I'm calm now but I still hate people

Ok, I feel a little better now. People still suck but I can't let myself get bogged down with other people's issues.

Onward and upwards!

Jesse, Joseph and I had dinner with my IF's and their son last night. It was a really nice night out. Joseph and LittleB get along really well and had lots of fun playing and feeding the geese that live outside the restaurant. It was nice to sit and talk with the B and J. We talked about just about everything under the sun and it never felt weird or awkward. I think we really click and I'm glad of that. I think this whole process could be really weird if you weren't comfortable with your IPs.

At the end of the night I think LittleB would have happily gone home with us or Joseph would have happily gone home with B and J. They really had a lot of fun together. At one point LittleB (sorry, I know it's cheesy but I can't think of what else to call him) got up to go to the bathroom and Joseph was sad that he couldn't go with. I asked him if he needed to go to the bathroom too and he said "No, I just really love that guy!" Sweet.

At one point he also loudly announced to the entire room that when he eats pizza it goes in his stomach and then comes out his butt. Not as sweet as the other thing he said.

The internet is an asshole

Augh! How many times to I have to let myself get burned by involvment in message boards before I realize that everyone on the internet is a giant jerk and that I'm better off staying away from all of them?

Stupid online surrogate group. For a bunch of women that prides themselves on how open and supportive and loving they are they sure to suck. A warning to anyone thinking of joining a message board for surrogates: Unless you're willing to fall in with the group-think that selective reduction is the worst crime known to man and anyone that does it is a horrible person and should have their kids taken away from them then don't even bother to start posting.

Fuck. Sometimes I really hate the internet.

Thoughts on spanking

Back when I was a youngster I used to think that if I ever had kids I would probably use spanking as a form of discipline. What the heck, I thought. Most of the kids I babysat for were spanked every so often. In fact, the father of one little boy I sat for a few times gave me permission to spank if need be.

Sit back and think about that for a minute. I'm trying to wrap my brain around the idea of telling a 15 year old "Yeah, go ahead and hit my kid if you think he deserves it". Can you imagine? Not ever in my wildest dreams or my very worst nightmare would I ever say something like that. (For the record, I was a really good sitter. All the kids I watched really liked me and no, I never spanked any of them.)

Anyway, as I grew older I started to rethink this whole spanking thing. I knew that I had been spanked a few times as a kid (I don't remember it, I've just been told that) and that didn't sit right with me. (Again, for the record, my parents now think spaking is wrong and would probably rip me a new one if I ever dared to spank one of their grandbabies.) I didn't like the idea of parents hurting their own children even if it was done with the best of intentions.

When Jesse and I were dating we talked about this and he said that he thought spanking was ok. I informed him that I would never have kids with someone who spanked. He came to see things my way.

Jump forward to when Joseph was 2 and a half and he had developed a love affair with the knobs on the stove. This worried me to no end. I tried everything to get him to stop playing with those knobs. I scolded, I pleaded, I offered distractions, I raised my voice, I tried to block his access to them. Nothing worked. Then one day I thought "What if I slapped his hand the next time he reached for the stove? It's not really spanking and it would be for his own good. I would be keeping him safe!"

So I had a plan. The next time Joseph went after the stove knobs I picked him up and moved him away. I told him firmly that he could not play with the knobs. He went right back to them and reached his little hand up. With a pit in my stomach I "slapped" his hand. (Now again, for the record, I really hardly even tapped him. I have since given him countless playful slaps on the behind that have been harder than that little hand slap.)

I watched his face and waited for his reaction. You know, if he had cried I think I would have been ok. If he had cried I could have said to myself "Now he gets it. I didn't want to do it but now he's learned that touching the stove is dangerous."

But he didn't cry.

He just looked really suprised. And that killed me. All I could think was "Oh my god! What have I done? This little boy trusts me to keep him safe and not to hurt him and I just broke that trust! I hurt my little boy! How could I do that? What kind of a horrible mother am I?"

I was sick to my stomach about the whole incident. Such a reaction on my part probably wasn't logical since Joseph seemed to forget the whole thing in about two seconds (and yes, he reached for the stove again) but all I knew was that I knew 100% for sure that I would never hit another child ever again.

I'm not a pefect mom. I get angry. Sometimes probably angrier than I should. My kids sometimes do things that leave me thinking "Well what in the hell do I do now?" I get confused and I get frustrated. But I've never again hit one of my babies. And I never will.

Hitting is a bottom line for me. I can accept lots of parenting differences but I can't accept the idea that spanking is ok. I don't care if it's done out of love. I don't care if it's done out of anger. I've said it .before and I'll say it again: It's wrong to hit your children. Bottom line.

I'm curious what other people's bottom lines are. Is there anything that you think is outside the bounds of "parenting differences"? Or do you think there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to raising kids?

Sweet fancy Moses

My meds came today.


See those bags on the left and the right there? Know what those are? Bags of needles. And I am now the proud owner of my very own SHARPS container. Oh my god, what have I gotten myself into here?

Like a rhinestone cowgirl

Several days ago Elle ate a rhinestone off of one of her little girly hair bows.

I found it this morning.

I wish I could say that I just threw that diaper away without a second thought but that's not the way it went. I debated long and hard about taking a picture of that bejeweled poop. You know what made me decided not to do it? Not good taste or common sense or a sense of respect for my daughter's privacy. It was that I knew I wouldn't be able to get a good picture of it with my current digital camera.

I've added a new camera to my wishlist down there on the left. I'm sure that very soon all my regular readers (all 2 of you) will be chipping in to get me that new camera so that I can start bringing you more high quality, high class pictures. Yes, I expect that you'll be getting right on that.

Pretty girl

I had Elle's year and a half pictures taken on Tuesday. Even though these are just scans of some of the proofs you can still see how beautifuly they turned out.

Come to this blog for giant schlongs!

Do you know how many hits I have gotten lately for people looking for boob and vagina pictures? A lot. How let down people must feel when they click over to my blog. I'm Jen and I'm doing my part to sexually frustrate the men of America (and Saudi Arabia if my sitemeter is to be believed). Some recent google hits:

pictures of kids attatched to their moms boobs - Oh, ewwwww.

hairy fragina pictures - I bet this person is stalking me now.

will a girl get pregnant if you kiss a boob? - Thanks abstinence-only sex ed!

girl touching her vagina with her boob - Ahahahahahaha.

my friend might have boob cancer and how can I cure it - Um. Is it wrong that I laughed at this? Probably.

On another note, I just found out that I will be getting my medication delivered on Monday. They asked me about 5 times if I was sure I would be there to receive the delivery. I guess this stuff is pretty expensive and they don't want a shipment to go missing. I'll have to take a picture of it so everyone can see everything I'll be shooting into my butt for the next few months. If nothing else it might make people more sympathetic to me when I start to become a total bitch because of the hormones.

I have to have what's called a uterine lining check before the transfer (to make sure the meds are doing their job) and that should be scheduled by tomorrow or Monday. I've got my call to go over my medication schedule and protocol scheduled for the 17th. I still don't know where I'm supposed to go to learn how to take the shots but we're slowly getting all the pieces into place. It's all coming together now.

On another note, let me tell you about the strangest thing Jesse ever said to me. We were sitting out on the porch together and I was reading a book. Jesse watched this couple riding by on bikes and after they had passed he said to me "These people just rode by on matching bikes. It looks like they won them in a contest or something."

I was wondering how people could look like the bikes they were on were won in a contest and I pictured the bikes having balloons and streamers and giant novelty checks attatched to them. "Why do you think they won them in a contest?" I asked.

"Oh" he responded "they just don't look like the type of people that would buy bikes."

Huh. They don't look like the type of people that would buy bikes? But they do look like the type of people who would enter a contest to win matching bikes and then ride them around town? He is so weird sometimes.

Fragile, must be Italian

I've won a major award. Let me clarify. I've won a major award twice. Seems that two people out there think that I have what they consider a "thinking blog". A blog that makes them think. I am honored and flattered and more than a little suprised that I have made anyone think anything other than "Shut up crazy lady! Your uterus and the things that you expel from it are not nearly as interesting as you think they are!" So thank you to Jodi and Jill who have made me feel down right good in spite of the killer hormones raging through my body right now. You're both tops.

This award appears to carry huge responsability. I now have to go and give it to 5 other people. At least that's what the rules say that you're supposed to do. But guess what. I'm not going to. I'm going to give it to just one person. And I have a good reason beyond being too lazy to do more. The reason is that when I was given this award I knew right away one person that I wanted to pass it on to. There was one name and one name only that popped into my head. Don't get me wrong, there are lots of blogs that I love and lots that make me think or laugh or cry or even cringe but this one is just different. Maybe it's because she often manages to make me to all those things in just one post. So Melody, this one's for you!

If you have not yeat had a chance to read Slurping Life then I suggest you go and do so right now. Melody is the mother of 4 boys and she talks about her life with her 3 youngest children with an honesty that sometimes takes my breath away. Her posts about her boys have made me stop and think and take a look at the way I think about my own children. I love this quote from her blog "In sharing photos and a few words from our day to day life, I hope to help you look at your life with humor and with the reality that you do what you can do when you can do it...then you eat chocolate and drink wine."

So go, and read her. Tell her I sent you and tell her how much I covet the giant yard/forest/nature preserve that she has for her boys to play in. Trust me, you'll be glad you took the time to check her out.