#muthahf

Okay okay, I've GOT to ask.  Has anyone triiiied to "make" a girl &/or boy???  This is hilarious to me.  This popped into my mind when M & I were talking one night about whether we'll want a second & of course the epic question of when.  We giggled about the ridic articles we read when we decided we were going to try to have the K-man.  We were joking about it one night & decided to look up these rumors on how you can really "make" a boy.  Ha!  We never actually tried any of the methods but we certainly got quite a laugh about it.  

So now that the thought is beginning to fester on what our future will hold I wondered what the hell whackado things it would say on making a girl.  My curiosity has got the best of me so I had to check it out.  Oh gawd there as funny as I remembered.  There are so many layers of funny though too.  First off, who the hell gets THIS nuttzo about their conception process.  Fine, I'll give it to the people that are like balls deep into trying to have a baby for several months or years.  You can be as cray as you want about your mucus & all that jazz.  But are there people out there doing all of this tracking to "make" a particular gender???  Sorry if I offend (ok no I'm not) but this sounds overboard yo!  THIS is the kind of shiz that makes us women look like nut jobs.  I can just see M's face if I was all, "Op, please back off & yazz shallowly for better odds of a girl."  Bahahahah!  He would be like... you're an effing weirdo.  Much of my question is, do people actually believe this?  But then first I should ask, is this shit for real?!?  Damn this Shettles fellow that wrote this stuff.  Does this crap have a stitch of truth?  I want to know out of my dumb curiosity.  It cannot be.  Everyone & their mother would be using it to shape their 'perfect family'. 

And I quote, "While the Shettles Method isn’t 100% accurate, it’s thought to be a good approach of gender selection, having a 75% to 90% success rate in conceiving a child of your desired sex."

Whaaaa?  I call bullshit.

So let's recap some of the highlights of these articles that made me giggle like a school girl.  Immature?  Not me.  Never!

"If you are trying to get pregnant with a girl, you should have sex that has shallow penetration. Your partner should try to ejaculate close to the vaginal entrance. The entrance is more acidic, than the rest of the vagina, and will work against the weaker “boy” sperm. Typically missionary position is recommended.  Shettles suggests that if you are trying to conceive a boy, deep penetration from your partner, preferably with the “doggy style” position, will deposit the sperm closer to the cervix giving the more aggressive and quicker moving “boy” sperm a head start to fertilizating the egg first."  Ayayay.  Weaker boy sperm?  Ha!  And yep, they said doggy style... I'll allow you to snicker.

"At 3 or 4 days prior to ovulation, your cervical mucus and vaginal environment are more acidic. The acidic nature of the vaginal environment is favorable for the “girl” sperm as they are more resilient than the “boy” sperm. If you are seeing slippery cervical mucus, with the consistency of raw egg whites, you’ll need to use caution. The egg white cervical mucus is a lot more fertile and less acidic, favoring the “boy” sperm."  You lost me at mucus.  I don't think this needs any further narrative.  I don't want to be this intimate with my lady yazz unless it's life or death.

"Before you get up each morning, you will take your temperature before you do ANYTHING. Any activity can lead to innacurate temperature readings. At the time of ovulation, you will see a spike in your temperature which will indicate that you have already ovulated. Considering that you need to have sex as close to ovulation as possible in order to increase your chances of having a boy, you will need to chart at least two months before you can make good use of the information that your charting reveals."  Pain in the ass rules & charts.

"Dr. Shettles suggests buying an ovulation predictor kit & testing twice a day in to make sure you catch the surge as early as possible. He recommends testing once between 11am and 3 pm and then again between 5pm and 10pm."  Moooore pain in the ass tight timelines.

"Shettles recommends that you have sex as early as 24 hours before ovulation to no more than 12 hours past ovulation in order to increase your chances of conceiving a boy."  Holy rules here Batman! This is a serious commitment.  Not only do they care about the consistency of my slipperiness AND the temperature of it... now we need to run to the men in our life for down to the hour inseminations?  My head hurts just thinking about this.

"For a girl, the woman should avoid having an orgasm as this releases fluids in the reproductive environment that lowers acidic levels allowing the “boy” sperm to survive longer than you would desire. The contractions from the orgasm can pull the sperm up into the cervix and help the boy sperm be ready and waiting for your egg, once you ovulate. This is not something you want to happen if you are trying to conceive a girl."  Oh heeellz no!  Lame times infinity.  Boys it is for life then!!

"When trying for a boy, have your partner wear boxers. Wearing tight fitting underwear increases the heat levels around the testes and can, in turn, lower the sperm count. Wearing loose fitting underwear helps keep the testes cooler. Have your partner drink a caffeinated beverage right before sex. This makes the Y-Sperm more active."  And so is my fave bullet of hilarity.  Again, maybe this crap is true but this sounds so funny.  Red Bull & boxers honey!

So have you tried this???  Do you know someone that has?  This seems woman-over-the-edge cray cray to me.  Maybe I'm a naturalist or old school though.  Who knew!  If this Shettles thing works, then I'm a buffoon & don't listen to me.

But back to the idea of a girl, I can honestly see the frightening horror of a pre-teen girl & that shit scares me like wow.  But the thought of a lifelong friend that will always need me makes a daughter sound delightful.  I wouldn't mind trying to solidify a baby girl that will likely only hate me from roughly 11 to 22 years of age.  We all know some cold blooded skank is going to tear my son away from me before I know it.  I secretly think of this when M rolls his eyes at his mom's request for us to visit... I think, shit someday that will be me begging for K to come to dinner with my grandkids.  

But lets be real here folks.  Why would a girl sound amazeballs?  I want to dress her up in her brother's skull t-shirts, blinged out converse & hot pink ruffly butt leggings.  And lord have mercy - I love me some animal print.  M is scared of a girl for all of the reasons my dad wanted to kill him when I was young, but he also wants a daughter for my sake.  I really think he would be attached to a girl anyway - as rough as he'd like to pretend to be.  I would be completely cool with another boy though.  I have zero qualms about that.  And honestly, they have way cooler names to choose from.  

Every mother's (one of many) nightmares = moving to a new city & trying to find daycare.  When we moved it was pretty fast so I had few options on what was nice enough & had room for K.  Since we've been here for three months I've now had a little more time to check some more out because I'm not totally sold on where he's at.  My last job had daycare on-site & everyone & their gynecologist would rave about how amaaazeballs it was.  Well I assumed there had to be other good daycares out there, right?  I guess it really was the bee's knees because this finding another one is shockingly ridic.  I feel as though I need to open one up myself since apparently any buffoon can care for your kids.

When we moved I had one week off to do it - get settled between jobs with another house still in the mix & a toddler in tow.  While M was moving our crap I was taking care of K mostly, unpacking & trying to find daycare which was going to be easy because I had almost nill for options.  K & I went & looked at one that week & I was so surprised by how small his room would be.  It was seriously smaller than his room at home & had eight kids & two, shall we say, rather curvaceous teachers that were taking up a quarter of the room themselves.  Many kids had no socks & shoes on.  There was paint peeling on the wall.  There were big chunks of food on the floor but no one was eating.  The lessons included things he had learned a year prior.  It was weird.  There were even more problems but those get into me being one of those moms & borderline uppity & I refuse to incriminate myself & admit such things... (as I cower).  

This daycare was on the list from my new employer as a recommendation from someone working at my new job (a corporate office no less) so this wasn't a shot in the dark here. I felt like I had little options for anywhere remotely decent with an opening so I signed him up & felt like this wasn't thaaat bad.  They could put him in the bigger room & I felt better.  Friday before I start my job comes along & I call to cross my t's & they say in conversation that he'll be in the zero-organization-closet-room.  I about lost it inside.  After they took my $500 deposit they tell me this!  I politely finished the conversation & then panicked, yelling at my windshield like my dog 'yells' at the UPS guy.  I was about ready to drive over there & slap a bitch.  At about 4:00pm (note again, on this Friday before my new job starts) I call my mom to unleash my bitchface at her instead of this woman & of all the people I never listen to she actually had something logical to say.  She drove past a daycare on the way to my house once so she told me to call there.  Hmmm I thought this 'renaissance school' was a schoool not a daycare.  So I called & they had room.  Went to look at it at 4:15 & before 5:00 called the other daycare & politely asked if they'd refund my deposit an hour after paying it & that I changed my mind.  All done before closing for my kid to start bright & early Monday.  My brain hurts just remembering this whirlwind.

Since I've had more than a 3 minute tour at K's daycare now & had more than an hour to decide on this, I have come to not be too fond of it either.  Shocking I know.  K's teacher is great so that's been keeping me on the up & up though.  They do art everyday so I'm in love with her.  No one major bad thing has happened but a mental list of small things have added up.  The food is doo doo quality & small portions.  They have lunch at 11 & then say goldfish crackers for example, at 2:00 in the afternoon & that's it.  I pick him up at 5:30 & he's screaming "hungry" & sitting at the table to eat when he sees me.  The place is definitely not very clean.  They don't wash the kids' hands before snack I noticed.  Many of the teachers look like they are literally wearing pajamas.  I don't expect you to look nice for dealing with poop & snot all day but I expect you not to look like you rolled out of bed after a night at the towny bar.  Most rooms are not organized & disheveled.  'Security' is not the greatest.  His teacher, who is newer, has agreed with my observations - cleanliness & food for instance.  Online reviews have a lot of these same things listed & were ALL negative reviews.  

Oh, did I mention the chipped paint.  I've now looked at six daycares & all but TWO have had chipped paint.  My husband thinks I have a real hard-on for this paint business but COME ON.  If I owned a gas station I wouldn't have chipped paint much less at an effing DAYCARE people!  Doesn't anyone have any pride in their businesses?!  Yep, uppity biotch.  I'm showing my true colors now.  I am being a little dumb, fine.  But it's my kid.  And I was clearly spoiled with the perfection of his last daycare.  The first & only other daycare that him or I have ever seen before this.

Luckily K is a resilient little turd & I think if he had a cardboard box, food & a friendly face he would play in a closet all day.  He had zero transition problems & for that, I am eternally happy.  Soooo Monday he is starting at his NEW daycare.  By leaps & bounds the best I've seen down here.  Reco from someone at work.  I'm sure I'm a nutcase & will find things wrong here too but it does really seem awesome.  Here's hoping. 

This daycare biz of course then begs the million dollar question - when the hell are we having another kid bc I sure as shit am not paying for 2 in daycare?!  By then maybe a fugging nanny will be cheaper.  Ugh poke my eyes out DAYCARE.  For as mind numbingly expensive as it is, have a nice damn place.  I don't ask for THAT much.  Really.  I can't even imagine what the 'bad' daycares look like.  ... ugh.... shutter.

End rant.  Thanks all.

Aaaaand I'm back.  I'm a dick nose & had a million dumb real life things going on lately & have made no time for this wondrous rant of a blog.  Okay lets be real - I DID have some dumb things like refinancing nightmares, toddler stomach flu explosions, high school reunion planning, daycare switcheroos & house malfunctions to tend to but I was mostly watching all of the episodes of Scandal.  Yep, Go Team Fitz.  

So I'm here and never fear, I've been making mental notes of all kinds of things to talk about.  I got a few 'hey where the hell are your posts' which gave me a little tingle to get back to it.  So 'while I was out' loads of douche life shiz was going on & one such event involved... you guessed it... poop.  K had the worst stomach flu or food poisoning or demonic tummy bug he's ever had.  I'm not going to go into great detail on such matters of his sickness, however I made many an observation on the male species when caring for a sick child - namely the hubster extraordinaire.  

M was off since his company is 'slow between construction seasons' (aka nonsense) so he stayed home with little K last Monday.  Tuesday I stayed home because M worked.  Wednesday he stayed home.  

Things I learned after day one:

- When Dad watches a sick kid expect to sanitize everything.  When a woman is sick she keeps mental notes of things she touches to sanitize later.  While I completely get that kids touch everything, letting them play with every toy in the house seems a little unnecessary.  When I asked what toys they played with so I could wash them... "Just wash everything.  We touched everything."  Awesome ;(  I can only be so pleased that he at least washed his own hands throughout the day.

- When Dad watches a sick kid he will go along like normal including playing a lot.  No rest for the wicked.

- When Dad watches a sick kid he is not privy to alternate diapering options when your child is constantly getting wiped.  THIS was the numero uno worst part of this sickness.  The diaper rash was something neither of us had ever seen before.  I teared up a little when K was crying he was in so much pain.  He was shaking.  Bloody-murder-screaming, I-want-to-kill-you-Mom, shaking.  Gives me the shivers just thinking about it again.  I know M felt bad when he realized he was propitiating the poor kid's flaming asscrack though.  He wiped him all day a million times & tried to keep putting cream on.  I guess my main issue was when I called to see how the day was all was well.  He said nothing about this blaze of glory, asked for no advice or for me to get some diff cream on the way home.

- When Dad watches a sick child he feeds them normally.  Grilled cheese, fruit snacks, cheese puffs... these are things Dad likes to feed K from time to time.  When I left I explained the BRAT diet.  Cripes I was on it plenty when I was prego that he knows what it is.  I'm about posi eating 'regular' food propitiated the shitting & subsequently the rash.  The doc even asked when I called so I know I'm not the only quack that knows you need to eat 'light'.  I think by day 3 Dad got the picture that the day I watched him he barely crapped.

- Dad is always the good guy.  Dad goes about things normally.  Mom is bad news bears.  I wanted him to eat crackers & bananas for 3 days & rest.  Worst was during the diaper rash I handled most of the changes while M stood by his head soothing him - no doubt they were making eyes at each other planning on how to take down the evil Momzilla feverishly rubbing his butt with sand paper (or carefully blotting with a soft warm, wet washcloth).  Either or.  K was all snuggly with Dad.  "Keep me away from that biotch!"  Just trying to help yo.

So what did I learn in summary?  Dads mean well absolutely.  They aren't equipped, however, with the same problem solving skills as MOMS.  WOMEN!  Yes, women.  I'm sticking with that.  I love my husband like wow.  You know this.  And maybe your husband or dad is way more into multi-tasking or problem-solving... Wait, no?  Yeah, I didn't think so.  With all of the things that have been going on in our lives the last few weeks I think that sums it up.  M means well but dammit he just has no capacity for problem solving, or stress for that matter.  He takes shit as it comes & deals with it (& tries hard to avoid it altogether).  While I envy his calmness under any circumstances, he doesn't go out of his way to problem solve, seek outside info, ask for help.  I love him no matter what & luckily I LOVE me some good detective work to get to the 'best' solution but I figured my man observations were certainly worth noting here.  

My husband can tear apart a car down to scraps & put it back together, fix absolutely anything, build just about anything, grow a gigantic garden from seeds in a packet but making phone calls on a refinance or tending to a sick child are slightly out of his scope.  I'm okay with it.  I learn more about him everyday & I'm sure he does of me too.. i.e. bitch is cray!!

I now have some new notations in our 'roles & responsibilities' manual.  I kid I kid.  That's only in my head.  I would never document such a thing because it would absolutely bite me in the ass when I changed things to his responsibility... like dishes.  Somehow I moved that over to his side of the aisle years ago.  Shhhh.  I pulled a card from the man playbook - do something so terribly so many times that your spouse decides to do it from there on out.  Yep.

Problem solved!

Weather is starting to turn a little & though I really don't mind winter at all, I'm ready for some outdoors.  K & I have been enjoying some walks in our new neighborhood & the whole fam-damn-ily got to head over to the quiet beach that's a block from our house on Easter morning to check it out.  The usually scaredy dogs even got their paws wet!  They loved it to say the least.  

Spring will lead to summer though & summer will lead to swimsuit season. Guess whose not pumped about that?  THIS GUY (points at self... yeah I'm not a guy but still).  While every new mother royally hated me when I came back from maternity leave at my old job because I had lost a lot of weight... no worries bitches... it's coming back.  Yes I shouldn't be complaining since I'm still quite a bit less than pre-pregnancy buuuut still.  

Before the K-Manster I was a size 12 & then I had some kind of freak pregnancy where I lost an assload of weight.  I had a very minimal appetite the first trimester & it was mostly for potatoes, soup, fruit & veggies.  I ate no meat that first 3 months & probably most importantly, the entire pregnancy I drank no soda, no beer & no lattes.  Well my little hog in my belly apparently ate all the food.  I had a 9 lb. kid even 2 weeks early & I only gained 2 lbs.  After having him I was about a size 6 or an 8 & after nursing for a year I got down to a 4 last summer with no effort.  Craziness!  If you would've asked me 3 years ago if I ever thought I'd be a size 4 again in my life I would've laughed in your face.  Who knew pregnancy would do that shit?!  I had to buy all new clothes which I was actually kind of peeved about. 

Needless to say it's been almost a year of no nursing & the weight has slowly crept back on.  I don't like that I've been gaining some weight back but I also don't care enough to change my ways much either.  I joked when I was nursing that I should just nurse forever even if I was dumping it so I could prolong the bliss of bodaciously big tots with a slimmer everything else.  I was sold on this idea until my dumb Auntie Sentence Ender came back & then I was all, "Oh the absence of that B.I. was the best reason for nursing for eternity."  A year of nursing & pumping logistics was enough.

I got a little spoiled getting down to a size 4 though so I'm bummed that this summer I will likely have to buy the sizes 'in between' now.  Yes, still not a 12, which I have vowed to not be again.  Shit better not happen now that I got rid of all of my nice clothes!  Of course a 12 is not gross or anything but GD'it I was literally on the cusp of the obese category on that ridic BMI chart at one point.  That chart can go F itself as far as I'm concerned though.  

Maybe.  Just maybe a few small changes will give some results but I'm not counting on it & I just don't care enough for big changes.  I'll be honest here peoples.  Hopefully when it gets nicer K & I can take the yaaaahgging stroller out & I can pretend to care about fitness on the weekends again.  Ha!  Who am I kidding?  I only give two shits about my sorry example of 'working out' for the excuse to buy cute outfits.  I think a girl deserves some new tennies at least though!  

Single parents? They must seriously be saints.  

Taking care of ONE toddler by myself makes me bat shit crazy often times & everyone & their mother says K is soooo well behaved.  Eek so I really have low tolerance then.  I know some single parents & obviously there are millions more I don't.  I secretly worship the ones that are semi-sane & are fully functioning in society.  While I certainly don't envy you & I'm sure many of you would love to not be a single parent, I commend you for keeping your shit together.  I know for certain I could do it but holy shitballs I wouldn't choose it.

There is the obvious fact that you have to do everything for these children yourself.  EVERYTHING.  I can only hope you have a magical bunch of fairy family & friends that come sprinkle magical alone time on you from time to time - or back to a previous post - you partake in the prescription strength variety of sanity helper.  No shame in that!

I think the biggest hurdle for me would be not having anyone to share the big moments with.  Obviously sharing the firsts K has with M is way more exciting when M with is with me.  K doesn't get why I'm so pumped when he starts singing along to Elmo's World but M beams right with me.  I think the hardest part would be not being able to share the emotional burden with someone else in the trenches with you.  Your spouse is often the one that understands best.  If I didn't have M to understand our sleepless nights & nursing problems when K was born I don't know if I would've made it.  Everyone else was like, "Oh it'll get better, just sleep when the baby sleeps."  & I wanted to slap a b!tch.  Knowing M was in the depths of hell with me somehow made it more tolerable I'm pretty posi.

Of course there's also just being alone in general.  While MANY people with or without kids, looove being alone, I couldn't do it for long I don't think.  It's boring!  ... & yes, I'd looove like a week or two alone about now, but not permanently.  I know there are many people that choose to be single parents by choice from the word 'fertilization' or choose to be because it turned out to be best for you & your children.  No shame in either!  I think you must be a saint though.  Just sayin'.  Kind of like the people that have sick kids, the people whose spouse is a soldier away... Saints people.  Saints.  I can only hope I'd have my shit together in any of those situations.  

That being said, kiss a single parent if you see one.  Or give them a beer or five & babysit for them dammit.

OH every mom's fave question.  It's never asked by anyone you ACTUALLY want to talk to about it with.  My stock answer is now, "When daycare for ONE isn't more than a house payment."  I commend the people that can have Audis, beautiful homes & three kids but we just can't.  I think if we had another one my husband would have to stay home with them & work on the weekends doing side jobs.  No joke.  

I was kind of taken aback by just how many people that I work with or know that had kids around the same time as we had our son - were prego again around when the first one turned one.  It seemed crazy to M & I but then of course the math puts them about 2 years apart.  I think 2 years has always been a go-to answer for an ideal gap but when you're in the thick of it it just seemed too soon for us.  I got a little itchy for one though about 6 months ago but the expense, & now with our life changes, it's on hold.  Lately with moving, me getting a new job, and on & on - it has certainly put this subject to bed for a while.  

I never thought of myself as having one child.  I always imagined none OR 2 or 3.  If we decided, or fate decided, that we would only have one I would certainly be content with that but I think I'd really like a second.  

Now the THOUGHT of a second & the STRESS of a second I imagine are two different things :D  Having one kid, I really had no stress about.  I was a little worried about the costs of having a child but I really wasn't worried about us being parents once I had him in my belly.

Some days the thought of two little demons makes me so scared.  My a'hole dogs make things much more stressful though so I'll blame much of my home stress on them as well.  I've been alone with K a lot lately since M's been fixing up/cleaning our old house now that we moved, & I've realized being alone so much, that sometimes I can't handle it.  K's whining because he can't decide what he wants to eat, the dogs are barking out the window at some dude jogging down the road... sometimes I clench my jaw & lose it a little inside.  I pray that this is how we all are.  Well I'm sure there are some moms that are soooo zen that they always talk to their kids like Mary Poppins & never scold their dogs for scratching up the damn window sill.  Well again... that's not me.  I love K so much though.  Even when he's crabby or being a little destructive toddler I am frustrated for about 30 seconds tops.  He is the best thing in the whole world.  The best.  

First official blog post.  Not gonna lie, I’m pumped.  My husband hears 99% of my rants, jokes & general awkwardness, so I’m excited to share it elsewhere - as I’m sure HE is.  Sooo finally writing.  I'll be honest in that I have attempted this beast 3 times over the past year & a half & I just can't get my shiz together to keep up with it.  It's important for me though to let off some steam.  & I think it's also important that I try to make others laugh about our crazy lives as mothers, wives, employees, daughters, sisters, etc. etc. etc. to eternity.  I keep hearing that I have a lot of funny things to say so it's time for me to get this shiz on a roll here.

So to intro myself a little as awk as this might be... I'm in my late twenties.  My son will be 2 this summer.  I just changed jobs after almost six years with my first job out of college so shit is cray cray right now.  My job was my life before I had my son honestly.  I loved it!  A lot of things shook up there around the same time I had my son so it was time to move on & try something else.  Lots of backstory there but hakuna matata.  So I have a new corp job.  Still corp, but much smaller & I've been there a few weeks now.  We moved about 2 hours from where we were for this job so lots of things are in flux.  My husband is in construction so he's a little more nomadic in his work so that's good.  We are renting a house close to my new job & are so far really loving it.  We've had a million & one minor hiccups going on at the same time as these big changes but we're adjusting ... i.e. my paychecks were screwed up, I went on a work trip out of state my second week, I got in a car accident my third week & we found out yesterday that we need to refinance our 'old' house immediately to rent it out or with the type of loan we have they can foreclose on it if we don't occupy it. Ha!  

But anyway, about us.  We have two dogs.  We love them but they are a pain, I won't lie.  Maybe I'll be googling up the local Caesar, the Mutt Tamer soon.  My husband, M, & I have been together for about 9 years now officially.  Married 3.  Our first kiss was 12 years ago though.  Eek that feels like an eternity!  That's a loaded story too of course.  M is not a whole lot like me.  He loves me though.  A lot.  This I know.  He's a tooootal man's man.  We're kind of from different worlds sometimes.  Okay, often times.  We love each other so much though & at the end of the day that's all that matters.  Really!

So that's basically the very high level Spark's Notes.

I told you this first lame intro would be lame.  'Til next time Gadget.