whoah! is me

4 days after my d&c surgery i woke up doubled over in pain. t.j. took me to the ER and i had my gallbladder and appendix removed and spent 6 days in the hospital. this hospital stay just happened to occur during what would have been our vacation to florida. why did i have my gallbladder removed? apparently pregnancy can wreck your gallbladder. why did i have my appendix removed? because the surgeon said it was "inflamed." to me, this is going to get your oil changed and you leave with a transmission flush. but whatever... who needs an appendix? hopefully not me.

along with finding out that morphine makes me retarded, t.j. is the most awesome human being on the face of planet earth, and that i secretly love being knocked out for surgery, here are 3 very poignant revelations i've had throughout my amazingly bad run of luck this month:


shave, shave, shave (and exfoliate) daily!
since the age of 18 i've lived my life prepared for being stripped down naked in a medical emergency. when i walked into the ER i was halfway ready for prom; manicured, pedicured, shaven, exfoliated, and mascara in place. and let's just say that at all times i am more prepared for the cover of playboy than the cover of national geographic. (i'm in no way comparing myself to a playboy model - i'm talking about ladyscaping.)


cream of wheat blows
self-explanatory


it can always be worse
at some point in my hospital stay i ripped my nose ring out on my loofah sponge. but guess what i didn't do? i didn't rip my eyeball out of its socket. now that would suck. as i was walking the halls i passed all kinds of really sick people. after everything i've been through i walked back into my hospital room with my iv pole wearing a gown that exposed my ass crack and i thanked the good lord for how amazingly awesome my life is.

when life gives you lemons, buy a 6 pack of beer

yesterday morning we went to our ultrasound only to find out that there was no heartbeat. because of the time that had elapsed between the baby's death and the discovery of it, i had to be in the operating room at 5:45 a.m. to have a d&c procedure. this is not my first miscarriage, but it is my first surgery as a result of one. and while this is not my usual funny blog post (just wait - i do have a funny story coming) a friend pointed out to me i could use my blog as way to talk candidly about something that is usually hush-hush. a lot of people wait until 12 weeks to make the announcement so that if something bad happens they don't have to do what i'm doing: publicly acknowledging the loss of a pregnancy. my thoughts on this: every baby is worthy of an announcement whether they make it full-term or not.

now... here is where i'm going to sound like a total ice queen: i tend to think of failed pregnancies in more of a biological sense than an emotional one. with my miscarriages i grieve for about 5 minutes then my mind shifts into procedural thinking - in this instance: what's next? will i have to be intubated? will it hurt? for how long? what will i do with roz? when will i be able to eat? can i have a miller lite this weekend? and just when you think i cannot be more of a heartless robot, let's go ahead and address the big-ass elephant in the room - if you read my last blog or talked to me you know i was not thrilled to be pregnant in the first place. i am sad for the loss of a potential child, but i am not sad about not being pregnant. not at all.  i have the cutest and healthiest baby on earth to keep me busy day-in and day-out. and t.j.? although he was very excited, he has the heartless robot thing down pat. he went straight into caretaker mode even though his plate is very full with work. it's times like these that his anal-retentive and obsessive compulsive disorders are very beneficial to our family.

bottom line: i am fine. he is fine. we are both fine. really. and rozzy? oh, she probably thought the whole deal was fantastic considering we had to get out of bed at 4:30 am this morning - her favorite time to wake for the day.

everyone deals with things in their own way. most would not be surprised to hear that my coping mechanism for every situation is laughter. you would think on a day where i'm encountering my first operating room that i would be a nervous wreck... well you are right - until my anesthesiologist came in and introduced himself as Dr. Dong. have you ever seen anyone break out into inappropriate laughter for an awkward 3 minutes before the loopy meds are pushed through the I.V.? because i really wanted to stop laughing, i tried to think of something serious to ask; instead i blurted out something about how there was a lot more crap in the operating room than what they show on grey's anatomy. i bet he couldn't wait to knock my ass out.

when i woke up i chatted up all the nurses in the post-op area. here are the topics i covered:
1) i was leaving for florida in a week and it really sucked that i couldn't have sex on vacation
2) although i couldn't have sex, at least i could still have a margarita. (i hate margaritas, so i must have really been out of it.)
3) my level of excitement due to feeling "high as giraffe balls" and that surgery was the hardest partying i had done in a while.
4) how hot the doctor was behind the counter and that he was probably a real asshole because "there's nothing worse than a good-looking doctor." (i'm pretty sure i was not whispering at this point.)

and although the nurses told me i was the most fun patient they had ever had, i hope to never go back there again. but if i do - i sure hope Dr. Dong is my anesthesiologist because for me, laughter really is the best medicine.

i. am. freaking. pregnant.



"well don't you know how babies are made?" ~idiot~

"yes - and since i'm not a loser like you, i am very high-risk." ~lars~

my photoshoot with dollar store test #4 of 7

i'm due may 2nd.

many people, including close friends and family, are wondering why they are finding out this information in such a manner. well, there is quite a difference in my reaction to this pregnancy than with the first. when i got the  my positive test with roz i freaked out and was so happy. when i got this positive test i freaked out, took 6 more tests, and google-mapped the nearest bridge to jump off of. with roz, i took a picture of the test and sent it to friends with no caption other than a smiley face. they all wrote back very nice sentimental messages and a lot of "congratulations!" with this test i simply sent a text to my friends saying "i'm ^*!%*# pregnant" and they wrote back with "blahahaha" and "omg." and "wth." when informing t.j. of my pregnancy with roz it was a huge deal worthy of celebration. this time i told him to stay away from me because it may have been some type of celebration that got us into this mess to begin with.

with rozzy, we had been actively trying for years to have a baby. i figured i was safe in refraining from birth control since it took so long to conceive the first time around. for those that don't know: in 2009, t.j. got a job promotion in the chicago region. he moved there for 6 months while i stayed in ohio. being childless, i agreed to make the move. when i got there it took us about 4 days to get settled in. when we finally got all the way unpacked and moved in we went to dinner. then we had some drinks. then when i still felt hungover 5 days later i started thinking maybe i wasn't hungover - and voila... after years of trying, i end up finding out i was knocked up 9 days after moving 4 hours away from every one of my relatives and friends (aka: babysitters) on the face of planet earth.

i'm careful of how i describe our fertility issues - i can't act like it was some devastating journey for me like it is for millions of women. if someone says that they've been trying for years to win a marathon, what they are really saying is that they have been doing crazy amounts of running - and running sucks. however, when i say that "we had been actively trying for years to have a baby," what i'm really saying is we had a lot of sex for a really long time.

it is definitely not an unwanted child, but is most definitely an unwanted pregnancy. being pregnant sucks. i have never been one who took a liking to being fat or to being restricted from drinking miller light; and definitely not being both at the exact same time for 9 months. however, i've decided that a lot of people have a baby and raise them to an age where they are able to go out and do fun things like movies and disney world only to be stopped by having another baby. then you are back at square one. will it suck to have two babies in diapers? yes. will it suck to have 2 car seats in the back of my car? yes. will it suck to try to manage a household and shower before 3 pm everyday? considering that is a problem now, yes. however, i have decided that it won't suck to get all of the hassles of 2 kids done at the exact same time. or at least that's what i'm telling myself. i actually dare anyone to tell me otherwise.

so what does t.j. think of the news? he is thrilled. him and his brother are exactly 18 months apart just like our kids will be and he thinks it is wonderful. of course, just as now, he isn't trying to maintain his full-time job from home while trying to raise a kid who doesn't eat dog food for a mid-day snack. he also knows that we are having a boy since we already have a girl - cause that's how it works, right? he is delusional. i told him that there is no way i'm going to be able to keep my work-from-home-job and have two kids under the age of 2. he says i can. in all actuality, if we made drastic changes in our lifestyle we could afford for me to quit my job - but then how would he ever pay for his 27 rounds of golf a week?

kids are pure entertainment and i'm a good story-teller. i'm already imagining that 2 kids under the age of 2 is going to be comedy gold as far as my blogging goes. i'm already looking forward to posting the blog titled, "t.j.'s first vasectomy" - i haven't written it yet, but i can tell you already it's gonna be my favorite one yet.

he had no choice but to take me home

thank god for tj.

tonight his parents volunteered to watch rozzy while we went on a date night. this was great since this is how many times me and tj have been to dinner alone since she was born: 0. he had an italian joint in tinley park picked out which was fine because i am obsessed with italian. when we sat down i asked tj where our menus were. he explained that there was no menu and pointed to the walls that were covered in chalkboards that had the choices written on them. i started reading all of the choices - but i was saying them in an italian accent. that is just something i have to do. had we been at a mexican restaurant i would have been speaking in a mexican accent. (also known as spanish.) now, for those that know us, you can imagine this scene: i'm yelling out "cannoli, fettucini, tortellini..." and i'm cracking myself up. meanwhile, tj is looking at his phone. (probably googling the next golf course he will play and talk about non-stop for the 6 days afterwards.)

i said "you know, if this were our first date i would never go out with you again. i'm sitting here having fun and you are staring at your phone."  then i said, "that's what we should do: we should pretend like we are on a first date!" no sooner had those words escaped my mouth when the waitress sat down a caprese salad in front of my face. i immediately picked up my fork and shoved one of the tomato slices (whole) in my mouth and inhaled it. then i proclaimed "oh-my-god-this-tomato-is-the-bomb!" next was the mozzarella chunk, then the olives... "tj - you will NOT believe how much this cheese and these olives are the bomb!" then i started hysterically laughing at my (over)usage of "the bomb." and then shoved yet another piece of olive-oil drenched bread in my face. then i started really laughing.as i had oil dripping down my chin it had dawned on me exactly what kind of date i would be. i'm loud, i crack up at my own jokes, i eat like an ethiopian in the military, i do horrible accents, and i still say "the bomb."

at that point i decided to try to be less larissa and a bit more sexy. i said in a deep, sultry voice (that in retrospect actually sounded more manly than seductive) "i guess if we are on a date then we need to have some desert." tj laughed at my pathetic attempt at being sexy, but played along. "oh yeah?" he asked. i started my response in the sultry (manly) voice, but it quickly turned into a hyena scream: "yeah... how about the POUNDCAKE?!? BLAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!" well, every time i laugh i either pee myself or i about do. this time i was lucky and i excused myself.

while in the bathroom, i decided to take my underwear off - it's not what you are thinking. the bottom line is that i have no business putting size 6 panties on my size 11 ass. the fried zucchini i polished off was more than that little piece of floss could handle - i had to get them off asap. of course, i didn't have my purse so i had to ball them up (which was actually the shape they had been in all night, except not in my fist) and walk back out to the table holding them. and of course, i didn't just walk thru the entire restaurant casually - no, i walked through giggling with an i-am-holding-my-underwear-in-my-hand expression plastered all over my face.

as we were walking out to the car i said, "my lord i feel so free!" tj said, "why because rozlyn isn't on your hip?" i said, "no because i took my underwear off." i proceeded to tell him what i did in the bathroom and why. even after hearing about my fat hips, watching me laugh at myself with oil-dripping down my chin, and listening to his almost 31-year old wife say "the bomb" 42 times, he took me for ice-cream.

best. date. ever.

cake smashed

before rozzy, i remember going to my friends' kid's birthday parties -  t.j and i would actually tailgate at our house before leaving. i remember thinking how lame it was that we couldn't have a piece of cake until after the birthday boy/girl smashed it all over themselves. not only was it really messy, but how many pictures could one person really need of their child with elmo-red icing all over their face? and all t.j. could think about was how hard it would be to get those stains off their onesies. the cake mess was followed by the they'll-never-remember-this hour of opening a bazillion gifts. your house already looks like toys-r-us exploded in it, why you would need more crap is beyond me.

although not a birthday party, we did go to a raging party over this past weekend. oh wait - no we didn't. it was a family labor day party. we used to go to parties that when someone yelled, "we got a puuuuuuker!!!!" you knew that someone couldn't handle shotgunning their beer properly; now we know that some stupid kid didn't wait the suggested 30 minutes between cake and the bouncey house. in the past, t.j. and i would buy a case of beer to go to a party. now we have a 6 pack that lays next to the bottled water we have in the cooler so that rozzy has plenty of purified h20 for her formula. the time we used to spend scavenging a person's house for random munchies is now filled by snacking on a crab cake as i hunt down whoever is responsible for passing out glow bracelets to everyone's kid except mine. (i found that jerk.) mindless chatter about who is sleeping with who and what that girl is wearing has been replaced with the one baby item you just couldn't live without. (a bumbo chair, in case you are wondering.)

i saw all the moms sitting around helping their kids prepare their sticks for marshmallows to make smores over the campfire and all i could think about was, "that kid better not take my stick, damnit." i wanted a smore - but i would've been the only person there over the age of 8 eating one. not only was it a kid thing, but all of the moms are watching what they eat because they are on a diet. these are the same group of women i saw in january who were on a diet - and i don't know what kind of plan they are following, but some of them could use a stricter one. so i didn't eat a smore. (instead, i made cookies when i got home and took all 8 of them straight to my face.)

i'm currently in the process of planning rozzy's first birthday party. because of my own history with these type of things, combined with feeling very old, i wanted to be very mindful of our childless friends. i'm planning to have it at marions pizza. this way we have a family atmosphere, but there's also the option to drink mass amounts of beer and act foolish if you so desire. and while you are doing that, i'll be taking 750 pictures of the most adorable birthday girl ever with yo gabba gabba-orange icing all over her face.

you have the right to remain silent

i dated t.j. for 5 years before marrying him and had never farted in front of him once. on the night of our wedding after the reception we drove to our new house for the first time together. he was having a really hard time getting the key to go in the lock properly and i was getting impatient. in my wedding dress i yanked the key from him and said "here - let me do it. geeze." then proceeded to bend over reaching for the handle through the darkness and ripped one.


it's stories like that that i want to make sure i put in writing for roz before i forget. that is the point of this blog; i will one day put all of these posts with their accompanying illustrations and make a book for her. a lot of kids live their entire lives not knowing who their parents were before they were 'mom' and 'dad.' i think she should know about who me and t.j. were pre-roz.


i showed up at t.j.'s house when we were dating and he has the horrible open wound on his nose.
"tj! what happened to your nose?!?!" i demanded.
"huh... um... what? what is it?" he sheepishly replied.
"what do you mean 'what is it?' have you seen yourself in the mirror?!?!?!?!? my lord!" i screamed.
after going back and forth for a while, he finally confessed: t.j. had used one of his mom's biore cleansing strips. since he was a dude he felt that his blackheads were more badass than what the 8 minute application period could handle. after the self-imposed 20 minutes of biore cleansing action, t.j. damn-near ripped his entire nose off of his face.


t.j. and i actually spent 12 years together before rozzy made her debut. that means i have 12 years worth of stories stockpiled in my memory, not to mention my 18 years on earth before t.j. and i started dating. of course she doesn't need to know about the time we ran from the cops on purdue's campus - or the time we ran from the cops on ohio state's campus, for that matter. she doesn't need to know t.j. stole a wallet from j.c. penny's or the time that i stole my dad's car with kelly to buy a pack of smokes when i was 15 years old - with my 9 year old brother in the backseat. she could do without the tales of me and t.j. getting kicked out of the fairfield commons for mocking a beefed-up mall cop, or how after drinking too much at a restaurant i decided that the plates were so nice that i needed to take one home with me.

I'm still up in the air about sharing the funniest night ever with her. maybe when she is 30 i will tell her about me and t.j.'s infamous night at the fox and the hound. we had both had too much to drink. as we got out to the car, i told t.j. that maybe it was best that we called a taxi because it would be the responsible thing to do. well, t.j. had a better idea: the car parked next to us apparently belonged to a volunteer fireman, as evidenced by the nice set of siren lights affixed to the top of it. t.j. figured if we could transfer the sirens from that car to ours, that we'd be safe. a cop wouldn't pull us over if we had lights on top of our car, right? well, what transpired over the next 15 minutes is indescribable. it was one of those things you would have just had to be there and experience if for yourself. i'll do my best to describe how t.j. got into a tug-o-war match with those sirens that had an electrical cord attached to them that went through the passenger-side window that was rolled up around it. at one point he had his feet on the side of the door and was hanging from the cord.

well, when i saw my husband hanging from a set of sirens i laughed like never before. anyone that knows me knows that when i laugh, my entire body laughs. i jerk around like i'm being electrocuted - well the electricity zapping me during this laugh session caused me to slam my head on the steering wheel - causing the horn to honk. this honking scared t.j. so much that he fell of the sirens he had been holding onto for dear life. when he fell, i peed myself.

on second thought... maybe she doesn't need to know that one, either.

viral rozzy

1&done

supposedly a mind-erasing cocktail consisting of hormones and other biological chemicals ensures the continuation of our species by removing the horror that is labor and delivery from a survivor's mind. i have called bullshit on mother nature: i remember it. vividly. (i also remember a time in my youth when i thought the true test of vaginal elasticity was upgrading to the "super-plus" absorbent tampon from the plain 'ol "super" ones - silly me.) the process of giving birth, however, is not the reason why i do not want another child; it is actually the months that proceeded childbirth that has solidified my "one and done" attitude toward our family.

*author’s note: in the south right before you talk unfavorably towards someone you god-bless them first. (example: “god-bless her, but shirleen's daughter is a real whore.”) so, here is where i am going to god-bless my daughter before I continue on with this essay. i love her more than anything on earth. she is the world to me and i cannot imagine a day without her. god-bless my little roz. ok… now i can continue.

rozzy is what famed pediatrician dr. sears refers to as "high needs." the good doctor has a checklist of 12 characteristics and accompanying descriptions on his website so that you can properly diagnose your child as crazy from the comfort of your own living room. every single one of the 12 items listed combine together to create one thing: my child. at one point in time i am sure that every mother thinks their child is high needs; with the key words being "at one point in time." for me, that point in time happens to be Every. Single. Day. recently i submitted a picture of rozzy to the webmaster at sears' site so they could have a descriptive illustration to accompany their informative article.

i knew that having a baby would change my life, but I was thinking about regular babies – not crazy ones. i had googled enough baby articles during pregnancy that i was prepared for another human to be dependant on me to the point where my life would change. what i was not prepared for was learning how to wipe after peeing while said human is on my lap. i had heard that a baby would display cues as to when they were satisfied after a bottle or a meal. what i didn’t expect was for her to show her satiation by ripping my glasses off of my face and slamming them down into three separate pieces. i had heard all the tales about new mom sleep-deprivation, but didn’t know that 46 consecutive minutes of sleep would be facebook status update-worthy.

on the rare occasion that t.j. and i dare to eat a meal outside of our own home, we have to keep in mind that our precious little rozzy doesn’t like to be restrained. after learning how to crawl, most babies assert their independence by refusing constraint systems such as high chairs. rozzy asserts her independence with a blood-curdling scream followed by projectile vomit that she then chokes on; that is then followed by 5 rapid back blows and two parental panic attacks. it’s these carrie-style scenes that make me wonder why in the world t.j. wants to do this all over again. he seems to think that because we have a girl that we automatically win the boy lottery next time. what i know is that both of our familial histories - combined with my old age - could end with my next pregnancy being with twin girls. *insert picture of me jumping off a cliff here*

when i state out loud that i do not want any more children apparently what people hear me say is, “i am evil. i hate babies.”  this, of course, is not the case. as a matter of fact, before rozzy was born i was never a baby person. now that i've had rozzy, i am a baby person. pre-roz, if you had a baby i'd say how cute they are and then go about my day. now when i see a baby i grab them out of their mothers' hands, kiss them all over their cute little faces, and then a demand a full report on their sleeping, pooping, and overall disposition and then ask if i can take them home with me. this can get awkward for some strangers at the grocery store.

even though i volunteer to take other babies home with us, if i had my way, t.j. would go get his boys snipped. if he had his way, i would have 3 more children. my course of action for birth control is leaving him in charge of the baby for an entire week - including the nighttime shift that requires an every 2 hour wakeful period. after having his beauty sleep interrupted and his 17 rounds of golf a week eliminated, i am sure that t.j. will come to see that 1 & done is the way to go.

with all that being said, roz is awfully adorable and very smart... it would be interesting to see what the next one would be like... maybe one more wouldn't be so bad after all...

sweet revenge

i'm at costco last night and i see a couple with one of those flat-bed shopping carts. placed on top of it is eight 50lb. bags of baking flour. i was very curious as to why someone would need 400lbs. of flour. i was intrigued, but moved on to my 250lb. tub of cottage cheese that was next on my list. after paying, i go out to load my car and whatdaya know... i'm parked right next to the lady who emptied costco of flour. her minivan was wrapped in crazy advertising for "deb's crown bakery." aha. it made sense now. who else would need that much flour except for a baker? duh. for a second we locked eyes, so me being mrs. social chatter-box said through a friendly giggle "ya know, i noticed you guys and all that flour while i was inside and i was wondering to myself what in the world you'd be doing with all that flour... now it makes sense. ha! then deb of deb's crown bakery just stared at me. i had just started to hear crickets when deb's husband flipped his mullet around and stared at me as well. no smile, no response, no screw you... nothin'. they appeared to be so bothered by me speaking to them. then they both went back to loading their van, apparently allergic to some friendly banter. i got into my car. i didn't have the baby with me so i spent the next 15 seconds contemplating getting back out of my vehicle and kicking that woman's ass. i'd for sure punch her husband's mullet just to say i punched a mullet. but i didn't. i just got in my car and drove home. and now I'm typing this blog. the moral of the story: if you live in a 50 mile radius of the chicago-land area and need a cake be forewarned:

deb of deb's crown bakery and her husband are assholes.

(not really) wanted: babysitter

apparently during my 7 month inaugural period of motherhood, i had been doing a huge disservice to my own flesh and blood by never entrusting her in the hands of someone inflicted with bad acne and bieber fever. to everyone’s dismay, getting a babysitter was not at the forefront of my things-to-do list.

4 friday nights ago, i tried to appease the masses and secured a babysitter. i figured a round of golf with t.j. would be a perfect “starter” job. now, as someone who had never left rozzy for longer than 3 hours - and definitely not with anyone besides my own mother - one would imagine that the search for a babysitter would involve a rigorous hiring process. not so. i did what any parent born in 1980 and after would do: i updated my facebook status with a plea for someone – anyone – to come into my home that very night and take care of my most valuable possession.

25 comments and 12 “likes” later, danielle was coming to babysit. i had never met danielle; she was a friend of a facebook friend’s daughter. according to my facebook friend, she was very responsible and she was, in fact, CPR certified. awesome. however, 3 texts later i was informed that “certified” wasn’t really the appropriate term; although she had attended the CPR class, she hadn’t paid the class registration fee, preventing her from receiving the actual certification. in my 30 years on this earth, i have never heard of someone who had shoplifted knowledge. i was actually intrigued by this danielle character who had decided that the technique of saving a life was more priceless than the $25 price tag it carried. hired.

after approving of the mysterious thief to take care of my only child, my next task was to prepare some type of instruction manual that she could use as a reference guide – god forbid a phone call interrupt my backswing. i jotted down the obvious: how to make a bottle of formula, bedtime routine, favorite toys, which jar food to feed, and how to prevent the infant from becoming a snack to either one of our dogs. my last instruction was that she was to call me in the event of a crying episode lasting longer than 30 minutes. remembering what a diva i was a parent to, i crossed out the number 30 and promptly replaced it with 45.

danielle arrived right on time. her skin seemed to be as clear as porcelain and she showed no outward signs of suffering from boy-band infatuation. she came in and i walked her over to the instruction manual and went over each item line by line. next was the interrogation: i needed to know if she had a boyfriend, what her friends were like, why her parents were divorced and who they voted for in the last election. after telling her how I used to replace vodka with tap water when i was her age i asked her about her religious convictions and college plans.

“are you going to go to a school around here, danielle?”

“i haven’t really thought too much about it. i’m just trying to get through my high school classes right now.”

“well, don’t waste your time on 4 years of post high school education. everyone knows that you can make just as much money by going to a trade school or community college in half the time. trust me – I made that mistake. now there is a lady named sallie mae who has managed to locate me even after moving 4 times.”

after getting her to promise me she wouldn’t ruin her life with a baccalaureate degree it was finally time for danielle to meet rozzy. i had been dreading this moment. i was not afraid to hand my child over, but everyone had warned me of the epic meltdown that would occur because my child was not used to being left with strangers; this, of course, being due to my poor parenting tactics of taking care of my own child at all times.

“roooozzy… let’s go to danielle. she’s our baaaaaabysitter and we loooooove her!”

rozzy climbed into danielle’s arms like it was the most comfortable place she had ever nestled into. her wide eyes gazed with adoration as she studied the face of her new friend. i’m pretty sure if the word wasn’t already reserved for one of the dogs, she would have called her mama.

so that was it. no epic meltdown, and in fact quite the opposite: the night was a great success. it made me happy and sad at the same time. i felt sadness because i want her to only have eyes for me, and happy because I could finally tell people to shove it up their asses. now the question is not whether or not we will ask danielle back again; the question is whether or not danielle will agree to come back.

dilf day

you like to have activities planned every second of every day

you do things so oddly and you are strange in every way

gum packs have to be depleted in a certain order

if i pull one from the middle you get generalized anxiety disorder

the towels have to be folded so very precise

if i try to do the laundry you aren't very nice

the dishes have to be cleaned immediately after the last bite

you think that the way i load the dishwasher is a terrible sight

you jog and run more than forrest gump

i've never seen you relax on the couch like a lump

you freak out if your face has a mark or a spot

you act like a zit affects your golf shot

you are a healthy salad and i'm a candy bar

nobody knows how different we definitely are

last year you became a first time dad

and watching live birth wasn't the best time you've ever had

and now you are quite the seasoned pro

my oh my how baby roz loves you so

you are the greatest dad and husband anyone has had

and I'm hoping on your birthday you experience nothing bad

so here's a toast to you t.j. and tonight just maybe

our celebration will lead to yet another baby!

happy birthday to you, t.j.... here's to more birdies and less golf shirts.

i love you.

no place like my home

there is a huge difference between having visitors before you are a parent and after. last year when our guests came my house was not only spotless, but i even provided amenities for them, think: a redneck version of the best western. on their freshly laundered 150 thread count sheets i placed 2 washcloths and 2 bath towels – making sure i cut off as many of the 100 loosely attached strings as possible. for each guest i would provide a shampoo, conditioner, a bar of soap and a mouthwash. those toiletries happen to have been collector items from t.j.’s job requiring a 3 month long tour of every holliday inn express in the tri-state area, and I felt that they were the perfect touch to make our guests feel at home (because everyone has 2oz.-use-it-once-then-it’s-gone toiletries at home, right?) in the morning we served steaming hot coffee – well… it was steaming hot because after pouring the tepid coffee from our dying bunn coffee maker we nuked each person’s cup ‘o joe in the microwave for 12 seconds. the coffee was served before and during the breakfast t.j. always made for our guests: egg beaters and turkey bacon served on a whole-grain english muffin with low-sodium, calcium-fortified orange juice. t.j. is a bit of a health-nut and I’m assuming he felt that if there was one personal touch he could provide for our overweight friends and family it would be showing them how disgusting a healthy meal can be.

after breakfast we would move on to our planned activity of the day; the candy factory, a tour of downtown chicago, the sand dunes at lake michigan, golfing, fishing, bowling, getting drunk, etc… we always had every minute of every day planned out and we always had exhausted guests come day’s end. subconsciously, maybe we were trying to ensure such a level of exhaustion that they wouldn’t notice on their descent to their sleeping quarters downstairs that our basement is actually chilly enough to hang meat in. then, come sunrise we would start all over again.

now, fast forward to this year as i am now a mother of an 8 month old. the 150 thread-count sheets may be clean when you get here. if you have any piercings, beware: my  nose ring didn’t fare well after being drug through the gamut that is our old teal bath towel. forget any toiletries? you can use whatever is in my shower, or there is a walgreens right around the corner.  need coffee? you can get it at mcdonalds – while you are there I’ll take an egg mcmuffin with a hash brown. coffee, black. the plan for the weekend? you can do whatever the hell you’d like to, but I’ll be here chasing my now mobile infant around the house making sure she doesn’t get into any of the crap you’ve left laying around my living room. what’s that? you were cold last night? I have a zippered hoodie in the dirty clothes hamper if you want. just keep digging ‘till you find it. it’s the green one.

dirty blonde

i recently re-told this story and forgot how funny it was.

it was summer and i decided to go get my car washed on my lunch break at work. i was talking to t.j. on the phone as i pulled up to the entrance of the car wash - i'm sure it was a deep conversation about excel spreadsheets - so i was off in boringland not really paying attention. i do remember seeing a huge sign giving detailed instructions on how to drive through the car wash. psh - i'm university educated... pretty sure i can handle a car wash. for whatever reason, though, i did not notice that it was one of those wash bays where you have to perfectly line up your tires and drive your car up onto those rack-thingys. so, as i slowly pulled in i noticed that my car felt slightly like a bowling ball going down a very close-walled bumper ally. but, i had a SUV now... maybe the width of my car just makes a car wash feel differently. as i had just got the tail-end of my car into the wash area, i started looking all over for the miniature traffic light that tells you when to slow down and stop so that the washing can begin. no traffic light. hmm. then all of a sudden - VARRROOOOMMMMMM!!! - the car wash starts up. but, wait - there was no light to tell me to stop. now it's a guessing game as to where i am in the wash cycle to figure out where to pull up my car next.  in the past i had enjoyed the lullaby and relaxation that an automatic car wash provides. not today. i was suffering from severe anxiety. i was furiously searching for the next "station" to see where my car should be. although panicky, i knew i had to remain calm because i didn't want to just piss away my 8 bucks. so imagine, if you will for a second, that you are the car next in line and you happen to notice my car's intermittent brake lights - ON, OFF, ON, OFF, ON, OFF... just cruising right along through the car wash. "oh - look... there's that tri-colored foam... i think i should be up there." "oh... ok - here comes the big roller-thingys... i better stop here." and on it went. in the back of my mind i couldn't help but think how lucky they were to have someone such as myself as a customer - but what about those less-fortunate people in the brain department? i wonder how many people didn't receive the great car wash this place offered because they weren't able to figure out the different stations like i was succeeding in doing. but then - uh-oh... what in the... next thing you know i am emerging from the car wash (that happens to be located at the busiest gas station in the tri-state area) and there are soapy suds ALL over my vehicle. after my wiper blades made the second pass i could see people looking at me. my car couldn't have been more soapy. i then flipped my rear wiper blades on and glanced into my rear-view mirror. the car wash was still running, but with no car in it. damnit. i must have skipped a station. i slowly turned towards the entrance of the gas station and parked in the front row giving everyone a close up of the super sudsy spectacle that my car had become. as i got out of my vehicle i heard the roar of the big blower fan and couldn't help but think to myself, "that should be me in there right now."
"um, excuse me - i think your car wash is broke" i scoffed to the kid working the counter.
"ok. what's the problem, ma'am?"
i turned and pointed towards my car - which now showed the effects of the sun baking the soap onto the black exterior.
"well, obviously the rinse cycle is not working properly."
"huh... that's a first. are you sure?"
"can you see my car sitting right there? it's the one with suds all over it. so, yes - i'm pretty sure."
he then tells me to pull my car back to the entrance of the car wash. as i'm waiting for him to meet me with the magic code to bypass payment, i notice the car in front of me gliding with ease through the various wash stations. no intermittent brake lights. it was right then that i noticed the track that the tires were resting on. i proceeded to laugh so hard i peed myself. my next trip through the car wash was not spent frantically searching for the perfect place to stop for the rinse cycle. instead i spent my time googling interior car cleaners trying to find someone who had the capability to remove urine from the driver's side seat.

or you could shut your face

“are your feet always that big, or is it because you are pregnant?” asked my friend’s new girlfriend approximately 6 minutes after our first introduction. “is your mouth always that big, or is it because you are a bitch?” ok, so i didn’t say that. instead i replied with a tight-jawed, “i’m not sure. I haven’t worn shoes in 6 weeks.” pregnancy and first-time motherhood somehow transforms your friends, family, coworkers and the girl at the sunglass hut kiosk into the love children of ann landers and joan rivers. put whiskey into her bottle to help her sleep? um, no. she can wait until she’s 13 to drink herself into deep slumber just like I did. shave her head because it will make her hair grow in faster? um, nope again... she can wait until that whiskey hits to make that bad decision for herself. generic chatter about weather and local sports teams has been replaced with everyone’s main concern: rozzy’s core body temperature.
“aren’t you going to put a coat on her?”
“isn’t it too warm for sleeves?”
“should she have longer socks on?”
“you should probably get rid of the blanket.”
“GET A HAT ON THAT POOR GIRL’S HEAD!” yelled my neighbor from her 2nd story bedroom window. “PUT A BAG ON YOURS!”
ok, so i didn’t say that either. instead i expelled some sort of nervous verbal vomit that included, “um” and “ok” and “thanks.” nothing seems to be off-limits. i never heard about so many peoples’ near-death experiences during childbirth as i did when I was 8 months pregnant. even the most trivial things become open to debate - take my baby shower registry: after researching for months, i compiled a damn good registry - only to find out that it was all unnecessary. well... unnecessary according to my husband’s grandmother who apparently raised my mother-in-law with nothing more than a stick and pair of tits. she so boldly informed me:
“when my mother raised all 10 of her children, she didn’t have fancy stuff like breast pumps, monitors, and bottle warmers.”

“well, they also didn’t have preparation H back then. After 10 children she probably would’ve found that a bit beneficial.”
and, yes... I did say that.

me too white

rozzy will not win the gerber baby contest. i've even almost stopped my daily voting for her because luck like that just doesn't run in the family. in 1992 i won an ace of base c.d. from a local radio station.
"Z93 - WHO'S THIS?!?!"
"um.. larissa."
"LAAAAARISSA! WHERE YOU CALLING FROM?!?!"
"um... west carrollton."
"YOU OUT PARTYING ON THIS WILD & CRAZY FRIDAY NIGHT?!?!"
"um.... yes! YES I AM!"
i was 12 and sitting in my room with my dad eating donuts (which happens to be how my dad gets down on the weekends.) another time i won the game 'operation' from frischs' annual easter coloring contest - it happened to be the same year that my mom's really close friend worked there. and, when t.j. was playing softball i won the split-the-pot at the team's fish fry. immediately upon winning i was informed that proper split-the-pot etiquette is to contribute half of your earnings to the team for donation. if someone on the team  had terminal cancer i would have maybe considered it. going from a shitty pop c.d. to free college just doesn't sound realistic. and let's be honest - rozzy is just a white girl from a middle-class family. i'm pretty sure it would be politically incorrect to grant her a $50,000.00 scholarship. if she had something besides redneck in her, it might be a possibility. 

Pretend I'm an Indian and VOTE FOR ME!
http://apps.facebook.com/gerberphotosearch/entry/39473/rozlyn.aspx



chesticles part deux

remember that paula cole hit, "where have all the cowboys gone?" well, replace the word 'cowboys' with 'boobies' and you have the soundtrack to my life right now. as you may remember from the last chesticles blog, i was weaning from breastfeeding and letting the girls deflate. deflate is an understatement. i cannot believe it. i am one of those girls who ends up with less up top after childbirth than what they started with. it's unbelievable too considering the lineage of huge boobs i descend from. if my mom's side of the family were cars, giant boobs would be included in the base price. as a matter of fact, my aunt had a reduction. a reduction. do you know what that means? she called and set up an appointment at a doctor's office and when they asked her what her "problem" was she answered that she had too much boobs. (i understand that sounds grammatically incorrect, but saying too many boobs would imply that she had more than two which, fortunately, was not her problem.) i cannot guarantee a lot in this life, but i know for damn sure one thing you will never see is me sitting in the waiting room at a medical facility waiting for them to remove some boob. never. i may have a mole or two removed but never a boob or two. although now i do fear that my boobs could be mistaken for moles so maybe it is possible. what i want to know is what they did with my aunts "problems?" they should have something set up like the cord blood bank system. that way if you have a family member in dire need of boobs like me, than you can have some extra genetically-similar boob laying in a safe of some sort. the only person that i really care who thinks of my girls is my husband. i have flashed t.j. approximately 73 times in the past 48 hours asking him if he can believe what he is seeing - or not seeing. "a titty is a titty" are the actual words that came out of my husband's mouth. yes. he said that. all i have to say is thank god for t.j... unlike my pre-pregnancy bras, he is very supportive of my situation.

i make crap

i can use adobe products: photoshop, illustrator and indesign. that means i spend most of my free time making pointless crap. i design crap for everything and none of that crap ever sees the light of day. if i were motivated enough, i could pimp out my crap and start a little side business. instead, i just update my brother-in-law's resume every other week for free. my favorite thing to do is make up crap logos. i give a logo and a slogan to everything we do. if me and t.j. are going to chipotle and cold stone creamery i call it "fire and ice." then i send him a crap photo attached to his email with the subject, "let's make it hot" that looks like this:kinda sexy isn't it? it's emails like these that can lead to pregnancy so i haven't sent one in a while. now that rozzy is in my world i design baby crap. the baby thing actually started before roz when my friend ashley - who makes glorious crap all day long with me - had to design a onesie for a baby shower she was going to. we decided "potty like a rock star" was punny enough to win and that was how it all started. ashley is really good at designing pointless crap, too. we make stuff all day for our 314 businesses we've decided to start. at one time we were gonna hit up the festival circuit and our slogan was going to be "bringing class to trash." what were we gonna sell? hell, we had no clue - but we had a slogan. marketing is what sells crap. look at the snuggie. it's a backwards robe that someone decided to market. i was sold and i own a snuggie. i also have a robe... i could've saved myself the cash and just put it on backwards. who knows what crap i'll be making next, but if anyone needs any type of crap that i could be of assistance with, let me know. my friend ally has already asked me to do her wedding invitations which i'm super stoked about. the theme? according to ally it is, "country shabby chic." i'm thinking something like a big bale of hay with a real shabby looking horse with the wording, "HAY, ya'll wanna come to our chic wedding?" i'm not sure if that's the direction she was going, but i think it's fabulous.

that's a lot of toilet paper

i've had cinnamon toast crunch every day for the past 3 months. why? because we bought it at costco. that means we have enough cinnamon toast crunch to get us through next september. getting a membership at a wholesale warehouse has been great since having the baby; i think i've bought diapers twice in 7 months and i have enough formula on hand to feed the gosselin kids. when you go shopping at costco you end up leaving with things you never even knew you needed till you got there. i didn't realize how much i loved pita chips till i bought 200 bags of them. of course a place like costco is a dream for an anal retentive, organized, OCD, cheapskate like t.j. he HATES change of any sort which is just one of many reasons he didn't vote for the current administration. he is perfectly ok with brushing his teeth everyday for the next 10 years with the same toothpaste - which we will be doing since we have 125 tubes of it. see, i like to live on the edge and alternate between gel and paste every other toothpaste purchase. sometimes i feel like whitening, and other times i simply want tartar control. but since costco came into our lives i have no choice but to spend my entire 30's whitening with gel. the problem with buying in bulk is if you hate something, you are stuck with it. we are gonna be eating nasty generic black refried beans till rozzy's preschool graduation because if you want some nasty generic black beans you have to buy 375 cans of them. and, as if the beans don't cause enough problems, our clothes smell like an old folks' home because we have 167 gallons of lilac garden fabric softener. it's not just groceries you can get at costco, either. you can buy batteries by the thousands, paper clips by the millions and real lambs wool house slippers by the pair. if you want drugs, they have that too. i was supposed to stop at walgreens to pick up some sudafed and forgot. while at costco i decided to see if they sold sudafed. now my sinuses are safe for the next 42 years. i could do without costco and all these risky purchases, but t.j. is hooked for life. he even upgraded to the "executive" membership. what that means is you pay and extra 40 bucks to have special bulk-buying power. this is right up t.j.'s ally. i am proud to say that my husband is now a card-carrying member of the most anal retentive, organized, OCD, cheapskate club in town.

leg lickin' freak

it started innocently enough during a sweet potato lunch. all of a sudden roz decided that having a mouthful of gerber slop was an appropriate time to sneeze. it was everywhere. including her leg. as i made snorting sounds and shouted, "mmmm... mama's gonna eat baby leg for lunch!" rozzy laughed like i've never heard her laugh before. apparently having her leg licked while making snorting sounds was the funniest thing she has ever experienced in her entire lifetime. so that was it: i snorted and licked her leg in the car, in the stroller, in her bed, on the couch, and during bath time. every single time she laughed and then i laughed at her throaty giggles. however the only thing weirder than seeing a grown person snort and lick the leg of another human being shouting, "mmm...mmm... love me some leg-bone" is seeing a grown person snort and lick someone who is not amused by it. that's what happened in check-out lane #12 at walmart. it was in that very moment when i thought i was gonna give the customers waiting behind us a real spectacular baby-giggling show that rozzy decided being licked just wasn't funny. and, judging by her why-in-the-hell-is-my-mommy-licking-my-leg face, she now hated it. i felt a little odd and my deodorant had to step it up a notch. it's amazing the things we do to make our kids happy. equally amazing is how fast they learn to make you feel like a complete moron. i'm sure that will be just the first of many looks she will give me; but i also know that will not be the last time i act like a fool in public in front of her. i cannot wait for the teenage years.

chesticles

jugs. midget ear-muffs. frost-detectors. sweater-stretchers. hooters. bee-stings. cans. whatever you call them, my boobs have become dinner table conversation. anyone close to me knows that my obsession with knockers started way before childbirth; i've always had an appreciation for a nice rack. but since rozzy came into this world, the focus on my melons has shifted. i now no longer view them as objects of desire, but i now view my tatas as 2 feed sacks dangling from my collarbones. it's amazing how having a child completely takes away any taboo when it comes to discussing mammaries. when your nips become the size of dinner-plates, you cannot help but realize that those funbags are there to serve a purpose other than being pushed up and shown off on a saturday night out on the town. now i'm gonna have to put them in a push-up just to break even. this week has been momentous and emotional for me... rozzy is now on the devil's juice - also known as formula - and this week is all about deflating the high-beams. but before the milk disappears, they will get enormous and i cannot wait. i will appreciate the engorgement that is about to ensue, as i know by this time 2 weeks from now my two dairy pillows will be more like dairy sheets blowing in the wind. t.j. keeps asking when the next kid will come. i tell him never. however, after having 2 flat hubcaps dangling around my waist for a while, i might give in just to get the godzilla lung protectors back.

nag swag

last golf season tj and i would meet each other every sunday after his morning round of golf for lunch. one sunday I didn’t receive the normal call telling me to leave and head up to the clubhouse. i waited… and waited… and waited. he never called and i never texted. i knew he was drinking, golfing, and smoking cigars with "the guys" and he must have been having a really good time judging by the absence of text messages on my phone. (or he was dead, but i try to assume when i don’t hear from my husband for long periods of time he is alive and having a good time as opposed to lying dead in the middle of the fairway) at 9:30 that night (14 hours after leaving the house) i hear the golf cart pull in. his shameful head popped in our front door and slurred out “before you yell at me just know that i got you something.” i never once said a word to him. not even a look. he proceeds to bring in my two peace offerings: a monogrammed fleece hooded jacket from the clubhouse and… a supreme pizza. two weeks later, after another boozin’-it-up-smokin’-cigars-no-phone-or-text round of golf with "the guys" i scored a new golf glove and a long sleeve polo. a few weeks later, a new nike golf bag. as you can imagine, i’ve been practicing my nagging because i'm ready for a new post-pregnancy golf wardrobe. you know what’s different about this year and last year, though? we have an infant now. while he is out for a 14 hour day on the golf course, I’m at home with the kid. well… rozzy has definitely upped the ante and i'm happy to have her in my corner. this past weekend tj was gone for two days straight playing golf. (one of the outings was for the children’s miracle network and tj said i couldn’t forbid him from boozing it up and playing golf all day because it was, after all, “for the children.”) i can now add a pink adidas military style cap and a new nike golf polo to my arsenal of guilty husband swag. but, that’s not all – and here is where rozzy comes in – tj also brought home the new flip video HD camcorder i've been dying to get. so, if you are one of “the guys” that he golfs with and you are reading this, listen up: please invite my husband to the next out-of-state golf trip. i’d really appreciate it… momma needs a new car.

no she cannot

i didn't give birth to a 5 year old latin helen keller. that is why rozzy won't be learning spanish, sign language, or how to read anytime soon. when rozzy was only 2 months old a girl on one of my baby message boards said that her baby seemed really interested during meal times, so she thought it was time to introduce solids. i told her that rozzy watched me with interest as I shit and showered, but that I hadn't sat her on the toilet or purchased a loofah for her quite yet. there is a big movement in our society to make kids grow up faster than they have to. my goal for rozzy is to somehow, between me and tj smothering her with kisses, meet all developmental milestones in her own time. in the meantime, she is free to just act like a big baby. and, if your kid can speak a foreign language and use sign language that is great - really. but you may not want me to babysit because me no habla espanol and i only know one thing to say using my finger - and that's only when i'm driving.

express yourself

yesterday after easter dinner it was time to play some yahtzee. at the game table was aunt bev, uncle tony, and my brother josh. as i plopped down in my chair i asked, "does anyone mind if i express my teats?" i was referring to the fact that it was that time... time to pump. now, if you aren't a breastfeeding mom then the term, 'pump' might be foreign to you. every 4 hours of my life i shove my boobs in a breast pump so that rozzy can eat. i pump at home, in the car, inside, outside, and during yahtzee. a lot of people don't understand that this pumping business has become my life for the past 5 months. it sucks (pun intended.) today i was in a cemetery waiting for a funeral procession and there i am whipping out the girls trying to get 9 ounces before the hearse arrived. of course, when the funeral procession finally did arrive they didn't pull up behind us - they pulled up next to us. here i am hooked up like a dairy cow with my nipple being drug through a clear tube 100 times a minute and t.j.'s great uncle is directly outside of my window. somehow i have to get my boob out of a tube and back where it belongs, all while sitting in broad daylight at a grave site with every in-law known to man 2 feet away from me. right before they got there i was wondering if i was the only woman on the face of earth to pump at a cemetery... and right now there is a great uncle out there wondering if he is the only man on the face of earth to see some nip at a funeral.

zap-(sh)it

it's gonna be so much fun when rozzy can play with toys that i loved when i was growing up. i tell tj all the time we should go ahead and buy some cap guns before they are outlawed. i loved shooting cap guns... especially if i had a pack of candy cigarettes. i was so hardcore like that. my childhood best friend growing up was ryan egleston and he was pretty gangster too. we had zap-it guns. zap-its were awesome. they were water guns, but instead of filling them with water you filled them up with a disappearing ink. as you can imagine, this technology was beyond fascinating to us as kids. disappearing ink was something we had only seen on saturday morning cartoons. we shot everything (and everyone) with our zap-its. after going through cartridge after cartridge of the ink, just shooting stuff wasn't satisfying enough. we had to step it up a notch. i actually remember praying to jesus for forgiveness as i watched ryan spray the letters s-h-i-t onto my parent's bedspread. after that 't' was crossed time stood still. the average time of zap-it disappearing on any surface was around 1 minute. when you are 9 years old and you zap a cuss word on your mom's electric blanket and she is right down the hallway, the average time of disappearing increases to right around forever. ryan and i were merely concerned with the word disappearing before my mom saw it. never did it cross our minds that spraying an electric blanket with liquid could have made zapping a real possibility. i wish for rozzy to have her own version of ryan and her own version of a zap-it. and i will never own an electric blanket.

what's your story lady?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQDlp-orUhA

roz's shutterfly

Click here to view this photo book larger

the redneck circus is in town

we went to wisconsin. it is one of about 25 trips we have planned this year. every mom has those items that they cannot be a parent without - especially for an overnight trip. well, unlucky for me, that product is my rocking recliner. how do you take that on a trip? you don't. tj knew that i was boycotting any and all trips until i found a portable rocker - roz is one of those babies that only breathes if she is in constant motion. well, the selection of portable rocking chairs is so slim that what we had to end up buying is the most embarrassing traveling $60 i have ever seen. i could really care less what people think of me... but this... this made me cringe a little. we already look so ridiculous everywhere we go. it's me, tj, roz, kea, kona, 2 dog beds, a bassinet, our luggage, a car seat, the boppy lounger, 2 diaper bags, a toy bag, and all of tj's hair product and shower gels crammed into a 2002 mercury sable with 200,000k on it because someone won't get off his wallet.

are you jealous of my gander mountain camouflage rocking chair? i don't know if you can even see it in the picture - it may appear as my child is just floating in mid-air. the camo is so realistic it can play tricks on you, but look closer. at 2 am while i was rocking roz i was wondering why exactly there is a need for a camo rocking lawn chair. what's the target demographic gander mountain is trying to impress? are there people who hunt from their front porch?

papaw wants to know what a tramp stamp is

since there are only 5 people reading this blog and papaw is one of them, i have to start by explaining that a tramp stamp is a lower-back tattoo. mine happens to be of a crescent moon with a shooting star. is it symbolic of something? yes. it symbolizes the stupidity of a 21 year old. at the time i got it, tramp stamps were awesome. like all fads, it is now something to make fun of. think: fanny packs, dickies, ecstasy, the macarena and roller-blading. i am not ashamed of my tramp stamp; like all the aforementioned, it still amuses me. how do dickies still amuse me? one of my all-time favorite stories to tell is of the time the waitress at frichs took so long to bring us napkins that my uncle tony whipped out his dickie to wipe his mouth off. (the humor of saying "whipped out his dickie" was not lost on me.) why have i started a blog? more than one person suggested i do so. i find blogs to be incredibly narcissistic, but i'm here doing one. now that i have a kid i barely have time to brush my teeth, but somehow i think i'm going to find time to blog.