Christmas comes early to our house, as it does every other year that Nat takes Ben for the one holiday we share (the rest we divvy up based on when it’s celebrated, which is not always the day that it’s TECHNICALLY celebrated upon), and we spent the morning gorging on chocolate-y sweets and cinnamon rolls. Well, I had a diet Coke. Because The Nausea, she is something fierce these days.

(It’s completely unfair that NOW the nausea would return just in time to NOT EAT my favorite holiday treats. Like chocolate chip cookies. Because nothing says “Christmas” like chocolate chip cookies, right?)

It’s been a wonderful day, so far, despite the fact that Ben is now gone and my heart is heavier than it was before. Watching the boys laugh and play with all of the goodies (while Alex body-slammed his brother) that Santa brought warmed the cockles of even my cold heart, and reminded me that this, THIS was what Christmas was about. Not enforced cookie-making, not faux ebullient merriment, not about in-laws or out-laws. It’s about family and it’s about magic.

I hope that each and every one of you is spending some time with people you love with all your heart (and probably some that you pretend you’re not related to), and I hope that some of the magic that has been lost over this year is regained. Somehow.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and all that goes in between from Casa de la Sausage to each and every one of you.

And remember: Aunt Becky loves you even if the rest of the planet thinks you’re an asshole.

Last week, in a sea of what can only be described as Hormone Soup, I had an appointment to go to my OB, for all of my least favorite pregnancy treats. Not only did I get to do the 1 hour glucose tolerance test, but I was also given a shot in my ass, AND (this is where it gets TRULY AWESOME) a repeat Uncle Pappy.

Back when I was about 5 minutes pregnant with Amelia, right after my dueling chemical pregnancies, I got the results back from my previous Uncle Pappy. And for the first time ever the results indicated that my cervix was now growing some pretty interestingly abnormal little critters. Being full of the Hormone Soup back then, too, I promptly lost my shit for about a day and a half before I reminded myself (and the Internet bitch slapped me with love) that this was a pretty normally abnormal experience.

It was recommended that I get something done called a “colposcopy” after I hit Week 12, but when that rolled around I decided against it. I mean, if there wasn’t anything the doctor could do until I delivered anyway, why go through the pain and cramping and general Reign of Worry? Shit, I told The Daver at one point, they can take the whole bad boy and throw it the hell away once this wee one is born. Otherwise it’ll be sitting there with a Vacancy sign lit and humming slightly until I go through menopause.

So last week at around 29 weeks, when I trudged off to the OB’s office, high on sugar and sick to my guts, I really wasn’t concerned about my normally abnormal self. I was far more concerned with not passing out while getting my blood drawn (not something that normally bugs me) and where and what I would be eating after I left.

But yesterday, buoyed by my anger towards doctors in general, I decided to be the World’s Worst Patient in the Squeaky Wheel Gets The Grease category, and harass my OB’s office into prescribing me some pain killers where my GI would not. I wasn’t even thinking about my cervix and the State of Things Down There when I began my Rampage of Terror.

Which, for once, worked out to my advantage: not only did I find out that a prescription for codeine had already been called in for me, but my newest Uncle Pappy WAS NORMAL.

Dude, between the clean bill of health for at least one part of my body, and the prescription for painkillers, I’m a happy damn camper. Happy Thanksgiving to my vagina, indeed.

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What are you thankful for today, my homies?

I’m hoping that this weekend I can steal some of Dave’s time for long enough to have him tweak my new layout, which is a chore and a half for him. But it’s so damn cool that I am nearly reaching orgasm just THINKING about it (what? I’m pregnant and unwieldy. Real sex is kinda out of the question right now).

In that vein, I’ve been trying like hell to update my pages over there on the right.

Please, my loyal readers and friends, visit the pages if you have nothing more exciting to do, and let me know what I need to add to make them super great. Have a question for my Frequently Thought Questions page that I should answer? Shoot me an email: becky (at) dwink (dot) net or leave me a comment.

I’m going to do my best to update my links, and if you were there before, you should still be there. If you’re a loyal reader and comment and stuff, leave me a comment and I’ll try and add you. I’m usually far better about keeping up, but I’ve not had the time or energy to do so lately.

And this will conclude my participation in NaBloWhatever. Too much pressure for my delicate ass.

BlogHer 2009
July 24-25
Chicago, IL

Who is in, my bitches? Who wants to come to Chicago, home of our famous deep dish pizza, the best hot dogs on the planet, AND everybody’s favorite Aunt Becky?

Because I cannot fucking wait. To all of you previous attendees, is it worth it?

Based on my clear lack of good blogging material, or to be more honest, the right outlook with which to write about anything at all, I’m yoinking one from the vaults to share with you. This was written about 2 months before I got married in 2005 and has been updated somewhat by moi. Because I’m good like that.

With my impending nuptials lurking stealthily right around the corner, I am consistently reminded of how over half of marriages these days end in divorce. According to the *ahem* interesting folks at livejournals Virgins Over 25 site, that number is markedly decreased for those involved in church. And the number is even less than that for people who raise their children in church.

What this means is that I’m totally fucked.

I don’t WANT to get divorced, too much nasty social stigma attached to that, plus, I’m too lazy to go to court over and over to divide up our animals and dishes, so I have carefully devised a plan to help me stay married. Because if anybody in the family requires the label ‘œTemperful’ it is I. (okay, so it’s not a word. Yet. But it should be)

Ergo, I alone am the danger for divorce.

As most old people will creepily point out to you, the sex and passion tends to die out after a number of years leaving in it’s place a bleak type of emptiness, fulfilled either by really dull pursuits like, ‘œstamp collecting’ and even worse, ‘œbird watching.’

Or an affair.

That’s right, folks, screw the birds and the stamps, the way that I am going to beat a divorce before marriage is through an illict affair, carefully mapped out over the next couple of years. I mean, why WAIT to scratch the itch? Nip it in the bud! That’s what I say.

So I am carefully screening, through an intensive application process (think the Meyers-Brigg crossed with Cosmo quiz) potential candidates for my pending affair and possible illegitimate love-child.

Some candidates in my pool:

Mick Jagger– he may be as old as Jesus, but the man can still MOVE. Plus, he’s got bank vaults full of money and is freakishly fertile, so the child support checks would pay for a big house for Dave and I to live in.

The Garbage Man– perhaps his fragrance is a little on the shitty side (get it?) but he’s got some sexy muscles, and I don’t exactly have a milk-man to fall back on. (Ed note: we have since moved, and I’m no longer inundated with smoldering hot garbage men. I can’t be sure I’ve ever even seen my new garbage men. Sadly)

Anthony Bourdain– While I don’t exactly envision steamy sex fantasies with the guy, I imagine we’d do a lot of drinking, smoking and making each other laugh. Any man who uses the phrase “pube in my drink” on television is a man I’d like to hump. Or at least hang out with.

Anna KorniwhatsherfacedatingEnriquewhatshisface– she’s super, super, super hot. I mean, smoldering hot. I totally want to make out with her, and I’m not remotely gay.

Okay, okay, okay. So I don’t have a crazy long list. Sue me. I mean, it’s not every day that you get to carefully choose AND screen a potential lover, right?

Oh like YOU’VE never thought of doing this! Haven’t you?

Haven’t you???

I’m full of The Cranky today, and I’m not really sure why specifically. It’s partially because I’ve reached the point in pregnancy (for me) when I turn from a reasonably cute pregnant lady to growing out of all of my clothes. It’s also because I can’t get around too easily with my gigantic boot, and it gets pretty frustrating.

Or maybe it’s just because I’m tired. It was a long weekend for Gimpy McCripple here.

So, help a sister out. What’s making YOU cranky today?

Becky: “Do you like my manicure?” (playfully wraggles black fingernails in Daver’s face)

Dave (grabs hand for closer inspection): “Ooooh. Freaky! Won’t Ashley be mad that you had black nail polish put on for her wedding?”

Becky: “Nah. It’s perfectly vogue now. It’s no longer JUST for goth chicks.”

Dave: “Ah.”

Dave (grabs her hand again. This time her right hand, although not unkindly): “Wait a minute…is your wedding ring STUCK ON?”

Becky (sheepishly, in a small voice): “Yes.” (pauses) “I kept in on to long after I got pregnant with Amelia. And now I can’t get it off.”

Dave (eyes take on a mischievous gleam): “You know what this means, right?”

Becky: “Please don’t take me down to the fire station to get it cut off. I’m so ashamed. I HAVE FINGER FAT NOW.”

Dave: “No, no. I wouldn’t do that. And your finger looks great. But…”

(pauses dramatically for effect)

Dave: “You SEE this ring? IT MEANS I OWN YOU.”

Becky: “That’s MY line, assface.”

Dave: “And look at how badly it blew up in your face.”

Becky: “Touche.”

I’ve been preparing for The Sex Talk with my kids since, oh I don’t know, about week one of Ben’s life or so. It’s always been expected that with my background in nursing and my dabbling into virology/bacteriology the task of embarrassing the bejesus out of our children When The Time Comes. I have a powerpoint planned, honestly, with plenty of disgusting images of genital warts, gonorrhea, chlamydia (o! the search terms that will come).

If they’re gonna hump anyway, I might as well make them DAMN aware of the risks.

Anywhoo, when I got pregnant with Alex, I realized that pulling out a picture of a wart covered weenis was probably overkill, considering he didn’t even know that he himself had testicles. It didn’t matter, at age 5, he wanted to know where babies come from.

Fair question, considering he knew he’d be a big brother soon enough.

The brilliance and perhaps the best part of having my kid be on the autistic spectrum when it comes to these sorts of things is his detachedness (it’s also what makes me want to pull my hair out when I want a hug from him). It makes the telling of these sorts of things a snap, because he has very little emotional response. He accepts things at face value and comes back later on to ask any questions he’s thought of.

Ben is such a literal person, that we decided that the best manner to explain where babies come from is a book. This book.

Diligently we read this with him each and every night, carefully explaining such words as “anus,” “labia,” and “ovary,” and he soaked it up like a wee sponge. The only thing that ever seemed to vex him was how the baby got from the inside to the outside. No answer seemed to assuage his curiosity, and eventually he decided that the most likely exit point–despite my assurances that the baby would come out of my vagina–was through a cut in my belly button.

Well, now that THIS was taken care of, he set about really LEARNING about the baby makin’ crap. And the best way for Ben to learn anything is through singing, so the songs that he would come up with had a decidedly hilarious subject matter.

This one was my favorite, sung in no particular tune:

“There was an egg, sitting in the fallopian tube and a sperm came along and BAM! there was me!”

Thankfully for my delicate sensibilities, I didn’t have to ever explain HOW the sperm from the dad got into the body of the mom, because seriously, he would tell everyone he ever met about that. He just seemed to accept that the sperm somehow got there and that was that.

It went a hell of a lot smoother than the inevitable Sex Talk will, that’s for certain. And I hope, at the very least, that by the time we do have the Sex Talk, he will have outgrown the singing to learn. Because if not, I may shrivel up into a puddle of goo if I have to hear him sing about, “Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease caused by the spirochetal bacterium Treponema pallidum, and it’s primary form is a chancre.”

What kind of sex talk are you planning on having with your children? Any?

Let me ask you this, o! wise Internet:

Why are all of the really big blogs so very big? Stupid Inquiring minds want to know.

So, I got tagged by two of my good buddies to do a meme I’ve done a billion times before. What’s scariest is that I can STILL come up with weird things about me to go on and on and on about. Color me happily self-indulgent.

CLC and Holli, this one’s for you.

The Rules: Mention six quirky, yet boring, unspectacular details about yourself (wait, aren’t they all?).

1). I am deathly terrified of eyeballs. When I was in nursing school, we did a whole unit on Eye Disorders and The Fucked Up Things That Can Happen To Them, complete with pictures to illustrate the disorder. While I could handle sticking my hand into a gaping, festering surgical hole on a patient’s abdomen, I couldn’t handle looking at the Gross Eye Problems (yes, that’s a technical term).

2) I have a female relative, a great-great-great…ad nauseum grandmother on my mother’s side. Unfascinating to say the least.

Until she was stoned to death during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692.

Her name, according to familial sources was also Rebecca.

3) I wanted a baby sister when I was about 3, and since my mother had already been “fixed” (apparently after seeing my ugly newborn face), I resorted to the next best thing.

My retarded cat named Biscuit.

I used to dress the cat and her 4 brain cells in my old baby clothes and stuff her into a doll’s carriage. She is the reason for the cross-hatching of scars on my torso. I was, apparently, also in possession of a mere 4 brain cells.

4) I am currently obsessed with food and despite being asked every 2.5 minutes if I’d had any during my last two pregnancies, this is the first time I’ve had major cravings. I have a major addiction to Flavor Ice, along with anything tomato based (although NEVER raw tomatoes. *shudder, shudder*).

It’s actually more obnoxious than you’d think.

5) I may have to raffle off chances to Name Aunt Becky’s Sausage when the time comes. I broke down and bought a baby names book because we’re so desperate, which boasts having something like 5,000 names. Sadly, they don’t distinguish between names that SUCK and names that don’t.

Any good names you can think of? The stipulations are as follows:

Names cannot be Benjamin, Alexander, Joseph or Maxwell. Also, not David or Rebecca.

Names cannot begin with an H and preferably not an A, B, R or D.

The big anatomy scan is scheduled for September 17, so I’ll have more stipulations (God, I am one demanding BITCH) then. Mainly, “must be boy or girl name.”

6) When I was a kid, I’d buy or be gifted boxes of crayons. For some reason, I loved looking at them best in their neat little rows, lined up perfectly and unsullied by my inexpert coloring. I’d always save them for the Perfect Coloring Sheet, especially my favorite colors (namely: pink.).

Once they were used, I’d be less enchanted by their imperfect nubs and want to get a fresh new box. Never did I use the nubs to color. Needless to say, I was not an artistic sort of child.

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I’m supposed to tag some of you to do this meme, but I never do. Instead, I ask that you tell me one interesting factoid about YOU. Or it can be something UNinteresting. Doesn’t matter to me. And you, YES YOU, you lurker out there, hiding in the shadow of google reader. C’mon out and play!