Silly Little Girl

Brief Update

My doctor's appointment went as well as could be expected, I guess. I got the one doctor I'd only seen once before, one that my cousin's wife hates. I don't know why she doesn't like him, he seems nice enough to me, even if his cervical exam still has me a bit tender hours later. Ugh. (Nothing doing down there, by the way, but I totally expected that.)

Anyway, he agreed to induce at 38 weeks, not 37. Apparently they're hesitant to induce before 39 weeks, and he definitely couldn't get down with 37 unless it was really medically warranted, but he's comfortable with 38. I have an appointment with him on the 30th, at which we'll apparently set a date for after the 5th.

This is inconvenient on a few levels - obviously I really didn't want to continue this lifestyle for yet another week after 37 weeks (I did not realize there's some dissenting opinion on what constitutes "full term", 37 or 38 weeks) and on a inconsequential level, it certainly would have been easier to manage things if it all went down before Donovan went back to school, but it's better than nothing I guess.

However, in true paranoid fashion, I started re-hashing my conversation hours after I left, and now I'm freaked out that he's kind of stringing me along. He initially said (verbatim) "Well, we're really not inclined to induce before 39 weeks, but in this circumstance, I certainly have no problem with 38 weeks. I think the risk to the baby would be absolutely minimal at that point in terms of development, and it seems warranted."

But then when I said "So we'll set a date at my next appointment?" He replied, "Make your next appointment for the 30th, make sure it's with me, and we'll check your cervix out and see how you're doing."
I guess he saw that I got a little teary-eyed about things, and he said jovially, "Hey, you can always hope nature will take over before then. How long did you go with your first?"

I gave him my "are you kidding me?" stare and replied, "42 weeks and 2 days." And he said, "...Oh. Well, then, 38 weeks."

But I seriously have my granny panties in a twist about his verbiage in the second exchange, what the hell does "we'll see how you're doing" mean? Why couldn't he have just said "Yep, we'll pick a birthday then." Or am I just being loony?

Merry Christmas to you and yours, folks. Or, whatever holiday you happen to celebrate. Please all enjoy your holiday meals for me, as I will slurping soup from a can that I bring with me to my various festivities, and also knock back a few bottles of wine in my honor.

The end. I hope.

I drafted a very long and screechy post at 6:00 am this morning, coming off yet another night of fitful, restless sleep interrupted by pain and swelling in my jaw. I declared that I had hit the wall: the wall of pregnancy irritability, exacerbated greatly by the problems with my wisdom teeth.

I can't eat anymore. I was dutifully sticking to waffles and other assorted soft foods (I microwave my waffles for the maximum amount of squishy) and I'm at the point now where that's just not good enough. Today I ate a sunnyside up egg on bread, and paid so dearly for it that I haven't eaten since. (That was at 10:30am) At the stage of pregnancy where I just want to shove my face with comfort food, I'm faced with either a fully liquid diet or days of almost unbearable pain. Tylenol doesn't cut it, so I'm relying more heavily on the prescription painkillers, and that's still not doing the job. I feel awful.

But even so, the post I wrote this morning was so bitter with pain and frustration that I trashed it after re-reading it. It's Christmas, and I just want to be grateful for my family and the impending arrival, even if it seems like he'll never get here.

However, after another day of being almost non-functional because of the painkillers, and STILL being in awful pain anyway, I made a decision. And it might get me laughed out of the obstetrician's tomorrow, but I figure it's worth a shot. It's not like I've got any dignity left at this point, anyway.

According to them (and their dates are based on incorrect menstrual dates I gave them in the beginning) I'm 36 weeks. According to me, I'm actually 38 weeks. According to 4 out of 5 ultrasounds, I'm 37 weeks. I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon, and I'm going to explain my plight, and ask for an induction for next week. That would, by all numbers imaginable, put me and Baby X quite safely into full term, and I sincerely hope they hear me out on it. I'm with one of those practices that rotates doctors, so I've got my fingers crossed that I encounter either one of 3 (out of 5) doctors that I think might take me seriously. The 4th I've only seen once so I have no idea what his general demeanor is really like, and the 5th asked me a couple weeks ago why I couldn't just have the teeth out without any anesthesia at all, including novacaine, so yeah, I'm really not banking on anything from her.

Wish me luck, because, like I've said, I've hit the wall over here.

(I will update for sure if I get my way and get a date set, but if not, I probably won't make an appearance till after Christmas. I wish the best of the holidays to you and yours - and thank you again for putting up with this drivel for the last year.)

Ways I am a "Bad Parent"

Before I stopped working, my kid and I had a pretty solid routine going on. He'd be in morning daycare, then go to kindergarten, where I'd pick him up. We'd hang out playing whatever weirdo game he'd made up that week for a while, then he'd watch some cartoons while I cleaned or did whatever, we'd pick up Nik, have dinner, and BAM - bedtime. But now that I'm home, oh, ALL THE FREAKING TIME, we had to make some adjustments to our schedule, and as a result, I've learned a few things about the kid that may have been slipping through the cracks.

Namely, he's kind of a brat. In a number of ways. So these last couple weeks have been a challenge of striking up a new routine mixed in with some good old fashioned "kid training." And since everyone seems to be so damn curious about how the Stay-at-Home-Mom gig is going, I've had a couple opportunities to enumerate on the things I'm doing to whip this kid into shape. And this has resulted in me being called a "tyrant", "unfair", "unsympathetic", and one of my friends actually laid down the "bad parent" card. So, since I happen to know that the blogging world is always ready to jump right on these bandwagons, I figured I'd give you all a chance to tell me these things, too. Or. You know. I'm just seriously running out of content. But really, my mom has told me that I "fucking suck" at this stuff, (take that for what you will if you've read between the lines of what kind of parent my mom was) so if you want to tell me that, too, I won't even delete your comment! So here goes a list of new things I'm doing, and things I've always done that have earned me the "bad parent" label.

1. I "lock him in his room." (What you see in quotations is what I've been told from friends and family.)

Do I physically shove him in there and lock his door? Jeez, dude, of course not. He doesn't even have a lock due to an incident occurring the first few days after we moved in where he managed to lock us all out of his bedroom. But do I make him stay in there for up to an hour and a half each day? Yes, yes I certainly do, and he doesn't even have to do anything wrong for it! (Aside, I don't do the room thing as a discipline method anyway. Dude, there are toys in there. How much of a lesson are you teaching pushing your kid into a room with toys?) One of the things that shocked me the most about him when I started staying home was dude...you...do not know how to use your imagination AT ALL. The child was apparently physically incapable of entertaining himself. It was easy enough to figure out - he spent all day in daycare and school, where activities are carved out and scheduled for him, and then he came home and had either me or his allotted cartoon time to entertain him. Weekends were usually filled with errands and various things I scheduled for us, so he never really had any time to just..play.

When I realized this, I immediately declared that at least one hour per day would be spent in his room, where there is no TV, and I will not be in there to entertain him. At first, he thought he was being punished. I explained to him that I simply just wanted him to learn to entertain himself, or else he was going to spend his life being a bored TV robot. The first few days were hard...a lot of whining and sulking. But now? He's happy to back there, and I listen to him making up games with his action figures and building forts with his blanket. Occasionally, he decides to just hang out back there on his own when I'm not interesting enough for him.

I got BLASTED for this. Apparently, it is TOTALLY NOT OK to ask a 5 year old to be able to entertain himself. Apparently, it is BORDERLINE NEGLIGENT to leave a 5 year old alone in his kid-proof room while I am 10 feet away in the kitchen and let him run amok. Apparently, having a kid who does not need me to act like a fucking clown 24/7, including when we're in public, to keep him from having a bored, whiny meltdown is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE. And apparently, I am TOTALLY OK WITH THAT.

2. I make him "choke on food he hates!"

Ah, the food saga. If you have friends with kids, have ever visited a restaurant with child patrons, or read any parenting blog on the net, you realize what a fucking trap this can be. And man, did I ever fall right into it. This problem is totally my own damn fault, and now I'm trying to fix it.

I was never a picky eater. Sure, I bitched about a few things, but I sucked it up and generally ate what was given to me. When I met my husband, he introduced me to a world of food that I'd never even imagined, and now I will at least try anything you put in front of me, as long as it doesn't contain mayonaisse. So the fact that I have a kid who is a fucking LUNATIC about food just about kills my soul, kills it right down dead. And like I said, it's my fault.

My kid is/was allergic to dairy. He needed soy formula or he was like a little exorcist baby, and when I tried to introduce cow's milk at age 1, it wasn't any better. We laid off for a year, tried again, and this time it resulted in hives and swelling that came way too close to anaphylaxis for comfort. So he didn't eat any dairy for years.

Do you have any idea how much this limits your kid's diet? Finding shit for him to eat, especially on a tight budget, was hard. So I fell into the goddamn parent trap of letting him eat spaghettios, chicken nuggets, and a handful of other inoffensive kid foods for a good two years. Christ, I could kick myself. At any rate, when Nik and I moved in together almost two years ago, we agreed that we were gonna get this kid eating normal fucking food if it KILLED us. And sometimes, I think it will.

I try as often as possible to make meals we all can eat, but sometimes it's hard. We struck a pretty decent balance. Before Nik started working until late in the evening, we were eating the same meals at least 3 times a week. Yeah, it sucked for a while, and the pea episode was certainly a bitch, but for the most part, I can now get Donovan to eat least TRY things. And "try" is generally all I ask for, unless I know for a fact that the kid likes what he's eating and is just testing his will versus ours.

And then, when he started only going to his dad's every other weekend, they started falling all over themselves to please him while he's there. This includes, and I was FLABBERGASTED when I heard this, making him up to SIX OR SEVEN DISHES at each meal until they find one that is acceptable to his Royal Pain-in-the-Assness. And so the food issue exacerbated again, because wonder of wonders, the kid expected me and Nik to do the same damn thing.

Yeah. Sorry, pal. I love you and shit, but that is not going to happen. You'll eat what I put in front of you. End of story. And so began the Oatmeal Saga of 2008.

Long story slightly less long - he's recently been retested for his allergies, and we got clearance to start trying him on things with low dairy content, with moderate success. Anyway, I put a bowl of bananas and cream oatmeal in front of him on Thursday morning.

He tried a bite. Declared it "not awful." Ate about 3 more bites, and then put his spoon down and imperiously commanded that I make him something else, could he possibly just have some fruit, or maybe some graham crackers? Um, no, actually. Just finish the oatmeal. This was at 9:30 that morning.

10:00, he's still picking at it. I calmly inform him that he's going to eat the oatmeal regardless, but if he makes a big deal out of it, he can forget all the fun stuff we had planned for that day.

10:30 - still picking at the oatmeal. (have you ever seen how much is in just one packet of quaker instant oatmeal? it's not a lot, people. Like..ten decent spoonfuls. When I make it for myself, I make at least 3 packs. I don't think I was asking for a lot, here.)

11:30 - still picking at the goddamn oatmeal. I now informed him that if he did not finish the oatmeal in time for school, he would have oatmeal for dinner.

12:30 - suffice it to say, the oatmeal was not finished, and it was time for school. I reiterated to him over and over again that he made a really poor choice. He could have just eaten the oatmeal, and never had to think about it again, and had a really fun day. Now, we weren't gonna do any fun stuff, and he was going to have to eat oatmeal for dinner. And if he didn't eat it then, he would continue to be served a bowl of oatmeal for every meal until he finished one.

The Oatmeal saga didn't end until 10:30 that evening, and it involved him making himself vomit a few times (a neat little trick he's had since he started eating solids. Sorry, kid. THat may work elsewhere, but round these parts, I'd prefer to spend 10 minutes cleaning up puke than a lifetime apologizing for your annoying pickiness) and a screaming fit the likes of which I have not heard since he was 2. Dude, his screaming was so bad that the next day, my neighbor got in my face and told me if she ever heard my kid screaming like that, she was calling the cops on me. I don't think I assuaged her fears when I laughed in her face. But, finally, he did eat a goddamn bowl of oatmeal. And, surprise! IT DIDN'T KILL HIM. Nor did it scar him for life, I'm pretty sure. But it did prompt him the next day to try my funky looking lunch with zero hesitation or complaint.

My mom was LIVID about this. She bit her tongue on the word "abusive" more times than I could count. In her mind, doing something that "forced" him to willingly make himself vomit constituted torture. In my mind, making it clear that shit like that will not fly in my house or the real world saves him a lifetime of being the asshole who won't eat a goddamn sandwich without the crusts cut off, even when he's 30. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

3. I call bullshit on the "he's just a kid!" mantra.

Yeah, he's 5. Sometimes he's gonna be rowdy, sometimes he's going to be headstrong. But there are a few things I expect from him unequivocally. One, you will ALWAYS be polite. To EVERYONE. Relatives and strangers alike. Two, if I tell you to stop doing something in my "mom voice" you will STOP. AT THAT SECOND. Sometimes, I don't break out the "mom voice" until I've asked him once or twice to knock it off nicely. Other times, when he's doing something potentially dangerous, it's my first tool, and usually it works. Three, you will never, EVER, deliberately hurt someone and not pay serious consequences for it.

A few examples include: a couple Christmases ago, he was given a gift by I don't even remember who and he said something really snotty about it. As a result? I took his Christmas presents and put them all away. And I mean ALL OF THEM. I explained to him that if he could not accept one gift like a gentlemen, he did not deserve any gifts at all. I let him earn back his presents with good behavior over the course of several weeks. Again, I got lambasted for doing that to a kid so young. (He was 3, I think.) Really? Cuz as far as I can tell, he doesn't even remember the incident, but he DOES proclaim with glee and delight and gratitude at every gift he's given now. I really fucked the kid up, didn't I?

Another set of examples is pretty much any time I go to any relatives for any event whatsoever. Whenever he gets too worked up and rowdy, I demand that he stop. If he doesn't listen to me, straight to time out he goes. If it continues after that, he will sit out the remainder of the festivities. Sometimes I even wonder if I'm taking it too far here, because how much good can it do if while he's sitting by himself on the couch, he's listening to 5 or 10 other adults tell me I'm too hard on him? But I stand by my decision - he's going to learn that certain places warrant certain behavior, and if he cannot abide by that behavior, he's going to miss out. That's it.

And finally, if he hurts anyone - me, Nik, another kid, whatever, it's game over. That, and lying, and are the ultimate offenses in my house. He loses EVERYTHING for at least a week. TV, toys, library trips, snacks, EVERYTHING. While his anger occasionally still gets the best of him when it comes to me and Nik (he has a nasty habit of passive-aggressively 'accidentally' digging his nails into our hands when he's holding them if he's pissed about something) he has subsequently had one, count it, ONE incident EVER where he's gotten too rough with a peer at school or daycare.

In keeping with this theme, I also call bullshit on any bad behavior enacted by myself or my husband. I have never pretended we're perfect, not to him or anyone else. He's seen us, me mostly, act pretty horrendously out of anger, especially during the course of my own mental battles. Whenever this happened, I always made sure to apologize to him for my behavior, made sure he saw me apologize to Nik for my behavior, and made sure he saw the consequences I had to face for acting poorly. The kid will learn that there are consequences to any decent human being's behavior if it's the only goddamn thing I ever teach him.

Everyone I know aside from my husband thinks we're too harsh on him. But you know what? I'm the only parent I know who has been able to take my kid to places like restaurants and have him behave like a quiet, polite human being (read: no temper tantrums, no running all over the damn place, no demanding shit from waitresses, and no need for me to endlessly entertain him) since he was 3. I'm pretty sure it's because I've always been unwilling to excuse spoiled, bratty behavior with a dismissive smile and a refrain of "he's just a kid!"

4. I constantly "defer to my husband just cuz he's the breadwinner!"

Ugh. Some people I love and care about really sound fucking stupid sometimes. I went to a high school for pregnant broads, and as a result, I'm still semi-friends with a bunch of girls who are no longer with their children's fathers. And for some reason, they all take MAJOR offense with the fact that I always consult with my husband, who is not Donovan's biological father, on our parenting methods.

First of all, Nik hasn't always been the breadwinner. This is a relatively new occurrence. Yet, I have indeed always consulted with him when it comes to Donovan.

Secondly, Nik has known Donovan since he was a year and a half old. I kept them relatively separated until I was pretty sure Nik was going to remain a force in our lives, so he's been a prominent figure in Donovan's life since he was about 2 1/2, 3 years old. Now we live together, we're married, and Donovan is as much his child as he is mine. The way I parent my kid directly affects him, our household dynamic, and any children we have together. Why in God's name would I NOT consult him? Not to mention the fact that Nik was raised by the absolute BEST father I've ever met in my life, and I'd be fucking crazy not to let him impart the wisdom he received from him onto OUR son. Besides, what the hell would I be telling Donovan about the typical family dynamic if he thought I call all the shots? That it's totally ok to bring in a paycheck as a father, that the job ends there? That I'm omniscient and all-powerful but his dad or step-father is just a dumbass that pays the bills? No. Regardless of who happens to actually be making the most money, two things in my marriage are absolutely 50/50. Parenting, and major financial decisions. End of story. I still can't fathom why this is such a big deal to so many people.

5. I let him watch violent movies.

This one might be the one that makes the most people cringe. Secret, awful, shaming confession - my kid has seen the movie 300. Multiple times.

I've felt strongly about this topic since Columbine, and the resulting media frenzy about violent movies, video games, and music.

Here's my point - if you raise your kids properly, they will know, at any age, that what they see in a movie or on TV, what they hear in music, what they pretend during the course of a video game, is FAKE. It is NOT REAL, and it is NOT acceptable to mimic what you see.

I don't let him watch things that are overtly sexual in nature, because he just doesn't need to think about shit like that just yet. Up until recently, I was pretty avid in avoiding movies with a lot of curse words. Before they're about 5, they're innately prone to repeatedly words they hear in movies, even in innocent context. I once heard a 3 year old in a grocery store ask her mother what "fuck" meant after she heard another asshole patron railing against the self-checkout machine. The mother was mortified, and a few other patrons looked at her like she was the ultimate asshole. I wish they hadn't left so quickly, cuz I would have told her to relax. Kids repeat shit. It's not the end of the world, and sometimes even the most vigilant parenting can't avoid it. But it doesn't mean I didn't try to avoid it in my own house. Nowadays, I don't flinch when I hear characters on TV curse in my kid's presence. He's been around for 5 years, he's met enough people and heard enough conversations to know the bad words. He also knows he is never to repeat them. So if he hears it now, he just sort of giggles and wonders why those people are saying bad words. He never repeats them.

And because of my vigilance about the importance of never hurting people or letting his anger get the best of him,  I have never had to worry that he's going to go bash someone's head in cuz he saw it in a movie. Probably a good 75% of the American population doesn't agree with me, but I'll say it again - if you're doing your job teaching your kid life lessons, he or she won't need to learn them from TV. They'll understand that movies and the like are NOT examples of lives worth living, they're ENTERTAINMENT.

On that note, I will mention that I don't watch reality TV around my kid, because unfortunately, those ARE real people who are REALLY acting a certain way. It's hard to explain that it's just for entertainment purposes when these people are supposed to be real, and are being REWARDED for their poor decisions.

And so ends the litany of ways I am a bad parent. Give me a couple more weeks and I'm sure I'll get blasted for more shit I never even thought would be an issue. If you feel compelled to call child services, please also mention that I am the only parent in my kid's kindergarten class who has not complained about the homework the kids are given, and insists my child hand in his assignments, completed by him alone, on time every week. I'm sure they'll be banging at my door any day now.

Obviously, I'm still looking for a hobby.

I don't think I've posted so frequently in the entire run of this site. This is what unemployment does to you - it gives you a ton of time to consider foolish things, and because everyone else you know is doing important shit like working, you really have no where else to turn with your meanderings. My husband is probably thrilled I keep this blog, it means less time HE has to listen to this shit.

I am not the type of woman who enjoys being pregnant. I know that everyone woman has complaints about the toll it takes on their emotions and their bodies, but it always seems like they have enough of those "..but I feel so womanly and empowered!" moments to balance it out. I really have none of that.

I either have the worst case of amnesia when it comes to my pregnancy with Donovan, or it just really wasn't too eventful. I'm going to go with the latter - I vividly remember the emotional climate and the things that happened DURING my pregnancy, I just don't remember having much to complain about physically. I gained a fuck-ton of weight (I packed on 65lbs of unadultered FAT [even a 9lb baby should not make you that big of a whale]) but other than that, I'm pretty sure it was cake.

And the thing is, this time, and a bunch of women I know HATE me for this, I probably really don't have anything to complain about either. I don't get morning sickness. Apparently, the vague nausea I experience on and off for a month or two isn't even enough to dig me out of the 5% of women who do not experience any morning sickness. I have no health problems related to pregnancy (all my bullshit problems have been totally unrelated and just complicated by pregnancy).  My blood pressure has stayed beautifully low, I only experienced sciatica for a brief spell in my second trimester, I don't have a lot of problems with swelling, I don't experience the "pregnancy mask." Even my weight gain has held pretty well this time around - a respectable 28lbs as of my last appointment.

I'm not an unattractive pregnant woman this time around. My weight gain has been almost entirely in my torso (spare a little extra chunk on my legs), my face isn't bigger, my arms aren't doing that flabby thing...I'm really pretty fucking lucky. (I do, however, reserve the right to take all of this best in the next 6 weeks, as I do remember suddenly being very DUMPY and FAT looking in the face in my last two weeks with Donovan.)

But despite all these blessings, dude. I HATE being pregnant. HATE IT. Sure, I'm psyched about getting a baby out of the whole shebang,  and it's definitely been nice experiencing it with my husband, who, despite my whining in the first trimester, has been pretty fucking awesome about the whole thing, but all in all, I am definitely in this shit for the end goal, the journey be fucked.

I am a girl who likes her body to be her own. I like margaritas. I like cigarettes. I like nights of uninterrupted sleep. And while I know that infants don't really mesh well with that last part, I am so fucking anxious to be awoken by crying rather than blinding pain in my hips cuz I can't get into a comfortable position to save my life. I like being able to lift heavy shit and bend over and get off the couch without utilizing the help of my floor, coffee table and husband (all at once, it's comedy gold for everyone except me). I like being able to sit on the floor with my kid without losing all feeling in the lower half of my body.

I know that I'm supposed to close this out with a bunch of Hallmark declarations about how "but even with all that, I'm so happy to be pregnant! I'm so proud of my body!" but dude...that shit would be so false. I hate this. I can't wait for it to be over.  I am anxiously awaiting labor with zero trepidation of the pain and physical hardship because man, once those contractions have me screaming at the top of my lungs, I know the end is in site. Besides, that's what they make epidurals for.

A lot about nothing, and then I piss you off.

And so starts another week of unemployment. (My mother and friends keep reminding me that it's MATERNITY LEAVE, not unemployment, but I figure if you've got no job to go back to, it's one and the same, yeah?) I had sort of hoped I would have gotten into the swing of things by now, perfectly balancing doing more fun things with my kid, keeping up my house better, but also finding something that's wholly personally fulfilling, but so far, I've only got two of the three down.

Don't get me wrong, I'm having a pretty sweet time playing Clone Wars and whatever the hell he calls that weird-ass game with the crayons and the beads with Donovan, and always coming home to a clean, prettily decorated house gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling, but I really kind of thought I'd have developed a hobby by now. Turns out, work was always my hobby, and apparently, I was pretty ok with that.

I like to be needed. But I also like to be challenged. Sure, my house needs me to clean it, and I'm pretty sure my husband and son would wear their pajamas 24/7 because they're not sure where their clothes are kept, or what in the world a "washing machine" is, but this isn't exactly rocket science, people. I'm pretty sure there are trained monkeys that could run a household with as much skill. I'm in search of a hobby that requires me to really think for a couple hours a day, but it also has to be something that I can walk away from without tearing my hair out in frustration or impatience to get back to it - cuz something tells me in about a month or so, there's not going to be a whole lot of time left for "personal fulfillment" for a while. Infants, man, they really kind of screw up your enrichment schedule.

At any rate, I'm still trying to figure out this stay-at-home-mom gig, and that apparently leaves a WHOLE lot of time leftover for blog reading. Which brings me to my next point.

(Transitional sentences, I own them.)

I have a friend who does not know about the existence of this site, but reads other blogs just as avidly as I do. About a week ago, I happened across a post that amused me on this site and passed it on to her.  As a result, we both combed through the most popular posts and through a good chunk of the archives. I'm not going to bother linking all the specific posts that ignited our "discussion", because A: I'm lazy, and B: most of her more incendiary opinions are easily found through the most popular link. It's a pretty easy site to navigate - you'll figure it out if you care to do so.

Here's the thing - I know a few of you have probably heard of this woman, and are going to be pissed that I found anything she had to say funny. A good chunk of you came here from Amalah, who has come under fire from Violent Acres a couple times, and you're probably fans of Dooce, too, who has REALLY been trashed by her. Sorry to say this doesn't really bother me, and the reason why is also the reason why I failed to get nearly as upset as my friend about what "V" has to say about...well. Anything.

My friend could not fathom why I enjoyed, let alone agreed with V on a lot of points. Loosely paraphrased, the point was "Look at what she has to say about single parents, young, unwed mothers..doesn't that bother you? People like you work hard to not be those things, and someone like her comes and shits all over it and says 'you still fucking suck at life.' How does that not infuriate you?"

Well. That's a two or three fold question. The first answer is - A: Dude. They're opinions. And it's the internet. It's...not really a big deal. I've come under fire from so many people in my REAL life that the musings of someone who has never met me or heard of my situation can't really bother me at this point. Maybe a few years ago it would have, but by now, I'm comfortable enough with myself that it didn't even occur to me to take it personally until this particular discussion. Which leads me to B: She's not writing about me. She's not even writing about people LIKE me. Maybe some people would THINK I fall into the same pigeonhole as the single or young parents she discusses, but I know better. What she's writing about, in my opinion, are sweeping generalizations. And not that it matters, but on the whole, I AGREE with the sweeping generalizations about the single parent family dynamic, and about young, unwed mothers. Unless you're willing to change pretty much EVERYTHING about yourself and work your ass off to behave like a grown up, having kids before you're ready, or doing it on your own ends up being a pretty fucked up situation. But whatever, that's besides the point.

I could go ahead and list all the things that I think makes me different from the people she's writing about, but I'm not gonna bother, because all that matters is that I know it. And knowing that I'm not making the same mistakes that single parents like my mom made before me is enough to protect my fragile little ego from getting hurt by the things someone else writes on the internet, or says in real life, for that matter.

So why am I even bothering to bring it up? Um..to prove a point to myself, actually. After the argument with my friend, who got like..viscerally angry at my non-reaction to the material, I considered making it a blog post. In almost the same thought, I shot it down, thinking "I can't link that site on my blog. People would get mad cuz she makes fun of the blogs that a lot of my readers like." Then, I got annoyed with myself cuz dude, who cares? I like to think that if you're comfortable with the choices you've made, and you know that they were the right ones or the best ones, you really don't give a shit if someone, on the internet or in real life, makes fun of you. So my point is that, even though in a round-a-bout and non-personal way, Violent Acres shit all over the choices I've made, I'm secure enough with them to have found it pretty fucking funny, and I kind of think you should, too.

Wisdom teeth: 0 - Kate: 1

HI INTERWEBZ! It's 7:45 on Friday morning and I am one cheery motherfucker!

You'll recall that I was scheduled to have my wisdom teeth out yesterday, yes? And you'll recall that maybe I was a tad nervous about it?

"Nervous" doesn't really begin to scrape the surface. Let me tell you a little something about me - I'm not generally a nervous person.

Wait. Hold up. Let me clarify lest one of my cousins or my husband jump all up in this bitch and scream "LIAR SHE'S LYING SHE IS SO FUCKING NEUROTIC." Ahem, I am not generally nervous about medical procedures.

As I mentioned in my last post, I was scheduled to be induced into labor with my son, and dude, those nerves were a walk in the park compared to the shit I've been feeling this week.

Wednesday night I found myself wide awake in bed for hours, stunned still and quiet with fright. My stomach was flip-flopping, I was sweating like a goddamn pig, and in the end, I eventually just cried myself to sleep. Yesterday morning, I awoke bright and early as usual, and walked around like a quiet, stilted zombie in general terror of what was to come. It didn't matter what I told myself -

"Even if it hurts, it's half an hour and then it's over."

"It won't hurt. It'll be those four painful novacaine shots (the palettal ones are the only ones the bother me) and then nothing."

"Even if the recovery sucks, it's two days and it's over. Easy peasy."

Nothing comforted me. By the time I got to the dentists office (looking, I imagine, like someone walking to the goddamn guillotine) I was soaked in sweat, my eyes were red rimmed from furiously rubbing them to stall the tears, and I was shaking like a leaf. Nevermind my jaw was fucking killing me; at that point, I was perfectly willing to deal with the pain for six more weeks until I could go to an oral surgeon who could put me to sleep.

The wait didn't help, either. They were running behind. The oral surgeon only comes to that office once a week, so when he's there, it's crazy. There's back to back procedures, and if someone runs long or there's an emergency (sorry to anyone I fucked up with my emergency extraction two weeks ago!) shit goes nuts. My appointment was at 12:15, I got there at 11:40, and I wasn't called back until 1:15. Nothing like a long ass wait, punctuated occasionally by patients emerging looking like the bad end of a Rocky fight, to soothe one's nerves.

Eventually though, I did get called back. And the two assistants (I don't know what they are, are they hygienists, or nurse's, or surgical aides or what? Whatever they were, they were sweet, and the one had really awesome hair) took a look at me and conferred for an uncomfortably long time before fetching the surgeon. He came in and asked me what the problem was. I told him. I asked him how bad it was going to be with just the novacaine. He looked at me pitifully, and I much have blanched noticeably. I thought he was preparing to tell me this may, indeed, be the worst physical experience of my life.

Instead, though, he said, "I hate to tell you this, honey, but I really need you to soldier through the pain for a couple weeks. I can't do this while you're pregnant."

He must have mistaken the look of abject relief on my face for shock or something else, because he hurriedly continued on.

"I know this is awful for you at times, but with the level of novacaine I have to give you to make you comfortable, and the undue stress that it, and the surgery itself puts on your body, your heart especially, I am just not confident enough that you and the baby could take it. I could put you into labor right in this chair." (I will not pretend that that didn't sound just a little bit tempting, however)

"I just spoke with your obstetrician's office, with Dr. Kupersmith (my favorite! head of the practice! cute old man with a silly sense of humor! wee!) and we are both infinitely more comfortable giving you enough Tylenol 3 to take as needed until you hit the finish line. At this stage in your pregnancy, not much is crossing the placenta, and there's no risk to the baby as long as you're not overdoing it. I'm sorry, but that's how it's going to have to be."

I have no idea what my face must have looked like, cuz the poor guy looked at me like I was going to up and deck him. I finally cut him a break by relaxing into what felt like the first full smile in days, and was like "DUDE. If that is cool with you and the docs, that is AWESOME with me, because I am fucking TERRIFIED of this!"

And so, all's well that end's well. He gave me an extremely generous prescription for Tylenol 3 which I hope to not need very often (5 days out of 7, regular tylenol cuts it, but on the days where the pain is bad, jesus christ almight is it bad) and a promise that I'll be given priority scheduling as soon as I'm ready.

And so, here I am, still munching on soft foods (chewing crunchy shit aggravates it like you would not believe), but still in what I deem now as glorious possession of all my wisdom teeth.

Now I can look forward to the next 6 weeks of uncomfortable pregnancy with nothing but unmitigated excitement, and, yes, discomfort. But, I'll take that over the fear that's been plaguing me ANY DAY.

Oh...Right. Someone actually has to get this baby OUT.

I'm far too lazy to go through the archives to see whether I ever mentioned anything about Donovan's birth, so if I'm retelling the story, my apologies.

Donovan showed absolutely ZERO indication of exiting my uterus anytime before Independence Day, 2004. He was due July 1st, 2003, incidentally. Nor did my doctors seem to be in any particular hurry to evict him. It wasn't until an appointment, a full 14 days past my due date, where I refused to leave an office without a scheduled induction date, did anything fall into place. I entered the hospital shortly after midnight on July 17th, was given a dose of Cytotec, and left to wait.

Around 3:30am, I finally started having contractions. They were extremely mild, but measurable. Around 7:30am, I told my Aunt Kate that this labor business was really not too bad. At 8:00am, they started the Pitocin. By 8:30, I was screaming my ever-loving lungs out. 10:30am, a futile dose of Stadol. By 11:30, I had sufficiently worn down the patience of my two labor nurses enough that they fudged my dialation to get an anesthesiologist up there and get me an epidural. They told him I was 6 centimeters dialated. In truth, I was barely 4, but I imagine that a 16 year old girl screaming herself hoarse for 3 hours straight might compel someone to stretch some numbers.

Donovan was born at 5:29pm on the 17th after 14 hours of contractions and 23 minutes of pushing. There were no complications until AFTER his delivery, when my uterus was declared "boggy." It was a shift change, so the doctor that attended the birth was in the room, about to be relieved by the doctor coming on. After 45 minutes of blood loss so severe that it looked like transfusions might be necessary, Doctor #2 said, rather nonchalantly I'm told, "Take her to OR and get it out." "IT" being my uterus. He was recommending a full hysterectomy for a 16 year old girl. Doctor #1 was having no part of that, and sat literally elbow deep in my vagina, massaging my uterus for the next 30 minutes until the bleeding finally stopped. Obviously, a hysterectomy was not performed that day.

I was told in the office later that this complication may make me a more likely candidate for a scheduled C-Section later on. Apparently, I took this to heart.

When I started seeing the doctor this time around, I told them my history with childbirth and thought nothing of it. Some delusional mechanism engaged in my brain and I convinced myself that OF COURSE they were going to schedule a C-Section. OF COURSE THEY WERE. So I went my merry way for about 25 weeks, assuming they'd bring it up as we got closer to D-Day. But no one did. And, by the tone of their conversations, they seemed to be under some misguided notion that I was going to LABOR to have this child. What, seriously?

At my 30 week appt, I came right out and asked, and it was confirmed that YES, I AM GOING TO HAVE TO LABOR. So. Wow. Ok. I actually did not see that coming.

So the past several weeks I've been reconciling my brain with that fact, and I am surprisingly calm about the whole thing. I am actually hoping that this all happens on its own and I can labor at home for a few hours before a nice, leisurely drive to the hospital. I am hoping that, if no induction, and no Pitocin is necessary this time around, I might have a bit of an easier time with it than last time. Between the supposed difference in contractions manufactured by Pit and the shortening of labors in each subsequent birth, I might be in for an entirely different experience this time around. And truth be told, the first time wasn't really THAT bad.

I say that, of course, with a degree of the amnesia that comes with having given birth, but also with the comforting knowledge of remembering that no matter how bad it really is, when it's all said and done and over, that amnesia kicks in FAST, and it never seems as bad in retrospect.

I am, however, a little apprehensive about my husband's role in this whole thing. I seem to be shockingly unable to find a way to prepare him for what this might be like, and my greatest fear regarding this birth is that he'll be the kind of guy who rolls his eyes in the delivery room, making it clear that he thinks you are totally exaggerating this whole thing. Any advice for prepping the dad-to-be?

A random series of updates, or, How the Blogosphere will render my child nameless

I'm not even going to offer up an excuse why I can't form transitional sentences and am falling back to the blog-slackers stand-by of listed updates. I don't care. It's 7:30 on Black Friday, I have painkillers, my child is nameless, and that's really all that matters.

1. My teeth. Can we talk about my teeth some more? Listen, I know we discussed it, but this is getting out of fucking hand. You'll remember the awfulness that was the extraction, yeah? And if your reading comprehension and memory skills are good, you'll remember my wishful desire that I would need no further dental intervention in the next two months, when painkillers are sparse? You do? Good. Stomp on that wish for me. Hope is a bitch.

Turns out, that goddamn tooth never needed to come out. You know what was causing me pain? You know what DID need to come out? My motherfucking wisdom teeth. All fucking four of them. Isn't that pleasant? And no, no I really CAN'T deal with it until the end of my pregnancy, unless they changed the rules and it's totally ok to take massive quantities of Vicodin washed down with Margaritas until then. So out they come, next Thursday. Without general anesthesia. Without any kind of anesthesia, thank you, save for Novacaine.

Now, in talking to EVERY SINGLE PERSON I COULD THINK TO ASK, pretty much everyone else gets put to sleep to have their wisdom teeth out. I...have to imagine there is a reason for this. I have to imagine there is a reason that they do not want you awake during the type of oral surgery where they have to CRACK YOUR JAW to get the teeth out. And I imagine that being awake during such a surgery is going to fucking BLOW.

But...you know. Far be it for me to whine. Moving on.

2. My son is nameless. He truly is Baby X now. Our front-runner name, the name we'd agreed on MONTHS AGO, somehow simultaneously became unacceptable to both my husband and I at the same time. For the record, the name was Perrin. Perrin is our favorite character from his favorite book series. But that's besides the point.

This wouldn't be a huge issue if Nik would even just CONSIDER the only other name I find to be palatable. Which would be Nikolas. But noooo. Apparently they don't name kids after parents or relatives in that family. Some crap about having one's own identity. Blah. Whatever.

So I've been up since 5 this morning scouring baby name websites making neat little bulleted lists of acceptable names. Also not helping the cause - two names I really love happen to be the names of the children of two of my favorite bloggers, and that has rendered them useless in my opinion. I CANNOT STEAL FROM ANOTHER BLOGGER. IT BREAKS SOME UNWRITTEN BLOG RULE, I'M PRETTY SURE.

3. I got fired. While, in this economy, this sounds like it should be a sad thing, I'm really not all that broken up about it. Next week probably would have been my last anyway, and I'm just vaguely irritated that the element of surprise was taken out of the whole thing, cuz I had no intention of telling my boss that I was leaving. He's been very angry about my pregnancy for the last few months, and when I cut my hours to make kindergarten possible for my son, he basically did everything in his power to get me to quit. When that didn't work, he presented me with a nice little speech about how "our tenure had ended....somewhere along the way [my] pregnancy and son became more important than my job...didn't live up to [his] expectations." I did gain some small satisfaction from the way his face crumbled and twisted in fury when I just smiled and waved good bye. I think he expected me to cry or something.

4. I am officially nesting. God help my neighbors, who have to hear me hammering and vacuuming at 4:30 in the morning lately. My closets are officially on notice.

And that is all, dear readers. My thanksgiving was fabulous, and I hope yours was, too. We have a lot to be grateful for this year, even more so considering the climate of the universe, and we're happy campers for now.

Feel bad for me, cuz no one else will.

Blogosphere, can we talk? Can we, seriously? Cuz I'd like to whine to you for a few minutes, and have you feel sorry for me, cuz honestly, I've used up everyone else's sympathy for me.

My week, post Wednesday, SUCKED. Kind of royally, actually. All because of my goddamn teeth.

See, my teeth have probably been the most consistent source of annoyance and aggravation my entire teenage to adult life. Aside from being terribly, embarassingly crooked, there's always something fucking wrong with them. My mom...well. She didn't set much store by little things like "dental care" or "tooth brushing" when I was a kid. I went to the dentist a total of 6 times between being born and turning 18. By the time I was 18 and could get my own insurance and take my damn self to the dentist, there was so much damage that I've spent the last 4 years just trying to catch up on the periodontal disease and the breakages in my molars and the zillions of cavities requiring root canals.

I'd gotten the major stuff under control by last winter, but pregnancy hit my teeth and gums HARD. Suddenly, my teeth were breaking all over the goddamn place. Thankfully, they were all molars and back teeth, which are a pain in the ass, but I'm still grateful that it's not visible. I saw the dentist and because I wasn't in any pain, we decided to try to hold off on the extractions until after the baby.

Cut to last Friday morning, around 1:30 am. I wake up in fucking AGONY. My top left molar is throbbing throughout my entire face. Someone forgot to turn on the voicemail at my dentist's office, so I couldn't get their emergency number. I couldn't think of anything else to do besides go to the emergency room.

They figured immediately that I was dealing with an abscess, gave me a script for pennicilin, cleared a couple Vicodin with my OB/GYN to get me through until the infection cleared out, and sent me on my way. The vicodin helped, the antibiotics did their job and by Sunday, I wasn't in pain anymore. I made the first available appointment with an oral surgeon for the 18th.

Until Tuesday morning, 1:30am AGAIN. I wake up, realize quickly WHY I'm awake, and curse the heavens in my bedroom. I had fully believed I was only dealing with an abscess, so why, with a course of antibiotics running through me, was I in so much fucking pain again.

This time I did call the emergency number, and a fat fucking lot of good it did me. No one called back. I called until 8:30 that morning, when finally some broad answered and told me to call the office at nine. By 9:30 I was in their office getting that sucker yanked right out of my skull.

And then the fun REALLY started. The oral surgeon, who did not want to do the extraction in the first place, said I'd be fine with tylenol once the novacaine wore off. I...believed him. He did mention that if I happened to NOT be fine, I needed to go to my OB/GYN, because he did not give narcotics to pregnant women. He again reiterated though, that I'd be fine with tylenol. And like I said, I believed him.

Less than an hour later, without the novacaine even fully wearing off, I was crying on the phone to the nurse in my OB's office. That motherfucker HURT. It hurt worse then than before it got taken out. I felt like I'd gotten punched repeatedly in the face. The OB called in a prescription for Tylenol 3, and slowly, slowly I finally started to feel better.

So now, here I am, cautiously optimistic about possibly, maybe, making it through the remainder of this pregnancy without any more dental intervention, but still pretty fucking pissed off at the world and feeling sorry for myself.

Also, I went to the OB yesterday afternoon for a routine checkup, and was told that, NO, NO it was not possible that 5 ultrasounds were wrong about my due date, and YES, YES I do have to go through 8 more weeks of pregnancy. AT LEAST.

Bastards.

30 weeks, bustin' out of my 220lb husband's t-shirt.

Well.

He did it. And while part of me would like to jump up and down and scream from the rafters and cheer and cry, just a little, the biggest part of me feels how heavy and sobering a moment this is.

History was made. And to me, it feels like America gets to start over. We get to rebuild where we were broken, we get to earn back the respect of the other nations. There is still so much left to do, but we started by successfully taking that first, huge, crucial step.

I hadn't planned to go to bed before 2 or 3 a.m. last night. Nik and I agreed that neither of us could sleep until a concession was made. I had NO idea that I would be in bed by 12:30, peaceful and dreaming of better days for all of us.

For those of you whose guy didn't win, I'm sorry. I know that it must be devastating and scary to some of you. I hope, though, that you can try to push your misgivings to the side a little bit and step forward with us and hope. I hope that at least for the next couple years, the awful divisiveness that plagued us can be forgotten, and we can work together.

I felt McCain's speech was the best I've heard from him. Maybe it's only because I don't perceive him as a threat anymore, but last night I saw a warmth and grace from him that he lacked his entire campaign. A sense of accountability. A flash of humanity and humility.

For those of you did vote for Obama, for those of you who made phone calls and knocked on doors and registered voters and drove them to the polls, I raise my proverbial glass to you. This one is for us, for everyone. And while I may sound like a politician myself saying this, I will reiterate what President-Elect Obama stated last night both at Grant Park and in an email to his supporters - this happened because of you. Because you came together and moved mountains. When people scoffed, you worked harder. When defeat seemed close, you refused to back down. And move mountains you did. You changed history. You overcame a racial barrier. You did it.