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?

I have now officially popped by guest posting cherry over at Bad Ass Geek. Here’s what I said:

———–

When both of your parents are hippies, there isn’t a whole hell of a lot of things that you can do to rebel. I mean, any parents who protested the Vietnam War and marched at the Democratic National Convention (the rioting one), and admitted to smoking the ganja often and with gusto aren’t exactly the sort that might ground you for being 3 minutes past curfew.

Hell, I didn’t even HAVE a curfew.

Nor did I have any real ground rules to follow other than to be kind to living things. And not vote Republican.

Between the admitted lack of boundaries and my incredible sense of Not Wanting To Get Busted, it was with many hooting and hollering friends that I called my mother to get permission to smoke The Weed for the first time.

I was 14, I’d just gotten my tonsils taken out (no small surgery for someone past the age of 6) and I wanted to make sure that nothing weird was going to happen. Like I specifically didn’t want to suddenly think that jumping off the roof was a great way to finally fllllyyyyyy, like always happened in the DARE movies.

She was taken aback, my poor mother, when I called her and asked her if I could toke up with my friends. To her credit, she didn’t laugh hysterically or anything, but she did sound pretty surprised even as she agreed to it. Providing, of course, that I drink a lot of water.

Drinking lots of water and going out in the sunshine are two of my mother’s favorite pieces of advice. I could probably be bleeding to death in the woods from a gunshot wound, and if I were to see her she would likely tell me to drink some water and lay out in the sunshine.

My first choice of Smoking Implement was a 3 foot purple glass bong I’d named Stinky, and as my friend Josh lit the herb at the bottom of the tube, I sucked in as hard as I could, my finger covering the rush hole. The smoke in the chamber reached a thick consistency we called “mayonnaise,” and after I held in my first toke and blew it out, I put my mouth back at the rim, unplugged the rush hole and sucked in.

In that moment, I suddenly earned the respect of each and every seasoned pot smoker I knew as I cleared the chamber. Apparently this was no small feat.

After I was done with my hit, I popped off the bed and bopped into the other room, squeaking out a “Thanks, guys!” as the room burst into rounds of applause for Wonder Girl, Pot Smoker Extraordinaire.

I didn’t get high that first time, despite the massive influx of Mary Jay into my system, I felt nothing. Perhaps I was a smidgen gigglier (no huge feat for an admittedly giggly 14 year old girl), perhaps it was just the atmosphere in that house that night.

Perhaps it was all just one toke over the line (Sweet Jesus).

Tell me about one of YOUR first times. I could use some entertainment, dammit!

I just changed my Big Scary Ultrasound appointment from the 17th of September to the 8th of September (also: Daver’s birthday. Where he turns 30! Officially OLD BALLS TERRITORY). Which has made my body Full of The Nervous, as I stare down the barrel of that gun. My reasons for changing my appointment are less “ohmygod, I can’t WAIT to go shopping” and more “ohmygod, I can’t WAIT to find out if it’s healthy,” which make me a killjoy, but a practical one.

People tend to assume that since I have two boys at home, that I would somehow really be upset if I didn’t have at least one baby girl. And while I might be upset for different reasons (i.e. I don’t get to buy frilly dresses and tell the Internet about it), I’m sadly boring when I inform you that really, REALLY, all I want is for my baby to be healthy. I don’t even care if it’s HAPPY (my babies are NEVER happy), just healthy.

I’ve tried to get in touch with my inner voice, you know, the one that’s supposed to guide my womanly intuition toward the gender of my Sausage, I’ve really tried. And all my womanly intuition wants to tell me is that I’m in dire need of buffalo wings.

When I was pregnant with Ben, delusional and pregnant, I would have sworn on a stack of Bibles, Cosmos, whatever that I was having a girl. I had a girl’s name picked out. I hadn’t bought any CLOTHES yet, since I was both poor and practical, but I had my eagle eye set on some frilly dresses.

It was a good thing they have you lay down for your ultrasound, or I may have toppled over onto the floor, never to get up again, when the lady informed me that I was carrying a boy. I insisted that she show me the evidence, and she did, a heavily pixilated penis/balls combo floating lazily in a bath of amniotic fluid.

I’ll admit to being somewhat disappointed at first, not that this was a very PC reaction, but with fairly good reason. When you have a boy, pregnant by a dude who is on his better days Captain Douchebag and on his worse days Captain Asswad, the last thing you want is for YOUR son to turn out just like his father.

I’m positive I’m not alone in this feeling, which at the end of it all, does come from the right place. I wanted better for my Ben.

And I got it.

When I got pregnant with Alex, Dave and I formed a kind of bet for what flavor of baby we were carrying. He INSISTED with more conviction than I’ve seen him muster save for the time that he tried to convince me that “Kung Fu” was a great show, that we were having a Girl. I was so much sicker, he reasoned, my pregnancy was so very different, it HAD to be a girl.

I took the option of Boy, just to make the US day more interesting (and to quell my aching nerves), and we had our bet.

The Stakes For Alex’s Pregnancy:

If I was right, and the baby was a Boy, Dave would wear a baby doll Britney Spears shirt IN PUBLIC on a day when it couldn’t be covered by a jacket.

If HE was right, and the baby was a Girl, I would, when I wasn’t overly pregnant, wear a Chicks Dig Unix shirt in public.

Due to our cheap-ass nature, and the fact that I sort of forgot (remember, this was also November in Chicago, where it’s certainly not warm enough to wear a t-shirt outdoors), Dave never wore the Britney Shirt.

So this time, in order once again to distract myself from the rolling ball of nerves that I now am, I tried to get him to make a bet with me. I was going for Team Girl, I figured he would go for Team Boy and we could come up with something new. Other than, “Hey, I’ll give you $20 from our JOINT CHECKING ACCOUNT” as stakes.

Now I need your help, Internet.

First, will you come with me to my US appointment on Monday at 12:30? Please? Even if it’s just in your head, please send me healthy baby vibes. I’ll be your BFF!

Second, go ahead and vote up there. I’m dying to see what YOU think I’m carrying.

Third, and perhaps most entertaining, help me come up with some stakes with which Dave and I can lay our bets. Here is the pertinent info on Daver (you know me already):

He is a geek, but not a nerd. I’m assured that there is a difference here.

As you may have guessed, he has an excellent sense of humor, so pretty much anything is fair game.

He’s Mr. Wilson to my Dennis The Menace.

He doesn’t appreciate the beauty of pop culture as I do as he’s far more deep and meaningful than I am.

He will stop at nothing to embarrass me.

Anything else you need to know?

Every now and again, when I duck into Mimi Maternity or Pea in a Pod I run into another pregnant lady (I know, who’d have thought it?). The sort of pregnant lady that makes me gnash my teeth and drool in her direction (she’s probably all, who let Crazy McFat Pants out of her cage?).

Because while I’ve looked about 6 months pregnant since day 4 or 5, my rolls getting rolls on top of even more love handles, my cellulite now covering me in some sort of bizarre pregnancy suit, my bra stretching and groaning uncomfortably against my saggy boobs, she serenely pats her tiny belly as she confides in the salesclerk that she’s due any day now.

I pray feverishly as I peer between the racks of clothing to find something that’s decidedly more flattering to the figure (what figure? I look like an olive on toothpicks) than what I’m wearing, that she’s about to divulge that this is her first baby or something, anything to make me feel better about myself and my ham-hock arms at 4 and a half months along, before she then mentions that this is her fifth baby.

She looks so put together, so firm and taut in her ass and thighs, obviously she hadn’t gained a pound over the recommended whatever it is you’re supposed to gain, while I? I look like I rolled out of bed, snapped on a bra, pulled my hair back and then went out in public. Which is precisely what I did.

And I am jealous. I’d love to be a svelte and sexy pregnant lady, gaining the tiniest amount of weight in my belly only rather than turning my ass into a shelf and my face into a moon pie. Ain’t gonna happen in THIS lifetime, sister.

When I had my first baby, I got hungry. I put my eatin’ pants on and I ate pretty much anything and everything I could get my grubby mitts on. I ate at least 2-3 times what I was supposed to eat, washing down every meal with a milkshake or three while I munched candy bars I hadn’t eaten in years.

Sure, I knew I was gaining weight, so I eventually just asked the nurse not to tell me what the scale said when I stepped onto it. There was no law saying I had to KNOW how fat I’d gotten, right? Besides, I’d just breastfeed it off later, I told myself.

Hardy-har-fucking-har.

Ben, who unbeknown to me at the time was autistic, refused to get anywhere near my massive mammeries once I popped him out, and after a spell of pumping he became a formula baby.

Fast forward 5 years. I’ve taken off the weight, however painfully, and am now pregnant with Alex. I have made precisely one promise to myself: I wasn’t going to become a fat ass when I got pregnant again.

Morning sickness, then hyperemesis struck, and even as I purged whatever molecules of food from my system, I watched horrified as the scale went up. Between 5-9 weeks, I gained 11 pounds. I ate nothing, threw up so hard that my nose was permanently bleeding and I gained weight.

Once I was able to hold down food again (around 18 weeks and 25 pounds heavier), I ate well. I ate so well that people couldn’t believe how fat I was getting. Egg whites, tofu, veggies, fruits. Small portions eaten often. And yet I found myself on the delivery table having gained 56 pounds. A mere 10 pounds lighter than when I’d had Ben.

(as an aside, it hurt me to no end that only The Daver believed me that I wasn’t secretly gorging upon hostess products and lard at night and while he was at work. Everyone else seemed to believe that I was lying for some reason, and was just ashamed of my weight gain. While I was TOTALLY ashamed, I’d never lie about something like that)

Oh well, I told myself, at least I’d breastfeed it off with this one. Alex was a champion nurser, nursed often and with gusto, and I knew I’d be back into my size 6’s in no time.

Go ahead, laugh away. I won’t blame you.

Turns out that no matter what LLL tells you, not EVERYONE loses weight while breastfeeding. Just wanted to be clear here, because I seriously wish like hell that anyone had told me this before I nearly killed myself trying to get this weight off.

So when I got pregnant with The Sausage, I made a vow to myself to eat what I want and enjoy it without feeling guilty about any weight gains I’ve had. My body does apparently like to pack on the pounds while pregnant, so why fight it? It’s not worth it to beat myself up over every single pound.

And so far? I’ve not gained an insane amount of weight for someone almost 18 weeks pregnant. Which shocks the shitballs out of me. Who knew that I just needed to let go and eat pretty much any and everything that I can find? My week’s menu reads just like the Very Hungry Caterpillar, and I’m loving every second of it.

Who the hell knew?

So dish. Tell me about YOUR pregnancy weight gain. Please tell me I’m not alone in reaching epic blimp-like proportions while pregnant. Or if I am, will you pass the ketchup and chocolate. Aunt Becky is ready for her 1st dinner.

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.

Macrocephalic. Buckethead. Orange-On-A-Toothpick. Satellite.

All words I’ve used to describe my children and their heads. I’d like to point out and be correct that the reason for their enormous melon’s would be related to their father-age, but since the common denominator between them both is me, I’d have to say that the likely culprit who unwittingly passed the genetics to create craniums that should have their own zip code is myself.

While I don’t call myself a “Baseball Head” or “Pinhead” or anything, I like to think that my own head is not overly large. Mainly because it’s not. It’s just that some of my *ahem* family members (my older brother and my mother for example) have heads that planets could orbit. Guess I should be glad that I only inherited the family pot belly, right?

It was, sadly enough, with this Implement of Destruction that my youngest child caused the intense pain that I happen to be in. I’m accustomed to dodging swinging heads as they come toward my person, but I happened to be too close to correctly remove myself from their path of deconstruction.

Alexander, the only child who I can make snuggle me without a tangible bribe, was sitting on my lap the other day, alternating between snuggling me and trying to stick his fingers up my nose, when it happened. He swung his bucket-o-brains backward before thrusting it forward again with as much force as someone who is made of pure muscle can muster.

In other words: a hell of a lot.

I couldn’t duck quickly enough, so !THWACK! his melon made direct contact with the squishy bits of my neck. It hurt like a bitch then, and the following morning–yesterday–I awoke with a massive headache. Relating, I’m certain, directly to his head against my neck.

Down the stairs I trudged, toward the medicine cabinet where I house the one pain reliever I can currently take: Tylenol. Extra Strength fucking TYLENOL. I shook two out into my palm, rolled my eyes and swallowed them. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t do jack to touch the pain.

Eventually the pain became throbby enough for me to call the doctor’s office, which is not something I typically do. I’m a trained nurse, and even though I don’t actually make money from my intended profession, I do know how to treat such things. And I don’t really need another nurse to tell me what to do.

Maybe it’s just my OB’s office nurses that offer the most insanely stupid advice to me when I call. Here’s an approximate conversation I had with one nurse when I was barfing my guts out while pregnant with Alex:

Me: “Um Hi, I’m really sick with this baby, I’m X weeks pregnant and I wanted to know if you had any good tips.”

Her: “Eat an apple.”

Me: “Huh?”

Her: “Apples.”

Me: “Uhhhh….”

Her: “I like potatoes. Like BAKED ones.”

Me: “I gotta…go.”

(click)

Yesterday I had a similar conversation. To make me call the doctor is to admit defeat, but my head was so achy and awful that I didn’t feel I had much of a choice.

Me: “Hi, I’m 14 weeks pregnant and I have a headache. I took Tylenol hours ago and it’s not helping. Can I get a prescription for something stronger?”

Her: “Not without being seen first.”

Me: “But it’s a headache. I can barely see to drive. I don’t need anything too strong. Just something more than Tylenol.”

Her: “You need to see a doctor. Have you tried laying down in a dark room?”

Me: “Hahahahaa! I have kids. Laying down in a dark room doesn’t happen unless I chain them to a wall somewhere.”

Her: “The office is closing anyway. If it’s ‘SO BAD’ you can go to the ER.”

Me: “…..? The ER?”

Her: “Yes. Or we can see you tomorrow.”

Now maybe it’s just me, but doesn’t that seem a little insane to go to the ER for a simple “I need Tylenol 3 headache?” I wasn’t asking for a morphine pump (oh, how I WISH that this had been an option) or a lifetime supply of Vicodin. What shouldn’t have been a big ass deal was suddenly an ER trip away from being labeled an OVER REACTOR!

I never did go to the ER and I still haven’t gotten my headache to go away completely, but it’s marginally tolerable now. Only thing totally solidified is my annoyance with Doctor Office Nurses.

Am I the only one?

Dear World,

Do not, under any circumstances whatsoever, eat over a half a package of bacon. Sure, it may taste good going down, the grease lovingly filling your guts, but I assure you that 12 hours later, when you’re curled up in bed weeping, you’re going to wish you’d never seen a pork product in your life.

Not that I would know anything about it.

Love,

Your Aunt Becky

I’m having one of those The Universe Peed In My Lucky Charms days today, and it’s not for any good reason. I’m thrilled as all hell that the fetus (is it a fetus now? I don’t even know) is still there, still making me sick as shit, I’m pleased about my agents and the way my proposal is shaping up (a huge thank you to those of you who have been kind enough to edit for me), and it’s a beautiful day outside today.

And yet. And YET. I’m stabby and cranky.

In no apparent order, these are the dumb things making me angry today:

*After I got home from the doctor yesterday, buoyed by good news, I saw that I had a message from the place that we’re holding my best friend’s bridal shower. Fuck, I thought to myself, this can’t be good.

And it wasn’t.

The place is closing a week before the shower and despite having already sent out invitations and the like with this place listed, we have to scramble and come up with a NEW place to hold it. Now, I’m thrilled that this is the only thing I have to worry about (what kind of luxury is that?) but HELLO, that’s annoying.

Mainly because the shower is in 3 weeks.

Fuck!

*The Battle Over Who Does The Cat Boxes Rages Wildly in my house, and reached a fever pitch this morning when I found a neat pile of cat shit outside of my door. It appears as though NO ONE has done them (this is an ages old fight. I do them when I’m not pregnant, and I’m not supposed to do them when I am).

Which meant that I donned a Lead Paint mask thingy–called a respirator. The same one you use for TB exposure– and did them myself today. (Don’t worry, I’d 99% guess I’m immune to toxoplasmosis. I’ve been cleaning cat shit boxes since I was a teeny girl).

*My mouth tastes soapy literally all day long, and I cannot seem to rid myself of it. It’s as disgusting as it sounds.

*My mother-in-law is coming to stay for the weekend and I’m forced to get off my duff, stop working on my writing and clean this Pit Of Despair that I currently live in. Morning sickness, shall we say, was not kind to my house.

*Alex seems to be afflicted by the same General Crankatude that I am, and it’s not helping matters very much. He’s currently up in his crib honking about not wanting to go to sleep. I only wish someone confined me to bed for a couple of hours!

So what peed in YOUR Cornflakes, Internet? Anything?

See, SEE? I went to BlogHer after all, with a little help from my good friend Backpacking Dad.

Next year I hope to not have a body-double.

It always shocks me to learn that something I find so utterly inconsequential would be so controversial, so worthy of being yelled at and berated for. Something that when people learn of it, they sputter and shout, get their proverbial panties in a bunch, and tend to form an immediate opinion of She’s An Idiot, Let’s Smile, Nod, And Run Like Hell.

Of course, I’m talking about one of the myriad of things in the world I don’t happen to like.

I’ll admit it to you, here and now, and you can decide if you’d like to continue to read the blog of someone who doesn’t like sandwiches.

Yes, Internet, I am telling you that I do not like sandwiches.

I know, I know, how is there a God if someone admits to disliking such an old standby? How can the world spin properly on its’ axis while some Midwestern Idiot doesn’t like sandwiches? WHAT’S THERE NOT TO LIKE?

Well, I don’t know. I guess I just don’t really care for meat shoved between slices of warm bread (oooo, she’s being dirty now). Now, this isn’t to say that there aren’t exceptions to the rule: sometimes I might dig on a sandwich–especially if it’s dripping with vinegar–but overall, I’m okay without either.

Before you peg me as a card carrying member of People Who Hate Sandwiches And Make Those Who Do Feel Badly For It (sadly not a Yahoo Group at this time, HINT, HINT, HINT), let me be the first to assure you that I’ve never picketed a Subway, never thrown pad thai at people exiting Jimmy John’s, never even worn a shirt proclaiming my abhoration of such an American staple. In fact, surprisingly I don’t even own such a shirt.

I’m free to coexist peaceably among the Sandwich Lover’s Of The World, begging off when people go for a taste sensation on a bun, preferring, well, most anything else.

I’m free, of course, until I dare open my mouth and explain precisely WHY I won’t be going with for a li’l slice of Heaven. All it takes is some seemingly innocuous comment “Well, I don’t really like sandwiches” before someone jumps down my throat, feet first.

“Whaaaat?” They sputter at me, squinting at me disbelievingly, “You don’t like sandwiches? WHY, O WHY NOT? THEY’RE THE MOST WONDERFUL THING ON THE PLANET!”

When I reply, typically with a shoulder roll, a Golly Gee ‘Aw Shucks’ expression and a simple, “I don’t know,” The Sandwich Lovers invariably question me further. “Were you abused by a sandwich? Did you accidentally eat one raw? Did you RUN ONE OVER? Were you made fun of by a sandwich as a child?”

The answer to all those questions and more is a simple, “No” and the moment I utter that one syllable I’m immediately taken for as The Enemy Of The Freedom To Love Sandwiches and anything else I say is disregarded completely.

So far I’ve avoided defending myself the Creepy Sandwich People by explaining precisely what it is that I do not like: lunch meat is phony meat (don’t ask me where I got that idea. I refuse to eat meat from TV dinners, too), lunch meat is loaded with sodium and frightening preservatives (altho a hot dog is one of my favorite foods, well, ever), bread has a billion calories in it, I hate mayo, I like my veggies separate from the rest of my food.

I avoid explaining it because it’s pointless. I don’t like sandwich because I don’t like sandwiches. It’s simple and yet ridiculously (needlessly) complex.

I think from now on, I’m going to tell people that sandwiches are against my religion. Maybe it’ll help.