Home again, home again diggity ouch

I had my gallbladder removed. It sucked. Well, not so much the removal but the pain afterwards. They gave me just about every painkiller known to man and nothing was helping with the post-op pain. Finally they said "You can be in pain here or you can be in pain at home but there's nothing more we can do for you."

I chose home. This morning Jesse called the doctors office to see if there was anything else that could be done. The doctor was annoyed that I had been told to go home in the first place and told Jesse to take me in to the ER.

At the ER they checked me out. I had an x-ray, ultrasound and (for some reason I don't really understand) an enema. The x-ray and ultrasound showed nothing and the enema only served to make me more uncomfortable. They sent me home with pretty much the same advice as the post-op nurses gave me. "Stay here and be in pain or go home and be in pain." (I sort of think that at some point when you tell people that none of the painkillers you're being given are working that they start to think you're a junkie. It's a little frustrating.)

So now I'm at home. In pain. I'm annoyed that none of the painkillers worked for me but what can you do? I'm sure I'll be feeling better in a day or two. In the mean time I'll lay in bed and watch 30 Rock on Netflix and eat Haribo Raspberries. What morphine can't fix, gummies and Fey will.

I've blogged for 1000 posts and all I got was this lousy gallbladder surgery scar

This post is set to publish as I go in for my surgery tomorrow. Err, today. Whatever. It's a pretty crappy way to celebrate my 1000th post on this blog but somehow it just seems to fit.

Since I have to get up at 5 AM I suppose I should be sleeping right now but I can't. I've got so many important questions going through my head. Questions like "Will I have to take my underwear off for the surgery?" and "Can I keep my gallstones or are they considered medical waste?" and "But what if I want to keep them? Are they really waste if it's my waste and I want them?" and "Why in the hell would I want my gallstones?"

I was planning on doing a sort of best of post for this momentous occasion but maybe this is just as good. No one really reads those things anyway and besides, the first two thirds of this blog is absolute crap anyway. The last third is crap too but now I sometimes post recipes and cool pictures of snowflakes.

Today the realtor who sold us our house sent us a flashlight and a card wishing us a happy new year. No real reason for that story, I'm just wondering if it makes any more sense to you guys than it does to me.

I love you all, thank you for reading and I'll see you on the flip side. And by flip side I mean the side where your gallbladder is removed. Or rather, my gallbladder. Painkillers are fun.

Gall darn bladder

I hope everyone has had a good past couple of days. For me Christmas was great. Lots of good times with my family, good presents and good food. Maybe too much good food since on Christmas day I had a bit of an upset stomach. Day after Christmas shopping was good too but again I had a little bit of a stomach ache after eating. The next day mu mother-in-law came to visit and that went well too but following our meal I felt a little achy and off. When I went to bed at 11 that night I told Jesse that my stomach hurt like I had been doing a bunch of sit-ups. At 1:30 I woke up with a stomach ache so bad that I couldn't fall back asleep. After about half an hour of rolling around in pain I dragged myself downstairs to where Jesse had fallen asleep. For the next couple of hours Jesse rubbed my back while I threw up and cried from the pain. At 3 he finally convinced me to go the ER. My dad came over to watch the kids and I shuffled my whimpering, sweatpants-clad self to the car.

When you go in to the ER crying because of your stomach pain they take you pretty seriously. I got a room right away and was being promised pain meds within minutes. A doctor came in and asked a couple of quick questions. "Is the pain spread across here? Is it worse when I push here? Have you been throwing up? Is the pain shooting upward?" All answered in the affirmative hey, whaddya know? It's my gall bladder. An ultrasound confirmed I have gall stones. Four shots of heavy narcotics stopped my whimpering. I was sent home with a prescription for more pain meds and instructions to follow a diet that I can only describe as "a diet so boring that it makes me want to chew my own lips off for some variety". The good news is that in order to keep the pain away I have to keep taking the meds and they make me so tired that I just end up sleeping all day anyway. I have no time to bored with my limited food choices because I'm too busy being knocked out cold.

In a couple of hours I have a surgical consult. My goal is to get him to do this surgery sooner rather than later. I can't function on the pain meds and I can't function without them. The sooner I can get this over and done with the better. Now the only question is how will this affect the whole surrogacy thing. I don't even want to think about that right now. I'm choosing to think that it won't for right now. We'll see I guess. For now I have to drag myself to the bathroom for a shower then to the kitchen for a hearty meal of crackers and unseasoned backed chicken. Then back to bed for another episode of crappy VH-1 reality tv. Then to see the doctor. Then no doubt back to bed.

Later peeps.

Merry Christmas to some!

I hope that the next two days see you happy, healthy, warm and surrounded by loved ones. I won't say Merry Christmas to all but I will say that no matter what religion you are, no matter what you celebrate or don't celebrate, I wish you nothing but good things this Christmas.

For me, part of December 25th is goodwill towards my fellow man. Yes, all of them.

And for me, part of December 26th is wishing my fellow man would get the hell out of my way so that I can reach that wrapping paper that's 75% off.

Happy Holidays!

Christmas Crazy! (Or, how Frosty got his groove back)

We have a family tradition where we like to dress the kids in pajamas, pile them into the car with warm blankets and drive around looking at Christmas lights until they fall asleep. I always think it will be so nice to get out and enjoy the beauty and the wonder and the glow and the blah blah blah. The truth is that every year we just end up mocking every one's efforts and giggling at how tacky their yards are. Oh, don't get me wrong, our yard isn't any better. We're just as tacky as the next family. In fact, I think most Christmas displays are tacky. It's just hard to do it tasteful. And as long as people are putting it all out there, well, then we're going to point and giggle.

It really takes a special Christmas display though to make your eight year old cry ou "What is that snowlady doing to Frosty!?!"

The snow is covering the bottom if this thing up so you can't really tell but she's actually straddling Frosty. It's so disturbing. So disturbing in fact that I had to drive by it during the day to take a picture of it. It wasn't until I had taken about five pictures that Joseph said "Uh, Mommy? Do you know they're standing in the garage watching you?"

Oops. Sorry folks, but some Christmas crazy is just to good not to share. Click here for more crazy fun!

Important scientific poll

Feel free to pick as many answers as you think fit. Your opinion counts!

Sean Hannity....
	is a racist.
	is a douche bag.
	has a large and angry raccoon up his butt.
	has a tiny penis.
	needs to be slappd in the face with a dead fish.
	is dangerous.
	probably has a large collection of dolphin porn.
pollcode.com free polls

Not exactly a religious family

Joseph: Mommy, do you know why they call it Christmas?

Me: Why is that?

Joseph: Because it's the day Chris was born.

Me: (long pause where I muffled my laugh into my hand)

Joseph: You know Chris? The son of God? Get it? Chis-mas!

Me: Where did you hear all this?*

Joseph: I don't know. I read it in some dictionary.**

*I had to ask because a while back a couple of his friends were giving him a hard time when he told them he didn't go to church or believe in God. It's all straightened out now but what he told me at the time was just so darned sweet. "I was frustrated because I just wanted them to understand how I feel! Everyone can believe different things and we can still be friends." Seriously kid, there are adults that haven't figured that out yet.

**Yes, I think it's possible that he was reading a dictionary. He's in second grade and reading at a sixth grade level. He's also very innocent and where a lot of kids his age would be looking up "penis" and "sex" and swear words, he looks up things like "Christmas".

So how's the new couch working out?

It's great, thanks for asking! It's huge. It's blue. It's a little bit staticy.

Ok, a lot bit staticy.

And it's fun to take all it's cushions off, pile them on the floor and jump onto them.

How would you describe me?

Now that the surrogacy is on again I've agreed to blog about the process and my pregnancy on my agency's website. In order to get started I need to write a short thingie* about myself. I cannot fricken do it! Everything I write makes me sound like an arrogant jackass ("I just want to make the world a better place by creating something that would not have been possible without me!") or a sad sack ("Oh, don't mind me. I'm just happy to have someone notice me. Pregnancy makes me fat.") or a complete crazy lady ("My womb is a golden vessel from which springs forth new life unto a glorious world and angels and puppies and unicorns!"

I cannot write with pressure on me! I can't even get the basics right. I don't know how much information to give and how to phrase it to make it sound good without sounding too good. Why is it so hard for me to write do this? It's not like I have a hard time talking about myself in real life. Or on my blog. Or in my head as I pretend that I'm narrating a documentary about my life. It makes laundry less boring ok?

So help me out here people. I'm not asking you to write this thing for me but just give an idea of how to start. And finish. And tell me what I should say in the middle. And also, if you have any attractive pictures of yourself that you can let me use that would be great because I'm supposed to send a picture of myself in and in all the ones I have of myself my face looks like a matzo ball.

*They chose me for my mad writing skillz and ability to use words like "thingie" when other words would really work much better.

Let's get one thing clear here

Just to clarify my last post, I wasn't happy that a drunk woman who was trying not to poop was laying on top of me. I was trying to point out that it's not such a bad thing to grow up and outgrow some of that crazy partying stuff. I don't think I was very clear so it probably came across like I was really happy I was all grown up and having wild encounters like that.

In other news, woot, unwoot and rewoot. The surrogacy, which was on and then off is now back on. The letter my OB wrote was all it took for the RE to reconsider working with me. Now I have to go to LA for my medical screening. My agency asked if I would go on Monday but since that would have me coming home on the 23rd I'm going to skip it until next month. I could probably go and be back without any problem but I don't want to risk something going wrong and then being stuck in LA and missing day after Christmas shopping spending Christmas with my family.

Random question for the parents in the audience: At what age did your kids start showering/washing their hair on their own? And am I destined to still be washing Joseph's hair for him when he's 47?

My weekend summed up

There comes a point in every one's life when you're sitting at a table with a bunch of hyper, screaming drunks, having beer spilled on you by a heavily pierced waitress when you suddenly realize "I'm getting too old for this."

There comes another point in every one's life (usually just a few hours later) when you're laying in bed trying to get some sleep but you can't because a woman you know only casually is laying on top of you and telling you that she needs to fart but worries that if she does she'll poop her pants when you realize that maybe growing old and growing up is not such a bad thing.

Peter, Paul and Mary are on my list now

Despite having made what may be the best Christmas album ever Peter, Paul and Mary have got me really irked. What could these kind and gentle folk singers have done to make me so angry? Four words: Puff the Magic Dragon.

I hardly even have the words to write about how this song makes me feel. And no, it's not because the song is about pot because they say it's not and despite the fact that I'm so irritated, Peter, Paul and Mary were a fixture in the soundtrack of my childhood and I'm not ready to abandon all hope and faith in them just yet.

I'm mad because the song "Puff the Magic Dragon" is just so freaking sad. I remember really liking it as a kid. I would happily sing along with it whenever it was played* and because I was so young I never even questioned what the song was all about. Then one day I listened to what the song saying, really listened.

It's a horrible song!

In the whole world poor Puff has one friend, a boy named Jackie Paper. Jackie loves Puff and Puff loves Jackie. Puff even plays whatever games Jackie wants to. That's a pretty big sacrifice considering that Jackie likes to play with string and sealing wax.**

Does Jackie Paper appreciate Puff's friendship? No, he does not. He goes and grows up and stops visiting Puff altogether. Puff, now friendless, stop playing along along the cherry lane. He stops roaring. HIS SCALES FALL OFF!

The day I realized how sad this song really is I cried. I can remember it clearly. It was a hot summer day and I was in the backseat of my parent's car stuck to the vinyl seat. I sobbed. I cried for poor Puff and his lonely life and his falling out scales. I made my parents fast forward the tape. Even after the song was skipped I kept right on crying. Peter, Paul and Mary broke my heart with that song.

Now I'm 31 years old and I still can't listen to Puff the Magic Dragon. I'm sure I'll never be able to listen to it. Every so often though the song creeps back into my subconscious. I'll find myself mindlessly humming it and every single time it depresses me. And it makes me angry. That damned Jackie Paper, just who does he think he is? He turns his back on the one person(?) who was willing to indulge his love of sting and wax and then that person(?) dies**** of sadness.

It burns me. It just burns me.

*Eight times a day for the first 14 years of my life.

**As a kid I thought this was ceiling wax. I didn't know what exactly it was but I figured it was something people used in the olden days.***

***I thought this song was really old. Like it was written back during a time when people used to wax their ceilings.

****I assume anyway. I don't think dragons can live through massive scale lose.

PS. Since I really do love Peter, Paul and Mary allow me to share the following video with you. Folk at it's finest and I can't get through it without getting weepy. In a good way.

One snowflake

I don't like snow. That is to say, I don't like large amounts of snow. It's the inches and inches and inches and feet of the stuff that we get here in Minnesota that I'm not so crazy about. On an individual basis snowflakes are ok by me.


It's much easier to appreciate them when they look like that than it is when they (and 140 trillion of their brethren) are blocking coating your driveway.

Edit - Since you asked, a) Yes, I took those. b) They are real. c) You can find more here.

Explain Yourself! - The Christmas Ornament Edition

You are 19. You go to a party. It's the first time you ever really drink. It's the first time you ever get drunk. You spend the better part of the night eating a watermelon soaked in an unknown alcohol. You have a great time. You do some stupid things. You spend the next day hung over and sick as a dog. From that day on you get ill at the mere sight of a watermelon. You confide in your aunt about your wild watermelon induced night. She buys you a watermelon Christmas ornament. You start to question your family's taste level. You hang it on your tree. You hang it on your tree. You start to question your own taste level. For some reason your kids love the watermelon ornament and cheer when you put it up. You hang it every year even though it always make you cringe a little bit. And you still can't eat watermelon.

It tastes like buring!

Yesterday I was stuck in bed all day with a super mondo death flu. Everything hurt.

I'm mostly better today. Mostly. The lymph nodes in my armpits are still so swollen and sore that when I put deodorant on this morning I actually yelped in pain. I swear, it's my Constant Hair on Fire Syndrome. I could say "You know how when you have the flu it hurts to put on deodorant" to 1 million people and every single one of them would say "Get away from me Stinky."

As I was reading though some of my blog posts from waaaaaay back when I was pregnant with Elle I came across a funny conversation I had with Joseph. I'm going to reprint it for you here because I seriously do not want you looking through my archives. They're like a big ball of lame and boring and cheesy all rolled into one. Seriously. But this was funny. It's me and old school Joseph discussing something he learned about strangers.

Joseph: Officer Nick told us not to go in other people's yards or houses if we don't know them.
Me: Why not?
J: Because they might be strangers.
M: Right, and who's house could you go into?
J: Grandma's and Beanie's and yours and The Wheeze's and Officer Nick's.
M: And other people too if Mommy and Daddy tell you it's ok. What else did he tell you?
J: Not to get in stranger's cars.
M: That's a good idea.
J: Why?
M: Because there are some people who aren't very nice to kids. Only go in someones car if Mommy or Daddy or Grandma or Grandpa say it's ok.
J: Or in Officer Nick's car. And I always have to wear a seat belt.
M: That's right, what else did you talk about?
J: Not to take candy from strangers.
M: Why not?
J: Because it could have poison or, you know, maybe be on fire.

Someone should report me

Yesterday was a rough day. Joseph was just so ..... autistic.

Most of the time I think people would look at Joseph and think that he was neurotypical. Maybe a little quirky but certainly not autistic. Then he has days like yesterday that just kind of slap me in the face and say "You think things are going well? Haha! Not so fast lady"

The day started off badly when Joseph did something that upset Elle and made her cry. He didn't do it with the intent of hurting her feelings but it did and he just didn't care. He didn't even look at her as she stood next to him whimpering with big tears rolling down her cheeks. It broke my heart to see her so sad and it broke my heart to see him so indifferent. See, it's not that he's a mean kid (and really he's just crazy about Elle) but in this instance it didn't even seem to register with him that she was upset. Or rather, he realized it but it didn't matter to him.

After I had cheered Elle up I pulled Joseph aside to have a Big Talk with him. "Joseph, does it bother you that you made Elle sad?"

"No."

"No?"

"I mean yes."

"Yes? Why does it bother you?"

"Because now I'm in trouble."

"Honey, you're not in trouble but I want to to understand why what you did was not ok."

"Ok, but I need to build more Lego creations now!"

It just went downhill from there. All day long he acted rigid and intense and just plain odd. He wouldn't look at me when I talked to him. If he talked to me he would do it with his face six inches from mine, staring into my eyes, unblinking. His voice was loud and sing-songy. One minute he would claim to be starving but if I got him something to eat he would eat one bite and run away from the table. He talked non-stop about Legos and repeated silly, made up rhymes over and over and over.

The big kicker came when I asked him to go to his room and get dressed. That simple request resulted in a melt-down of massive proportions. Yelling, screaming, shrieking. It went on and on. It sounded like he was being beat. If you know me in real life or if you read my blog you know I don't hit my kids. Ever. Yesterday the melt-down went on for so long and was so intense though that a couple of times I found myself thinking "If I could just smack him, just once, maybe that would snap him out of it."

Not logical thinking and not something I'm proud of but I was sort of at the end of my rope. (By the way, I didn't hit him.) I also found myself thinking that at some point some neighbor was going to call the police. I thought any second a cop was going to pull up and check on us because some well meaning neighbor had heard Joseph screaming at the top of his lungs for 40 minutes.

But I guess I must have the most sound proof house in the world because no one came. I don't know. Maybe it's just me. If I heard a child screaming the way Joseph was screaming yesterday I would call the cops out of concern for what was going on in that house. And I really don't think that it's possible that no one heard what was going on.

Is it weird that it bothers me that no one did anything? Maybe it's because I've heard too many stories of children dying at the hands of their abusive parents and then the neighbors saying "We always heard terrible screaming coming from that house but no, we never called anyone."

Anyway. Yesterday was rough. Today will be better. If I hear your child screaming bloody murder (and I don't already know that there's a very good reason for it) I'm going to call the cops. I would appreciate it if you would do the same for my children.

Panic mode

Do you have your Christmas shopping done yet? I don't!

I do this every year. I wait till the last second and then panic. Oh, I know there's still time now but trust me, I know me. I'll be in the exact same boat three days before Christmas. Maybe this year if I panic with a few weeks time left I'll be ready by the time Christmas gets here.

This year we're going to try something a little different with the gifts that we give everyone. We're going handmade. And by we I mean me. Jesse doesn't do handmade. And by everyone I mean everyone other than the kids. I don't see a handmade Lego Batman Wii game going over very well around this house. I would go into more detail but several of the people who are getting the handmade gifts read this blog and I want to put off the disappointment surprise as long as possible. As I get further along into the process I'll detail some of my efforts on my other (neglected) blogs. And won't that be fun boys and girls?

Now if you'll excuse me I have to go hunt down this one website that I vaguely remember seeing once that had this thing on it that I wanted to make but I really don't remember any of the stuff you needed to do it or what it looked like and also I might have just dreamed the whole thing. I love the holidays.