Late

This is my favorite picture of our house. 

In fact, it's one of my favorite pictures ever. 

Our neighbors took this picture exactly one year ago today - March 26 2011 - after a huge and unexpectedly late snowfall blanketed the city. 

You might think I like this picture because of the way the snow delicately frosts each tree branch, or maybe because it looks like there's a thick white blanket keeping our house cozy and warm. 

But neither of those are the reason.  In fact, it really has nothing to do with the outside of the house at all.  I like this photo so much because the peaceful serenity outside is the exact opposite of what is slowly unfolding on the inside at the precise moment our neighbors took this picture.

If you were to pull the curtains back you would see a woman who has just returned home from dropping her 1-year-old and 6-month-old daughters off at her in-laws' house for a much needed night of rest and relaxation.  As she unfolds the wrapper of her Grilled Stuft Burrito, a staple in her diet since 1993, she is confused as to why the smell suddenly seems unbearably pungent.  So pungent and repulsive, in fact, that she can barely take a bite before she has to throw it away. 

She sits back down on the couch for only a moment before shooting up, walking fast at first then running, into the kitchen to grab the calendar off the wall to try to piece together some dates. 

"It's all in my head,"  she thinks as she dry heaves into the toilet, calendar still in hand.

The next morning she takes her daughters with her to the drug store, a one-year-old in one hand and a six-month-old in a car seat in the other, and not having a free hand she lays the box of pregnancy on her six-month-old, who promptly picks them up and begins to chew. 

"It can't be,"  she thinks. 

But there they were.   

And here she is. 

The cutest darn shock of our lives that there ever was. 

6,628

I did it. 

I finished in 6,628th place, but I did it. 

I'm not really focusing on the 6,627 people in front of me, but more the 2,286 people behind me.  I ran the entire way without vomiting or dying and ended up with a time of one hour, one minute and eleven seconds. 

My goal was to make it in under an hour but considering I've never run five miles, or four miles, or really anything much over two miles, in my entire life I don't even know where I even came up with that arbitrary number.  I guess I was just thinking that I wanted the misery of running to be as short as possible and I can tolerate anything for an hour.  Frankly I'm happy as a mother that I made it in the time I did.  

Around mile four I thought my Mirena fell out but as I turned around to look behind me I saw it was just my lungs calling bullshit and making their way out of my body through my uterus.  I just shrugged my shoulders and kept on running.  Lungs I can live without.  Birth control I can't.  

Here's a little live action both of the actual event, as well as a peek into my mind as I crossed the finish line.  Enjoy.  

   

I'm too sexy and I know it

Maybe it's the Zoloft talking, or maybe it's the fact that it's been 80 degrees for the past three days and I've been able to do my most favorite of the favorites and drink a glass of wine outside on the patio every night.  Or maybe it's a combination of the Zoloft and wine that I'm not so sure is safe, especially because I'm breastfeeding but don't tell me if you know differently because Hadley has slept 13 hours every night since she was 6 weeks old and pretty much looks just like this for the other 11 hours of the day:

   
So that's a risk I'm willing to take. 

But back to how awesome I am. 

I look hot.  I mean, not regular hot.  Not sort of hot.  We're talking scorching fucking hot.  Ow!  I just burned my finger on my ass while I was slapping it.   

16 is a lot of pounds.  And at my Weight Watchers weigh in yesterday I lost 10% of my body weight so I got a little key chain but more importantly I got to talk in the meeting.  Which is awesome because you know how much I love attention.  My meetings are at 9:30 on Tuesday mornings so that means I'm the youngest one in the room by about 80 years.  And old women love to hear stories about me so I get to talk a lot.  Sometimes they pretend to be deaf but I know better.   

Yesterday's meeting focused on the power of positive thinking, which is something I'm always trying to work on.  For instance, last week I was packing up all of my maternity clothes to loan to my newly pregnant bestie and I got really sad thinking about all the attention I got in them.  And even became a little verklempt that I'll never get to wear them again. 

Of course the concept of being sad while packing up maternity clothes was completely lost on Nick, who asked why the hell I was sad I'll never wear my fat clothes again and reminded me how sexy I've become.  Which might actually feed into the problem of getting pregnant again if I didn't make him sleep on the roof. 

I decided he was right and then proceeded to play fashion show for two hours in our bedroom.  In secret, of course, while he was downstairs and I was upstairs pretending like I was in there feeding the baby.  And in my mind when I put on all of my old clothes and strutted around the bassinet I looked just like Kate Moss.  Well, maybe Kate Moss after she had a couple of kids.  Actually, more like Kate Moss's cousin from eastern Europe who likes pretzels and beer but also works out once in a while.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm beginning to feel human again.  Well, until I take my clothes off and see how jacked up things still are. 

But fully clothed I almost look normal.   

Whoreders

Today I decided to invite my friend Jenn to write another guest blog.  You might remember Jenn from her last guest blog about how her son's head got caught in a vending machine.  Good times.  

Anyhoo, I've known Jenn since college where our similar 'we'll make fun of anything' senses of humor made us partners in crime.  Knock knock jokes about friends' dead grandparents, laughing until tears streamed down our faces at a senile man in a nursing home... I'm pretty sure Jesus was cringing at us for four straight years.  

Her piece de resistance was one time when she wrote a note with her left hand and put it in my mailbox.  For two weeks I thought a 12-year-old boy named Jimmy who lived across my government subsidized apartment complex had a crush on me.

So, without further ado... here's Jenn!   

I am very excited to be back offering up another snarky snackerel on Hannah’s award winning blog. Not only does it mean I didn’t get arrested following the son-stuck-in-the-vending-machine expose, but it also means I get to glom onto Hannah’s hard-earned fame and pretend to be one of the Kool Kidz for once.

Ask not for who the 15-minutes of fame tolls….this week it tolls for me, sucka.

Actually, that’s not even true. Somewhere deep inside, I know the score: My 15-minutes of fame will come in about 20 years. When the blue 1-800-Got-Junk receptacle o’ shame is parked outside my shanty and I am alternately screeching and hyperventilating about parting with a dreadlocked, moldy Bamboletta doll my daughter played with once when she was 2.

Destiny? Thy name is Hoarders.

I come by it honestly. Born both a pessimist and a planner, I resolutely believe that if I am ready for the worst, then I am ready for anything. Toss in 2 kids, an uncertain economy, and a penchant for bargain hunting---well, as my basement can attest, the results aren’t pretty. Unfortunately, as added insult, my idea of anything may mean a spur of the moment casino-themed party for 30, leading a 15-child hands-on demonstration on electrical circuits and rock tumblers, or suddenly needing to do 2 years’ worth of laundry in 1 night.

Yes it’s crazy. Yes, it’s unnecessary. But laugh all you want: This cat hasn’t bought diapers in 2 years. And if China sinks into the ocean forcing Wal-Mart to shutter its doors, that sound you’ll hear is me laughing. I’ll be cackling madly from atop my perch of cereal, deodorant, and any possible board game you could ever want to play. And don’t even think about picking me off and snatching my stash, because I have about 800 Nerf darts at the ready to help me defend my castle.

In talking with many of my mom friends, I know I am not alone in this feral need to provide for my family in the face of any possible scenario. As woman’s dual role in the family and workplace continues to expand, it has shifted the evolutionary balance that is at the core of our pedigrees.

We are now nurturing caregivers and hunter/gatherers. I may have been born an Eva Gabor ingénue ala Green Acres, but 35 years later I come home from work like William Wallace in Braveheart; dragging my freshly skinned pelt of shopping bags behind me when I arrive. And I sleep soundly knowing that if I am accidentally devoured in an unfortunate grizzly bear incident, my kids will have cute shoes and stylish clothes for at least 3-years following my dirt nap.

But kidding aside, I don’t really imagine that I’ll someday be on Hoarders. Forecasting the needs of your family and enjoying the spoils of a good sale are a far cry from having 74 cats in your air ducts and rusted drums of urine in the hallway. And besides, if those Dumpsters think they can make it up my driveway over the 4-miles of spike strips I found behind the local Police Department, they have another thing coming.

Amateurs.

Team Slactators

In an overzealous effort to get my post-baby body back, two months ago I made the biggest mistake of my life.  I signed myself up for the St. Louis St. Patrick's Day 5 mile run.  Wait.  Not only did I sign myself up for a 5 mile run, but I asked several of my Mom friends if they would like to run with me because I know myself well enough to know that I would totally cop out if there's no one to hold me accountable.  If you're running too you can look for us - we're team Slactators... we slack on the track because we're busy giving snacks with our racks. 

Or you can just look for the big boobed lady with the mom body vomiting around mile 1. 
I don't know what I was thinking when I made this terrible mistake.  I just knew that fat people don't run 5 miles so this would make me skinny.  Maybe that just by signing up magic exercise fairies would visit me in the night and suck all my fat out while I slept.  I certainly did not take the horrible awful pain of actually training for the run into consideration. 

And I use the word training loosely.  My "training" usually involves running for about 15 minutes on the treadmill then taking my US Weekly into the gym bathroom for about 45 minutes so I can get some peace and quiet for once in my day. 

I've never run 5 miles.  I've never run 4 miles.  Once when I was 15 I ran 3 miles, and then again when I made another huge mistake and signed myself up for a 5K run.  I don't have a body built for running.  Never in my life have I been athletic, though time and time again I tried to fight it by joining lots of sports teams.  Still to this day the sound of someone blowing a whistle makes me sick to my stomach and covered with the feeling of impending public humiliation.   

I feel like a prisoner on death row, knowing d-day is nearing.  But this is worse.  At least if I were a prisoner I would end my stay of execution with a nice hot meal which I could eat in glorious silence.

This is happening, and it's going to be bad.  I'm praying for an asteroid.   

Whoremones

I will admit - I had a brief moment of hesitation before I hit the 'publish' button on my post last week. 

You know, the one where I told you all about how, ever since Hadley was born, I'll occasionally black out for a few minutes and when I come to I'm on the ground licking my bloody paws, surrounded by dead bodies. 

I mean, it's one thing to silently toil in post partum anger hell alone, mentally assembling a sketchy plan to Thelma and Louise your car off a ravine, but it's another to actually admit that you need, and accepted, chemical help. 

But admitting that may have been one of the best things I've ever done.  Within minutes I received several encouraging emails and comments from people who have stood right here in my shoes. 

Turns out you all are a bunch of crazy bitches too!  Even my Mom called and said, "I read your post last week.  Remember there are lots of different kinds of happy pills out there.  Some of them make you feel like you have sticks in your stomach and some make you have tremors.  Make sure you keep on moving if you don't like yours."

And while I'm not happy so many other people know what it's like to almost actually be able to feel your fingers crushing someone's wind pipe as you're holding a normal conversation with them, it is reassuring to know that the next time I turn into the honey badger in public all I have to do is give the secret battle cry and every woman who has ever bore child within ear shot will come running and help me finish off my prey. 

You won't even have to ask why I'm stomping on someones face in the middle of the grocery store.  You'll just run over and start kicking him in the ribs.  And we'll look up and knowingly smile at each other as his lung collapses and he coughs up blood.  Then we'll become Facebook friends and share pictures of our future victims.  But also our kids' birthday parties because those are important too.

I have to say, though, my urge to kill has become a lot less burdensome since I started the happy pills.  Which is nice.  Sure, they have their side effects, like I keep forgetting what day it is.  Probably because I don't give a shit what day it is. 

The best way I can describe it is that I feel "leveled off".  Nothing feels like a big deal.  What used to completely overwhelm me, like getting three little girls ready to leave the house, now is a, "It's warm out.  They don't need shirts.  In fact, I'm going to take mine off too." sort of thing.

Yesterday I took the girls to the zoo solo for the third time in two weeks, and we even rode the carousel. 

You're probably wondering how that works logistically.  And it's probably better I don't tell you because it may or may not have involved several forms of child endangerment and I don't want to incriminate myself now that I'm all happy and junk.

So you can rest easy knowing the streets are a little safer now that I'm medicated.  But it's good to know that if I have a relapse you've all got my back.