Here is a game we can play. You won’t win a prize, a giveaway, or shenanigans like that. You’ll only have the beautiful gift of feeling, for a brief moment, what it is like in my life.

Here are your clues:

1. I couldn’t find Isaiah

2. I found him in the towel closet

3. He piled up blankets

4. He pulled down his pants

5. He took off his diaper

6. When I asked him what he was doing he closed the door on my face and declared, “…..”

Tell me. What do YOU think he declared?

Give up? He screamed, “Close door mom! POTTY!!!”

Uh yes son, what was I thinking… I potty in the towel closet all the time! Someone want to come clean up my towel closet?

If you pee yourself… It is better to do so while at home being tickled by your son. It is also difficult to explain to said son how big boys don’t pee on themselves.

♥Jasmine

I am starting a new job on Monday. I am super excited. What I am not excited about is the fact that they don’t know I am pregnant. I am still wrestling with how/when you tell or if you even do. Yesterday I decided that I needed to grab some work worthy maternity pants (Read: Black, khaki, navy) and attempt to find a top that conceals my ever growing bump. YES I am only ten weeks along. YES I look like I am 5 to 6 months along; thank my son for destroying my abdominal wall.  SO. HELP ME! Should I just stop trying to tent myself and walk onto the scene all, “yeah that is right- my belly button is about to pop…how’dya like my belly shirt!”

When do you tell your employer?

Am I an evil troll for concealing the pregnancy so they would hire me?

Am I an even more EVIL troll for making them pay for maternity leave in less then 8 months?

How do you even cover up a belly?

When I do spring it to them, do I just hand them a baby onesie with a wink?

 HELP ME!!

♥ Jasmine

(Isaiah talking to our dog, Noelle)

Isaiah: “Hey Nell! Mommy has baby penis.”

Jasmine: “No son, Mommy has a baby in her belly, in my uterus…girls don’t have penis. Well most girls.”

Isaiah: “Zayah penis!”

Jasmine: “Yes! YOU have a penis because you are a boy, women have a vulva and a vagina. The baby is growing in my uterus… can you say vulva?”

Isaiah: (weakly attempts  to pronounce vulva…sounding a lot like “Bulba”.

(Isaiah looks at Noelle and slaps her on the head) Isaiah: “BAD! Bulba!!!”

In the 60’s there was a huge movement involving dream interpretations. People clamored to buy dream journals and jot down there detailed dreams as soon as their eyes popped open from their nighttime adventures. Psychologists (I am using that term VERY loosely) touted the ability to diagnose the psyche of their clients based on the workings of their dreams. If you dreamed you were flying it would mean____________. If you dreamed you were a man it would mean_____________. The fad has continued into 2010, but more as an “alternative psychology” approach. It is interesting the effects that neurotransmitters have on dreams. Pregnancy hormones, in general, effect the body in such interesting ways it is hard to create a baseline for the masses. While one woman may have tender breasts, another woman may ravenously crave Goulash, and yet another will experience no symptoms but the occasional strange dream.

 Pregnancy dreams, possibly because of the flood of hormones, can also become highly sexually charged. I wonder what that means about the psyche or if that is only biochemical?For example, if you were pregnant and you dreamed that you were having sex with your boss, but your boss was actually your husband… what would that mean? And if this dream was SO friggin’ amazing, because the sex was out of this world, that you woke yourself up…what would that mean? AND if when you woke yourself  up you realized that in your dreaming state you had LITERALLY initiated sex with your sleeping…what would that mean? Hypothetically, of course.

Life doesn’t slow down does it? I suppose it does, when I am dead…. Moving on.
I started working a couple of weeks ago. I went from staying at home with my little squidge (Isaiah) for two whole years, to coordinating psycho-educational/social activities for a mental health facility. So technically I still work with two year olds. Jasmine! What a crass and insensitive thing to say about the mentally ill! Where is your compassion and concern?
Well, concerned reader, a few things factor in here:
1) I am a representative of the mentally ill population; we can poke fun at ourselves.
2) YOU apparently have never explained to a Schizophrenic why it is a bad choice to eat two pounds of lunch meat in three gulps, why he should not walk in traffic naked, or why people aren’t okay with your imaginary friends….
3) Sometimes you have to laugh at what you do, especially in the mental health field, lest you cry and go on a drug binge that would Shock Courtney Love.
4) Enough said!
Where was I? Oh yes…work. As Isaiah crept closer and closer to his second birthday, I knew that I would have very little in the way of excuses to stay home. The Great Debate: Stay-at-home versus work and ruin your babies… Isn’t that how people couch it? It has certainly been my experience, in the circles I travel, that if you voice that you might love your career equally as you love your child, that the SAHM’s eyes grow wide with this spooked look, and she points and chants, “Witch, Witch, You’re a Witch!” This hateful attitude certainly isn’t embodied by all, but there are the fair shares who have expressed that a Mom who stays home is doing “Gods work;” which lends itself to the supposition that, maybe the other way/ways are somehow less valuable, and casts a haze of judgment…
All I am saying is that maybe it is all God’s work?! I suppose that is a conversation for another time.
Back to me. I love having a career. I understand this deviates from a lot of women who go back to work and hate their jobs because they have baby at home. I imagine that is a tough situation. I think what made my transition easier is that this job I have is actually a career, I studied and trained to do just this very thing. Seeing what I have, in essence, been pregnant with come crashing into life, has been as exhilarating and beautiful as my son’s birth. Would I trade one for the other? Well the truth is …maybe? Sadie stays home and raises Norah. I work and raise Isaiah. We both have partners who support us. Why hate on that? Note here, that I am mainly talking to my self-imposed ideals that stress me the hell out. It is working for both of us. Damn it! This post has turned into a mush ball of confusion and dangling modifiers. Another semi-related note: All my single ladies, married ladies, single/married without babies, and others that I might have missed: Don’t feel bad that you aren’t “doin’ it like the rest.” I read a blog the other day that broke my heart. The girl wrote that since she wanted to be married and not have kids, just a career, she felt like her value was less… UM NO! Mothering your career, your dreams, and your aspirations are just as important. And in their own way they are much like mothering a toddler; It makes you happy, makes you cry, you feel like you accomplished something amazing, you feel like an utter failure, and every once in awhile it might wipe a green nose booger on you.

(This morning): Jasmine drags into work…late…and looking very, very tired. Super cute Supervisor greets Jasmine in the hall with a concerned look, “You okay?” she inquires with her fabulous S. Arkansas accent.

Holy Mother Of Pearl!!!

I went to bed early. I fell asleep promptly. I was sleeping comfortably when I suddenly started to toss and turn. This happend when I heard a bloody banshee style shriek pierce it’s way through my son’s bedroom door. Garrett jumps out of bed, ju jitsu style, trying to get to the howling demon before his ear piercing song wrestles me from my slumber (Daddy knows Mommy will die without sleep…  which explains why Daddy woke up with Baby EVERY night for two years… good, good Husband and Daddy). Too late! I was awakened by the shrieks, though I was content to lay in bed and play possum until my lovely husband runs out of ideas. I am not a bad wife or mother, I am just not human at TWO O’CLOCK in the morning. I wanted to spare them my wrath. He did, finally, run out of ideas. Isaiah is in our bed, by this time, kicking and screaming and howling like some kind of monster.  We try a sippee with milk. We try a graham cracker, we try redirecting, holding him standing up, calming him, encouraging him, holding him sitting down, and I (momentarily) consider a syringe of Ativan…..

I attempt to give Isaiah a graham cracker, concerned that his recently acquired selective palate might be the reason he is trying to destroy our eardrums.  This was about the time He drop kicked me in the face and let out particularly atrocious scream. Garrett giggled as he watched all my compassion melt away. “To HELL with it!!!” I scooped up demon child, marched him to his bedroom (still flailing and screeching), and plopped him in his bed.  “Hmph….good night. Scream and kick in your room, in your own bed….” Not even five minutes after I plopped him in his bed, the screaming subsides and all is well in the world.

WHAT?! I marched to the front room for my laptop. I mean, because what else do you do at two in the morning when your kid kicks your in the face screaming for no obvious reason. Go back to sleep? No! I am too hardcore for that!  You consult Dr. Google… that is what you do.

Answer found: Night Terrors. Developmental in nature.

Intervention: None. Insure child doesn’t injury themselves during tantrum (night terror). DO NOT try to comfort or soothe child, as terror can be worsened by physical interaction.

(Back to this Morning): “Well super cute Supervisor” (Jasmine thinks)… “I have a devil baby who apparently becomes possessed promptly after one o’clock in the morning. He shrieks and his head spins in circles and he climbs the walls all while chanting in Latin…”  “Oh!” I reply, “I didn’t get much sleep last night, Isaiah, apparently has been having night terrors.” She nods her head knowingly, “any changes or transitions can cause those, I think they are developmental..” I chortle… her knowing nod indicated that maybe she, too, had experienced this phenomenon…those damn demon babies.

I don’t really know how to end this post but to say; “Go ahead… envy my amazing life” or ” Don’t be jealous your kid isn’t as hardcore as mine or ” Cute two year old boy with Mohawk hair cut for sale…. screams randomly at night, sold as is.”

Some people say don’t knock it before you try it… but I know for me, I don’t want to date over the Internets. Um, what is that? I am married? Well! You know what I mean! If I wasn’t married I’d not want to meet someone over the net. Now… I am not knockin’ it for everyone, but for me… it just creeps me out. I have a few friends that met and fell in love in the virtual world… and by all means, good for them…. but it freaks me out. I am a bit too, “what if it is all a lie…” I am a conspiracy theorists (much like my husband) and I have a hard time not believing that way too much creepy stuff can ensue over meeting via the net. My life has a way of making a joke out of me. A couple of days ago Sadie and I were invited to have dinner with one of our blog readers. Sadie had met her once before, and I had just stalked her blog, and she mine, and so we had never really met ‘in real life.’ So an invitation was extended over the bloggasphere. When I read the invite I was all, “aw that was nice….” Then my eharmony fears crept in and I started to feel like this was a strange chat room experience. We met over the Internet. We fell in love. He secretly makes dolls out of living women. Man! My imagination is wild! Too many made for TV movies!! So tonight was D day… My husband and I got lost on the way to our dinner date’s home. We were horrifically late, we said a couple of curse words during a card game, we giggled at sexually inappropriate “that is what she said…” 

I have to eat crow. I have to, at least partially, retract my statement about creepy internet relationships. I have to say this was one of the most pleasant, laid back,  and sociable dinners I have ever been to all thanks to the Internet. It involved chocolate covered strawberries  and  a beautiful baby…. who can hate on that!? So here is to the Internet. It brings people together who would otherwise never know one another. I can’t say that if G kicks the bucket I am ready to troll the inter-web to find the next lucky bastard… but for now I can say I am bit less skeptical of using the Internets as an avenue for initiating relationships.

Here is to you Internet!!

We’ve been working on getting Isaiah to stay in his bed at bedtime. He loves his wee person sized bed, but he loves what happens in Big People World more. Every night I lay him down after our evening routine and I can almost time that 5 minutes after I walk into the front room I will hear a “click click.” This signifies two things;

1) Isaiah has opened his bedroom door and laid back in bed. He does this often, because he likes to hear the sound of our voices down the hall.

or

2) Isaiah will appear in T minus one minute. He usually runs full force into the front room or he opts to crawl quietly in and attempt to gain admission without being noticed.

Last night I heard the “click click.” I waited to hear his little feet slap on the carpet, but alas there was nothing. I settled into my over-sized chair and began scanning my computer screen. I am  learning to write html for the site and I’ll admit it is pretty consuming. I needed some notes that I had left on my nightstand. I hopped up and walked, slowly, down the hall. I popped my head into Isaiah’s room (thinking he was in bed because I didn’t hear him walk down the hall). There was no baby there! I am over my days of thinking he has disappear or dead (thank you Zoloft), so I went on an Isaiah search. He wasn’t in the guest room or guest bathroom… those doors were closed. My bedroom door, however, was wide open and I heard a heavy breathing coming from my room (poor baby and his allergies). I looked in my room and found my son. He had crawled up on my side of the bed. He had pulled the sheets up to his chest and was lounging on the pillows. He had a clear and purple curved bottle in his hand. He had pulled open my nightstand and this was the treasure he found. It took me a second to realize what he had in his hands as he flipped open the lid and tossed back another gulp. His stomach had an oily sheen and his lips were super glossy. I leaped at him. “NO NO NO!!!!”  All the ladies out there might have already guessed what he was dining on. Um. That would be a bottle of Astroglide. It was in my nightstand for well…. YOU KNOW! And my son, the ever curious one, decided that it was good enough to drink. I checked the label. It was, thankfully, non-toxic. I washed him off (man that stuff is hard to wash off!!!) and laid him back in his bed. I shut my bedroom door to insure that he didn’t find the Trojan condoms and decide that his after- dinner drink needed  hors d’oeuvres.

What is it with toddlers and eating very weird thing they can find!!!