Wrap your head with this material...

I don't do resolutions. I think they're stupid. And clearly they don't work. I think everything's stupid sometimes. Its one of my less attractive personality traits- a tendency to get all look-down-my-nosey. Its lame. But I'm just so cool. Or snotty. Or something. Anyway, I figure if you need to change something about your life, you need to change it now. I mean now. Or tomorrow when you've got a plan for how to do it. But a magic analog change of the year, flippy number, brand newness... not going to do it. Change come because you work for it, becuase you're ready for it, because it needs to. My brother makes minutia resolutions. Like that he'll randomly turn on his turn signal more often, or use words that start with q more often, or something equal inane. I love them. One year, he reset his trip-tick in the car every time someone did something utterly stupid. I don't think he ever got above 3 miles. But I'm on the cusp of some ...

"At Walgreens, asked whatever the best cold medicine was to make meth with. Not sure why they had to involve the police." "Today, in order to fight child abuse, I'm eating pringles and drinking diet cherry dr. pepper in my jammies-I figure its at least as effective as changing my profile picture to a cartoon- if not more so..." "Dear Mom, You are one of my biggest inspirations in life. You picked yourself up so many times when life threw you down. Even though you gave Harley, the dog, away and spend way too much time at church, I love you much and will see you soon. Happy Birthday! Love, your daughter, mike." "Tonight, I learned how to remove pine tree sap from hair. After more than an hour I THINK I might be sap-free, and I smell like a peanut butter/olive oil/soap dish. New perfume? Not quite. Needless to say, no cookie baking happened and the Christmas tree and I are not speaking right now." "There's no 'i' in ...

he constructed his personality in a junk yard just took things other people discarded and wore them around his neck noose tight fight with all your might to carve out what's yours a hubcap doesn't have to be what it appears I'd use yours to make a mean grilled cheese

Jeesh, haven't seen you guys in a while. What's it been, like a month? You'd think I'd been doing something important. Like being a mom. Really, I've been sewing a stalking. Holy distracted-and-horrible! I meant, STOCKING! From scratch. Every stitch, every sequin. Look who's crafty now, bitcheS! Sorry for calling you bitches. Around holidays and other some such marked events, I always think back. Sometimes I can't remember what I was doing the previous year. Or I think back and think, "meh" But last year, I found out I was pregnant on New Year's Eve. On account of the whole drink/not drink decision thing. So I was all happy, and nervous, and scared, and nervous and happy and scared. And nervous. And happy. Because I was just happy the first time I was pregnant, but that didn't turn out so good. And what's lame is that after you have a miscarriage, all you want in the world, I mean ALL you want in the world, is to be pregnant again. A...

Ever notice how midgets on TV are only in entertainment. They're actors or porn stars or wrestlers. No midgets are just boring accountants or childcare providers or bank tellers. So I started thinking, "What job lends itself well to being a midget?" And the answer I came up with is, tailor for hemming and midwife for baby catching. In both cases the height thing would be a real advantage. In other news, did you know you could spell tepees "tipis." I want to pronounce that tea piss. Which I think makes a good urban dictionary word for the dribble of pee men don't bother to wipe off the end of their wangs when they pee. Or a midget dingle. Happy Hump Day, ya'll!

Got 2 messages from a client on my voicemail today. One said he thought I was back from "maturity leave." The other said he was glad I was back from "maternity labor." I love my job. Sometimes anyway. (but not as much as I love my kid. Its hard to be back at work. The silver lining is funny messages.)

"Our new nephew is pretty cool. Just for clarification, would you like to be the creepy uncle or the drunk uncle?" "Let's alternate for a while and see how we feel. You go creepy, I'll stay drunk, and we can have a little sit down and compare notes annually and then decide. I just don't feel comfortable comitting to one or the other just yet." Mom: "Oh hey! That's Tony Hawk on Yo Gabba Gabba" Kid: "You mean that old man trying to skateboard?" "I feel so dirty. Are all my teeth still there? Am I carrying a puppy mill puppy? Do my jeans have pockets? Are my roots showing? Going to WalMart is so scary! I need a shower!" "ah, December 1st. The day I spend all day debating which feels tighter- my budget or my waistband. No one likes a chubby poor chick. No one." "Thanksgiving. Not a good day to be my pants." "Eat that turkey bitch" - Ike Turner, Thanksgiving 1965

This morning I woke up fine. I showered and did all my boring morning crap. Including starting laundry. And for some reason, as the my to do list got lighter, the rest of me felt heavier. Heavier and sadder and sadder. Inexplicably sad. Some mornings are just like that though. They come with a heaviness of immobility. A desire to just sit there. Inside the sadness. Let it engulf you and let the tears come. But then I got up and saw a picture of a friend's baby in our papasan chair. And I thought of all the places that papasan has lived. I got it free from a boss I had when I moved into my first apartment. Something like 10 years ago. When we first got it, we had no cushion for it. So as we unpacked, it collected newspaper and tissues and other crap and that's what we sat on. Until a friend gave us a real cushion. Which years later got pretty much destroyed by a cat I had. And then it had no cushion again. Until we got one with a gift certificate when Rob and ...

Do you have captain-obvious realizations? You know, like when I realized I couldn't get out of being pregnant. Only this one was worse. I was reading a book and in it the main character talks about real parents. She says real parents are never as good of parents as they try to be. And it hit me that I will not be as good at being a mom as I want to be. I'll try, but I'll end up screwing it up. I mean, I'll raise a competent man who can function in society. I'm not saying I'll screw up to the tune of a 45 year old living in my basement with a giant gut and no prospects who plays video games all day and means I never have company over again. I'm just saying, I have an image in my head of never yelling, always listening, reading constantly, teaching him to play the piano, and ski, and participating in his school, sending him to Swedish camp, and and and... I'll screw it up. A little. Its like every other project I've started and failed at in my...

I was having this beautiful moment with Magnus last night. I was rocking him to sleep, humming in his ear, and periodically kissing the fuzzy hairs that rub my chin when he relaxes against my chest. It was one of those moments that made me go "this is why people do this. its all worth it." The stitches, the new stitches, the stretch marks, the crying, the never sleeping all night again...all worth it. Then I realized what I was humming was this: Even when life is beautifully touching, its funny too. P.S. I love being a mommy and humming and talking gibberish and making faces and singing off key and dancing it out in the living room. Its rad. Hope you're rad today too.

My husband sings this song to the baby all the time with the modified lyric of "and would you cry, if I stole your pacifier?" You don't have to listen to the whole song, this is just to get you the right tune. In other news, here's Magnus at Halloween. Ridiculous, how fun it is to dress up a baby for that holiday. This is what he wore underneath the pea pod It glowed in the dark, a fact I noticed in the middle of the night when I got up to feed him and saw that he'd gotten a glowing arm out of his swaddle.

When I was a kid, my parents had this policy that you could ask anything and get an honest answer. It went hand in hand with another policy of theirs, which was you could use any word as long as you knew what it meant. They'd quiz you occasionally too, just to make sure you were paying attention. "What's 'pissed off' mean, Karin?" "It means perturbed." I was a bit precocious. My parents rarely used the parental copout/freakout/I-don't-want-to-talk-about-this card of "I'll tell you when you're older." So I probably would have learned about sex pretty early no matter what. But as it turned out, I learned about sex from the movie Porky's. I was 4 or 5. In 1984, movies were a big treat. You couldn't just watch pop one in the DVD player at any time. You had to see it at the theater, or you had to wait for it to come out on network television. Most mommies reading this were probably born after 1984 so I'm giving a r...

I couldn't come out for National Coming Out Day. You know, because I'm not gay. I like ladies. Just not their lady parts. Well, boobs are nice. Everyone likes boobs. Anyway, I did get a pink triangle rattle, which we've dubbed the gay pride toy for Magnus. Oh and name him after his gay grandad. So I guess that was good. Anyone notice that National Coming Out Day was the same day as Columbus Day. That makes me happy. Because I think it would make him turn over in his angry whiteman grave to know that homosexuality is accepted and welcomed on his day. Because Columbus was a douche. Which reminds me of that time in Chile when my homework was about Christopher Columbus but I didn't know his name was Colon in Spanish so I wrote a sentence about the colon. Ha ha, what a douche. When you're on maternity leave, is it like vacation where if you want a beer at an odd time of day, say like 2 pm, you just have it? How about just because its Tuesday? I didn't ...

Today ChompSki, our boxer dog, was especially annoying. He just kept wanting to go outside. Our yard's not fenced. But ChompSki usually sticks close by. He stays to the back yard, does his business maybe visits the creek behind our house for some mountain spring water, then heads back to the sliding glass door. Today though, he kept going in front. He's not allowed to do that. He knows he's not allowed to do that. He normally behaves pretty well. Not today. So when I got the baby all packed up to go to a lunch date, I notice a skeleton on the driveway. I should mention that I've been watching way too much Bones. What? Its what I've been doing while breast feeding. You can't read while breast feeding. So when I see the carcass in the driveway, I think its a body. And then I realize what a spaz I am. And what a gross dog I have. No kisses for ChompSki today.

I still can't decide if I should write about this, what I should write about this, how I feel about this, how I should feel about this. But here it is. Magnus was a twin. Was. big WAS. Not for long. Maybe 5weeks. But still. Because I'd had the miscarriage, I called and made an appointment right away when I found out I was pregnant. They saw me at 5 weeks. Did and ultrasound and saw two little blobbies. I asked if it could be twins and they said yes. Could be. But not necessarily. So I came back at 7 weeks. Because they were hoping to see a heartbeat then. They did. It was Magnus's. By then there were dark spots on my ultrasound too though. They didn't like that. Doctors weren't sure what it meant. Could be another miscarriage in waiting. Could've been lots of things. So I waited another 2 weeks to go in for another ultrasound. At 9 weeks they were hoping they'd be able to tell but said it was possible they wouldn't. I counted daysho...

Destructive thoughts. Everyone has them. Or, at least, I choose to believe everyone has them. Who hasn't thought about driving their car into the concrete wall? Its not suicidal either. Its instinctual and destructive. Thinking about smashing computers into tiny bits. Or whatever your pleasure. Or anger. Or whatever. For me its not even an emotional thing. It seems to just exist. Like, mentally, I'm running through the grocery list, the to-do list, processing my day at work, and oh by the way I'm thinking of driving over the dam and what noise my car would make as it splashed into the lake. Now I've added horrible thoughts of things happening to my child to that same destructive list. As in, I no longer think of driving into or over things, but what would happen if we took Magnus on a boat and he somehow fell overboard. Like, if picturing myself diving into the cold water and how fast I could swim to catch him would protect him in some way, I would be prepar...

Someone once looked at your little naked body and thought how perfect it was. Stared in utter awe at you as a miracle. I think that looking at Magnus and imagine that my parents probably did the same with me. And it reminds me to be kind as I try to lose the weight. Someone made this body and was proud of their work. I made Magnus (I guess Rob helped too) and I stare and think "One day he will have a scar. One day he will damage this body. This perfect body I've given him. One day he'll say 'I can't' but I'll know better because I know what I made."

my heart races awaiting to hear yours wanting to know its the right speed and rhythm wanting to hear in its future the cries that will one day come gritty and grainy like honey like truth that you swallow whole for sweet fortitude wanting to hear your mommy say she's waiting for the same hope above raw fear that peaks out from scar tissues we will rise above heal and grow and meet you at the apex

I think my kid has already learned to objectify women's boobs. Seriously. I bent over to put the pacifier back in his mouth for the thousandth time and I saw that look in his eyes. Ladies, you knwo the one. I'm pretty sure he looked straight at the boobs and his eyes glazed over and it was like seeing the future. In grosser baby news, I picked his nose this morning and holy shit! It was the biggest booger. Like, grown person sized. He must've been constructing that thing since birth. He seemed none too pleased that I removed his masterpiece either. And this is confirmation that I have become a mom. I pick noses. Other people's. And blog about it. Wow. What is this blog coming to?

You expect your life to go on. To change. To age in some capacity. You know, like the things they ask you to come up with your senior year of high school that you'll be doing in 10 years. So you have a concept of yourself and future times. But you don't necessarily accept that is what will happen to those around you. We all hear ourselves as the narrators of our own stories, and in our story don't we all expect to be the exception to the rules? We face our mortality, but don't we really just expect to make it through some loophole at the end? There's a part of me that expects that and more. That my husband will fit through the same loop hole and so will my parents and my children. That we'll all escape the inevitable death at the end of the story. I wonder if when you get to a certain age if you start to see the loop get smaller and smaller and suddenly disappear. If that is when you face and accept your mortality. I wonder this because in conversation w...

Something that everyone talks about is how hormonal you are during pregnancy. Its such a trite joke to make fun of how neurotic pregnant women supposedly are. I wasn't too bad. I won't say I didn't have some moments. But for the most part, it wasn't any worse than PMS and I was still rational the whole time. Something no one talks about is how hormonal you are after the kid's born. Its not baby blues either. Its just normal, cry-real-hard-over-nothing. As in, I'm not sad but am crying. Or I'm set off slightly by something and am crying real hard. And feel like I could cry all day. A cleansing cry, you know? Not a sad cry. I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life. One day I just got too tired and started bawling. One day I have no idea what set me off. One day Rob and I were talking and it was very slightly heated. I mean, very slightly. Not even elevated to the level of actual conflict. Bawling. But then one day, I found a diet book...

See how puffy my face was? I thought the swelling had gone DOWN. I forgot what my own face looked like. But who the hell cares when this is what you're holding. Rob and Swedish Magnificence. This is how the midwives weighed him. I had asked folks to send candles with positive thoughts/prayers/meditations/intentions/energy for the birth. I got candles from all over. So Saturday we had birthday cake with some friends and lit all the candles in celebration of Magnus's healthy and safe arrival. I can't thank everyone enough for all the support. It just doesn't get any sweeter than this.

On TV, the water breaks, the husband gets yelled at and blamed. In real life, that's fucking stupid. My water broke and I thought something exploded, had no idea what it was. Midwife got sprayed. That's just so gross. I can't imagine doing her job. Sooo, so gross. The same midwife got fucked at my birth multiple times. Like the time toward the end when I was pushing and she tried to check my cervix to be sure that there wasn't a little lip of cervix left and while she was doing it I yelled at the top of my lungs "Get your fucking finger out of my TWAT!" I heard the other midwife choke back a laugh. I also never yelled at Rob. This was at least partially due to the fact that he used the strategy of listening to what the midwives said, watching for my reaction, and repeating the things I responded favorably toward. It worked. And I would never have known that's all he did either. Smart. But I also never yelled at him because, I think that's st...

So the end of pregnancy is for the fuckin birds. I'm sure plenty of you out there know this. There's nothing to say but that you're sick of being pregnant. You're a little sick of the sweet smiles and knowing looks from strangers. You're just all over sick of it. You're spectacularly sick of the: when's your due date how far are you are you having a boy or a girl I bet you're sick of this what hospital are you going to, conversations. You miss when people used to ask about the soccer game you played or the book you're reading. You're sick of swollen handsfeetfaceneckanklesEVERYTHING. Oh and from the beginning of pregnancy until FRIDAY, I had NO stretch marks. Friday my entire lower abdomen erupted into one. giant. stretch mark. So all weekend, I thought, please let this be over soon. Every cramp I felt I welcomed and thought, "whatever work my body does now, it doesn't have to do during labor." Little did I know how much ...

When you were a kid, did you know a number of stupid boys in your neighborhood that would always try to get you to eat odd things? Like mud and glue and god-knows-what that they came from inside their houses with? I did. I never had any desire to taste grass or to drink mountain dew milk with chocolate sauce and ketchup. I couldn't be persuaded to swallow a worm whole no matter whose allowance was on the line. So I find it funny that as an adult, all it takes is these 2 tiny, sweet little midwives to tell me to drink a tincture of skullcap and I do it. What if they're not really midwives? Maybe they're secretly just the sisters of all those boys, all grown up and seeking revenge on those of us who said "no." Cuz if you've ever smelled skullcap, you'll understand that the mountain dew milk would've been cake comparatively. Man, if I find out they're just fucking with me, I'm going to hope this kid is a boy, cuz girls are better at getting...

The nesting has gotten a little out of control. I vacuumed the floor and made a wedding album tonight. I got married 3 years ago. We have framed pictures up in hallways and my husband has mulched the back yard. We are messy, fuck-it kinda people. Which isn't to say we're lazy. We're not. We're just half assed about some things. And more likely to let something slide in favor of having a conversation about anthropology or make sandwiches and go for a hike than finish that big project. But the nesting has hit Rob particularly hard. And my will's a little hidden in the fat folds so I bend to him. And our house is shaping up quite nicely for it. Still, I hope I won't look back and wish we would have just held hands and taken more walks.

"The base area for one of North America's best ski spots, Silverton Mtn. One chairlift, the "lodge" is an army-style tent, the "rental shop" is an old school bus wedged in the snow, and avalanche beacons are required. Suck on that fur coats and martinis." "If I have to pull up my big girl panties and deal with it one more time the elastic is going to break and I really will have to show my ass!" "Its groggy with a 70% chance of sleepies this afternoon... I think I just ate the sticker on my fruit" "So realized all my maternity clothes are black. Clearly being pregnant has made me a ninja." "now that's something i'd like to see, Look Out!! it's the Pregnant Panther!! she'll strangle you with the umbilical cord!!!" "A long time ago in a galaxy Favre, Favre away." "The last combat unit left Iraq today. I am officially no longer fighting a war. I'm not sure what I'm fighting, ...

I went to a training the other day about driver safety. I'd be lying if I said part of the reason I'm into a homebirth is how afraid I am of driving and death by vehicle. I detest the idea of putting a few moments old child into a car and driving anywhere. And you know what? I'm right. Statistically, you're more likely to die in a car than a fire. And people buy insurance and have fears of dying in fires and no one bothers them, so I'm perfectly within rational here. Right? Right? RIGHT? Anyway, there was this lunatic woman in the class who kept talking the whole time. I hate myself when I'm that person. It usually means the pace of the class is WAY too slow for me and I'm tangentially entertaining myself at everyone elses' expense. So if you've ever sat in a training with me where I talked too much, I'm sorry. Although no one's ever actually complained to me because I'm pretty sure I toss in enough smartass/clever/random that...

I have fat cabbage patch kid feet and look like I swallowed a water buffalo. Its charming really. Also charming is the fact that I now tear up listening to NPR on the way to work. NPR, people! Oh and most of the time I'm having a combination of shooting pains and tingling in my hands from my newly found carpal tunnel syndrome. So if my posts are even sparser than usual its because my hands hurt now.

Top 3 Labor songs: 3. "Mama's got a squeeze box" The Who 2. "Push It" Salt N Peppa 1. "Pussy Control" Prince

I really like most people. I'm not all "I'm not a people person." I'm an introvert but I like people. I'm friendly and smiley at them. There are 2 exceptions: 1. while driving, I'm a bee-atch. Grouchy as can be. 2. Once I don't like someone, I have a tough kind coming back. I just can't stand anything about them. There's a woman I work with from time to time that I have this problem with. Every time I hear her saying anything I think to myself "know-it-all bitch." It doesn't even matter what she's talking about or if I know the topic. She's finger nails on my whiteboard. Or whatever. Being an introvert doesn't mean you don't like people. The best description I've heard for it is that if you're an extrovert you get energy from being around people and if you're in an introvert it takes energy. I like it, but it takes energy. Running in the woods by myself gives me energy. I'm having ...

Know what's awesome about birthdays? Um, everything. I went for a morning swim today. For my birthday, I allowed myself to be late to work and staff meeting so that I could be weightless and wonderful for a half an hour. It was worth it. I thought about all the birthdays I've swam on. Which is most of them. (My birthday's at the end of freakin July. Its hot. And I love swimming.) The year I swam hard and fast laps in St. Louis before I ended up getting drunk enough to ask my husband out. Before he was my husband I mean. Before he was anything but my friend. And being my friend was huge. But friend crushes are scary. I remember I heard a song in the gym pool that morning that made me think of him. I had planned to out myself and my crush and the morning swim helped me fortify myself in my plan. Or the years when I was a kid and would go to the town pool. I remembered the year I went with girlfriends to a water park. Its been a lot of good birthdays. I have s...

Ever think about what rules you follow and why? I do. Sometimes I really want to break rules just because I'm in that sort of fuck-the-system mood. Which is weird since I work for the system. Sometimes anyway. I generally follow driving rules because I think they're based on safety and I'm scared of dying in the car. It seems like a really likely place for death. It certainly factored in to my decision to have a homebirth. I didn't want to put my 10-minute old child whose bones haven't calcified into a deathtrap and drive home. Just seems like dangerous to me. But then other people feel like its dangerous to have a baby at home. As in NOT in a hospital. Its such an assumption. Everyone just assumes they'll have a baby there. And that you'll have your baby at a hospital and that I'll have my baby at a hospital. But I'm not really planning on going to the hospital. I'm planning on pacing my house and listening to music and cutting up vegetables and...

I like peeling things. Sunburn, paint. One time pepto spilled behind a shelf in my bathroom and I didn't find it until god-knows-how-long-afterwards and it was a solid piece of pink stuff that you could pick up. I took pictures and posted it. I think it was on myspace though. Seems like a lifetime ago. I like peeling the lint from the dryer. The other day when Rob was doing crap in his mancave/the garage, he came inside and handed me an old paint tray. There were about 4 layers of blue latex paint that had dried and you could peel the whole thing in one sheet. He said he pictured my face ahead of time, knowing how excited I'd get to peel it. When I was a kid I would get really excited to get things in the mail. Even if it was junk mail. Just seeing my name in print on an envelop was exciting. I'd read whatever it was. Now I'm more selective. I don't get exciting mail a lot. Usually just bills and statements and netflix. The netflix is a little exciting. It d...

"For once, somebody may call me "Sir" without adding, "... you're making a scene."" "Felt like there was more flopping than usual in this mornings ESPN World Cup coverage... then I realized I was watching Bassmasters." "A day off with a migraine is like the first day at fat camp." "Do you have me on speaker phone or are you in the bathroom... you're calling me while you're taking a shit right now aren't you?" Bad Librarian Pickup Line "Do you have any overdue books, because you have fine written all over you."

Ever lay on the couch and watch crap for so long that when you stand up, your perception is all off and it makes your eyeballs feel funny? Like they're on sideways. I was at the police station today watching an interrogation and it was kinda like that. Only with more nausea involved. On account of the angle of the cameras and the weird way the digital images didn't flow but jerked. And the echo. En espanol. It was a little surreal. And nauseating. But I mentioned that. The deal is the guy was accused of touching a four year old. Which is why I was watching the interrogation. He denied it of course. Its no fair being four. Or three or two. You can't tell a story with a beginning, middle, and end. Its like your stories have their eyes on sideways and can't get out the whole in your throat. And none of us can be sure of your story when its all Alice-in-wonderlandy. The story's true, its just hard to see how the parts fit together. Cops want me to have t...

My whole life, I've heard the story of my cousin Anna's birth. And her sister's too. But I hear more about Anna's. My aunt didn't exactly have a lot of love for the medical profession. And her first baby had been a horrible experience. She'd had him wrenched from her at least as much as she "gave him up" for adoption by nursing staff who leered at her and called her unpleasant names. And she loved him when he was born. And she found him when he turned 18 and loved him till the day she died. When she had kids for keeps, she did it differently. She read books and assigned duties and had them at home. She was brave and surely faced many people who disagreed with her decision. But she stuck by her convictions and her desire for a natural birth and won 2 beautiful girls. My mom was there when Anna was born. So was her sister, Kristina. They both still get this sparkle in their eyes whenever they talk about it. My mom says it was one of the most ...

Ok, I just realized that made my mom sound like someone she's really not. She didn't say the you're-so-huge comment because she's a mean and nasty lady or because she's overly concerned about weight or looks or anything. She made plenty of comments about me looking healthy and happy and other nice-junk. She was clearly thrilled to see me and had hyped herself up about it for a month. She also constantly rubbed my belly and told the baby how many people love shim. And she's right. I'm freakin huge.

Know that scene where the Grinch's heart grows 3 times its size? That's what my belly did this month. Its obscene. My mom took one look at me and said she wasn't this big when she had my brother. Which is frightening since I'm not due until 9/9. Come to think of it, the grinch has a decidedly round belly. Wonder if that's what made his heart grow? Having to pump a shit-ton of blood to something taking over his abdomen. Oh well, at least I'm enjoying mine. Mine moves. My dad felt it today. Happy Father's Day!

So during our trip we made a stop over to Guatemala to visit Tikal . We stayed in the national park at my request because I wanted to wake up in the jungle and hear the howler monkeys and see spider monkeys and do a sunrise tour of the ancient city of Tikal . We arrived to Tikal in the afternoon on a Wednesday and ate at the hotel. The dining area was open and airy and you could see out to the well manicured gardens in the surrounding area. As we were eating, I freaked out when I saw this wandering around. I freaked and went and got my camera and stalked him until my food was cold, trying desperately to get a picture with his face in it. Apparently, coatimundis usually go about in family groups but this old guy was a strange loner and he was really only interested in termites. So most of the time he was either trying to get away from the giant pregnant lady (who was trying to squat and take a picture) or burying his nozzle in a mound of insects. We made our arrangements for a tour t...

Last night my husband decided it would be funny to call me a snuggle whore. I was all, "Did you just call me a whore?" And he was like "A snuggle whore." "So, you're seriously calling your 6 month pregnant wife a whore?" Then he looked even more pleased with himself and has now decided to call me a "pregnant, snuggle whore." Speaking of whores, when I was a kid they were everywhere. Gypsy whores specifically. I don't know where my mother and grandmother's obsession with gypsy whores came from, but it was the reason to tone down your fashion a lot. As in, you can't wear dangly earrings (my favorite to this day) because those are for Gypsy whores. As in, little girls shouldn't have red nailish polish because they'll look like Gypsy whores. As in, red and pink or red and purple don't match and if you wear that outfit you'll look like a gypsy whore. As in, Gypsy whore bath, which is where you take a bird bath in the s...

Ever make soup and then get a cold and think, "dang, what a good thing I made soup!" That happened to me this week. Did you know hemorrhoids are actual vericose veins in your ass? That's your gross and generally unimportant information for the day. Thank you pregnancy websites for teaching me all I simply must know to have a baby. Ever poop green? Of course you do. I always want to tell someone when it happens. Why is that? I never do though. Which is weird because I tend to say everything I think. Or as it turns out, almost everything. I don't want to talk about the baby thing lately. Someone very close to me had a miscarriage. Almost exact same story as mine. Same no symptoms/concerns. Almost the same date. 12 weeks instead of 11. I can't stop thinking about her. I'm terrified for her to go through everything I did. I hate thinking that she might be sobbing uncontrollably and unexpectedly at a time when she should get to be happy. I hate thinking how I spe...

I think its really funny when people fart in their sleep. I woke myself up the other night snoring. I didn't used to snore. Its like my body held onto that flaw until I got married. I'd lived with someone before too. But it never started until I was married. Like somewhere in my psyche I thought I wouldn't be marriage material with snoring. But now, fuck it, I guess. There's no point caring if you snore. But when I was 18, I bet I would've been embarrassed about snoring. You get embarrassed about weird shit when you're 18. Or 21. One of my friends had her first baby when she was 21. She was really concerned about getting waxed before the birth because she didn't want anyone to see her yoni all gnarly and hairy. I thought that was funny. It just wouldn't have occurred to me that anyone would pay any attention to that during birth. I mean, I don't want things getting all george-of-the-jungle down there, but if they do, again, fuck it. Wh...