I hate to break it to ya’ll, but I don’t actually know if the child I’m gestating has red hair. I mean, you can keep asking me “is this baby going to have red hair?” and I will most likely stick with my current answer “Well, it depends on who the father is.” Admittedly, this does make the father figure cringe, but what the heck else am I supposed to say.  Maybe it’s some sort of innate bigotry on my part, but I feel strongly that only reasonable questions deserve reasonable answers.  I used to respond—because yes, I have been asked this question way more times than anyone should be comfortable with—“Well I did mark that box on the order form". But I decided I didn’t really like what that might imply for Baby and X-Man and, quite possibly, Gestating Cinco. Red hair is not the be all end all. However, I am still checking the “potty trained” box. Who knows, that might just come through for me one of these times.

I learned during my first pregnancy that babies, and the protrusion they cause, belong to the world. And I’m ok with that. I think there’s something beautiful about that. It’s one thing to rub my belly. It’s another to rub it and say “baby kick me.” Really? Why are you trying to provoke my child into a violent frenzy?  I don’t find that well-adjusted behavior.

You are, of course, absolutely the first person ever to ask me if I know what causes pregnancy. I’m so glad you asked, see I was homeschooled. The blank look that answer produces is pretty darn satisfying. And if you suggest that we start watching more TV, or get cable, I will tell you “If you think watching TV is better, you’re doing it wrong.” The funny thing is you’ll end up way more uncomfortable than I will.

Please do ask me if I am going to circumcise my son. See there’s nothing more I like to discuss with strangers than my son’s genitals. That’s not creepy at all. And it’s not weird that when I say “boy” that’s the first thing that comes to mind.

I absolutely LOVE being pregnant, thanks for your observation. I don’t know which is better, hemorrhoids or heartburn. Although nothing is as awesome as labor. Thank you for suggesting that I get an epidural as soon as I walk in the hospital door, your advice is so helpful since I haven’t done this several times before. Oh and I’m so glad you reminded me to go drug free as to not interfere with my baby bonding. I knew there was a reason why I just don’t seem to like X-Man. Hey you’re the one who brought it up, don’t go be all horrified when I agree with you.

I needed to hear your breastfeeding horror stories. See, after doing this four times, I didn’t have any myself.

I truly appreciate your smug comments that I will need to tuck, lift and rejuvenate certain areas of my body if I want to keep my husband. He’s gotten me pregnant five times, why would I want him to stick around?

X-Man is sitting next to me, outraged. He’s playing with one of the set of Tonka trucks Santa brought him. Stupid Santa. There are six in the set and each has three different noises, so yeah, that’s eighteen unique noises in the hands of a nineteen month old. He was in Heaven all Christmas.

But now they are nothing but a source of frustration. He has his preferred cars, and which is the unfixable issue, his favorite noises. But they are on a three noise cycle. So he can only hear his favorite noise every three times. He keeps thrusting the offending car, with the offending noise at me. And I’m supposed to fix it. He doesn’t talk yet, but he does imitate the noise that he wants quite well. So through tears and rage, and assisted with a sniffly version of the siren he’s seeking, we struggle through together. He’s disillusioned as I don’t produce it immediately, followed by sheer joy that comes with finding the right sound. And then he rubs his nose on my shoulder, and we repeat the cycle.

Ah the joys of children playing. It’s a hilarious experience.  I remember the first really, truly, insane fight I had to break up between Baby and Baba. It was over an invisible flower. Yes, an invisible flower. And where it was to be placed on the baby doll’s head. So, being the understanding, good mom that I am, I gave each of them their own invisible flower. And left the room feeling satisfied. Only to again hear the shrieking and crying again. Because, each child had place her invisible flower on the exact same location on the baby doll’s head.  I believe this was the first time I exclaimed to my daughters “Are you guys for real?!!?” Not my finest moment after all.

They’ve gotten older, and their fights have too. Although it wasn’t that long ago that Baba came running out of their room yelling “MOM Baby won’t let my fairy come to her wedding!!!” Baby was hot on her heals explaining “She has a fever!!!!”

Adding Mac into the equation didn’t do much to mess with their groove. They would play house, along with Mac, Mac’s children would be his assorted baseball bats and trains. Not that there weren’t fights. Baby and Baba came out together to file a complaint. Mac was refusing to bring his knights to their ball. I commented that I believed that fell within Mac’s rights as a human being to not attend every ball his sisters threw.  Baby was completely baffled “But everybody loves a BALL!”

They keep each other entertained.. The girls build fairy houses; Mac builds a haunted house, complete with an octopus. I blame the grandfather who brought back a stuffed cuttle fish from some aquarium. Sometimes Mac hunts monsters with his gun, but more than once that has deteriorated into Baby, armed with his gun, running away screaming “He’s trying to bite me!” Mac, always helpful, shouting his own clarifications “No, I am going to pinch you!”

X-Man has started trying to keep up. He knows that he ought to be the center of attention. So he plows into the middle of whatever and sits himself down. X-Man is still cute enough that he will most likely be accommodated. Mac is the least likely to accept X-Man’s intrusions. Mostly because X-Man is primarily interested in Mac’s toys.

They play together well. I just hope the neighbors aren’t alarmed by the chalk outlines on the driveway.

The husband and I are in a challenging place in our marriage.

I had a different plan for this blog, but then the hubs, who was clearly surfing Netflix, looking for something to do because all the laundry was done or just hasn’t started screaming loudly enough, yelled to me that he found a movie for us to watch. Nude Nuns with Big Guns. For realz, that’s a movie.

So I, being the marvelous wife I am, said “OK hon, just let me finish this up.” And then Weird Al started playing. He had clearly moved on from Netflix browsing.  And herein is the problem. We can’t shock each other anymore. We’re too comfortable with each other. 

This was completely obvious the other night. I’m assisting a friend with her divorce. So when the hubs asked what I was planning on doing that evening, I responded, intentionally “Oh, just working on this divorce paperwork.” Now, I’m not sure if it’s just because we’ve been married long enough that he doesn’t listen to me at all, or, and this is my fear, I just can’t shock him anymore.

Now, a mature woman wouldn’t want to shock her husband, or get a reaction from him, at least like this. But I am who I am, and Hubs did know who he was attaching himself to for life.

When we were first married, I got a perverse pleasure of walking in to his office and announcing “We have to talk” and then launching in to a discussion about what to have for dinner. I lived for that panicked look on his face. I know I’m not a nice person.

I discovered how much fun it was completely unintentionally. About a month into our marriage, I casually mentioned to him that I was having a baby shower. His eyes were about to pop out of his head. I was perplexed by his flabbergasted response, until I clarified “It’s not for me! It’s for a friend” 

It struck me that it was particularly easy to throw him for a loop, and, more importantly, it was fun.

There is a time and place however. While it’s funny to announce that you want to change the baby’s name, while in labor. It’s not funny to joke about being pregnant. Telling him that you spent $300 on a car battery funny.  But car crashes not so funny. Telling him you’re going to cut your hair, amusing, but not really worth the reward. However, showing him websites about how to best prepare your placenta for consumption and that you feel strongly that this would best help him bonding with his new born…..awesome.

The problem is, I had fun for about ten years and now I can’t figure out how to get him anymore. And that leaves me sad. 

I'm sitting in a coffee shop contemplating what kind of tea I want to order. And listening a middle aged couple argue over how dismissive he is of her opinion of Bill O'Reilly. I'm really trying not to listen, but she's annoyed that he doesn't like O'Reilly and he says she puts people in categories. I wish they'd put me in a category, the category of people who should not be able to hear your conversation.

I'm in the coffee shop because I am a failure as a stay at home mom. I'm not looking for validation from anyone, nor am I humblebragging, which is apparently a new term apparently mostly applied to mommy bloggers. So let's just clear that up right now. But, truly as a stay at home mom, not so good. I've been gone most of the afternoon, and I'm still gone. Albeit with different kids. My kids do a significantly better job at the whole stay at home bit than I do.


I blame soccer. Although, actually, this all started with ballet. Or maybe even with my being home schooled. One of my most distinct memories is being lonely. Wanting to do something, anything, with other people. Just basic social interaction. That really wasn't big on the rest of the family's radar, and so I vowed I would do better by my children. And now realize, they might just have been on to something.

It was one thing when it was just Baby and Baba, and Baba took one ballet class and Baby danced in the corner. It was exciting to see Baba with her hair up, in her little black leotard. And so, naturally, I signed her up for soccer, which she was so excited for. And if Baba did it, well Baby most certainly had to. So there were two ballet classes and two soccer practices. And three children.

But they kept getting better. So Baba had to take a different class than Baby. And soccer was at different times, at different fields. But it was still manageable. So naturally I decided that what I needed was another kid in soccer and three kids taking swimming lessons and three kids in ballet/creative movement. And a toddler. Because life should not be easy.

Again, it sort of made sense, except for the schedule. And X-Man was singularly unimpressed with the car. The other kids were confused. Were we people who lived in a car and had a house? Was that how it worked? X-Man made it clear that car seats are simply 21st century racks, and every one took their shoes off. Seriously. Baby took it to the furthest extreme, but not only removing her shoes, each and every time we got in the car, but also her tights, or socks, or pants. Because she got hot. Baba stuck with undoing her hair. Baby took sharpie to her pants, and NO I don't know where she got a sharpie from. And in the chaos of it all, I forgot to make sure Mac was wearing shoes....more than once.

But we soldiered on. I was clever and signed the kids up for swimming lessons in a block. Baba went first, Baby and Mac went together. For one week. And then the child who wouldn't put her face in the water for her swim test decided that not only could she put her face in the water, she could blow bubbles and float. She got moved to a different class. On a different day. Mac decided that was a good idea and followed suit. However, it took him an extra week to figure that out, he spent his first lesson bobbing up and down in the pool yelling "teacher, teacher! Did you know I love swimming!?!" So by the time he tested into Baby's class, she'd already decided she'd had enough of the level two scene and had advanced again. So in the course of three week, I went from having three children having swimming lessons on one day, in one hour, to three children having lessons on three different days.

Soccer's it's own monster, we have reached the point where there is no off season for Baba. Baby only has it two nights a week and Mac's in the clear. For now. But he should start brushing up on his wrestling skills now. I thought I knew what soccer involved, but it wasn't until Mac started playing that I discovered that boys' soccer has wrestling involved in it. Don't worry, the kid with the ball usually can jump the writhing mass, so the game goes on.

I have more or less found my balance in all this chaos. But every now and then I hear "Mom, mom, remember how it's going to be Baby's first communion and that mother daughter event that you want to take Baba to, because it talks her through what she's going to experience in the next few years, and there will be three soccer games a weekend, and there will be Baby's birthday and soccer try outs and Mother's Day and it will be the end of the school year so you'll be really busy with work, 'member? Yeah, I want to be born then!"

I was supposed to be working. I work from home, in addition to homeschooling and mothering. Which might explain why I’m so in over my head. Of course, the whole way this story is going will also explain why nothing I do is done well. It’s the ADD, or just the desire to avoid anything and everything. So, instead of grading papers, or ending the humanitarian crisis taking place in the other room, I believe it had to do with X-Man needing ALL the dinosaurs,  I was surfing the internet. Which led me to newest front in the Cold War…..the Mommy Wars.

For those of you who somehow missed this internet phenomenon, basically it goes like this “anything you can do I can do better.” For realz.

I don’t understand it. It’s probably because most people would look at me and choose the exact opposite of whatever path I’ve taken. Now I admit, I’m flying blind as a parent, and I’ve been doing this for ten years. Not to mention I have children sprouting out my ears. I should really have this whole process down. If anyone should be pontificating about how to raise children, at least on paper, that someone should be me. And yet I can’t convince X-Man that if he removes his shoes, bite his toes it will hurt. And he will yell at me. Just like today.

It’s just that no matter how much planning and thinking and research you might do to prepare for children, nothing prepares you for children. I’m not a criminal profiler, although that might be a wise career field for anyone considering parenthood, so I don’t know how to get into other people’s heads. You can’t prepare for the chaos that is coming.

That’s why I have little to no advice to give. I don’t know what moods my kids will be in tomorrow. Heck, I don’t even know what mood I’ll be in. I still don’t know why all the fairies Baby has to play with are defective and only Baba’s will do. I don’t know why X-Man will fill laundry baskets with stuffed animals, but must empty them completely of clothing before doing so. Who am I to tell anyone else “you’re doing it wrong”?

If you wade too deeply in the mommy wars online, you’ll discover that you’ve stumbled into the bar scene of Star Wars. What people fight about becomes more and more bizarre. I don’t know if the need for an echo chamber comes from insecurity or the delight of finding something that works for you. Of course, that disappears with more children. Then things that worked for the first born son makes no impact on Spare Heir.

And ten years, four children in I’m still making rookie mistakes. The other day, it was just X-Man and me out running errands. And his shoes were off again. As I glanced back at the cute little stinker, I gave his little fat foot a squeeze. D’oh. The rest of the car trip was X-Man yelling at me and shaking his foot. And the next day, as I got into the driver’s seat, X-Man started yelling and shaking his foot at me. We’re a week in now, me driving and holding X-Man’s foot. How did I not see this coming?

 I have plenty of opinions, and I do share them. But my only real opinion about child rearing is love them fierce. And if you love them fierce, you don’t have to worry what anyone else thinks. 

I was supposed to be working. I work from home, in addition to homeschooling and mothering. Which might explain why I’m so in over my head. Of course, the whole way this story is going will also explain why nothing I do is done well. It’s the ADD, or just the desire to avoid anything and everything. So, instead of grading papers, or ending the humanitarian crisis taking place in the other room, I believe it had to do with X-Man needing ALL the dinosaurs,  I was surfing the internet. Which led me to newest front in the Cold War…..the Mommy Wars.

For those of you who somehow missed this internet phenomenon, basically it goes like this “anything you can do I can do better.” For realz.

I don’t understand it. It’s probably because most people would look at me and choose the exact opposite of whatever path I’ve taken. Now I admit, I’m flying blind as a parent, and I’ve been doing this for ten years. Not to mention I have children sprouting out my ears. I should really have this whole process down. If anyone should be pontificating about how to raise children, at least on paper, that someone should be me. And yet I can’t convince X-Man that if he removes his shoes, bite his toes it will hurt. And he will yell at me. Just like today.

It’s just that no matter how much planning and thinking and research you might do to prepare for children, nothing prepares you for children. I’m not a criminal profiler, although that might be a wise career field for anyone considering parenthood, so I don’t know how to get into other people’s heads. You can’t prepare for the chaos that is coming.

That’s why I have little to no advice to give. I don’t know what moods my kids will be in tomorrow. Heck, I don’t even know what mood I’ll be in. I still don’t know why all the fairies Baby has to play with are defective and only Baba’s will do. I don’t know why X-Man will fill laundry baskets with stuffed animals, but must empty them completely of clothing before doing so. Who am I to tell anyone else “you’re doing it wrong”?

If you wade too deeply in the mommy wars online, you’ll discover that you’ve stumbled into the bar scene of Star Wars. What people fight about becomes more and more bizarre. I don’t know if the need for an echo chamber comes from insecurity or the delight of finding something that works for you. Of course, that disappears with more children. Then things that worked for the first born son makes no impact on Spare Heir.

And ten years, four children in I’m still making rookie mistakes. The other day, it was just X-Man and me out running errands. And his shoes were off again. As I glanced back at the cute little stinker, I gave his little fat foot a squeeze. D’oh. The rest of the car trip was X-Man yelling at me and shaking his foot. And the next day, as I got into the driver’s seat, X-Man started yelling and shaking his foot at me. We’re a week in now, me driving and holding X-Man’s foot. How did I not see this coming?

 I have plenty of opinions, and I do share them. But my only real opinion about child rearing is love them fierce. And if you love them fierce, you don’t have to worry what anyone else thinks. 

It’s been one of THOSE days. One of those days where I remember that I really, really hate homeschooling. Like pick it up and drop kick it hate.  I’m not one to extoll the virtues and write beautiful illustrated blog posts about the lovely craft the children and I did while studying fractals in a puddle. Homeschooling makes me cry.

But at least I’m not the only one. I learned to day that conifers are mean. And they make little girls cry. Or at least reading about them makes them cry.

And don’t even get me started on writing in complete sentences. Or putting a header on your paper. When I’m feeling particularly sadistic, and as I am not consuming coffee that’s more often than not, I will actually make children show me their work in math. Lining up the various place values! That’s its own level of hell.

I feel strongly about education. It’s the one thing you can lose. No one can take it from you. So of course it’s what a mother wants to give to all her children. Especially since their soccer commitments are burning through any spare cash that might trickle its way through the generations.

As it is, my gift is being thrown back in my face. Not only that, I am being actively sabotaged.  I overheard Baby tell one of my students, who was there for a math lesson “Just tell my mom you lost your book and let’s have a tea party.”

I’ve tried coaxing and cajoling. I’ve tried guilt, but mentioning girls who get shot because they try to attend school leads to the simple conclusion that school is detrimental to your health. And don’t mention schools that get blown up. That just leads to alleged fears that your school will be the next target. And as a result you should be left alone to play GI Joes.

Ai yi yi. At least tomorrow’s Wednesday. Half way there.

Maybe I’ll even let them do their assignments in Sharpie, since that is always the only writing utensil they can find.