women often feel this way (in fact, I do, at this very moment).  I mean, come on, we’re making life here.  Give me a crown, sparkly clothes, and a check, and make it snappy before one of those apocalyptic mood-swings (that could literally put an end to your life as you know it) descends in its furious glory of hell-fire and brimstone.

But *ahem* we’re talking about the Grinch, not me.  (That, by the way, is another nod in the the Grinch-is-preggo argument.  Many pregnant women – except for me – are unintentionally self-absorbed.  Except for me.  The Grinch suffers from this affliction.  But I don’t.  Not me.  Never me.  Me, me, me.)

Item #5:  Any mother-to-be will tell you, finding cute clothes that fit well during pregnancy is a pain in her ever-widening derriere.  The Grinch is no exception.  When trying to find something decent to wear to accept the Holiday Cheermeister award, we see him tearing through his closet, unhappy with how everything looks on his rounded, pear-shaped body.  Ultimately, he settles on a pair of lederhosen (which of us preggos haven’t, in our hormone-fueled need to look cute, tried out the well-intentioned, but desperately horrible coveralls look?) stolen from the Who version of the Ricola guy.  Desperate times call for desperate measures.  And any woman with the bun in the oven will tell you, a looming holiday party where you’re to be the guest of honor is a desperate time.

Item #6:  Pregnancy sends all kinds of freaky-crazy-ridiculous amounts of hormones rushing through the body, causing all kinds of interesting things to happen.  The list of things that change in unpleasant ways is long, but for the sake of time-conservation, I’ll only deal with two: Bad breath and body hair.  While it is true that the Grinch was hairy as a child, I’d say he’s had a fair bit of unusual growth at the time the movie was filmed.  I can vouch for the validity of this: If it weren’t for my daily plucking/waxing/shaving regimen, I would be utterly unrecognizable during pregnancy.  Secondly, his breath is bad.  Really bad.  At one point, he makes a poor, defenseless Who pass out just by breathing on him.  I could easily do the same to you, dear reader, if it weren’t for the obsessive amount of tooth-brushing, flossing, and rinsing I do these days.

There it is.  My argument for the fact that Mr. Grinch is indeed with child.  Do you agree with my observations, or would you rather believe this post is simply the mad ramblings of a pregnant woman who currently sees the world through childbearing-glasses?