I don't have anything good to say. Don't read this.

Aw, you're a true bloggy friend. And you're just like my kids in the fact that you don't listen. Pshht.

I know you all miss me terribly since my weird, undeclared blogging hiatus. So I wanted to take a few minutes to explain. And since I'm too lazy busy to compose a real excuse post, here's a list of things I'm doing instead of blogging.

1. eating two potatoes worth of potato salad I made without egg or celery because I didn't have those things handy or was too lazy busy to add them

2. every day at about ten am I have to get the magic eraser out and scrub pencil off the kitchen table because there isn't a big enough piece of paper to adequately capture sam's creativity and he insists on using a standard no.2 just like his sister does to do his "homework".

3. spending wayy too many minutes trying to get up off of the floor after sitting on it for reasons such as the following: scraping cheese off the floor, reaching colored pencils under the table, pretending to be a cat, resting, hugging my dog, and changing a diaper.

4. taking photographs of the number one (and two and three) reason why i don't blog as much anymore:

5. possibly playing epic mickey on wii. Ladybug begs me to play so she can watch. I do it for the kids.

6. chucking poop bombs into the field behind my house so i step in them when i walk into the field instead of in when i walk in my yard.

7. reading and commenting on other peoples' fabulous blogs. i seriously should put a whole day's worth of comments on my own blog and see how much content i'd have.

8. stepping in dog crap. this type of accident really does eat up about thirty minutes of my would-be blog time. when you consider scraping the shoe, hosing off the shoe, then hosing off the kid that steps in the stepped in poo and his shoes. rinse and repeat...

9. watching the bachelor because i don't care what you think of me. that shit is whaaaack.

10. eating salt-n-pepper pistachios. oh lord these are good.

And when you take into consideration that this is just a portion of my day all in one big post, you'll really get the bigger picture. Blogging is just that thing I think about doing a hundred times a day, but it's never handy enough to get done. I miss it, I do. I miss having thoughts typed out into the world for people to read or not read and comment or not comment on. Maybe when my kids are three. Four? I'll get some time. You guys will be around still, right?

In the mean time. I'm reading. I promise. You know who you are.

Boobie traps and pig-backs. That’s what I said.

Sundays around here have never been eventful.  The most momentous thing that has ever happened on a Sunday is maybe once we all put on pants without drawstrings. 

This morning was pancake morning. Blueberry for the little dude and chocolate chip for Ladybug.  I had one plain, one chippy, and half of a gnawed on blueberry.  Because I was hungry and I’m pregnant so I can have as many pancakes as I want right? Right? And there was bacon.   Which, can’t we all agree is the best meat ever made?  Unless you’re a vegetarian and then you eat “facon” and that stuff’s not the best ANYTHING ever made so I don’t wanna hear it.  Everyone’s talked about how good bacon is.  I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like it unless they’re a vegetarian and even some of them say the one thing they miss is bacon.  So that settles it, no?

So it’s pancake AND bacon Sunday and we were (are) all in our pajamas and I had orange juice which turned out to be a big mistake since every time I bent over even one degree for the rest of the morning all the OJ came back up by the mouthful and then quickly went back down.  Ug.  But there was bacon, did you hear, so back to the good stuff.

My daughter’s dad is a vegetarian.  A “since the sixth grade” vegetarian, so it’s pretty serious you see.  We’ve been open about sharing our views on animal consumption with her and we always tell her what everything is that she’s eating.  He’s not they type to force her into any beliefs and  lets her choose her own items off of  a dinner menu weather it be meat or not.   She’s been known to finish off a meal and then ask what animal we just ate.  And we never lie like my mom used to do when she cooked liver (as if) and called it special steak.  Nothing special about that stuff, people.

Chicken is chicken, beef is beef and hamburgers etc.  (I think we’re lucky she hasn’t asked us what a hot dog is…)  She’s not fond of fish unless it’s in “popcorn” form and one whiff of tuna will make her pretend barf and eye-roll simultaneously.  But bacon… is her favorite.  And this morning was bacon morning, have I mentioned?  And she snapped into a crispy bit dipped in a little maple syrup and asked,

What’s bacon again?

Me: It’s pork, honey. Pig.

Her: Oooh, yeah. *crunch crunch.  And how do we get the bacon?  I mean, pigs?

Me: Well we buy ours at the store because it’s ready to cook.  But the pigs are raised on farms.

Her: I think I’d like to live on a farm.

JG: You know, Mama Betty lived and worked on a farm when she was a kid.  I don’t think you’d think it’s as much fun if you really lived on a farm.  There’s lots of work to do on a farm.

Me: Yeah.  Like waking up really early to feed the chickens and shovel poop and feed the pigs.

Her: (whispers) And cut off their backs.

:::BLINK::::BLINK:::

Her: You know. For bacon. *crunch.

Hysterical laughing, oj out the nose style and then we have to explain why what she said was funny and the little dude is even laughing like he knows what’s going on and we’re all crunching on our crispy, greasy, delicious pig backs wearing stretchy-waist pants on a fabulous Sunday morning before the OJ eruptions start and we put Goonies in the player and convinced her to look at Sloth because he’s just a nice guy who happens to have Burt-head and wonky eyeballs.  And she watches and she loves it and we love her and we all love bacon!

 

Yay for bacon?

eh hem.

Hope you have a monstrous weekend, people. I have my hands full, but I'll be back.

Don’t put your cheese on the cat…

and other stuff I never thought I’d be saying.

In a few long months there will be a new person tipping the balance of our lives here at the house.  And although I use the word “balance” loosely, I know that life as we know it will again change drastically and what semblance of order I have established here might be in danger.  The halfway mark of this pregnancy came and went and my new analogy for this life is a hike.  I know you’re version of a hiker probably involves more fitness and less “gut”, but stay with  me.  I’ve reached the the apex of my journey into motherhood with two kids and I am looking at the rest of the path with a little trepidation and a lot of hope.

On one hand, I’ve made it.  With a butt-load of support from a few friends and family and maybe a few milligrams of legally prescribed assistance from Dr. Quiet.  I am comfortable here.  I know what I’m doing most of the time and can successfully fake it to fill in the gaps.  So now is the end of my trek with these two sweet babies and the beginning of the long trip back home.  With a little extra in my pack I will begin a new path.  Destination: rest-of-life.  With an armload of children and no regrets. 

I’ve missed blogging.  A day doesn’t go by when I don’t catch myself  saying,  I need to write again.  There are plenty of excuses and I’m fine with any and all of them.  This page is here.  And when something ridiculous or miraculous happens, I think of the space and the cursor and “life” and I start putting things in order of importance.  Some day I’ll get to those notes I made about the little dude pinning my nipple in-between the pillow-top mattress and his unbelievably sharp elbow.  When the time is perfect and quiet, I’ll tell you about my fears of losing the Old Dog.  Or how my sister-in-law and brother-in-law are getting their second chance. 

For now,  the little dude is standing on the coffee table holding a flashlight and I can’t be sure, but something smells poopish.

just three little things

I’m just pregnant enough to need a stash of meat sticks in my glove box, but not pregnant enough to have shed my inhibitions and be caught actually eating one.  Which is why I put wayyy too much effort into looking as if i was searching for something on the floorboards of my sweet new minivan while snapping into my slim-jim. 

******

Look at Sam.

I knowwww!

Now go check out Mother Falcon t-shirt company and create a shirt for yourself.

 

******

Is it too much to ask for a blue gummy bear?  Curse you, HARIBO!

back in the saddle again

Or, stirrups, rather.

I am out of confetti to toss and little paper horns to toot, but I have something even better for you.  A promise.  From me to you.  That the next six months will not be rife with graphic details about every obstetrics examination, every hot nurse judgement, NOR complaints about heartburn and constipation.

I mean. If you've been here a while, you have certainly "been there- done that" whole thing with me, so I'm going to do my best to carry on and hopefully pick up the pace a bit with my posts without bringing and slinging the goo and poo that go hand-n-hand with being pregnant.

Again.

Halloween: Demystified, sorta.

Up until last weekend, a team of My Little Ponies couldn’t drag my daughter into the holiday corner of any store during the month of October.  And those pop-up Halloween Costume places?  Fuggettaboutit.  Just driving by a storefront adorned by a Frankenstein or paper skeleton would bring on the cold sweats and tightly closed eyelids.  Maybe there was some Mary Had a Little Lamb humming in there somewhere, too.  My girl don’t do scary.

So last weekend, my husband and I decide to try a little shock therapy and turn the big, red cart toward THE corner.  The one with the paper pumpkins suspended from the ceiling tiles and black-lit displayed gravestones.  And the little girl stops in her tracks.  “I’m not going down there,” her face like a stone.   We keep walking.  Sam points to an endcap.

“Baaah. Baaaaah. Bu bu bu baaaaa.” Yep. Balls.

And the little girl takes a step.  And then another, as I assure her that I have already been back there and the scariest thing is an animated ghost that moans and both his eyeball lights are broken and not glowing anymore, so he’s obviously just a pretend ghost because real ghosts….well they just don’t exist.  And she’s taking steps to catch up with us and we’re looking ahead pretending like nobody is scared and nobody should be and then we get there and she hesitates.

But we push the cart with the baby into the depths of sheer horror that is the Target Halloween department and start laughing at the googly-eyed skeletons and dancing mummies.  I point out the purple lights and the cute puffy spider and the little girl starts to follow suit.  She’s laughing, although nervously, and then the glitter encrusted skulls (that we’ll never be allowed to buy) catch her fancy.

“Oooooooh they have purple ANNNNDDDD orange.”

So there we are.  All of us pointed in different directions.  JG’s eyebrows arched toward the poofy dog costumes shaped like hot dogs and bumble-bees.  Sam’s boppin his head to a classic, yet tinny version of The Monster Mash piping out of a wriggling bat-on-a-string.  I’m trying to justify spending twenty-five smackers on a giant yard spider and the little girl is…. smiling. 

And then I say, “wanna see the ghost?”

Shock therapy.

Before she has time to answer, I am pushing the red TRY ME button on a muslin covered robotic thingamajig with two broken eyeball lights and JG and I turn to watch the reaction.  Fingers crossed. 

Moooooaaaaaaaannnnnn. OOooooOOOOooOoooOoo. Mmmmmoooooaaaaannnn.

And it’s over. And her eyeroll puts to shame every teenaged girl on the planet.  And we’re all sighing with relief and celebrating this “big girl” step and looking up the ghosts’s muslin skirt and that’s when we hear it.   Nothing.  From the captain’s seat of the red cart- an uneasy silence.

There he is, the little dude.  Whiter than a wonky, muslin-covered thingamajig.  Paralyzed by the sights and sounds of a mechanical monster he just last week laughed at and clapped for.   And the tears well up in his eyes before the chin wrinkles appear.  Before the lip quivers and parts in a terror-stricken moan not unlike the ghost himself.  All of us gather around and hoist him out of the cart to hold him close and pat his back and get him the hell away from the ghost and back to that singing bat. 

And the singing bat works. 

For now.