Welfareloser's Blog

i should just keep doing this, with the disappearing and reappearing. keep all y’all assholes on your toes.

so, my two week update, in brief (ha! not really.)

PREGNANCY: i think the best way to sum that shit up is by quoting nodamnsense. when he saw the 29 week picture, he said “you’re carrying that baby beautifully.” over christmas weekend, which was at 34 weeks, every time he looked at me, he just shook his head and laughed and said “bless your heart, you are so. damned. pregnant.” anyway, the baby has dropped, making moving around even more of a chore, and the contractions started hurting like a motherfucker. i spent most of christmas stopping to wince every 20 minutes or so, to the point that it was beginning to seem likely that this little turd – who, from the moment of his conception, seems to like showing up very much uninvited to steal center stage – was going to make a point of both fucking up christmas and being born in kentucky, all in one master stroke of monkeywrenching. but we made it back home with me still safely fat, took over one-half of EG’s room with his crib and clothes and other assorted paraphernalia, and we should be bringing a baby home in the next two weeks (unless the little shit decides to go to full-term, in which case my first official act as his mother is going to be to beat his little 12-pound ass.)

CHRISTMAS: there’s family that you’re born into (like drunk uncle joe and crazy gramma bea) and family that you choose, or, in some cases, get sucked into before you know what the hell hit you (like your passive-aggressive girlfriend that you tried to dump, but she threatened to commit suicide, and then her mom ambushed you with an engagement dinner and you were too nice and/or guilt-ridden to run screaming!) anyway, non-gentically related family that you acquired one way or another. we spent christmas with some acquired family (chosen, not sucked!) a few hours south in kentucky: smitingthewicked (her recent promotion at work – yes, some of my friends have real jobs! okay, like three of them – makes her former full name, smitingthewickedforminimumwage, even more inaccurate) and her husband hissingninja. her brother nodamnsense and his wife smallandquiet made it in from denver (just barely… nothing like a massive snowstorm to fuck up an airport), and between their kid, STW and HN’s two kids, and our three kids, we managed to keep their parents’ house full of “the pitter patter of little feet” (which, as near as i can tell, is a catch-all euphemism that covers everything from the hacking coughs of strep throat, ear infections, and your basic colds, the screams of “NO THAT’S MIIIIIIIIIIIIINE!!!” and “I HAD IT FIIIIIIIRST!”, the sound of various dishes hitting the floor, toys crashing against each other and/or the walls, heads cracking into each other, the walls, or various pieces of furniture with corners in the 2-to-3-foot height range, and of course any noises conceived and executed in the course of a “fart noises,” “puke noises” or “wierd and annoying noises” contest, and the ensuing laughter.)

SEX: gotta love a holiday schedule – no bedtime, no alarm clock. nothing like getting laid twice a day for a week. and we only got busted once! (smitingthewicked, having a pretty good idea of why we both disappeared late one morning, managed to convince EG that mommy and daddy were too busy to answer his question. and i thought we were being slick and quick… well, dammit, at 30 years old, i guess a “quickie” just isn’t under 5 minutes any more.) while we have figured out all kinds of fun ways to get around the massive obstacle on the field of play, i did have to apologize last night for weighing 50% more than normal. PRM is a good sport and all, but i’m pretty sure all that grunting was less “oh, yeah, baby” and more “oh, shit, that’s heavy.”

NEW YEAR’S: i’ve pretty much decided that i am completely unenthused by anything that involves me moving, or even being upright, until this baby comes. so we had a nice, low-key christmas-into-new-years week, just hanging out with the family. my parents were up for a few days, then positiverolemodel’s, so the adults outnumbered the kids, the house was clean, real meals were served, and every kid got tons of one-on-one attention whenever he wanted.

TODAY: of course, now that prm’s back to work and i’m in charge all by myself… yeah. let’s just say it’s been one of those days. evilgremlin started on amoxicillin last week for strep throat, and dramaqueen started on amoxicillin three days ago for an ear infection. yesterday, spazmonkey started acting sick. and by sick, i mean “no noticeable change in activity or appetite and no complaints of pain, but a really bad attitude about life in general, expressed at top volume, plus narcolepsy.” the pediatrician’s office was closed yesterday, so we kind of waffled on whether to start spazmonkey on dramaqueen’s supply of antibiotics or just wait… but no confusion this morning! he managed to puke up his entire 10-oz cup of strawberry milk and then some (if for no other reason than that my mom had just steam-cleaned the carpets.) it took a good 4 or 5 heaves to get it all out, and since he was in the rocking chair when he did it, he managed to get each hork at a different angle and get some really solid area coverage. so i got him an appointment at 10:40 am, told the pediatrician that he probably had his twin brother’s ear infection… nope! it was EG’s strep. dammit, we suck at the diagnosis around here.

so she asked if SM would do better with the chewables or the liquid… okay, this is the kid who stands over his brother making horking sounds and screaming EWWWWWW! when i’m trying to get him to take his liquid medicine. and the shit tastes GOOD – DQ looks forward to the candy drops – but SM can damn near get him to puke it up. she sees me hesitate, and says they can also do it as a shot. so i said, yeah, let’s do it that way. i mean, i was trying to get some cough suppressant in the kid last night, and after two tries, he got nothing. he can hold it, damn near pass out as i’m holding his nose, then spit it out in my face when i give up. i was actually about to ask if it came in suppository form. so the shot was HUGE, and he was pretty horrified, but it’s done.

then we went to mcdonalds, got happy meals and a large decaf “try our new PREMIUM roast” … which smells suspiciously like cigar butts. but i was just bringing it home to mix with eggnog anyway, so fuckit. it just needs to be warm and brown and liquid, and it certainly was that, so for 59 cents, i don’t really care if they boiled beans or stogies to make it. on the way in the front door, EG managed to slam just the very tip of his pinky finger in the storm door, and there’s a good chance it’s broken. so i’ve now paged dr. future radiologist, MD, PHD, BMF, to make sure that my plan – taking him to the emergency room only if it turns purple or swells into a really alarming penis shape, and otherwise waiting til he gets home to look at it – is a reasonable plan. oh, and just so DQ didn’t feel left out of all the “shit happens” shit… i managed to shoot about half a gallon of ketchup on him during the happy meal prep. apparently, the super-econo-size ketchup bottles get a bit volatile when shaken. seriously, i can’t buy smaller sizes; the males in this house would go through them in three days flat. DQ, of course, is the kid who cries for hours if he’s forced to wear anything other than one of the two copies of his favorite t-shirt. both of which were now dirty. again.

last night, spazmonkey walked up to us while we were eating dinner, asked what we were eating, decided it was nasty, yelled EWWWWWWW! and puked up a rainbow swirl of yogos at our feet. “you know why he did that, of course,” said PRM. “because you’re trying to eat.” meals, no matter how fast, do not go uninterrupted around here. we’ve taken to ignoring all interruptions for at least 15 minutes during dinner so we can pretend we’re normal for at least a tiny slice of the day. so i threw a few napkins down on the puke, because i was goddamned well going to finish my meal before cleaning it up. two minutes later, DQ came streaking in, his pants and underwear mysteriously gone, planted a foot on the napkin, landed bare-assed in the puke and went sliding, getting most of it smeared up the back of his shirt. this made both copies of the shirt dirty, so we wrapped him in a blanket and did a load of laundry (AFTER we finished dinner, goddammit… seriously, it would take a house fire for me to break the “MOMMY GETS TO EAT, GODDAMMIT” rule around here.)

anyway. here we are again, and for the second time in 24 hours he’s wrapped in a blanket, waiting for his shirts to dry.

and just think… we’re having another one! a much smaller child whose pooping and puking skills will put the other three to shame! wheeeeeeee!

like i said, it’s been a long day. after dealing with scrubbing up puke and poop (did i mention that antibiotics tend to cause massive diarrhea?) i almost got a nap… but then there was something about some scissors and hair and some hell no. i wasn’t quite awake. all i know is it got reeeeeeeeal loud downstairs. as EG tells it, DQ was doing some menacing with some play-doh scissors. so i stayed awake, and came down to do some “productive” stuff at my computer. i’ve been organizing and updating all of my mp3s and my digital pictures from the last 6 years or so, ostensibly to have a little photo album of my favorites on my new ipod, but mostly to calm down the insane nesting urge that the hormones are causing. see, nesting is supposed to induce a frenzy of cleaning and home improvements, but i’m fat and lazy and far too smart to give into the urge to get up and move around. fuck you, mother nature! you’re not the boss of me!

so first, some of my favorite older pictures:

and now, christmas pictures…

boys acting civilized for a moment (the big one is STW’s and HN’s boy, quietlydominating):

more boys acting civilized (spazmonkey hasn’t quite decided to throw the ball at anyone’s head yet, so i’ll go ahead and count this as a civilized moment for him too… fleeting, but hey, i’ll give him credit for it anyway):

NDS and STW’s parents, ra-ra and pa-pa, STW, QD, smallandquiet, and wampus:

PRM, NDS, and a large purple playdoh dildo:

me, PRM, the twits, and STW & HN’s daughter, cutebutevil:

the twits and cutebutevil as cheetoh-zombies:

and new year’s eve…

please note that i spanked the shit out of both of those motherfuckers at spongebob monopoly. this may sound like a petty brag. and it is. but my seven-year-old regularly and fairly beats me at chess, pente, king’s table, checkers… you name it. okay, stratego, i pretty much throw the game to him, because if you think about it and strategize and shit, it’s a long damned game. so monopoly seems to be the one and only game i can honestly beat the crap out of him at (i’m kind of assuming i could stomp his ass at scrabble, at least for a few more years… but i’m not quite willing to test the theory, either.)