I used to think I had a high pain tolerance

Mandie, the anthropology goddess, and my sister-in-law, Tory, both had their babies at home. It's funny how with my first it was really important to me to do it without any drugs*, but by the time #3 Daisy came along I was all, "can I start the epidural if I'm only dilated 3 centimeters?" Each birth was way easier than the last, but I became increasingly a wuss about it. The natural-childbirth God is now punishing me for that by smiting me with a nipple blister, which is unbelievably painful. A nipple blister! Who could even have imagined that such an awful thing even existed? I'll be writhing in pain on the kitchen floor and Jeff will panic and I'll gasp "the ... blister's ... almost ... too ... small ... to ... see ... where's ... that ... %#*&% .. epidural ... doctor?"
(*This attempt was an unqualified failure)

Containment: How Diapers Work

- (back) Poop shoots out the back when she's in her car seat

- (side) Poop trickles out the side when she's wearing brand new jammies (see ... FOOT SAUCE is when the baby is in a carrier while wearing fleece jammies and liquid poop flows down each leg to pool in the foot parts, to be noticed by you only when it drips on your bare legs because you are wearing your husband's boxers, on the 'B' side.

-(front) Pee soaks out the front once she's old enough to sleep on her tummy

A TOTAL BLOWOUT is when, in the 3-minute ride to your work X-Mas party the baby poops so much it soaks through her dress, down the car seat, and onto her backup outfit on the floor.

Pet

Chloe's been asking for a pet lately since she found out her beloved cat actually belongs to the neighbors which explains why we never had to feed it. We feel somewhat guilty for our gleeful perpetuation of that lie, so we are actually considering her request. She wants something that could protect her from the monsters that lurk in her room at night. "What about a goldfish?" she said, "they see in infrared light. What could possibly be cooler than that?" She said she has a much better idea that a stupid old goldfish.

Dr. Mom: Infected Boob

Mastitus, which is Latin for "Massive Tit," is when you are a nursing mom and one of your boobs gets unbelievably huge and hard without the benefit of plastic surgery. Sometimes it gets blotchy and hot, both conditions acerbated by your husband poking at it because he cannot believe the size of that thing.

You could go to a professional and get antibiotics, OR massage it through an entire vampire movie which was really dumb or wear a cabbage leaf in your bra, which can't possibly work unless your husband hates cabbage and will then leave you alone.

In the emergency room

After you've had three kids, getting an ultrasound is boring. No cute little toes. No finding out if we're going to have to buy truck jammies or reuse our mountain of pink ones.  Nothing but blobs and shadows and a menacing-looking gallbladder shaped like a sack of marbles.

About a year and a half ago, I had similar belly pain and Jeff and I went in to get it checked out. Also, then, gallstones. But while we were in that dark room, those glowing stars on the ceiling, Jeff joked to the ultrasound tech, "while we're looking, can you see if she's pregnant?" and the tech said, "Let's see... Yep! You're definitely pregnant!" and we said "WHAT???"

And now, little Daisy, almost ten months. Already a jokester. Or, maybe, still a jokester?

A free Lush ad: Lemslip!

Lemslip! It saved my life!  Kind of!

You know how when you're pregnant and sometimes you get Super Scent, when you can smell anything, like a cucumber three blocks away? Which sounds cool but it's not because everything also smells totally, completely HORRIBLE!

I was sick for months. Until one day ... (knock knock) ... A gift!

Just one sniff - cured!!

Two years later the baby is crazy for the tiniest dab of shimmy shimmy.

(I won a bath bomb with this illustration at the Lincoln Square Mall Lush in Bellevue, Wash. So worth the million hours it took to draw it!)

Baby math II

(I am reposting this because the first one got all funky)

Baby math II:

1) If I gained 50 pounds when pregnant and, after an initial post-birth loss of about 30 pounds, I'm losing about a pound a week, how many assorted coworkers, acquaintances, ex-boyfriends and rivals such as the barista who check out my husband will I avoid OR wear a disguise around until March?

2) If the baby nurses every two hours or so and I say "SHIT! F!@#$CK! F!#$!CK!" every time she latches on, what are the odds those will be her first words?

See Baby Math I

The giggler

The baby laughs a high joyful little girl laugh and when I hear it, it's like going to heaven but better. She laughs and it's my favorite ten Christmas mornings all condensed into that one moment, like I was just elected president, I am the Super Bowl MVP, I sprouted wings and am gliding over the Grand Canyon it feels that good. The world's most beautiful, wealthiest woman could knock on my door and say, "you can trade places with me instantly oh yeah I'm also a mermaid and I have invisibility powers those are included in the deal ... but you could never hear your baby laugh again!" And I would slam the door in her stinky fish face, just for asking.

Baby spider

The girls found a spider in their room at 6 this morning and it might as well have been a rhinoceros, exciting and dangerous and impossibly exotic. Their screeches of delight forced us deeper under the covers, as did the trampling of footsteps to get a flashlight for "spying it," as did the cries of "it jumped on my arm! it wants to pinch me!" You'd think that last one would get us up, but no; the baby was up every two hours all night and we both only half-heard these things, from a dream.


Finally a sound like the roof caving in roused us (and the baby again, of course), a sound caused by Emily thinking the spider had trapped her on the bed and the only solution was to throw a nearby large bucket of plastic dinosaurs in its general direction, which was also the wall shared by our sleeping heads on the other side. 

The spider, of course, turned out to be a vicious beast nearly as large as Chloe's pinkie nail. Upon finding out it was possibly a baby, they immediately decided it was unbearably cute and they named it Pinchy Pinchy and promised to take care of it forever, their whole lives, always, vows which lasted at least until breakfast. Where is the spider now? We don't know - with the baby's diaper and the plastic stegasauruses and the overturned potties we forgot about it, and can only assume it retreated back for its next appearance, at nap time or next week, with babies of its own.

Exercise: Running after childbirth

What's the most interesting new development?

Round 1:
- Chafed nipples the length of mini-carrots vs. flopping water-balloon stomach
- "me time" guilt vs. involuntary rythmic farting
- Napping for 1/2 mile stretches vs. occasional dribbles
- Loaf of breast vs. slippery hip sockets

Final 4!
-  Chafed nipples the length of mini-carrots vs. involuntary rythmic farting
- Napping for 1/2 mile stretches vs. Loaf of breast

Championship round:
- involuntary rythmic farting vs. Loaf of breast

THE WINNER!
involuntary rythmic farting

Quiz: Should you get pregnant? (Part II)

7) I am willing to switch bodies with a total stranger who is clumsy and overweight
- yes   - no   -I hope my boobs get really freaking huge

8) I have a nice ass
- yes   - no    - rack also

9) I would like to set my alarm to go off every three hours for at least six months. Each time the alarm goes off, I will apply battery clamps to my nipples for 1/2 hour. I promise this will make me free profoundly peaceful and happy. I will love the battery clamps with all my heart.
- yes   - no   - I found God

10) In the last year, I have adopted two dogs, one cat, one bird, a turtle, a rabbit and a gerbil.
- yes   - no   - And saltwater aquarium

11) I have no friends or hobbies and I dislike quiet time alone with music, books, or TV. I don't have a computer.
- yes   - no   - not even cable

SCORING: Add up all the "yes" answers, subtract the "no" ones then multiply by the others. Then go ahead and get knocked up because the baby will be SO CUTE.