Baby Showers

My friend Raena is having her baby shower tomorrow. Recently when I was rearranging my photo albums I was looking over the pictures from my shower. My sis totally did an awesome job throwing it, but she usually kicks ass at whatever she does even if no one acknowledges her efforts. I totally don't regret waiting to hear from our insurance company if they can snip snip me and Tuesday is the big day I'll know whether or not it's doable. Woo! It sucks that Katrina, Elizabeth, and Alissa weren't at my baby shower and it sucks that Raena and Allyssa couldn't make it. But oh well, past is past. I hope Raena has a good time tomorrow and I wish I could have gone down. Ho hum. It's probably better I didn't because I have a cold and being sick sucks. I should totally go to Truckee Meadows Herbs and see if they have any new fun teas.

You know whats buuuuuullshit??? (some TMI)

Like my tribute to the Bullshit/Angry Video Game Nerd guy???

I'm not gonna go into too many details but long story short, my gyno thinks I have endometriosis. If you don't know what that is, it's a gross lady-part disorder where your uterine lining grows wrong, usually wrong places or whatever and creates a bruising effect inside causing pain and all sorts of other weird crap. I never put all the signs together. I attributed my abnormally heavy and painful periods as a teen to stress. Then I went on the pill and suddenly it all stopped. Then when I wasn't on the pill, I was pregnant. Obviously, signs of endometriosis aren't present when you're on birth control or pregnant because you're not making uterine lining then because it's in use. During c-section I had this ugly cyst that looked like a giant raspberry removed. Post c-section I hurt and thought it was because I had a c-section. Then I got my Mirena IUD (which I love!) and thought the pain was still there because of the IUD. So gyno tells me that pain shouldn't be around a year later after c-section and I'm not fevering so there's no staff infection issues. They do an ultrasound to see if there's maybe gnarly cysts or something and check Mirena position. All is good. Mirena is in place fine but I do have a small cyst. However doc says that all my symptoms reek of endometriosis and they'll only know by doing a laparoscopic exam. He doesn't have any pamphlets on it so he gives me the one on sterilization, which is also done apparently laparoscopically.

Here's where the buuuuuuuuullshit comes in...

I don't want any more kids. I didn't want a kid in the first place. Charlie was an accident but I love him none the less and was the last person to know I was pregnant and abortion never even crossed my mind when I found out. I always joked that the only way I'd ever have more kids would be if I had another accident. I have a list about a mile long as to why I don't want any more kids. A few of the top examples include:

We have one child and one pug and that's the way it is.
Charlie is too used to one-on-one attention from his parents if he had a sibling it would make him jealous and possibly create some sort of complex in him where he grows up resenting his sibling and parents.
I hated being pregnant and it hurt really bad and I was super uncomfortable and never want to go through that again in my life.
I had a lot of problems after pregnancy with thrush and don't want to experience that ever again.
Raising one child is hard enough.
I don't want to be one of those people that has more kids than I can afford to take care of.
I don't want to be fat again in my life (selfish but legit reason.)
I don't want any more stretch marks (another selfish but legit reason.)
I don't want to have to pay all those co-pays and go to the doctors every month, two weeks, week, and then pay for labor and delivery costs. Those co-pays add up and birth is expensive!

But back to the buuuuuuuullshit. I hate when other people feel it's their place to butt in and give their two cents. "What if something happens to your child? What if you get divorced and remarry and want to have more children? What if 5 or 10 years from now your mind changes?"

OK, first off, let me say that anyone who says the "what if something happens to your child?" excuse is sick. I can't imagine if something horrible happened to my son, but you know what I can't imagine more? I could NEVER EVER IN MY LIFE think of trying to replace him with another child to fill the void. I mean, that's like having a dog you love a lot, the dog dies and you get a new dog. Sometimes you get a dud, sometimes you get another that is totally different and you love. I just don't think that I would go to that extent though if anything ever happened to Charlie. I mean, he is our one and only Charlie. If anything ever happens to him, that's it. He cannot be replaced and I would never try to do that. I personally think that's just wrong. That is my personal opinion, though.

As for marrying and having children, I'm kind of an advocate against that. I'm not saying it's wrong, but I'd never do it. Personally, I'm not a fan of divorce. I would do anything in my powers to avoid divorce. Granted some issues are good warrants for divorce. Cheater, Abusers, Substance Abusers, Criminals, Chronic Mama's Boys aka Men who put Mommy above their spouse and children. However, I feel like this does something detrimental to the current child(ren). It's like you get married and they have a new daddy and it's not enough to say old daddy wasn't good enough, now you are saying that old child wasn't good enough and you need to have a new child. I feel like if you remarry someone and it's not good enough for them to treat the current kids as their own and be happy, it's just kinda sad for the current kids to have to deal with this new stuff. Of course this is just my theory. There's lots of cases where step kids adapt and even enjoy siblings. But for me, I'd never do it. Period.

Lastly, when I got pregnant at 25, I didn't want kids. I had an accident, love him, but don't want any more kids. I will be 28 in 3 months and 30 in 2 years. I know that pregnancies after 30 - 35 tend to have more complications. Why would I want to have a child later in life when it would be more difficult if I had a hard enough time the first time I got pregnant when I was in my birthing prime!?

Let me just end this by saying I am extremely opinionated. I'm not gonna hate anyone for doing things I wouldn't do. That's your decision. But these are mine and they're why I want my tubes tied when in Rome looking for endometriosis. Obviously I convinced the gyno. He just wants to hear it from my husband now that he wants that too. Apparently there's all sorts of legal crap the doctor could face. But he was also the one to mention that if we ever change our minds, while the process isn't reversible, there's always invetro. Pftt yeah right! If I don't want one more kid, I strongly doubt I want 8!!!

The end.

Art Immitating Life

One of our friends told us that my lawn mower reminded him of Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino. I told him I hadn't seen that movie yet and when I finally did watch it, I couldn't help but draw so many parallels between a fictional movie and my life. I don't have the perfect house. I don't have the perfect lawn. I rent, but even though I rent, it is my house and how people who do not know me personally know of me. I am the person who decorated their house for the holidays. I am the person who tries to keep my place clean and orderly. I am someone who would make a good neighbor. This is beneficial to me because it assures that all the houses that are being foreclosed in our neighborhood get bought out by good families or investors who care about their tenants and don't just get any random tweakers or scumbags in that will bring down the neighborhood. Today, I was doing my usual yard work. Mowed the lawn, pulled weeds, watered, stuff like that. I had a Gran Torino moment when I got to the driveway. We have these weeds that grow in between the cracks of the cement and I pull what I can and clip what I can't. As I got further up the driveway, I found myself clipping weeds that were growing over in the yard next door onto our property and it just frustrated me because I don't understand how it is someone can live in a home and not pull weeds. These weeds are gross because they're all tall and itchy and the parts that don't itch have tiny little thorns. It just baffles me as to why some people are just so lazy and apathetic to the existence of their yards that they don't take care of things of the sort. It almost makes me wish that home owner associations existed outside of apartment, condo, townhouse and planned communities and in regular residential areas. Oh well. It sucks, but what can you do other than scowl, mutter to yourself about the scum next door not caring about their home and hope you never hafta go outside with a rifle and tell someone to get off your lawn. ::Insert awkward chuckle here::

Celebrity Halloweens?

Maybe I don't pay enough attention to the news or anything, but I was wondering what kids of celebrities or people in high status situations do for Halloween. Do they dress up and go trick or treating door-to-door or do they go to the mall or some boring party with their parents or just do nothing at all? I wonder if these kids are allowed to live normal lives and be children or if they have an adjusted lifestyle because of their parents? Like what did the Obama girls do for Halloween? I only wonder about this after my friend Evan sent me a picture of Brad Pitt dressed as DJ Lance Rock. What the heck did they do? Trick or treat? Or at some publicity thing? Or do celebrities just have some big celebrity party and bring their kids along in costumes. I dunno. It's a new curiosity I have.

Trick or Treat!!!

I'd like to take a minute or two to mention how much I seriously miss trick or treating. You see, when you get to be a certain age, it suddenly becomes uncool to dress up in a costume and go door to door asking for candy. Instead, it's more cool to pull pranks or go to parties or just sit at home and do nothing at all. Even though deep down, you still want to go door to door and ask for candy. And if you did, a lot of people usually just look at your size and do the, "Aren't you a little old for this?" thing. Fortunately, life redeems itself once you have kids. You can use the excuse you're taking them out. I mean, really, is a one year old really going to eat two buckets of candy? Probably not. You know it's just for the parents. Of course then you get some people who actually will consider the kid's ages and ask what it's ok for them to eat and at that point I say anything. Last night after divvying up the goods, I wound up with 2 buckets full of candy. Seriously it was amazing. We were oh-so-close to running out of candy at our house but we didn't. Someone handed out Halloween Play-Doh. I can't wait to play with that today with Charlie! Other than that, it was fun. I was happy to dress up and go out and get candy. I seriously miss trick or treating. I miss seeing kids running door to door in costume excited about candy. I miss seeing all the decorated houses. I miss people enjoying seeing costumes. I've spent so many of the last few years doing candy duty that I completely miss being on the other side of the door. And after last night, to be back on the streets, it was a good thing. I'm still giddy and on a sugar high. I love it. Up next: Thanksgiving! Woo! Holiday fun, here I come!

The Return of Halloween Fun

Halloween is always fun except when you're pregnant or have and infant. So was the story of my last 2 years in Reno. This year Charlie was old enough to actually have fun, as were allowing us to have fun.

Pumpkin Patches
When I was pregnant, we went to one to get a pumpkin. The pumpkin patch sucked terribly and the pumpkins were all over priced. I didn't take pictures.

When Charlie was born, we went. It was cold and he was cold. We took a few pictures. It was cute. He was starting to grab things but he was too little to really enjoy it.

This year, Charlie was all over the place. He was exploring the pumpkin fields, petting animals, trying to climb onto the tractor. You could tell he was totally fascinated with this new strange dirty land with lots of pumpkins of all sizes.


Halloween Events
When I was pregnant, all fun was out of the question. No drinking and I'm not gonna put on a costume and go out if I'm not gonna drink or just feel frumpy. No fun at all.

When Charlie was born, I was still not able to drink and he was too little and still eating every 2 - 3 hours so going out was also out of the question. My body was back to a state of fitting costumes, but somewhere between waking up at night ever 2 - 3 hours to feed Charlie, I didn't have it in me to even think about wanting to go out.

This year, we did things. I took Charlie and Lulu to the Petco Howl-o-ween costume contest. We won 2nd place.


Then the night before Halloween, Jesse and I went out. Katrina came out and it was all kinds of fun. We drank. We had an awesome time. We dressed up like zombies. I saw Throw Rag. The show was awesome.Drinks were cheap. The people were cheap. It was completely inappropriate, sometimes annoying, sometimes hilarious, and always entertaining.



Halloween Night
When I was pregnant, I didn't do anything other than sit at home and eat a bowl full of candy I bought for trick or treaters. We didn't get any at all.

When Charlie was born, I did the same thing, only this year, I knew we wouldn't get any so I didn't buy as much candy.

This year, we carved pumpkins and went out trick or treating with some of Charlie's friends. It was fun. Charlie loved trick or treating so much. He walked around the neighborhood with me holding my hand. I held his bucket. He would get so excited to go from house to house that he would giggle and run from one house to the next. I totally joined him in his giggly adventures. It was just adorable. His squeals of delight and giggles of excitement combined with his ah-ah-ah-ah bumping vocal sound he'd create when he ran; just too cute.

Anyway, this whole Halloween was just so much fun. From playing in pumpkin patches, to drinking zombies, to trick or treating. Did I mention my neighborhood gives out killer awesome candy? See, I never knew we had so many kids when I lived upstairs in an apartment. Yeah, no. We have lots of kids and lots of homes that do Halloween like decorated all crazy and chocolate yumminess. I'm just a tired as heck happy camper tonight.

Positive thinking is the key to life

One would think the last week has had a bad turn of events for us. My usual hunting for job/going on interview ended in another thanks-but-no-thanks in a very pleasant manner. To be honest, I've given up a long time ago about feeling bad when I got laid off and didn't get hired. I don't feel apathetic nor do I feel my approach is apathetic but it's positive in the sense that there is a blessing in disguise somewhere to be found. Last week's closed door opened up a rather unusual opportunity for me. While out grocery shopping, I looked at Christmas trees, just to see if they even had any. Wouldn't you know it, they did! Not only did they have them, they had one I liked! I have said that I want a pre-lit 6.5 foot Christmas tree with white lights when we have a house. We rent, but technically, we are in a house, so I get my tree. It was staring at me in all it's glory at Walmart for a lovely $35. I would be stupid to not get it. Granted, I was toying with getting a new vacuum cleaner that day too but figured, the vacuum will be there even after Christmas and my vacuum, even though it's sort of broken, still works fine and can hold out a little longer. In addition to that, my new duvet cover set came in, as well as my old Halloween costume that I'll be using again this year. We went to the gun show and I had my purses out, didn't sell any, had a lot of card-takers though. I also made a very good contact for Jesse with one of the companies in town he's been trying to get a job with for the past two years and gave their #1 guy Jesse's card, so hopefully something good will come of that. I also took Lulu to the Petco Howloween costume contest and we won 2nd place for our costumes. They had the pet costume contest of pets only and then pets and their owners dressed up. Chrissy met up with us and we then broke away and went to the psychic fair. I got a free pumpkin there and she got a reading that she said was "very intense" and is still very glad she got it done. On intense feelings, I can't help but feel like something really good is going to happen soon. I don't know why, the last week I've been feeling like something amazing is in our cards but not sure yet what it will be.

Feminism Fail

One of my biggiest peeves with latter-day-feminism is how it steered away from women's rights and turned into a sexual revolution. Last night was a panel on relationships between men and women and one of the discussions was male-female relationships and societal roles. They touched base on rape. They also touched base on a note of how it has become easier for women to do masculine things and it's acceptable yet men can't do feminine things without being labeled a "fag" or "homo". Jesse questioned if they were playing with dolls and I said, "No, stuff like baking, sewing, being into fashion, etc." Oh. Well, one thing they seem to fail to touch base on is some women allow themselves to become victims of violent and sexual crimes. I'm not saying it's right to rape a woman, but if you're one of those girls in high school or college who goes to a party and gets blackout drunk and wakes up somewhere naked and violated the next day, I don't think you have any right to complain. In my mind, someone taking advantage of you is the least of your problems, your bigger one is you have an alcohol problem and that needs to be dealt with to prevent this from happening again. I recall in high school hearing several girls have a scenario where they got drunk at a party and expressed their natural animal needs to reproduce and wound up doing it with guys they would never have sex with and tell the guys that if they told anyone they had sex, they would say it was rape. Really? Is that how women empower themselves now days? By getting what they want and then threatening the opposite sex to be imprisoned if the truth be told simply because they're afraid of the truth? How is this a positive step for feminism? So girls like that would act completely idiotic and walk away from an embarrassing situation, wiping it off like they got away with something simply because they could call wolf.

Don't get me wrong, I believe there were a lot of wonderful things that came from the original feminist movement like the right to vote, work, equal pay, etc. But I think the sexual revolution has created a demoralization of society to a certain extent. If you have an open sex life and that is just the way you are ok with your choices, that's fine. But if you are promiscuous and try to act like you're not and lie about your sexcapades and threaten to say a man who simply was taking part in your throwing yourself at him and saw it nothing more as a "good opportunity", well, shame on you. I'm not gonna sit around and say I believe it's ok to sleep with everyone you meet. I believe that complicates the concept of commitment, devalues the meaning of love, and confuses love with lust. However, if that's what you're into, that's your thing. But I am sick of hearing these feminists talk about how horrible men are when they have become weakened in the last half century and women have become manipulative and controlling. Perhaps we should address that issue next time, yes ladies? Or would that be bad for feminism? I think it's time for another feminist movement: the one where women realize they have gotten out of control and need to straighten up their act to stop making themselves look foolish and proud.

Us vs. Them mentality

You all know I'm a very pro-gun person, but I'm starting to see the world more through a different light. No, I'm not gonna advocate gun laws. Just personal responsibility. You see, I've been hearing a lot of pro-gun stories lately that make me cringe and think how they're not good examples of gun users to the world. One was an obvious hoax, which was a Craigslist urban legend of a person who was robbed at knife-point and pulled his 1911 out on his attacker, then took his attacker's belongings and spent all the money, made phone calls to the FBI threatening the president and sex lines, etc. Then there was a story of an old lady who conceal carried and shot an attempted robber and her son said they were lucky she shot the guy because she's a horrible shot. A lot of pro-gun people look at tales of these sorts and cheer hooray for the gun owners. I look at them and fear Nancy Pelosi thinking about how she can take these tales and create some sort of bill to take away our gun rights because of "irresponsible gun owners" or something like that. I guess the line between pro-gun people has a divide that I never knew about that is like pro-gun vs. responsible pro-gun? I can't think of any way to describe it completely at the time being as it's 5:30 am on a Saturday. Perhaps it's just the more you look at things from the politician's standpoint and know your enemies, it's not enough to just be a Yosemite Sam gun-toting happy go lucky shooter anymore. It's more of a scowling upon those who own guns yet never shoot them because you wonder why bother having a gun for protection if you're not sure how it works or question your ability to hit your target when you do use it. Or feeling angry when you see someone write about how it wasn't enough to save their life in an attack, they also felt compelled to punish their attacker. I guess any responsible gun owner who has certifiably passed their CCW courses would know that stories like the aforementioned are not pro-gun at all but rather hinder our rights when seen through the eyes of liberals looking for any excuse to take that right away. My point being: even within our own world of gun-owners and pro-gun enthusiasts, there is still that us vs. them mentality.

A day full of hilarious mistakes

OK, I lied. There were just two.

First mistake:

I gave Charlie one of Chrissy's Halloween cupcakes around 2:00 pm as a fun Friday treat. Big mistake. It was a black frosted mess and Charlie was in cupcake mess Heaven. He had black frosting all over his chin and hands and looked like he was either one of those creepy hobo clowns or he had black face like the white actors used to do back in the day to play black people. It was all kinds of wrong and he loved it. He managed to somehow get a gob of frosting in his pant pockets. I have no idea how and I don't know how to comprehend that. The rest of the day consisted of him scheming a way to get more cupcakes. Various failed attempts included removing the contents of two drawers on the kitchen floor and opening the dishwasher, standing on the door and opening the microwave and turning it on and off to see if that would make cupcakes happen.


Second mistake:

I get Lulu those little Natural Balance food rolls. I don't commit to one of the $5 or more big rolls because I like to mix the sample treat size rolls with her dry food and get a variety of flavors. I keep them in the small cupboard by my kitchen sink. Charlie has recently discovered that cupboard, partially because that was where I was hiding the Halloween candy and had to move it, and partially because it has interesting things in there, like dog food rolls. Well, he takes one out and Lulu knows what they are and whenever she sees them, she gets all crazy until she gets to eat or until it's out of sight and back in the cupboard. At some point, Charlie no longer has the food roll and Lulu has it. I saw her under the computer table gnawing on something and realized she broke the plastic of the roll and was trying to get the meat out. I took the roll away from her and just gave her the rest of the roll. I didn't even bother to break it down. I just gave it to her whole. It was hilarious to watch her eat it.