Are there Mexicans in Cancun?

Dear obnoxious magazine guy,
No, I do not want to buy any magazines to help you win a trip to Cancun. Even though you think you're really cute and smooth, I don't want to order any magazines from you. I wouldn't want to order magazines from you even if you looked like Orlando Bloom. What made me even less likely to want to order magazines from you is when you casually dropped the fact that you don't like "Mexicans or anyone else who doesn't speak English" into your sales pitch. Um. Yeah. Why in the world would you think that's ok? And why in the world would you want to win a trip to Cancun? Do you not know where that's located? There's Mexicans in them there hills!

And do you really think it helped your case when you told me not 30 seconds later that your father was a Marine and that "you know how those military guys are, they think a good time is killing someone"? Of course you had no way of knowing that my father is a "military guy" and that I can't think of very many things he would want to do less than kill someone.

What really put you in the doghouse though, obnoxious magazine guy, was when you guessed my age and put me at "about 36". Fuck you asshole. Get the hell off my porch. And no, I will not direct you towards the houses of any of my "white neighbors who might like to buy some magazines".

Thank you,
A 30 year old, non-Mexican hating, proud daughter of a kind and gentle military guy

Seems to be better now

I'm feeling a lot better than I was this morning/afternoon. I'm still a little woozy but I stopped bleeding this afternoon and the cramping has stopped too. I did tons of reiki for the baby so hopefuly it's all snuggled in there nice and safe now.

One thing I read today said that when you are preparing for an IVF pregnancy the meds that you take to build up your uterine lining can actually build it up too much. Then, as the baby grows it kind of pushes out the excess lining. God, that's so gross. That's what I'm going to assume is happening here though. I'm going to chalk the dizziness up to just regular old first trimester weirdness.

Really, I think everything is fine. I appreciate the kind words on my previous post. That sort of thing really helps. Oh, and Jesse's doctor wasn't really able to tell what was wrong with him. He thinks Jesse might have had some kind of infection that caused a lymph node is his side to become swollen and painful but that was just a guess. Who knows?

Remind me to delete this later

*I decided to edit this entry rather than delete it.*

I don't feel well right now. I'm cramping and bleeding* a little bit and I'm very light headed. I know that it's most likely nothing. Bleeding and cramping are very common during this stage of an IVF pregnancy. It's still a little unsettling to be bleeding when you're pregnant. I guess I just have to suck it up and tough it out and grin and bear it and all that jazz. Weeeee!

*Way too much information but the good news is that it's brown blood meaning it's old and not likely to be a sign of miscarriage or other problems.

The Simpsons movie

So I gave in and took Joseph to the Simpsons movie. You know, it really wasn't that bad. I don't even think there were really any parts in the movie where I thought "Oh no! I shouldn't have taken him to see this!" There was one part where you see Bart's "doodle" (that's what they call it in the movie) but it was quick and if anything Joseph just thought it was funny. He's got a doodle of his own so I guess he didn't really think too much of it. The language was pretty mild, I can only remember one "bad" word but even that wasn't a biggie. I think it was ok for Joseph to see. I'm glad I took him. The drawback is that now he thinks he's going to be able to watch the show now too and I had to put an end to that thinking right away. (I think the movie is actually tamer than a lot of the episodes.)

So yeah, I guess I'm not such a terrible mom after all.

I'm a bad mom

I'm taking Joseph to see the Simpsons movie this afternoon. I know that it's not appropriate for him and the adult humor will probably scar him for life but yeah, we're going. He's going to be so over the moon. I can't wait.

I love them

"Why are we paying so much for sneakers when they're made by little slave kids? What are your overheads?"

I love them. If you watch them you will love them too. I dare you not to.

Needles all around!

Today Jesse and I went to talk to a surgeon about removing a little lump from his arm. Joseph's arm, not the surgeons. He has this hard little lump near his right elbow and it seems to have gotten a little bigger and squishier since we first noticed it two months or so ago. He's had both an x-ray and an ultrasound on it and the doctor just can't figure out what it is. In his doctor's words, "Just like everything else about Joseph, this isn't falling neatly into any category so I'm not exactly sure what we're dealing with here."

So on August 3rd I'm going to take him in to have the lump removed. Chances are it's no big deal but since there is the very tiny chance that it could be some kind of tumor Jesse and I thought it was best to have it removed and biopsied. Yippee. They told us the surgery itself will only take about 15 minutes but he'll have to be knocked out because there's no way he could be calm enough and still enough for it to be done with just local anesthesia. My poor little monkey. He's so nervous. I'm a little nervous for him too. I know it's just a really minor thing but no one wants to see their child have surgery.

I'll be going to LA again on August 9th. I'm for sure going to go and have the CVS. I'm not really worried about the outcome but I'm not looking forward to having a giant needle stuck into my stomach. I just have to focus on the fact that I get to stay at a very nice hotel and have some very nice room service. Is it wrong that I hope my Bacon Salt has arrived in the mail by then so that I can use it on all my great room service food? Would it be really strange to fly with Bacon Salt packed in my bag? Probably.

Sweet, sweet breathing room

It's official. I'm going to have to switch to maternity pants. I slipped on a pair yesterday and it was heavenly. I could move! I could breath! I could eat without having to undo my pants afterwards. Although it's nice to move into pants that fit, I can't help but feel like this is all happening rather early. I know that early on some of the meds I was on caused a lot of bloating and water retention. Now the water retention has gone away (at least I think it has, the swelling in my fingers and ankes has gone down a lot) but the tummy bloating has remained. I think that at this point I can safely say that some of this is baby. Please, no one remind me that at this point the baby weighs about 1/10th of an ounce. I'm going to go ahead and blame about 15 pounds of my weight on this little bugger. It's small, it can't do anything to stop me.

In other news I would like to thank my brother for telling me about a wonderful new product. I ordered the sampler pack this morning and soon everything I eat will have the lovely taste of bacon. Bacon Salt! Why didn't someone think of this stuff earlier?

Stop breathing!

I'm irritated. I've been wide awake since a little afer 4 this morning and I just can't go back to sleep. I know that I'm going to be tired as all get out later but for now there's nothing I can do about it. I lied in bed and tried to fall back asleep for nearly an hour but I just couldn't do it because everyone in my family is breathing too damned loud!

Aurgh! Why am I awake? Does my brain not know how badly my body needs it's sleep right now?

Oh, before I forget, I'm going to have to go back to LA again sometime in early August. I don't want to get into too much detail since this is not my baby I'm talking about here and I want to respect B and J's privacy. Basically the doctor is not totally satisfied with what he's seeing on the ultrasounds that I've been having here. So I'm going to have to go to LA to have a higher level ultrasound and a CVS (sort of an early version of an amnio) before he'll release me to the care of a regular OBGYN. I'm really not worried about and I feel pretty confident that everything will be ok. I guess it's just one more hoop to jump through in the whole process. The good news is that I'll get to spend a couple of more nights in a nice hotel. It's a little bit of a pain in the butt that I have to go back out there but if it's for the good of the baby then I'm cool with it.

Now I have to decide if I want to try to go back to sleep for another hour or so before the kids get up. Probably not. It won't work and I'll just end up even crankier. If that's possible. I can see today being a rough day.

Harry Potter and the Fairly Unspoilerish Review

Well, I did it. I finished it this afternoon. It was .... I don't know. About as I thought it would be I suupose. Unlike the other books, there was almost no humor in this one. I guess there was a little bit but the overall tone of the whole book was so dark that the humor just sort of seemed a little off. There were a few points in the book that seemed so dark and adult that they just seemed out of place in a children's book. It ended about the way I expected it to but there were a couple of little suprises along the way. Now I just sort of feel let down because now it's really, really over. yes, I know that it's silly to get that wrapped up in a book. So sue me.

You've probably heard that the big spoiler about this book was that 2 major characters would die. I don't know by who's count that is but by mine, that number is way off. *Don't read this next part if you don't want to be spoiled at all even though I'm not naming names or anything!* By my count there were seven major characters that died plus a small handful of minor characters.

All in all, a satisfying read. I'm sorry that after all this long wait I had to rip through it like I did but I was just too worried about hearing about the ending from somewhere else. Even if you find yourself spoiled though, don't worry. It's still an enjoyable book.

The luckiest geek

Who needs friends when you've got the best little boy in the whole world? Joseph went to the Harry Potter party with me tonight and we ended up having a lot of fun. Joseph got his face painted and then painted again and then both hands painted too. He wasn't satisfied until he had the colors of all four Hogwarts houses on him. We voted on if we thought Snape was a good guy or a bad guy (I said good, Joseph said bad) and we got stickers to show how we voted. Joseph carried his around and kept yelling out "Scrape is a very bad man!" no matter how many times I corrected him. We played the "Guess That Bean" game. Joseph got a green apple, I got a vomit. (I guessed mine right away.) I got him to eat a booger bean and he loudly announced "I like the taste of my own boogers but not the taste of the jelly bean boogers!"

And who needs friends when you've got the best, sweetest husband ever? Jesse went early to get on the list to buy a book and he's going back at midnight to pick one up. All that after working all day, doing the grocery shopping and making me dinner. What a guy.

I'm going to say goodbye to reality for a couple of days now. I plan to avoid all tv, internet, radio and other assorted media and just read, read, read until my eyes cramp up. I am a happy geek tonight.

The lonliest geek

I have no one to go to the Harry Potter book release party with tonight. I need more friends. I can't even get Joseph to go with me.

Sigh.

Flight of the Conchords

"She's hot. Really hot. I want to tell her she's hot but I'm afraid she'll think I'm being sexist. She's so hot she's making me sexist. Bitch!"



Thank you Flight of the Conchords, for making us laugh about love. Again.

The most boring entry ever

Monday was a good day. It was the day of my last daily shot. It was wierd going to bed last night without getting a shot in the butt. Now I've onlt got the every third day shot left and that's only until the end of the month.

I also had my 8 week ultrasound on Monday. J was able to be there for this one so that was fun. We had a good laugh afterwards because we could tell the ultrasound tech was struggling to figure out our relationship. J is a good 15 years older than me and pretty obviously gay so we must have made a real pair. The tech was really nice though and pointed out all kinds of things on the ultrasound that I never even got to see with Elle. We even got to see the umbilicul cord. That was cool.

I continue to be tired and groggy a lot of the time. Sometimes the morning sickness is pretty bad and other days not so much. I've learned to eat when I'm hungry though so I'm not losing weight like I did with Elle.

I've got someone coming over to help me out a couple of days a week now. She's the daughter of someone Jesse works and she's a really nice girl. She plays with the kids while I catch up on housework or take little naps. The kids like her a lot and it's nice to have someone here to help out with them.

We're redoing the porch out front. Jesse and my dad ripped out all the old screen this past weekend. We were going to put up new screen but once we all saw it opened up we all liked the way it looked so I think we might keep it like that. It still needs some fixing up but I think it's going to be really cute.

This is such a boring blog entry that I can hardly believe it.

I love you, don't touch me

I am not a touchy-feely person. I am a person who highly values her personal space. I enjoy the occasional hug or kiss or pat on the back but for the most part I really prefer that people not touch me.* I guess this probably has something to do with my upbringing. My parents were very loving but we were never a very physically demonstrative family. When I was a kid there were hugs and kisses goodnight but by the time I was a teenager that had stopped and there wasn't really a lot of physical affection. I don't mean any of this as a criticism, it's simply not the way our family operated. My parents showed us that they loved us in a million ways. Physical affection just wasn't really one of them.** Maybe it's our gruff, stoic German blood.

The point is that even under the very best of circumstances I just don't really like physical contact. I have found that when I'm pregnant it's even worse. I really don't want anyone touching me ever, at all. Even Jesse has to back off when I'm pregnant. I don't know if it's a hormone that's doing it or the fact that I feel so huge and bloated or if it's something else all together. Whatever it is, I just know that when I'm pregnant I'm really uncomfortable with any physical contact that I don't initiate. Jesse (who is much more touchy-feely than me) can attest to this. Often if I'm upset about something he'll try to make me hug him to ...... I don't know, make me feel better I guess. Almost invariably all this does is make me more upset. Which begs the question, why does he keep doing it?

So if you see me in the next 7 or 8 months and I appear to pull away from you don't take it personally. It's not that I don't like you. It's that I cannot stand the thought of you touching me.

*The exception to this rule is with my kids. I could live very happily with my children permanently affixed to me. I love snuggling my babies. They can often be seen squirming to get away from me as I squeeze and cuddle them.

**After thinking about this I remembered that there are pictures of Ben and I snuggled up to my mom and dad as they read books to us. When I read the Little House books to Joseph I can so clearly remember my mom reading them to me. I would snuggle up next to her and my hair would still be wet from my bath. I would lean up against her and my hair would make a wet spot on her shirt. Every book she would read would sound even better when I listened to it with my head leaning on her chest. I could hear her voice normally in one ear and in the other I could feel it rumble and vibrate through her chest and into my ear. If I close my eyes and think back I can still "hear" it. It's a really powerful memory. Every child should have someone read to them like that.

Is this for real?

I got rather large check in the mail yesterday. No, not a giant novelty check. Just a check with a large amount on it. It was my fee for the embryo transfer. It isn't a life changing amount of money but it is a pretty good sized chunck of change. Bigger than what we usually have laying around.

It feels really strange. On Monday I'll be 8 weeks pregnant and I still have to remind myself that this is really happening. I don't feel pregnant. I mean, I know that I am because I'm tired and pukey and my boobs but I don't feel pregnant. There's none of the "Oh yea! A baby is coming!" excitment that I had when I was pregnant with Elle.

I suppose a big part of that is because there's been nothing organic about this pregnancy. Between the blood tests and the vaginal scans from hell and the nightly shots and the silvery discharge this is all feeling less like a pregnancy and more like some kind of crazy science experiment. Maybe it will feel different when the baby starts to move. For now though this whole thing is just surreal and bizzare.

The issue of if will bond with this baby or not continues to be a sticking point between my father in law and his wife (step mother in law?) and I. Every time we see them they (mostly her I guess) insist that I am going to fall in love with this baby and be crushed when it's born and I have to "give it up". I've explained in the best way I can that I can't give up something that's not mine to begin with. I've explained that I look at this as pre-natal babysiting. I can care for this baby and want the best for it and then let it go happily.

They don't buy it. At our most recent visit my step-MIL insisted again that I would need to be sure to have some vistis with the baby after it was born because I was going to bond with it so much and it would be so hard to give it up and blah blah blah blah blah. I finally just told them that I wasn't worried about bonding with this baby while I was pregnant because I never bonded with Elle while I was pregnant with her. They looked shocked. And horrified. I went on to say "Of course I love her more than anything now but when she was born I wasn't thinking about how much I love my new baby, I was thinking that I was glad it was over so that I could get something to eat."

I'm hopeful that will be the end of that subject. I'm guessing it won't though. I suppose the argument could be made that they're saying that stuff because they're concered about me. I would tell the person that made that argument to shut up. I don't think it's concern. I think it's that they're pretty sure they know what's best for me despite whatever I say. They've always been like this towards me. First it was to question everything we did with Joseph and to nag us about medication. Now it's this. It's agrravating for a lot of reasons I don't really want to get into out of respect for Jesse.

But anyway. I'm getting off track. In reality all is going pretty well. I've got no big complaints and the mailman just threw a package onto our pourch. I bet it the maternity clothes I ordered online. I found some crazy good clearance deals. I've got new clothes, a happy family, salt and vinegar cashews from World Market and the science experiment baby of a gay couple growing in my tummy, what more could a girl ask for?

A dumb question

What's the name of that search site you can use to find out when people have linked to you? Technatoriasomethingorother? I've been tagged for like 200 memes in the last month or so and now I can't find all of them. Help! I are dumb.

I don't like feeding my baby dog poop

I've been accused of being a germaphobe and a clean freak. I'll give those of you who know me a second to calm down.

OK.

All right, that's enough now.

You can stop laughing any time now.

OK, that's enough MOM!

Anyway, a germaphobe? Maybe. A clean freak? Even I had a good chuckle about that. Let me tell you what happened and you can give me your take on it. I'm curious if I really am a neurotic germaphobe or if the other people involved in this incident just needed a good dose of common sense.

I like to read this website that has little hints and tips for raising kids. It has ideas on everything from ways to keep your kids busy in the car to quick clean up tips to helpful bedtime routines. It's a pretty neat site and I've gotten a couple of good ideas off it. One tip sent in by a reader really made me gag though. She said that when she was out to eat her toddler would always throw his silverware on the floor. She got tired of asking for new silverware so she came up with a really "great" idea instead. She asked the waitress to bring her a cup of hot water and then when her son dropped his silverware on the floor she would dip it in the water to "clean" it and then give him back the silverware and let him eat with it. Got that? She picked up silverware off the floor and considered it clean enough for her child to eat with after she dipped it in hot water. She also suggested that you could do this with dropped teething rings and nuks. Could you just vomit all over?

I pointed out as nicely as I could that any water that the waitress would bring you wouldn't really be hot enough to kill any germs and that after the first time you dipped the silverware all you would really be doing would be creating a nice germy, lukewarm stew. I also pointed out that restaurant floors are filthy with who know how many people tracking who knows what in. And doubtlessly some of those people used the bathroom in the restaurant and if there's anything dirtier than the the floor under a restaurant table it's the floor of a public restroom. So I said all this very nicely and people responded and called me a germaphobe and a clean freak.

OK. Yeah. Right. So I responded to them and explained that I really wasn't a germaphobe and that in my own home I really didn't make such a big deal about germs. I made the point that in a public place you're exposed to so much more than you are at home and that all you were really doing with the cup of water was creating a little germ hot tub and that just didn't seem like the greatest idea in the world to me.

That didn't go over so well. I was told that if I continued to think like that that my kids were going to come out as neurotic as I am. Ha! I'll have the last laugh here. I already knew my kids were going to be neurotic. One just has to look back at one or two generations of my family and they'll see that we've got a natural neurotic tendency. So if they become neurotic it will be because of family tradition and not because I think it's a bad idea to let a baby use a spoon coated with E Coli and dog shit.

Was I wrong? Is the Cup O' Bacteria a good idea? Or is it just gross and kind of stupid?

A surefire pregnancy test

Here's a simple way to determine if you are pregnant or not.

Step 1: Start to make a pasta salad for a family get together at the very last possible moment.
Step 2: Look for a bag of frozen peas in your freezer.
Step 3: Realize that you don't have any frozen peas.

Do you:
A) Think if something else to make even though your cupboards are nearly bare?
B) Run to the store to get more frozen peas?
C) Use canned peas?
D) Start to cry and then when your husband suggests using canned peas, yell at him because canned peas are like little balls of snot.

If you answered A: you're not pregnant. You're Martha Stewart. Or my mom.
If you answered B: you're not pregnant. But you might be my husband.
If you answered C: You're not pregnant but you are gross. Who in their right mind eats canned peas?
If you answered D: you are pregnant! Congratulations! Nothing like standing by your open freezer and weeping to remind you that there's another human being growing inside your body.

-Note to self- Throw out those nasty canned peas. Why do we even have those?

Are you sorry that you adopted now that you know you can have one of your own?

PBN is having a blog blast where they asked bloggers to talk about the stupidest questions they were asked while they were pregnant and the answers they wished they had given. As soon as I saw this advertised I knew exactly what I wanted to blog about.

Now I've talked about this before but humor me and let me talk about it again. When I got pregnant with Elle I was shocked by the number of people who asked us if we regreted adopting Joseph or if it changed our feelings about adopting a child. What was the most suprising about this was that these were people who knew us well enough to know that he was adopted in the first place. We don't keep it a secret or anything but it's not like we make him carry around a sign proclaiming himself an adoptee. Most people that we just meet once or twice will never know he's adopted. So we were asked these questions by people that knew us, by people that knew Joseph. It usually went something like this:

Stupid Person A: Now that you know you can have one of your own, are you sorry that you adopted one first?
Me: No, we're very happy we adopted Joseph.

or

Stupid Person B: Will you find it hard to love him as much now that you're going to have one of your own?
Me: He is my own and nothing will change that

A lot of times these questions were asked right in front of my darling boy. For his sake I was cheerful and controlled. I didn't want him seeing Mommy flip her lid. Here's what I would have said if I could have:

Stupid Person A: Now that you know you can have one of your own, are you sorry that you adopted one first?
Me: I always knew we could have a child the old fashioned way. We just chose to build our family differntly. Why would I regret adopting the most brilliant and loving child I've ever met? If anything I'm worried that this one won't measure up to the high standard that Joseph has set. If she doesn't though we'll just let someone adopt her. I'm sure someone out there will like her.

Stupid Person B: Will you find it hard to love him as much now that you're going to have one of your own?
Me: We're not to worried about that. If we find that we don't like him as much we'll just send him back. We were just sort of using him as a test run anyway, to see if we really liked kids. What do you look so shocked for? It's not like he's my real kid anyway. Frankly we've been dying to trade him in for a new model. I mean, this adoption gig was fun for a while but how can you really love a kid that didn't come squirting out of your private parts? Why didn't someone warn us that parental love is conditional?

I have to say, I am looking forward to getting some stupid questions during this pregnancy. I can't wait to break out with "This baby isn't my husbands. It's ok though, it's not mine either."

It was one of those "don't you wish could have just handed them this" moments.

4th of July Elle

Here's Elle in her little 4th of July outfit. It looks like she was crying about something but I'm not sure what. I mostly just like her curls in this picture.

Wii love it!

All is right with the world. Joseph is doing a little bowling on his brand new Wii and Elle is sitting by him and cheering everything he does. Even if he gets a gutterball she's right there waving her little arms and yelling "Yea!" as loud as she can. The Wii was Joseph's birthday present from Jesse and I and we figured that he would have a lot of fun with it. We just didn't know that Elle was going to like it so much too.

And then there's this

I am an emotional wreck. I had forgotten about this part of pregnancy. Yesterday I cried during a car commercial, the Flavor of Love finale (god help me) and a couple of times while reading Fast Food Nation. This afternoon I had a complete and total weepy melt-down over some spilt applesauce. Although in my defense the applesauce wasn't so much splilled as it was sat in by a little diapered behind and splattered all over the living room rug.

Mama needs a nap.

Sunrise, sunset

This morning Joseph ran into our room at full speed and yelled "I'm seven!". Yes, my baby boy is now seven years old. It doesn't seem possible. I can so clearly remember the day he came to us. He looked so tiny in his car seat. As soon as his social worker left I called my mom and said "I can't pick this baby up! He's too tiny!" Who knew that that funny looking, scrawny little guy would someday become the large living, good time having, big sense of humored (and even bigger hearted) bundle of energy and joy that he is today?

Blessing and miracle are two words that I don't use lightly. But if there is one thing in my life that perfectly embodies those two words, it is Joseph. I am thankful everyday for the fact that he is in our lives. When I think back on the past seven years I'm almost overwhelmed by how much Joseph has meant to us. I'm still amazed that of all the people in the world, I was the one chosen to be his mommy.

So happy birthday baby. Thank you for all the giggles and belly laughs. Thank you for the times you drove me crazy and made me throw up my hands in surrender. Thank you for the kisses and the hugs and the many times you have said "I love you!" out of no where, for no reason. Thank you for throwing yourself full-heartedly into everything you and for reminding me to always try, even if I sometimes fail. Thank you for making me more compassionate, more loving, more understanding and more complete. The last seven years have been crazy and I can't wait to see what else life has in store for you. Or rather, what you have in store for life.

6 week ultrasound

Woo-hoo! One lovely, healthy embryo measuring at exactly 6 weeks! I got to see the heartbeat and everything. It's kind of crazy that something the size of a grain of rice already has a heartbeat. It's also crazy that something so tiny is making me so tired all the time.

The unltrasound sucked rocks. At one point when the tech was looking for my left ovary I actually had to ask her to stop. I toughed it out as long as I could but once acutal tears started coming out of my eyes I knew it was time to quit.

But I don't mean to complain. I'm just happy with the results. And now I'm going to eat some boneless buffalo wings.

Deadliest Catch

I've been watching Deadlist Catch lately. Two things come to my mind when I watch it.
1) Crabs should cost $1,000 each.
2) Jesse should take up crab fishing. I find the danger of it all rather sexy.