The X/Y Factor

As you know, it is mean and wrong for parents to actually wish for one sex or another. It is especially bad mojo to say it out loud. Like telling your birthday wish. Bad. Being disappointed with what you get, even temporarily, well, that just means that you have a black, evil soul.

I don't want my kids to have a soulless Mommy, so I can only really think about the boy/girl situation from Wendy's perspective. (To remind-she is the ultimate ruler of creation, and all that is must be pleasurable in her sight. Love her and despair.)

I have a sister, so I know what kind of good and evil that can be. I am also the oldest, and I always thought that an older brother would be much more useful than a younger brother-you know, for kicking peoples asses for you, and being intimidating to boyfriends and stuff. I didn't grow up with a brother of either variety, so I actually know zilch about brothers.

Anyway, it turns out that you can't plan these things, and it doesn't matter what you think.

One of each will be cool.

I'm not exactly sure what to do with a boy, except to put him in geeky sweater vests and tiny bow ties. And possibly name him something that will get him beat up a lot. Poor child.

Dear Cuppey-Cake,

We had an eviction hearing to go to on a Thursday, and on that following Sunday, you brought home a piano. A. Piano. Before we found out if we were to be evicted this month. (We were not. Maybe next month.)



You are stubborn like-

irrational like-

utterly confident in your righteousness like-

Some kind of daughter of yours. They like the piano. They like playing it together. It is very sweet.


I suppose that I should say that they are, in these ways, like you-but you are still responsible. Hey, don't look at me, buddy. I'm not the one brazenly shoving a piano into our already over-cluttered home when we might have to move it out again in three weeks because it was free. I shall remind you-we already have three extra (ugly and free) couches in this house. THREE! THREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

Upon considerable contemplation, I have decided that you are more charming than exasperating in this matter. I will not punish you, as I originally planned, by learning to play the entire book of Joyful Christian Children's Hymns that we found in the bench. I think a smashed finger, smushed elbow, and strained back are punishment enough. Not to mention Marc's horrendously ripped shorts, which I won't, because of the PTSD I am experiencing after practically inserting my head into said shorts whilst reaching for the rolling thingie beneath the piano, every bone in both hands perilously close to being crushed...my face moments away from the a high probability of sharing a sharting incident, as he valiantly sweat and strained and quivered, trying to not drop the whole piano on me.


Ahem. Like I said. Charming. I have decided to rule this one "charming." I have actually decided that I like the piano, and you may just be insane.

However. I do require your assistance in putting back all of the stuff that you moved out of the way to make room for the piano. I am pregnant, so I shouldn't really be moving stuff. I'll learn how to play the score of Oliver and some choice Disney tunes while you do that, k?

Love you!
Mean it!

~Mo

Suck My Fat Pants.

I'm making all of my children go to their first day of high school wearing maternity pants. The kind where the fabric creates a freakish bubble in front, just under the elastic panel that goes right up to the pits.

It might not be so bad for them. Maybe I will have a boy, and fifteen years from now, front-butt and pancake ass pants will be teh coolness. (Like the front-pleated dockers from the 80's that I recently made Carl get rid of. They were sexy, once? Right?)

I find this possibility just as likely as the tight girl-jeans with bunched up briefs hanging out the top combo sported by the emo set. By the way, I think I have figured this whole trend out:

Dad of Teenage Girl: This little wiener with the girl bangs and the nose piercing cannot possibly be sticking it to my daughter. He can barely walk in those jeans, and his junk has probably suffocated in there and died. That's probably why he's so depressed. I will let him live another day.

Emo Boy: HaHA! I have appeared nonthreatening before you for yet another day! Now to go cry in front of your daughter so she will let me touch her boobies.


Flawless plan, Emo Boys. Unless you stumble upon a dad who has foggy memories of men wearing spandex and lots of product who managed to score really big with the ladies, oh, say, twenty five years ago.

Myself, I am from the generation of girls who were expected to swoon to this:

My point is this. I am fat with baby and pants don't fit me. Someone has to pay. I don't care if it seems totally irrational and unreasonable; my kids have ridiculous pants in their future. They can blame it on a glitch in the meds that I will undoubtedly be taking by then.

I hear that Carl was forced into leiderhosen when he was a kid....I feel closer to his mom right now then I ever have.

How to be Charmed by Your Overbearing Overlord

Me: You need to try to sleep now.
Wendy: Make my animals a nest.
Me: *piles up the stuffies around her in a comfy nest of teddy bear love* Okay, I made your nest. Now will you try to sleep?
Wendy: I have a secret.
Me: What is it?
Wendy: Come closer.
Me: Okay...
Wendy: (whispering) I don't make deals with whiny peasants.

(Must discontinue daily viewings of Emperor's New Groove.)

Inundated.

My nephew Eddie has been in town for a few weeks (with my sister in tow), and my mom and I are doing the time-share thing that we usually do when they are around, shuttling them back and forth between our houses and whatnot.

My sister and I are both pregnant, both irritable, and both of us have a lot of stuff on our minds right now. This adds up to an atmosphere that requires many theraputic episodes of True Blood and root beer floats.

Plus, Wendy and Eddie are treating Jaimie and I to front-row seats on a preview of the rest of our lives with more than one kid. Holy. Crap. We are so screwed.

It's not all bad, really. In between the screeching of little voices arguing and the pitter-pounding of little feet hammering down the hallways and the daily exploding of our brains, there is sweetness.

Eddie, padding by as I made dinner:
"Wendy, darlin, where are you? Where aaare you sweetie? Where are you, my little sweet-potato?"

Wendy, on family:
"Eddie is my favorite cousin who is a boy. He is in my heart, so he is in my family. I love having a family to play with, don't you?"

Also, there are things like this:

Eddie: Um. Aunt Momo? Wendy startled me and made me pee on the door.

and this:

Wendy: Can you back up a bit, here? You are kind of all up in my grill.

So we are all up in each other's grill. I'm cool with it. Wendy and Eddie take hits off of each other's Danimals yogurt smoothies while Jaimie and I pass the pickle juice and are generally gross about our feelings and random desire for odd food.

Even with the added chaos, it beats sitting around doing all of that by yourself, I'll tellyouwhat.

No Reason to go Peeing in a Cup...

Carl wryly observed a few weeks ago as he helped my princess self up from the floor that "this is a different pregnancy, huh?"

Last time around, I pretty much kept up my normal pace of everything. I worked, I cooked a lot, I moved furniture. This time, he is more likely to come home and find me flopped out on the couch than hauling mattresses around the second floor. This time around, I can't just take a nap whenever I want, because, HI! I'm Wendy! I'm thirsty! Hungry! Emotional! Demand games of Candyland! So yeah, I'm a little more exhausted by the time he rolls in from work.

On the flip side, I'm a lot less focused on every tiny twinge and stretch that my body makes. I have actually had more of the crappier prego symptoms this time, but I'm far less likely to run to that shitty "What to Expect" book that reads pretty much like this:

Chapter 1: Stuff You Should Only Do if You Hate Your Baby
Chapter 2: Ways You Can Both Die
Chapter 3: Eat According to This Chart Unless You Are Just a Terrible Person and Suck at Life

Chapter 4: Giving Birth
Chapter 5: You Probably Will Not Be a Good Mother, Because There is SO Much You Can Fuck Up

No reading this book obsessively before bed and giving myself nightmares this time. No sirree. There are a few things that I can't get out of enduring a second time around, though.

Because I am unemployed and our resources are limited, I have again turned to state medical assistance. I'm fine with this, and the medical care that I am receiving. Some information for those of you who are not unmarried hos on government welfare insurance: pregnant women are routinely subject to manditory drug screenings and forced sit-downs with nutritionists. They ask you in somewhat hushed tones (with what I am sure they believe to be sensitivity) whether the father is "in the picture?"

I deal with in in good humor. Especially when something like this flyer lands in my lap:


If you find it in poor taste to post this on my blog, you will probably not want to know how I burst out in hysterical laughter when the woman handed this one to me. This probably caused her to wonder if I was in fact on the crack, and to be glad that my pee was on its way to a lab somewhere...