picked up... then dropped

so 3 weeks ago i got asked for my number right in the middle of the book section of costco. i obliged - i gave my number and still haven't received a call. i asked tj how i looked and he said "really good." (which happens to be his standard answer whether i'm sporting a ball gown or pajamas.)

the chick who asked me for my number was another mom that looked to be around my age and had a baby close to roz's age. her initial pick-up line was something about roz's happy demeanor. we continued on with normal mom banter: birthday, food preferences, personality, clothing sizes, etc... i mentioned that there were no good places close by for kids her age to play at besides gymboree - which was still far and too expensive. she said she took her daughter to a place every week and that we should "come along next time." so that was it - a date. we exchanged numbers. we said our goodbyes and i bolted over to tj who was standing in the aisle where you can purchase 372 gallons of fabric softener.

tj: "wow, you may have actually just found the mom friend you've been trying to find since we moved here."
lars: "yeah..."
tj: "you don't seem very excited about it - i thought you'd be happier when you came over here."
lars: "did you see the shoes she was wearing? with those pants?"
tj: "ARE YOU KIDDING ME, LARISSA?!? HER SHOES?!? YOU'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT FINDING A NEW MOM FRIEND FOR 2 YEARS AND YOU AREN'T SURE ABOUT HER BECAUSE OF HER SHOES?!?"
lars: "what, t.j.? i'm just saying... i would never wear those shoes... especially with those pants. of course, i'd probably never wear those pants either."

tj then checked out of the conversation by saying we needed to go buy 258 cans of soup. i knew i had screwed up. tj was right - i'm not in high school and some one's style should not be a deterrent to a possible life-long friendship. later that night however, i started thinking: if i were single and a guy asked me for my number and i wasn't attracted to him, i wouldn't give him my number to begin with. so, was this really any different? i wasn't "attracted" to this girl as a potential friend - and mainly because of her hideous outfit.

i had just started really pondering this situation when tj walked in - wearing the crocs he bought on our honeymoon 7 years ago, with white high-ankle socks that were probably purchased a year later, black mesh shorts and his 1999 pirate football sweatshirt - worn inside out. right then and there i realized that i have created a family with this croc pirate standing before me whom i love very much and if this chick does call, i will accept her date offer regardless of her fashion sense (or lack thereof.)

she might, however, break up with me if she ever discovers i have a blog.

like gang wars... but worse

here is a little revelation i discovered about myself recently: i'm the kind of mom who wants to whoop another mom's ass in the playland at the mall. you may or may not know that, in general, people annoy me. however, i have found that the "hovering mother" annoys me more than khloe kardashian's voice (the one that she uses when she is on the phone and/or in bed with lamar.) not only do hovering mothers hover their own kids - they tend to hover over other people's kids if they feel like that kid's mother is not doing a proper job of hovering. more than one hovering mother has hovered roz. this is because i'm the antithesis of a hovering mother - i'm the mom who lets their child get clotheslined a couple of times before suggesting a different route around the playland. hovering mothers aren't the only mothers at the playland who i'd like to punch in the throat - here is a snapshot of moms during our latest trip there:

1. the cell phone mother: this mother cannot put her phone down long enough to help her kid who is dangling upside down from the fake mountain.
2. the zen mother: this mother wants to discuss how infant massage and lavender can help tame my out-of-control toddler.
3. the baby mama mother: she has 7 kids; none of which look alike and they are all picking on the zen mother's kids.
4. the goddard school mother: her kid was speaking in sentences at 8 months... not that she is bragging - she can't believe it herself.
5. the screaming every 5 seconds mother: what good is screaming commands at your child if the entire mall cannot hear you?

so what mother am i? i guess i'm the white trash mother since i threatened the baby mama mother to watch her brats a little better. doing so made the cell phone mother shut-up for a second, the goddard school mother was appalled by my language, the zen mother was very uncomfortable and the screaming mother couldn't hear me. but, i guess you could consider me a successful mother because the baby mama mother rounded up all 7 of her nonidentical kids and left the playland. bam - then i was a happy mother.

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.