It's A Boy!

Everyone is fine. Details here.

Quick "Where's the Baby?" Update

Before "more about bats", I will answer the question I know is on everyone's mind:


Did Tom and Katie really have a baby?


Okay, maybe not that question.

How about this one...


Question: Did you have that baby yet?


Answer:

No.

No, no and finally, no.


The baby is still very comfortable inside me with his enormous head resting on my lungs.

He kicks, he beats his fists against me, he hiccups.

Ocassionally - usually between the hours of 11:30 PM and 7:00 AM - I have contractions. Very big stomach-tightening contractions which wake me up and make me press my hands across my hips so that they don't explode in opposite directions.

I count the contractions: every 15 minutes, every 10 minutes...every 10 minutes, 10 minutes and holding.

And then, I get up to walk around or bake some late-night zucchini bread, and the contractions stop.

All gone!

So...we have a baby who still won't turn, a body that thinks contractions are a lot of fun as long as they're not real work, and a c-section date of Monday, July 31.

On Monday, July 31, at 1:00 PM this child will be evicted.


Which leads me to the second question I know is on eveyrone's mind:


Question:

Are you going to the super fabulous BlogHer Conference this weekend? Everyone, but EVERYONE who's anyone will be there! Girls, girls, girls! Blogs, blogs, blogs! Fun, fun, fun! C'mon! It'll be great! Someone there should be able to deliver a baby!


Answer:

No.

No, I will not be there.

I don't want to talk about it.


And finally and most importantly, a big THANK YOU for everyone's suggestions on how to turn a stubborn baby. I have tried just about everything at this point. The baby scooted down a few times, but ultimately he seems to find the pillow that is my lung to be more comfy than the pillow that is my bladder. So, unless he flips - and yes, I will make sure to have an ultrasound before going under the knife - this baby will be delivered the good old-fashioned way: much pain and bodily fluids on my part, many cigars and martinis on my husband's part.

And a double THANK YOU THANK YOU to everyone who read through that monster post that was not about bats, and to eveyrone who offered their sympathy, empathy and camaradarie. And blueberry Stoli.

I've calmed down a bit since the orignal incident. I think rabies shots do that to you.

Anyway, I just wanted to acknowledge all the wonderful comments and the support I've been receiving over the past few days, both on-line and in "real life".

Although, the two do blur at times.

Most times.

But...you know...thank you. Sincerely.


And now to write that bat post.

And then have a baby.

This Epic Post Is Not About Bats

It’s about letting go.

Okay, here’s “the thing”.

I’m a control freak…about some things.

I’m also - according to the Myers-Briggs personality test - an Introverted Intuitor Thinker Perceiver.

Say what?

Me, man! My personality!

Here’s one explanation of my Myers-Briggs personality type and how my lovely INTP head works:

For INTPs the driving force in their lives is to understand whatever phenomenon is the focus of their attention.

They want to make sense of the world-as a concept-and they often enjoy opportunities to be creative.

INTPs are logical, analytical, and detached in their approach to the world; they naturally question and critique ideas and events as they strive for understanding.

This one is particularly timely. From Portrait of an INTP

They are intensely interested in theory, and will put forth tremendous amounts of time and energy into finding a solution to a problem with has piqued their interest.

If you’re really interested in getting to know me - and you know you are - here’s way more, (although none of these profiles take it upon themselves to mention my je ne sais quoi with scarves.)

Just to get a better idea of what we’re talking about, here's a short list of some famous INTPs:

Socrates
Rene Descartes
Sir Isaac Newton
Albert Einstein
Bob Newhart
Dustin Hoffman
Meryl Streep

How’d you like to be invited to that party?

I’d definitely be the one on the coffee table with the lampshade on my head. Well, me and Bob Newhart.

But how does all this logical, analytical approach to the world work in real life?

What’s it like to live daily in the world of theory such that I’m just as likely to wonder whether man descended from apes -or vice versa - as to actively and seriously ponder the list of ingredients for making pickled red beet eggs?

What’s it like to almost, never, ever, ever “Let go, Let God” because God may not have really thought through the problem. I mean, take a look at the whole Pompeii fiasco. Who puts a volcano on a subduction zone? Or vice versa?

(Stay with me. You know by now that there’s always some payoff to my ramblings.)

Back to more me.

Let’s take pregnancy. It’s a timely subject.

Let’s say that you are an INTP and you decide (eh-hem) to get pregnant.

The first thing to do - after drinking a bottle of wine, donning a see-through nightie, and challenging your husband to a hot-and-heavy game of Scrabble - the first thing to do is to start reading. Read, read, read. Read everything about pregnancy that you can get your hands on. Start with the obvious: The Merck Manual on Gynecology, Obstetrics and Pediatrics. This will give you just enough information to be really dangerous and, what’s more fun, enough reading material to provide 9 month’s worth of analyzing and theory building, otherwise known as "panic attacks".

Oh the possibilities!

Inverted uteri and Hydatidiform moles. Hey, what about choriocarcinoma or HELLP symdrome? And then there are the more commonly heard-of potentialities: miscarriage, gestational diabetes, placenta previa. And we haven’t even gotten to worrying - I mean -theorizing about the health of the fetus, yet. Here’s where the distinct thrill of being both logical and a “creative thinker” at the same time really takes off.

For example, you know that in the United States about 2,500 people per year become ill with listeriosis, an infection caused by eating food contaminated with the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes, and about 500 will die. And that sucks. But, if you think about it, that's not a whole lot in the scheme of roughly 300 million people, even when considering that pregnant women are about 20 times more susceptible to listeriosis and that the bacteria can be especially harmful to the fetus. I don’t know what, logically, the odds are of any one pregnant woman contracting listeriosis from a hot dog or scoop of pate. Pretty low, I guess. But - and here’s where the fun of being an INTP comes in - theoretically, there’s no reason why that one pregnant woman wouldn’t be me.

Put another way, there are two types of people in this world:

One type of person does not own several copies of the Merck Manual and is more likely to think, “It couldn’t happen to me” even when stepping over a rattle snakes while eating raw hamburger.

The other type of person has the CDCs Listeriosis Disease Listing bookmarked on her computer and perceptibly shakes every time a plate of brie gets passed before her.


Really, I suppose, it’s an ego thing as much as it is a close affinity with Albert Einstein or Bob Geldof, another great INTPer. The whole “Why wouldn’t it happen to me” is very much the dark flipside of that same self-importance which propels INTPs to get up and dance on coffee tables in the first place.

Or, as my buddy Descartes puts it, “I think, therefore, I think a whole lot about myself and to a fault.”

Alfa-fetoprotein tests, gestational diabetes tests, the various genetics tests. All come with their own sets of questions, their own risk/benefit assessments. Some tests which are supposed to narrow down whether or not your baby is genetically “okay” (and this has nothing to do with whether or not he will sneak out of the house when he’s 17, take the family car, and drive it into a mailbox) also have the potential to cause miscarriage. Hmmmmmm. What are the odds? What do I need or want to know? Do I feel comfortable with a goodly helping of mystery, or do I still hold a grudge against my best friend who threw me a surprise party last year at a time she knew I was coming home unshowered from the gym and wearing my ratty bra and the sweatpants with the hole in the crotch? How do I like people jumping out at me? Is it funny or time for a punch to the nose? Might there be someone behind me right now? Well, theoretically, yes.

Hold on, I need to turn around.

Okay.

No one there.

Although, there could be right now….

Nope. Still no one.

Anyway…

Why am I telling you this?

I’m telling you this because I am about to turn 40.

Well, end of August I’ll turn 40. “About to” is relative after 39 years.

And when you are about to turn 40 and you happen to be pregnant, you are what is gently referred to as an “advanced maternal age” mom.

In other words, you’re at that age where your body is beginning to gracefully disassemble itself - I don’t care what Madonna says - and being happily pregnant is not foremost on the mind of your uterus. It has other things it was thinking about: flushing out elderly eggs by the handful, turning up the heat just a notch, making preparations for the long winter’s nap it will begin in a few years. Sure, 40-year-old women are the sexiest things to walk the planet, don’t get me wrong. 40 is the new 30 and 30 is the new 20 and really, what was wrong with ogling the 17 year old - I mean - 19 year old life guard at the pool today, even if I am chronologically old enough to be his heavily-pregnant mother. Woman’s Day magazine says I’m 20 and that’s good enough for me. Theoretically.

And so with “almost-40-and-pregnant” comes a whole new host of gestational challenges to contemplate.

At age 40, the risk of Down’s Syndrome comes in somewhere around 1 in 150, and there is a higher risk of premature babies, high-blood pressure, and gestational diabetes. Good times.

At age 40, the placenta (baby’s comfy safe home) can begin to deteriorate rapidly after the due date and make baby very, very unhappy.

At age 40, maternity tops with Peter Pan collars or lace anywhere look especially ridiculous.

For pregnant women who are nearing age 40, the Merck Manual includes an entire chapter entitled “PPhhhhhhewww. Okay...sit down for this one.”

And so, whereas with my first two pregnancies, I was able to effectively manage all the analyzing and theorizing about hot dogs and Group B Strep and wondering whether my uterus would try to escape after pushing out the baby, with this pregnancy I started out feeling very overwhelmed.

Very.

Like “Here’s a Rubik’s cube and a gun to your head: now solve it…or else.”

And so this go around, after the first appointment with my OB during which she somewhat seriously - although she was trying to keep it light, she really was - mentioned all of the above, I immediately went home, did some deep thinking, and then sobbed for a month. I was being gently pressed to make decisions regarding amnios and chorionic villus sampling, both which could detect genetic abnormalities but which also had a slim chance of ejecting the fetus post haste; to prepare for the inevitability of induction should this baby not make his entrance by August 5, my due date; to wonder whether I could really handle a 10-year-old when I was turning 50 and more likely to want to sleep-in or recover from my hip replacement surgery - I don’t care what Women’s Day says - instead of chauffeuring a child to baseball practice and welding classes.

And so, when my adorable little INTP head began smoking and imploding from wondering “What if? What if? What if?”, my loving spouse - who is also an INT (although with a final J instead of a P, but that’s a whole different post) sat me down and said the four words that no self-respecting INTP would ever dare to murmur.


He said: “Let go, Let God.”

To which I said, “Don’t be ridiculous. Fist of all, aren't you an atheist…?”


And he said, “Don’t worry, be happy.”

To which I replied, “But…but…don’t you hate Bobby McFerrin?!”


And he said, “It will all work out. We’ll deal with it. I don’t know how. It’s a mystery.”

And I shouted, “IS THIS WHY OUR LAWN LOOKS THE WAY IT DOES?!”

(Which is only tangentially related, but I’m not going to explain my reasoning on this one.)


So, can you picture it?

Me, the two-bit Socrates, having a freaking knuckle-fest with the freaking Dalai Lama?

Let go, Let God…pfffft.


But you know? I really had no choice this time around.

There was too much. Too much other “life” going on. My worry meter was floored. I mean, not only was I pregnant, but I also had two out-of-uterus children to analyze and theorize over: the beautiful, precocious older daughter who likes to run around barefoot and step on rusty nails; the younger cute-as-a-button girl child who recently scared the pants off me when the pediatric ophthalmologist noticed a “Hmmmmm… this could be nothing or it could be something really serious, but I don‘t want to scare you” abnormality on her optic nerve. (It was nothing, thank…Buddha.)

And let’s look at the facts of this pregnancy:

Before I even knew I was pregnant, but while I was pregnant - in the early stages when all the important brain parts and organs are being developed and when it’s very important to not mess with the process by introducing potentially teratogenic substance or engaging in fetus-threatening activities - well wasn’t I blissfully unaware, skipping around Disney World eating sushi, drinking glass after glass of wine, dropping 13 stories on The Tower of Terror, and then hitting the hot tub in the evening.

All of which, by the way, are pregnancy no-no’s.

Let go, Let God.


I’ve since decided to not undergo the AFP or amnio or CVS tests. We already know that this kid-to-be comes from the same gene pool as a man who put onions under his armpits to ward off disease and a woman who got seriously plastered at Lithuanian Day festivals and then passed out on her grandchildren in the back seat of the car on the way home, so really, what’s more to know?

Let go, Let Halushki.


During this pregnancy, I’ve thrown caution to the wind and have eaten pate, hot dogs, and yes, an entire plate of brie.

Okay, they were all pasteurized or heated to 180 degrees, but still, that’s a pretty big letting-go for me.

Let go, Let Bob Newhart.


Three weeks ago, I too stepped on a rusty nail and had to get a tetanus booster. While pregnant. That’s a lot of Googling “tetanus vaccine pregnancy safety” you can imagine.

Let go, Let Bob Vila.


And two nights ago, I awoke to find a bat flying around in the upstairs of our house with all the bedroom doors open. And the cat was batting the bat. And then, when I tried to get the cat away from the bat, the cat bit me. And then the bat got away.

Oh, there’s much more to this story, which is why this post is not about the bat, but about letting go.

Because, you see, to submit to the series of five rabies vaccinations plus a giant helping of Human Rabies Immune Globulin, and all while you are pregnant and two weeks away from delivering, you really have to let go.

You really have to trust that the vaccine is 100% effective.

You have to have faith that when the almighty They tell you that "it’s safe during pregnancy, that They mean it.

You have to not flip out thinking about the fact that rabies is 100% fatal (the miraculous exception of Jeanna Gise notwithstanding), or wonder whether that one case of rabies crossing the human placenta is statistically important, or whether the newborn’s neutralizing antibody titers will remain high enough after your only receiving three doses of Imovax.

You have to not worry about that stuff.

You have to let go.

You have to trust the ER doctor who yells at you for saying “Rabies Immune Globulin” too many times and instructs you to sit down, relax, and let his Ph.D. do the thinking.

Let go, Let Louis Pasteur.



And that’s what I’m doing.


I’m going for my second rabies vaccination on Sunday.

I’m going to then go watch The Devil Wears Prada and cheer on Meryl Streep.

And I’m going to name this baby Bruce Wayne.


Because no matter what, he’s made it this far.

After all my analyazing and theorizing, I can only conclude that this child's 9-month inoculation with thrill rides, super-heating, potential bacteria exposure, inactivate tetanus and rabies vaccines, and a few stiff drinks will all have the effect of creating a super-human.

A superhero perhaps.

Or maybe, just a kid who likes to play with raccoons.

I don’t know.


But I do know that I’m just not going to worry about it.


Let Go, let go, let go, let go, let go….



P.S. The next post will be about bats.

Yes, I’m still here.

Here.

As in “pregnant” and “not yet delivered”.

It’s fine. Really. This stage - what am I in, the 10th month, 5th trimester or something like that - this stage of the pregnancy is a piece of cake.

Mmmmm, cake.

So, yes, I am still with child and the child is on the inside. He’s comfy. Occasionally, he wakes up at about 11PM and kicks the crap out of me.

Kicks the crap out of me…see that makes me laugh, because I’ve been taking Colace quite regularly now and I must have super anti-Colace powers that I never knew about. Lucky, lucky me. Yup. That’s my superhero name: Pooless Girl! Fighting the never-ending battle against the high cost of toilet paper and my evil arch-enemy, The Prune! Defender of sluggish bowels and protector of those innocent victims forced into attending community events that provide only one Porta Potty for every 600 people.

Heh.

My husband hates potty talk.

I don’t talk this way at home, really. I’m all, “Oh, honey, close the door to the water closet and let’s maintain the mystery, shall we?” Before we had kids, my husband and I never even knew that each other used the bathroom at all other than for adjusting make-up and drying damp socks. Now, my daughters report back to me: “I walked in the bathroom and Daddy stands-up when he pees. That‘s no fair.”

LA-LA-LA-LA-LA! I’M NOT LISTENING!

I talk a lot about alimentary goings-on on this blog, don’t I?

I just don’t have any other outlet.

So to speak.

But let’s face it, things are going to get real earthy around here real fast. Anyone who has ever handled a newborn - or heck, any age child - knows that bodily-function talk just comes with the territory. Even when the territory only weighs 7lbs but can projectile vomit the contents of a 15-minute feeding across the room and into the fish tank. Seconda did something like this when she was about a week old. I nursed her. Burped her. And then she got this tiny, adorably worried look on her face, opened her cupid’s bow mouth and, without any other warning, ejected whole lot of everything with remarkable speed. I mean, a very surprising amount of partially digested breastmillk - like the amount you would expect from a young goat, not a newborn human infant - an enormous geyser of milk came back up and out but…

Where’d it go?

She was dry. My shirt was dry.

It was amazing. As if all that regurgitated stuff had possibly just burned-up on its exit from the Earth’s atmosphere.

I looked. Nothing on the sofa. Nothing on the cat.

Hmmm.

And then I looked at the wall about 6 feet away and there it was, dripping down Jackson Pollock-like. Approximately four gallons of stomach contents. (I know, she only drank about 4 ounces, but it gained mass as it attained velocity.)

I looked at Seconda again.

She seemed as surprised as I was.

“Wow” I told her. “That was pretty…fantastic.”

And she’s been fantastic every since.

Anyway…

I am still pregnant and this child is breech. That would mean that instead of his head upside-down in my crotch with his feet kicking my ribs, he has his head in my lungs and is kneeing my intestines.

Which also means that, unless he flips into the locked-and-loaded position, I get to experience the miracle and empowerment of birth along with the thrill and excited anticipation of major abdominal surgery. And yes, I’ve been trying all the flippy-over tricks: reclining upside-down on an ironing board, rocking back and forth on my hands and knees, putting a head-set on my crotch and playing “Get Down Tonight” in an attempt to draw him toward the tantalizing beat of K.C. and The Sunshine Band.

The kid won’t budge.

My OB suggested an external cephalic version - a procedure in which they would try to manually turn the baby from the outside, and which sounded only slightly less uncomfortable than trying to manually rotate my own head 360 degrees - but he also talked about the risks and the fact that final success rate could be as low as 50%. Which means that after spinning my head and my baby, there was a good chance he’d pop back up again anyway.

And I’m guessing that this child would flip back upright because no matter how much he liked the K.C. playing near my cervix, it has to be nothing compared to the enchanting draw of my vocals as I sing along to the newest Christina Aguilera song while driving in my minivan. My pipes are rockin‘, seriously.

Eh-hem.

But I gotta be honest, here. At this point, if someone told me that the baby would be delivered today, but through my ear, I’d pull back my hair and say, “Which one?”

I'm so very ready.

Ready to meet this newest bundle of joy, oh sure.

But equally ready to no longer be balancing a whole lot of uterus on top of my bladder.

I can’t tie my shoes. I can’t bend over. The splaying-knee thing you know about. I can’t run after my kids to catch them by the scruff of the neck and drag them back to the kitchen to finish cleaning-up the Floam explosion.

I’m very, very hungry, but I can only stomach ice cream and watermelon -which doesn’t sound too, too bad as diets go, until I tell you that last week alone, I ate three entire watermelons by myself.

By myself.

No help.

And I could eat another one right now.

The entire thing.

I’m not proud.

Just…hungry.


And even though watermelon contains something like 2 calories per melon, my maternity clothes no longer fit me. Refuse to fit me. Just obstinately refuse to do what they were designed to do.

Oh sure, the common wisdom is to buy maternity clothes in the size you normally wear and that these clothes are designed and altered in some ratio or proportion to fit the parts of you that are still size small, but will also accommodate those parts of you that are size “Whoa.” And honestly, in the mid-trimester, these clothes usually did fit fairly well. My size small maternity jeans gave enough give across my belly and hips, but were slim and fetching through the legs and flared oh-so-stylishly across the tops of my ankle boots.

However, once I hit month seven, even my few pair of medium pants were pulling at the seams.

And now at month 10, my two pair of size large shorts - the ones I almost declined taking from a friend of mine - even those two pair of shorts are groaning like the steel hull of the Titanic on the way down.

My wardrobe currently consists of one very stretchy skirt, flip-flops, a pair of my husband’s boxer shorts, and a table cloth with a hole cut in the middle. But it’s cute, very cute. If nine months ago you would have told me, “You know, you should really add a flannel-backed vinyl PowerPuff Girls table cloth to your wardrobe” I would have blushed, “Naaaawwwww. Go on with ya! Now I know you‘re teasing.”

But, you just never know.

So, anyway…that’s where it all stands right now.

Me: pregnant.

Baby: content.

C- section to be scheduled for sometime during the week of July 31 - August 4, upon which time and afterwards, I’m going to be a bit preoccupied and begging for help (and pain killers) from all sides.

You have two weeks to prepare your cyber-meals.

Upside-down cake and prune casserole should do nicely.

In the meanwhile...

I'll have a new post up in a day or so.

I've been extremely busy waddling around the house and bumping into things with my splaying knees. I know that this sounds like something I could accomplish in just a few minutes each day, but really, it takes hours of preparation and calculated splaying at just the right angle for maximum impact. I've even consulted some old calculus and physics textbooks.

While I'm fixin' up a few paragraphs, I'd like to direct your attention to my sister's blog and her latest post in which she recounts a journey of a 1,000 miles (give or take) to pick-up a 100 foot windmill...errrr...turbine that she won on eBay.

Is That A Turbine In Your Yard Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?

Girl is gone wild.

Seriously.

Go check her out.

I'll be up and running...stumbling...in a day or so.

Three Odes To Trash Day

Ah the joys of trash day and obsessive-compulsive nesting!

There's nothing like a day of unsentimental purging to really bring out my creativity! Enjoy!

(With sincere apologies to William Carlos Williams, Shakespeare, and Joyce Kilmer)



This Is Just To Say

I have tossed out
the speakers
that were in
the basement

and which
you were probably
saving
for your dream career as a hip hop DJ

Forgive me
they were blocking
the cool white door
of my front
loader washer.

Let Me Not to the Old Clothes I Do Find

Let me not to the old clothes I do find
Admit impediments. Junk is not junk
Which alters when it suddenly brings to mind
Some old ex-boyfriend, ‘tho he was a hunk:
Oh no! it’s still an ugly pinstriped blouse
That’s cut too low and too big in the bust;
He only gave it to you (the big louse!)
Because his ex returned it in disgust.
What a cheap bastard! Why’d you ever stay?!
Okay, the sex was good, but otherwise…?
When you went out to eat he’d never pay;
You put up with less crap from other guys.
He was jerk-off, toss it in the trash:
Good riddance to the blouse and his sad ass.

Tchotchkes

I hoped that I should never see
A Precious Moments figurine.

A knick knack of a droop-eyed kid,
They freak me out and always did;

I got one once, from my dear aunt,
I keep it hid behind a plant;

But when she comes to visit me
I put it on top the TV;

Some think my gratitude just sucks;
I’m sure that thing cost thirty bucks.

Thirty dollars! What the heck?!
A five-inch chunk of porcelain dreck!

But I still keep it; that tells you what?
I’m not the heartless snob you thought.

So just back off, I‘m not so bad;
I couldn’t make my auntie sad.

Tho when my aunt does pass away
This thing is headed for eBay.

IT'S GREAT TO BE BACK!

Phew!

I was having serious, serious, Internet withdrawal.

What to do with all this time on my hands?

Some days I’d aimlessly wander around the house in a sort of unplugged daze until I found myself just sitting in front of my computer staring wistfully into the dark screen. Occasionally, I’d turn it on and move the colorful icons around - sometimes organizing them according to width and height, sometimes just going for a random but aesthetically pleasing desktop pattern - but always absently wondering what it is I used to do with my computer before the Internet. By day five, I had rediscovered solitaire, and then a day later, another version of solitaire called Spider Solitaire. I’m now up to playing with six decks, but it’s just not the same as a daily dose of Rude Pundit or Bitch Ph.D. And the suicide kings just made me think of how much I missed reading I Blame The Patriarchy.

And you may not know this, but here at Chateau Halushki we don’t subscribe to cable television, either. And no local access unless you open the garage door, stand on one foot, and hold the TV antenna at a 45 degree angle in a northwesterly direction, 40.13N and 77.01W to be exact. I’ll tell you all about our television eschewing some other time. For now, it’s only important to know that for the past twelve-ish days my only access to weather forecasts, news, and entertainment has been the radio.

That guy on NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards has some sexy voice, let me tell you. He gives good weather.

But I miss me my radar maps and 10-day forecasts with the little cloud icons.

They make me giggle.

Anyway, I have had a lot on my mind while I was away and need to clear my palate before I launch into a proper blog post. So bear with me. And fasten your seatbelts. This is free association at its most dangerous.


The Weather

Let’s start with the obvious, shall we?

It’s been raining here.

A lot.

A real, real lot. “A lot” in the Biblical sense with arks and floating animals and my kids forgetting to say “Oh my gosh!” and instead saying “Holy Jehovah On A Dingy!” every time we crossed the surging brown waters of the Conodoguinet Creek.

And without access to my radar maps or 10-day forecasts, really, this large amount of water dropping down took me completely by surprise. It was sort of quaint, actually. Sort of an endearing flashback to those days when my grandfather used to forecast the weather in his folksy way by pointing out the upturned leaves on the neighbor’s maple tree, predicting that within the hour we’d have a thunderstorm. Or when he’d pick up a wooly bear caterpillar, examine the width of the stripes, and then tip back his hat and - with the confidence of someone who considered conversing with caterpillars as scientifically sound as reading a textbook on meteorology - declare that the winter would be a long, hard one with many snow days and a late thaw.

Which didn’t matter a whit to me because the nuns would never,
ever, ever cancel school for a snow day. No siree, never. If St. Agatha could suffer having her breasts cut off for refusing to accept customers at a brothel, and St. Lucy withstand being enucleated, burned and then stabbed to death for not accepting her pagan bridegroom (and on top of being a pagan, I hear that he also smelled of wet oxen), then by Mary, Joseph and the Blessed Infant, you better believe that you’ll be walking to school in five feet of snow in nothing but your plaid skirt, knee socks and a snorkel jacket. And when you get there, you’ll start the morning with a joyful prayer of thanksgiving that you had knees at all, followed by a prayer of forgiveness for coveting the public school students’ pagan snow day celebration when your good father has been saving pennies in a rice bowl and sacrificing new leather shoes, and your sainted mother making due with her tattered undergarments with the stretched out elastic bands and all just to pay for your Catholic education.

And there’s no way to segue back to the current local flooding after all that, but I warned you that this would be a bumpy ride.

Anyway, it’s been like that with our media blackout.

Surprise! It’s sunny!

Surprise! It’s cloudy!

Surprise! There’s two feet of water and a family of beavers in your basement!

I suppose I could have learned a little down-home weather forecasting from my grandfather if I had really paid attention. But I think that I once saw him put raw onions under his armpits to ward off the flu, so I took all his down -home hocus pocus with a grain of caterpillar dung.

And before I move on to the next random note, I have to tell you something truly hilarious:

At the same time we were being soaked to our skivvies with just about all the water we could bear to soak up (and I have pretty large skivvies, let me tell you), the Pennsylvania-American Water Company announced that the water from our faucets - the water we actually did want in our house - we couldn’t use.

That’s right.

Water, water everywhere, but just not from our sink.

My lordy, my sides are splitting just thinking about it.

Oh, we had the option of boiling the tap water and stockpiling it for cooking, brushing teeth, washing dishes, drinking, and so on. Other than that, welcome to New Delhi what with the monsoons and the dicey drinking water and the electricity just coming and going as it darn well pleased.

Luckily, because I am a doomsday fanatic and get all warm and fuzzy thinking about all things end-of-civilization-as-we-know-it, I had about 20 gallons of bottled water already stockpiled in the basement. (I’m planning on a very short doomsday.) I began collecting my H20 shortly after the last Pennsylvania-American Water Company fiasco when some employee tripped over his drooling lower lip and accidentally knocked 372 gallons of hydroflurosilic acid into the water system. That’s fluoride to you and me, and let me tell you, I can now crush steel pipes between my front teeth. It’s a great party trick.

So yeah, good times.

I’ve dried out a bit, but am now re-moistening in the 99% humidity. And gosh-golly-gee, being enormously 8-months pregnant during all this?

I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

For the first time in my life, I’ve had to use antiperspirant under my boobs and between my thighs, and man oh man, I’ve never felt more like a woman.


Other Randomness

Girth
My daughters approached me with a tape measure and asked to measure me belly. Prima was concerned that the tape measure was only 3 feet long and that it wouldn’t reach all the way around. I rolled my eyes (because sometimes kids only understand sarcasm) and told her to get real.

And then, as she measured me, we quickly ran out of tape measure.

The girls rolled their eyes at each other and said they’d be back with something longer. They returned with the 300-cubit measure I was using to build our ark.


Zucchini
Right about now, most everyone who has planted a little vegetable garden in their backyard will soon be knocking on your front door looking slightly wild-eyed and bearing gifts of zucchini.

If you live in any of the recently flooded areas, the quantity of zucchini they will be trying to unload on you will be massive. Huge, green tubers the size of The Jolly Green Giant’s…forearm. And the zucchini-bearers will be a bit more than wild-eyed. In fact, you may be accepting zucchini at gun point.

I recommend this site for recipes.

And remember, zucchini bread freezes real good. I have a Mennonite recipe that includes something like forty eggs and ten cups of sugar, and really, you don’t try to go the healthy route with this stuff. You’re going to be eating a lot of zucchini. Make it fun.

Of course, those real big zucchinis might be hard to chaw on no matter what form. In that case, here’s a few other creative ideas.


Some of my favorites are

“Spray paint them a lovely gold and arrange them into a festive wreath a-la-Martha Stewart. Top with a wonderful red velvety bow. (I just know she's going to steal this idea). ~ Brenda “

“Give the really big ones to my mechanic husband to put behind the wheels of the car, on a hill. ~ Eileen “

“Invent a zucchini gun (like the spud gun, only longer calibre & longer range). ~ Mrs. Corvette “

And for the college-aged children living in your basement, they may find that in a pinch, a large zucchini and a few carrots can be fashioned into a refreshing summertime bong, like so (except of course with a zucchini, not a pineapple):



Kids! Who Knew!

Babies are wonderful. So soft and innocent and a joy to behold.

And toddlers! Oh the joy of toddlers and their endless creativity and open-armed, chubby-fingered hugs.

Sigh.

Little kids. There just ain’t nothing like ‘em.


But lets get real for a second.

At some point - after all the diaper changes and scrubbing crayon off the walls and slathering peanut butter on bread for the 135, 006th time - you begin to wonder

“Sure, these kids are great and all. But what’s in it for me? When is the big payoff?”

Well, friends, for me it happened a few days ago.

Now, my kids are 5 and 7-years-old, so granted, I’ve put in a lot of years in the doesn’t -do-much-more-than-a-loaf-of-bread stage and then the “NO! DON’T LICK THE OUTLET” stage and then the holy-tantrums-when-is-Kid Jekyll-going-to-turn-human stage. Even up until a few weeks ago, I was walking around the house ranting that some children were treating mommy like Cinderella, and Prince Charming wasn’t off work to save her until another five hours, and if they wanted a second snack they could darn well fix it themselves or wait until the talking mice appeared to fix it for them.

But that's all changed.

One rainy day, while liberating yet another wall from its evil wallpaper, I was interrupted by my darling darlings and their plaintive plea of

“Weeeee’rrrreeeeeee boooorrrreeeeeeedddddd. Whhhhhhaaaatttttt ccccaaaaannnnn wwweeeee ddooooooooo?”

Music to a mother’s ears. Really. Like tiny crystal bells…scraping across a blackboard.

I turned back to my DIF and my scraper and huffed, “I’m working. It’s Saturday. Go find the other parent.”

“Buuuuuttttt weeeeeeeeeee wwwwwaaaaaaaannnnnntttt tttooooooo heeeeeellllllllpppppp!”

Now, normally, I’m not fooled by this. Normally, “we want to help” means either “we’ll help for two minutes and then go chase the cat” or it means "we’ll help until the 'help' becomes chaos' " and now a ten minute job has become two hours of damage control as Mommy scrapes pancake batter from the ceiling.

But for some reason - some moment of weakness or inspiration or delirium - I said

“Okay. You can help.”

And after stripping them down to their skivvies and handing them spray bottles of hot water and plastic scrapers, they got down to the job of soaking the walls, soaking each other, and peeling off the paper and throwing it on the floor.

EUREKA!

Water and destruction!

The perfect kid job!

And the toilet in the room provided hours of good-natured ribbing in the form of “You’re next to the potty! You’re next to the potty! Potty girl! Potty girl!” and nostalgic stories about the time that so-and-so threw up macaroni and cheese in the potty and the other time that whosit didn’t put the seat down and fell into the potty butt first…

And during that time, they stripped the paper from two entire walls.


I love my children.

I can’t wait until this next one is old enough to grade the backyard.



So, that’s some of what I’ve been up to while sans Internet.

For now, the baby is still staying put which is good. He’s only 35 weeks along and we still need to spackle and paint, put together a crib, bust out tile, wash baby clothes, clean the gutters, buy more diapers, and replace the subfloor of the bathroom.

(I wonder if we can use zucchini to do that?)

Ah, nesting!

In the meantime, if anyone wants to watch my kids for me while I’m tackling my nest, they come with their own spray bottles and scrapers. Take advantage of the offer while they still think that wallpaper removal is fun.



(In her comments to this post, Her Bad Mother mentions a, uhm, genital-sized vegetable. It would be this one. I have no idea whether it's organic or not.)