You know you were thinking it....

You know what I think sucks?

Birthday parties.

Birthday parties and holidays.

Birthday parties, holidays, and family vacations.

I know…I know…sacrelig, right?

WRONG.

I never used to understand my mom when I was younger. Every year we would go camping along the good Ole’ Colorado River, and I mean camping. Sleeping on cots, cooking over a fire, “relieving” yourself in bushes, coming home redder than lobsters. (Side note, one time I burned so bad I came home with sun poisoning. My lips were two giant blisters. YOU try eating campfire spaghetti with two giant blisters for lips!). My cousin and I used to hunt snakes, until we found them. Then we would remember- we were girls, and oh-my-GAWWWWD- they will eat us. Then we stopped hunting snakes. But my mom, not so much. I mean sure she had fun, she would bring her Stephen King novels with her and laugh with my aunts and stuff, but she was never EXCITED excited like we were. I mean, I packed for this trip in like FEBRUARY every year. I never quite understood it.

Until I had kids.

And we camped.

HOLY COW is it hard. Why the hell do you even call it a vacation anymore?! It is TOTALLY not. WRONG. Wrong wrong wrong. You know what it is?! It’s work, except for free, and in the dirt. You have to pack up like every dish known to man, and somehow get is to fit in ONE milk crate. You need to pack enough clothes for all the children (who will be playing in the DIRT!) for the entire week, and somehow get it in one bag. Plus, you never know what will happen, so now I also need to be a traveling medic (not THAT kind) and bring like, every single product that Band Aid and Johnson and Johnson make combined. Plus, the kids need to like, be comfortable, so we need cozies, and bears, and blankies, and on and on and on.
NOT FUN. I hear ya Mom, I hear ya.

Same thing with holidays. You get the kids allllll dressed up, so that they can shit themselves five seconds from your Great Aunt three times removed Gerda’s house. Then, all you do is chase them around the whole time yelling “DON’T TOUCH THAT”. Not fun.

And birthday parties?! I mean please, do I even need to say anything more? Um, hellllloooo? I BIRTHED YOU. Is this not enough already?!

So mom…here’s to you. Hats off lady, even if I did get skin cancer from all those camping trips. But me? I’ll pass. Here on out, it’s the Ritz for me.

God couldn't be everywhere at once, so he created moms....ahhhhh....

******I wrote this in July, when I was still pregnant to the MAX (as opposed to just looking like it, like, you know....NOW)*****

Somewhere in this pregnancy I stopped cleaning the house. No one noticed at first, so I just let it go. I keep up on the laundry, and do the dishes after I realize that leaving them in the sink until someone else notices them is doing me absolutely no good.

I DID mop the floors a week or two ago. Once. But really, they were still disgusting.

This was hard for me at first, because I usually keep a clean house. No joke folks, people envy me for my mad domestic skills. No joke.

But now? Not so much.

There is a bowling ball stuck to my midsection.

A three year old clinging to my right calf.

And an angry adolescent nagging at me from behind.

They all need something, NOW, which happens to be at the same time.

So first the make up went. Then the housekeeping.

Then? Sorry honey, but sex? Not so much.

Then my mom came over.

Cory and I left for a few hours- laundry fluffed and folded!

Floors cleaned, rinsed AND waxed.

Everything sparkled and glowed. The rugs were deodorized AND vacuumed.

The toilets were clean, the sinks were scrubbed.

AND she went grocery shopping for me.

At first I was totally embarrassed. OH MY GOD, my mom had to clean my house for me! I am the filthiest bum EVER.

But then I remembered- oh ya, this woman totally used to wipe my ass. AND she has been there for both gruesome bloody deliveries of those grand babies she loves so much.

But the poor hubs? There are still some things my mom won't do.

Damn it.

She clearly does not know why the caged bird sings

Judy Ahrens, who used to serve as a trustee for the Westminster School District, spoke at a Huntington Beach City Council meeting this week regarding her concern over a book that is available to 8th graders in their middle school library.  The book in question?  Maya Angelou's autobiography "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings".  Ahrens, and her cohort, Ocean View School District Trustee John Briscoe, claim that the rape scene in the book is vulgar and inappropriate.  Briscoe opened with "I am here to speak on behalf of the helpless children currently subject to inappropriate reading material in our local public schools".

It gets better.

Ahrens, during her presentation, emotionally stated to the audience "I would like to say I don't wish to read this material...but for the sake of the innocence of our children...sometimes we have to do things in life we are uncomfortable with".

Yes, Ms. Ahrens, indeed we do.  And contrary to your prerogative, sometimes these "things in life we are uncomfortable with" include

 teaching our children about rape; as well as racism, sexism, and class discrimination.  All of which, Angelou's book confronts.

You can read the full article here.

There is also a list of the top twenty most frequently challenged books, which includes "Of Mice and Men" which teaches our children about mental illness, "Heather Has Two Mommies" which encourages equal civil rights to homosexuals, and the Alice series- that famous series of books that has been passed from one sweaty pubescent nail polished hand to another for decades, encouraging young women to feel confident about themselves and their bodies and the changes that occur during puberty.

Are these really resources that we should be removing from our children?  In a time when they can hop on the family computer themselves and find another resource?  Say...pornography?  Or some extremist hate group luring young kids into prejudice?

And aside from the fact that these books get our kids to read, and therefore think, we need to confront the fact that these are all realities that our kids face on a daily basis.  We would be foolish, and doing great harm to our next generation, to act as though they do not exist, or that they are too filthy to bring to the table.

Here's an idea- instead of sweeping them under the rug, why not raise our children in such a manner that they will acknowledge that the world unfortunately holds such problems as these, and with compassion and empathy for other human beings, go out and do something about it?

But that's just probably some silly thought that I picked up from some vulgar book....

J.Danger

Pure Awesomeness

Oh wait....I blog?

Who knew.

So.  Hardest thing so far about having three boys?

Having three boys.

Let's catch up.  Had the baby, baby goes into NICU, baby gets out of NICU (THANK GOD!) and comes home with us. Two days later I am back in class.  Six days later, I go into the hospital, for FIVE HELLISH DAYS, with a fever of 106.3. Insane.

The idea of a schedule with this one is a joke.  JOKE.  Things are starting to calm down a little, and I think I am getting the hang of this thing all over again.

This week I met with an admissions counselor for Grad school.  (AHHHHHHHH!!!!! GRAD SCHOOL!!!!) It was scheduled for a Thursday, Cory's only day off, but he had a ton of stuff to do, so I had the two youngest boys.  And a meeting.  With an adult. That I had to impress.

So I thought quickly.  And what I came up with was.....

I just took em with me.  Get over it.  It is what it is.  I have three children, and sometimes they will be with me.  Take it or leave it.

But, before we left, Oliver decided that he was hungry.  Apparently, the TWO breakfasts he had that morning was not enough.  So, as I finally had all of three minutes and forty seven seconds to get ready for my appointment, Oliver bit Elliott on the nose.  Ferociously.  I had to pull him off of him he bit him so hard.  Terrible screams, blood, and bite marks later we all calm down and I grab my gorgeous camel colored cashmere sweater, pep talk myself up and walk out that door.

And then Elliott threw up all over my sweater.  I was late for the appointment, and my boobs leaked through my top.

Fun was had by all.  But god dammit, I showed up!

Maybe they will just write me up for an A in my first class, "The Art of Being a Total Train Wreck".

xoxo,

J.Danger

Happy Halloween from the Danger Family

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Jazz Hands!

So. Long story short, we wound up having to be induced because of the gestational diabetes.  I felt pretty bad about it at first, but at the end I came to terms with the fact and sucked it up.  It went really slow at first because I needed to be on antibiotics  for the GBS for at least four hours before anything could really happen (this totally sucked!  Almost more than the labor in general.  Huge doses of Penicillin straight into your IV?!  NO THANKS).  So we wait the four hours, then they up the Pitocin.  Then they up it again, and again, and again.  Nothing doing.  So my midwife decides to break my water, to get him to slide on in to home.  She broke my water somewhere around 11:30 ish. I was at 5 cm.  One hour later, while they were all eating lunch, I needed to push.  NOW.  This is where it all got a little dicey.  I pushed a few times and bingo bango- there's the head.  (All ye with peni and/or weak stomachs- STOP HERE)  His head passed fine, then the next thing I know everyone is screaming at me to stop pushing stop pushing stop pushing!!!  The pain was excruciating.  I was screaming- not labor noises, screaming.  My first two were natural, vaginal, medication free deliveries.  This one was induced, yes, but still epidural free.  But this was not normal pain.  It hurt bad, the bad like something is wrong.  Turns out it was a culmination of things. One- his shoulders did get stuck after all.  On top of that, I have a prolapsed uterus, which means that my cervix never really moved out of the way 100% (sorry folks).  Next thing I know, there are three sets of hands all up in my bidness, pulling and tugging and yanking, and then he was here!

And I heard nothing.  Not one yell, not one squea

k, not one yelp.  When they got him up on my chest he was blue.  Scary blue.  Too blue.  And he was just staring at me, wide eyed.  I kept yelling, why isn't he crying?!  Why isn't he crying?  Why is he so blue?!  As the nurse tries to convince me that he is fine, as she places an oxygen mask on his brand new little baby face.

They took him, and Cory went over to the baby nest with him, and then I heard it.  That glorious newborn baby yelp and I looked up and he was fine, just as pink as can be.

Here he is.  Mr. Owl.  8 lbs 7 ozs. (TINY!) 20 inches.  at 12:47 p.m.

So that's labor.  You know the rest.  Placenta, clean up, yada yada....

Cory and I go to bed that night with Mr. Owl. Everything is fine.  Until he spits up.  And then he spits up again.  And again.  Each time it is more and more, and I'm thinking, you know- he is spitting up more than he ate.  This is not right.  The doctor came to make rounds the next morning, just as she is discharging him, he vomits.  PROFUSELY. Twice. All over himself.  And it is this weird color and consistency.  Read- not ok.  So she calmly says to us that she is going to have to keep him for observation.  We say ok, no big deal right.  Until she wheels him into the NICU.

Cory and I packed for two nights in the hospital.  We packed going home out fits for everyone.   We packed his new blankie.  We were ready.  But how in the hell do you prepare for the NICU?

I will save you the details, plus I just don't want to recap them again. But it was terrible.  To see him in there like that, with wires and leads, in an incubator, with tubes down his throat and nose, and a huge I.V. in his teeny tiny little hands.  The nurses in the NICU were great.  One just held me like a gramma and let me bawl my eyes out on her shoulder.  Once he was off the I.V. and could eat again, they let me come in every two hours to breastfeed him and just actually hold him and touch him, which was hard because of all the stuff attached to him.  But man, I loved just getting to hold him and feed him and talk to him.

Thank God he is ok.  And now, in the grand scheme of things, and in comparison to some of the other families I met in the NICU, really it was nothing.  He is totally fine.  It was some sort of a G.I. obstruction.  Now?  He is eating, pooping, and peeing like a champ.  But I promised him there that I will try my damnedest to never again let anything hurt him like that.  Life lessons? Ok sometimes those sting a little.  But those are good.  But NICU pain? For me and for him? Never again.

Between that promise, and the fact that he is the youngest, I figure he's got it made.

xoxo,

J.Danger

Oops

I meant to post this yesterday, for WW, but I forgot.  So here you have it.  For TT- Thinking Thursday?  I don't know....for all of you that have been thinking of me?

Lame.

Me and the bean at 40 weeks.  Which means I am done with this pregnancy.  So.  WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU ELLIOTT?!

But seriously, thanks to everyone that has been emailing, twittering, FBing me and everything.  I know I joke about how annoying it is to constantly be asked if I have popped yet, just to sob and say no, but really- I love you guys and appreciate it.

Soon, super soon.

Meanwhile, if you want to follow me on Twitter, and follow the big event you can find me here.

Thanks guys-

xoxo,

J. Danger