vaccinations and peanuts

As the debate on vaccinations and the tensions over the measles outbreak continues to concern us all, I have noticed a really troubling (and annoying) little meme or phrase that keeps popping up.  It haunts my facebook feed with a nagging and insidious hidden barb that bugs the crap out of me.

Or this one:

And if it isn't a meme or a cute little graphic, it is an attempt at a witty tweet.

No, Kristen-I-adore-you-otherwise-Bell, it is not a "good point" made by @MotherJones.  I respectfully disagree with you there, though, again, I freaking adore you otherwise.

It is a random, unrelated, unfair point.  

It is an apples and oranges argument, one having very very little to do with the other. It is something within allergy circles that I have seen come up recently, parents really upset by this sentiment who sometimes have a hard time articulating WHY it bothers them so badly.  I wasn't sure what about it bugged me so much first, but I knew I hated it immediately.  The first time I saw it, a meme shared by a friend on facebook much like the Wonka one, I groaned out loud.  

I posted this on my personal facebook page when I was still having a hard time articulating my distaste for the "joke" or "vent" and was met with a lot of well meaning and kind responses.

Most people assured me that those memes were not meant to insult allergy families.  Most of my very pro-vaxxing friends wanted to address the importance of inoculations and how children need protection from these illnesses.  When I discussed it verbally with a friend she assured me that as an allergy mom I am just used to being the butt of a joke and so I am taking it personally when it isn't about me, or my kid, or even peanuts.  

But is it?  And if it is not, WTF is the point of bringing it up?

That ^ cartoon paints me and the anti-vaxxing mom with the same brush, literally and figuratively.  That cartoon illustrated precisely what my underlying nagging little fear was when I saw the meme start to regurgitate itself across the internet with increasing frequency. The implication is that we are both irrational and selfishly overseeing our children's perceived (insert finger quotes and eye rolls here) needs with no regard for anyone else. 

I still find it difficult to articulate though, because I know that the people sharing it when I do try to say why I hate the sentiment will reply with "but that isn't the point."

Well it may not be your point, but as in all arguments, if the ONLY way you can dispute something is by bringing up an unrelated something else then are you really proving anything?

This idea is meant to be witty, biting, and direct.  But it is really none of those things at all.  

Does it bother me that they are aligning me with anti-vax parents?  Yes.  Not only because I personally chose to vaccinate my children to the fullest extent I can (more on that in a moment) but also because not vaccinating is a choice.  A CHOICE.  We never got a say in whether or not a peanut, or milk, or parsley could KILL our child.  No one asked me.  No long-debunked research studies, no famous former Playboys turned parental activist ... I never got to sign a waver for this life.  Choosing to not have your child receive the MMR shot or any other shot is a choice, a decision purposely made.  Food allergies are a life sentence handed to you by fate.

Does it bother me that I am put in, let's be blunt here, the same category as fanatical, uber crunchy, kinda "out there" parents because of this argument?  Yes. Not because of the level of granola in my life, but because that category isn't meant to be a flattering one.  Those parents are instantly dismissed on the grounds of being, I hate the pun, nuts.

Does it bother me that in order to make your point you have to drag my kids into this argument, where they have no real place?  Yes.

Many children, mine included, with food allergies cannot receive certain vaccinations because of the way they are produced.  Some involve egg, some actually involve milk contamination, some children with food allergies carry other diagnoses that leave them immuno-compromised and they are not supposed to get those shots because the vaccination could actually kill them.  My kids get every shot they can have, and I hold my breath in fear for each one just in case because the threat of those shots is not an imaginary one.   

As a food allergy parent we get used to having to field certain questions and sometimes certain annoyances from other people.  It is really hard sometimes to not get really defensive when people are POed about not sending a PB&J to school because it is inconvenient for them while it could make my child suffer tremendously within seconds just to be in the same room.  When I start to think about how defensive, and admittedly, angry it can make me to hear parents complain about "inconvenience" and "annoyance" when these precautions can prevent my kid from dying ... I do begin to see the point the authors of these memes, status messages, tweets and what not are trying to make.  This could kill innocent children.  How can you not get behind something that prevents that?

While I do get it, I really wish people would stop bringing peanuts into the vaccination argument.  Mainly because if you chose to not vaccinate, that is your choice and this is a battle you chose.  It ain't my battle, I have enough of them and want no part in this one. Your on your own here.

The bottom line, either way at the core of any of these points are innocent children.  They are not meant to be banners in your war -- stop using them as such.  Whether your point is "if I can be forced to not send peanuts you should be forced to vaccinate" or "you are just as big of a pain in my ass as those kids are" ... please, stop using MY innocent children to further your point in this debate.  

Pick-me-up

As of my last post, I was pretty much a total downer.  Sorry 'bout that, but to be honest this has been a roller coaster.  Greater than any other medical roller coaster *I* have been on personally and it would really be dishonest of me to only post the good stuff.  Some days I am like "I got this, I can do it!" and other days I want to mope and feel very sorry for myself.  I believe I am entitled to have both days.

Today, though, is a good day.  So I figured a little writing and catching up was in order.

Since I left off I have had to have my PICC replaced once due to it clotting off somehow.  I will post about that independently because I know for me, the removal process and what could go "wrong" with a PICC consumed a lot of my thoughts especially in the beginning.  It is better now, though I still worry and have some anxiety about something going wrong again.  Not that I logically have need to worry, just when you go through stuff sometimes it makes you worry.

Anyway, I have wanted to just throw something out there in case my last post left anyone upset because I was pretty down.  I was only a few hours out from getting my PICC and it is overwhelming in a lot of ways.  It represented a huge change, and mentally I felt very much like a failure not only because of all the things I couldn't do (some of which now I can) but also because the PICC was such a "last resort" kind of thing that getting there felt like a big step in the wrong direction.

Perspective is everything, however.  While there are still bad days, and while I will never say that I looooooove having a PICC line, I will say that I 100% do NOT regret getting this sucker.  It has been the right choice for me and for my baby.

I have to be more transparent, with myself even, on the bad days.  I have to give myself permission to vent, because I find that I am constantly trying to reprimand myself for feeling crummy about the way things are now.  It is okay to feel bleh, angry, depressed ... that is all normal.  Even if it is all worth it in the end, it sucks right now.  I can't -- and won't -- give into it, but it isn't being fair to me or fairly representing HG to only post my sarcastic spin on the misery or advice on how not to be a total buttface to someone with HG.  

I am working on a PICC series -- this one will include having it placed, removed, and the day-
to-day stuff.  Since some days are better than others I am not sure how long it will take for me to actually manufacture those posts, but I am working on it.  I am also working on some other posts that may feel a little diary entry-ish to a reader but I have a lot of time to think lately and I know eventually I will want to look back on my thoughts during this time.  Blogging about it is as good a place as any to slap those musings down for posterity.

So since it is a good day health-wise, I am here writing and will hopefully crank out a couple posts or at least get started.  Today I am feeling good enough that being positive and hopeful is possible, so I am focusing on that and will keep on moving forward either way!

and suddenly she is real

I had to wait to post this story, I had wanted to share it sometime ago but could not.  See, we have known we are having a girl for a while now, I had blood work at 12 weeks because we have a family history of chromosomal abnormalities.  Amazing what they can do now, really.  But at 12 weeks even though visually on ultrasound there was no way to tell, the chromosomes could.  It is a girl!

A few weeks later I was reading in my HG support group on facebook and a woman shared an article she had written.  This is that article.  This is the resulting story.
____

I knew, early on.  I was terrified because in both
of my losses I was convinced they were girls, I was terrified of another angel.  I was also terrified of having a daughter, but that fear was a completely different kind and so much less paralyzing.

But I knew.

At twelve weeks we found out for sure.  This pregnancy would give us a daughter.  She had made it further than either of her sisters had, all signs point to her making it.

Assuming the HG doesn't yet take either of us.

But it just didn't feel real.

I had felt my second son move at 14 weeks.  He started moving regularly by 16 and hasn't stopped moving yet at 3.5 years.  But I haven't felt her, not yet. {Note: I was 14.5 weeks at the time of writing, not feeling her is totally normal.}

Despite vomiting more times than I can count, despite battling dehydration, undernourishment, weakness, and the emotional roller coaster that accompanies all of this ... she didn't feel real.

Emotionally I had not connected with this pregnancy at all.  I still harbored a fear that she wouldn't make it, I will harbor that fear right up until they hand her to me.

At 13 weeks I became obsessed with naming her.  I hounded my husband, I needed a name.  Silently I hoped a name would make her REAL.  A name would be one of those happy things you do in pregnancy, I needed joy, I needed normalcy.  I needed real.

But I got sicker and we are still unsure of a name.  I felt so guilty that I wasn't connecting.  I wasn't ambivalent about her, hell I was fighting hard for both of us and wanted her desperately, but I just wasn't connecting to her.  I am not sure I can explain that beyond those words.  The idea of her was surreal, imaginary.  Uncertain.

I was/am having a hard day today.  I actually vomited bile for the first time, pulled some muscles with the force of my illness and I feel utterly awful.  I am waiting for my doctor's office to call me back.  I retreated to my HG forums and facebook support groups because there I could cry about how sorry I felt for myself to women who understood me and wouldn't give me the well intended but hurtful advice others would.  One member of a group had shared an article she had written regarding the recent re-diagnosis of the Duchess of Cambridge with HG and the resulting comments in the media.  She shared her story and discussed at one point in the article that while she and her daughter had battled HG and won once, her fear of HG coming back to claim her daughter in 20ish years was very real.  Apparently for women who's mothers battled HG, the risk of their having it is much higher.

Suddenly, it hit me.

I burst into tears and actually cried out "oh I am so sorry baby girl!" to my belly.  I wept for my daughter ... I emotionally connected to her, about her, with her.

Now, I will honestly tell you that I resent that the object of our initial connection was HG, but it was.  The thought of my child potentially suffering hurt me physically and emotionally.  The realism of that was overwhelming and something I could relate to, whereas the other daughter-things I had tried thinking about made no sense to me as I have no experience with them.  This, well this I have experience with.

While it is a gift to finally feel she is real, and it is a process to be honest, it is a curse to know she may someday deal with this too if she has children.  All I can do is pray she is spared, a cure is found, or something along those lines.

But now she is real.  She is mine.  We will get through this, a hard battle though it may be.  But I have a daughter, and I am not letting go of her for anything.

HG ... when you already have kids

Logic and motherhood, in my experience, rarely collide.

That could not be more true for me lately.  With how consuming my own health saga has been, I have a hard time not relating everything in life to it right now.  I thought I was the only one with this obsessive focus, and it made sense to me because what else do I have to do other than think about what I can't do or focus on the little, yet monumental task I can do -- grow a person.

But I am not the only one who has taken this whole journey to heart.

Recently the Beans has become obsessed with drawing.  He carries around a "handy dandy notebook" and seeks Blue's Clues all the live long day, and I may be prejudiced but for three he is pretty good.  Like I can recognize what he draws, usually with ease.

So when the other day he proudly told me that he drew his best friend, ME, I nearly choked up on maternal hormonal overload.  Then he showed me his precious drawing ... and it was like all his others, I could easily identify what was in the picture ...

Me.  With an IV and subcutaneous infusion pump.

Oh and bangs, I have messy hair and bangs.

Pretty accurate picture of me as of late.  In fact, it could pass for a photo except that my arms are entirely absent in this rendering.

Truth is I kept it and always will.  It is a precious representation of what he can do ... it also brought some other feelings to the surface too.

HG is pretty crummy all things considered.  In the interest of full disclosure I wrote three other words in place of crummy first and deleted and slowly stepped up the censorship each time.  My life, as I knew it, has stopped.  Nothing is the same.  I do not do anything the same way I did 5 months ago, I do not think in the terms I did five months ago and I certainly do not look like I did five months ago and that ain't just cuz I have the prego gut going on. Some of those changes will never leave me, some have a definitive time stamp, and while I hate giving HG credit for anything good I do suspect that I will be a far better person for having survived this.

All that said, I feel like the biggest failure as a mom, wife, person right now and that picture both was a positive affirmation and a damning bit of devastation ... didn't mean to rhyme there but lets run with it.

My child has not missed the pump, the IV.  I have actually been rolling my eyes a little at how similarly Beans seems to see me.  He still demands stuff of me, still has the same three-year-old standards even when I cannot meet them.  I joked the other day when he suggested that I clean up his toys that the IV pole was completely invisible to him.

Its not like I actually thought it was, but the fact that he drew a picture of me and didn't include clothes OR arms but did include the pump and IV ... its a part of me.  He sees it as a part of me.

That ... stings.

I was feeling a little awful about it.  I was dwelling a bit on how I haven't made dinner in an eternity, how exhausted my husband is, how independent my children have been forced to become, the fact that Meatball asks me about my ketones in the morning, how I have done jack doodle with kid's school, how messy the house is ... I can't even just be pregnant right, I have to be debilitatingly, freakishly, starving to death while vomiting bile and dependent upon modern medicine to even have a freaking baby.  Um, fail.

Feeling totally worthless and trying to pull myself out of the dark slump that seems to always be looming in the background I took a deep breath and thought about finding the humor in this.  Its what I do, it is what I blog about 99% of the time.  HG is like having the Nothing from Never Ending Story follow you everywhere, it is easy to feel isolated and depressed in the middle of your body failing you so miserably and at a time that should be filled with joy.  If I don't actively fight that dark pull, it will get icky up in here fast.

And I looked at that picture again ...

I'm smiling.

I have a huge grin on my face.  He may have included medical contraptions and completely ignored my arms ... but he drew me with a huge grin.

So while my illness is not invisible to him, my attempt to remain positive IS visible.

I believe it is okay for our children to see us falter or have weakness.  I think it is important actually, for them to see we are human and I think it is even more important that occasionally they know moms and dads have to struggle and fight for something.  It lets them know that it is normal and valuable to do so, enableing and empowering them to do the same some day too.

Beans and Meatball see my struggle.  They know this is hard, and they know that we will get through it.  They know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that is a precious gift indeed.  They also know that I smile and fight.  That is also important.

This may totally suck right now, but like I just said, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  When we get there I won't have an IV or pump, but I will probably still have messy hair and bad bangs ... and a smile ... and three kids instead of just two.

And that is the greatest gift of them all.

its a ... disappointment? NO!

Hopefully this time you get your girl!

I have heard the above phrase more times than I can count in these weeks of pregnancy, when I actually am up to talking to people.  Especially with how the pregnancy has been going, people are just sure.

Nearly everyone has said some variant of it.  From the polite "maybe it will be"s to the down right annoying "you better have gotten it right this time"s that baffle me.  I am pretty sure everyone who knows us is certain we only broke the two children standard the American world seems to hold so dear because we had not yet had a girl.

Its a ... oh my!

Truth of the matter is I'd rather a boy.  

I won't throw it back if its a girl (that was an attempt at humor, if you missed it, seriously chill).  But I know boys.  I have only had boys.  I am fine with boys.  In fact, I down right love 'em.  I relish being a mom of boys, I love that I can refer to my household as "my men" with a hint of humor but no need for qualifications.  

Even back when I babysat I only ever had boys.  Come to think of it, I do not think I have ever changed a girl's diaper.  The thought actually terrifies me.  Let's be frank here, I know for sure how unpleasant a diaper change can be with the anatomy of a chubby little boy.  There are some wrinkly, foldy parts there that poop just makes a mess of.  But it is not a *glances over her shoulder* vagina.

I mean seriously, WTF do you do with that?!

No, don't tell me.  I don't want to know.  

Not unless I have to.

Its a ...OMG!

Which I may have to, I have a strong feeling I am having a girl, and it terrifies me more than may be rational.  

But most of all, I hate that if I have a girl people will exclaim"finally" like I accomplished the real goal.  Or if I have another boy they will sigh and say "will you try again?" because for some reason the fact I have only had boys is a failure.  Like my sons are insignificant.  

Um, no. 

If I have a girl, then I have one.  If I don't and I have another boy, then I have another boy.  Neither is a failure, and technically both were the goal.  We didn't plan this pregnancy with the purpose of having a girl OR a boy.  We planned to have a baby.  A child.  A sibling for the kids we have.  A person.  That was it.  No need for a specific gender, and I have never understood that.  

Its ... THE BABY!

I am frankly offended by what the "finallys" imply about my existing children.  Like, damn, that one has a penis and it just isn't what we were hoping for!  Crap, there is another one with a penis, what a waste!  No, "that one" is a person I am amazingly proud of and honored to watch grow.  He is a beautiful miracle that takes my damn breath away with his brilliance, complexity, and glorious heart.  He happens to be a boy, but I refuse to allow societies expectations of him force him to be something he doesn't want to be.  Or I will try anyway.

I would be as passionate a mother of a daughter, but it saddens me when people undervalue my sons simply because I already have them and especially because I have more than one.  I don't need a matched pair or a set, I need a child that is here and healthy as possible.  You're over complicating and over thinking things if you go beyond that.  

Parenthood is complicated and terrifying enough.  Why add more stress to it, especially with something that I have quite literally NO control of.  

Bras.

Tampons.

Dating.

Deep breathing now ... I am not going to worry about any of it until I know I need to.  

Outlander *drool*

I tend to obsess on certain things.

Hot Scottish men, happen to be one of them.

Historical romance is totally my dirty little secret.  Has been for years.  Oddly, my mother got me hooked.  I was going through a really dark period of my life and reading has always been my escape, but I was having a hard time finding stuff that I could handle.  She handed me a copy of Whitney My Love, saying it was an emotional roller coaster but worth it.  After years of rolling my eyes at the lurid book covers she burred her nose in (seriously, this is my MOM, ew!) I rolled my eyes and only promised I would give it a chapter or two before I would give up.

I couldn't put it down.

I love an assured happy ending.  Romance novels, at least of the genre I adore, guarantee me that.  I call it a Sound of Music ending ... where they all escape the Nazis over the Alps at the end to live happily ever after.  I love me a happily ever after.

I also love historical fiction.  SO combine the two and I am a happy camper.  Throw in a couple steamy scenes and I am good to go.

If you are wondering, no, the GIFs have nothing to technically do with this post.  I just like using them.  Yum.

Anyway, I heard from a friend about the Outlander series and thought it sounded up my alley even if it wasn't a traditional historical romance book series according to some.  I also happen to love and obsess over Scotland and always have so it was like the best of all things for me.

I am only on book three now, but since I am not exactly up to my usual tricks lately I have been able to read a lot more and am chewing through my Kindle allowance rather fast these days.

Then I heard it was a TV show.  Of course, I can't actually WATCH the damn show, which is killing me.

I have to sustain myself with GIFs and youtube teasers.

It has been hard.

Ahem.

Anyway, I check at least once a week for a legit way to watch the show without suddenly getting a cable package.  So far I have had mixed reviews from people who swear certain sites are safe while others swear the same site made their computer speak in tongues and vomit pea soup.

While Paul Bunyan is super and understanding and all that, I think if I turn our computer in to a scene from the Exorcist he will not be pleased with me regardless of how valiant the cause.

I also suspect he may think the cause less valiant than I do.  Sooo not my problem.

Hyperemesis Gravidarum: what NOT to say!

Irony of ironies, I have barely been able to post the myriad of things I have wanted to, including wrapping the editing of the post where I announce my pregnancy, because I have been too sick.

So, by the way, I'm pregnant.  Yay!

I have always said I was a princess, but man, Hyperemesis Gravidarum just wasn't the thing I wanted to check off in that box as proof.  Not only to Duchess Kate and I hypothetically bond over illness, but this same illness is the reason we publicly announce our pregnancies.  HA!

It is hard to talk about HG when you are actively in the throws of it.  Go figure, talking about puking is hard when that is all you can do.  So I'll not tell you much right now about how I am doing or what this journey has been for me personally, but I will.  Just when I am better.  Presently I am 14 weeks and the clouds are lifting enough that I find this post possible, a few weeks ago it simply wasn't.

This is part hormonal, nauseated, angry rant with a dash of begging and education thrown in for good measure.  And lots of GIFs because they make me happy.

In no particular order because anyone of these if grounds for me aiming at you when I get sick for the 100th time today ...

1. "Oh I had morning sickness too!"

Morning sickness is crummy, I make no bones about it.  But HG is not morning sickness, though by medical definition it is often referred to as "severe morning sickness."  Let me put it this way, if you can count the number of times a day you get/got ill this is NOT the thing to say to me.

2. "Have you tried crackers/ginger/Preggie Pops/Seabands/some-weird-wives-tale/etc.?"

If one more person suggests ginger in any form {typing paused because I actually had to gag and dry heave over this} ... in a word, yes.  Yes.  I have tried all of that.  Desperately. Repeatedly.

3. "Oh my gawd, this one time when I was pregnant I threw up in...."

Do not talk about up-chuck in any form.  Not only do I not care, because that requires energy I do not have, I also cannot take hearing it.  Its also pretty freaking weird but for some reason people seem compelled to tell me.  I have managed to christen every receptacle typical for catching illness and many never intended for acts so vile.  We can swap horror stories some other day, for now please just shhhh.

4. "Have you tried just forcing yourself to eat or drink?"

Seriously?  I am trying not to drop F-bombs here but this one is hard not to reply with a good ol' "eff you" too.  Scientific question: what would happen if you tried to spray a garden hose UP Niagara Falls?  Same dif here.

5.  "But doesn't taking medicine while your pregnant make you nervous?  What if your kid has like a third eye because of that?!"

You're asking the wrong questions.  What if my child is so malnourished that s/he doesn't make it?  What if I am so malnourished or dehydrated that I go into preterm labor or miscarry?  What if both my baby and I don't make it, because that happens with HG?  I hate taking medicine, but without them I wouldn't have gotten this far.  It scares me, but not taking them scares me a lot more.

6. "Oh I understand!  When I was pregnant I would hurl the second I even saw *insert food item here* much less smelled it!"

I am sure that was awful, and I say that without too much snark.  I had that in prior pregnancies and it sucked then.  But here's the thing, I don't vomit because of seeing or smelling food, though that is a sure fire way to make me sick. I am sick no matter what.  Sometimes I can't even talk because the act of opening my mouth and activating my vocal chords does it for me.  I cannot swallow my spit half the time.

7. "I gained 30 lbs when I was pregnant, you're lucky to be losing some!"

Or anything like this.  Anything that comments on my weight loss as though it is some kind of GIFT makes you an undisputed asshole.

8. "Well you haven't lost that much weight."

Seriously, if you were an asshole on #7 this makes it even worse.

If you are looking at me and thinking I haven't lost that much weight chances are you are seeing how puffy and bloated the medication I am taking has made me.  Or even better, and way more TMI but you -- special snowflake that you are -- deserve it: Maybe my tummy is so large because the medication that they have pumped me full of makes it utterly impossible to poop.  Yup.  I am so damned constipated that my entire GI track is as backed up as a LA free way at 5 PM on a weekday.  What I manage to get down may never come out again!  So my tummy IS huge and I AM maintaining weight temporarily, but its not a good thing either.

9. "Oh I bet you are so sick because you're having a boy/girl this time!"

I admit, I have always joked (as a mother of only boys) to my girl friends who have had girls and are uncomfy through their pregnancies that it has to be that they are having a girl causing their misery.  "After all," I tell them, "two women can never occupy a confined space in peace!" so they MUST be having a girl. I swear, I will never say this again.

I have been assured I am having a girl this go-round because of my pathetic state more times than I can count.  Wives tales and gut feelings aside, HG has no known cause, cure, or even a sure-fire treatment plan.  The gender of my child is not what is making me so ill, even if it winds up coincidentally matching your theory.

10.  "Bet this will be your last baby now, eh?"  

I admit, now is NOT the time for me to discuss ever being knocked up again.  But I find any questions like this rude and nauseating when I am not in my current state, why are you inquiring about this at all you nosy weirdo?

Because actually screaming would mean
I have to open my mouth ...

Between the sickness, and the resulting exhaustion and weakness I have experienced as a result, I have not been up to a whole lot.  Sitting up at the computer is actually a challenge.  So whether you found this because YOU are going through HG (hugs and sympathy!) or because a loved one is, hang in there.  My thoughts and prayers are with you.

bladder capacity & toy baths

I may not be a real scientist, but I play one on the internet.  Hello, I am a "rocket surgeon" y'all!  So being all scientific-ey the other day I realized I can visually represent the Beans' bladder capacity for you visually.

Before we get to that, have you seen this?

Or hows abouts this?

So true.  So very, very true.  In my case, the Beans did not actually escape his prison, he just decided to punish me for putting him in it.  I should have been alerted by the sudden silence.  I should have, but I wasn't observant enough.

Now to the scientific bladder capacity part -- just how much pee can a two and a half year old's bladder hold?

Enough to contaminate all of this when he puts his mind to it.

To be fair and maintain scientific transparency, there was smearing action before I realized what was happening.

Of course, my giving his toys a bath was so cool, so he naturally added more to it.  Dumped a whole bucket of Duplos before I could stop the little monstrosity.

This is totally the crap that should be in parentage books, but is strangely absent ...

Top 10 Things That Used to be MINE

Last night the Beans was being a two year old.  The nerve.

Paul Bunyan decided to read something on his Kindle Fire in order to tune out the baby death shriek and repetitive chant of "no no bed."  But the second he pulled out that electronic device a gasp rent the air, followed by approximately 2.7634 seconds of rare and precious silence.  Then came "BABY'S BIG PHONE!" and the Beans grabbed it from daddy and expertly jabbed the screen a few times until the Lorax cued up and began wailing "How Bad Can I Be?" on full volume.  Appropriate, no?

This made poor Paul Bunyan sigh and bemoan that he wondered when he would get to read on his Kindle again.  I had about 2.7634 seconds of pity when I realized that if all I was lacking was Kindle access I might be a shit-ton more sane.

 Top Ten Things That Used To Be MINE

1.  My boobs.  Bunyan likes to think of them as his, but a nursing baby wins every time.  No matter what, even when the milk bags are no longer feeding a little vampire any longer they aren't MINE anymore.  MY boobs had some life to them.  They were small, but they at least seemed to not lack filling.  Since nursing children I apparently lost like a third of my boob mass because they are still small but deflated and droopy looking.  What the eff?

They are actually *mine* ... well, they once were.

2.  My Wardrobe.  I used to get dressed because I liked an outfit.  Or I looked good in an outfit or it made me feel good.  Occasionally I dressed in something because it was comfy.  I would even go, dare I say it, shopping for clothes for myself ... and enjoy it!  Now?  I wear whatever happens to be clean, roomy enough to cover this expanding version of myself, and often provides easy access for nursing, running after children, or cleaning something.  Bonus points to clothing that can cover the ridiculous number of stains I obtain in a day without obnoxiously announcing "LOOK this is strawberry applesauce!" and "Yup, that's a booger" whenever you look my way.

3.  My Phone.  I have more than 72 apps on my phone.  I tried counting them but kept forgetting what number I was on, so there are at least that many.  I use 7 maybe 8 of them for myself regularly.  Lets make it a round ten apps for ME.  That means there are 60+ apps that are simply there because I need to put the food on the conveyor belt at the grocery store without Houdini baby trying to escape the cart.  My iPhone is so full of kid apps and pictures of kids that I actually only have room for one playlist of music.  Only reason I get that is because my children haven't realized it is possible to load any of their music on the phone yet.  They do know about my Pandora app though.

The ultimate Mom Purse

4. My purse.  Oh wait, that's funny I don't HAVE a purse anymore.  I have a backpack/diaper bag/first aid kit/snack storage/changing station/toy holder/crumb hoarder hybrid with a monkey hanging off of it that also carries my wallet and chapstick.  When I can find them.  Yes, it is actual one the one pictured above.

5.  My Jewelry.  I used to wear some.  I now wear a wedding band, and not the nice one either.  The other day whilst changing a poo diaper someone (AKA Beans) thought it would be hilarious to start bouncing his cute little baby butt all over the place.  Thus getting nasty baby crap all over my hand.  This had of course happened on the one day so far this year I wore the pretty channeled band Paul Bunyan bought me for Christmas three years ago.  If jewelry isn't an effective way to cause me pain while getting my attention (earrings and necklaces) then it means I am washing shit off diamonds.  Screw jewelry.

6. My Anything-Below-the-Neck.  Hell, who am I kidding?  I have grey hair, wrinkles, and raccoon eyes -- screw it being just the belly I don't want to claim and the varicose veins that make my legs look even worse than before.  What the hell happened to me?  Thank goodness children are cute, because the side effects that come with them are hell.

7.  My Bladder.  Perhaps if we are going for anatomical accuracy it isn't the actual bladder but the muscles of my pelvic wall or floor or whatthefrickenhellever.  I held out hope with the first pregnancy that the whole wetting yourself when you sneezed thing would go away.  Since child number two I am realizing that this is a pregnancy symptom that may never abate.

8.  My Sleep.  I used to have some, with complete cycles and everything.  I can almost remember back that far, but deprivation being what it is I may just be hallucinating.

9.  My Sanity.  I swear, I used to have more of it.

10.  My Life.  I used to have one that revolved around me.  Looking back, I am not sure that it was entirely enjoyable.  This may be exhausting, I might have lost of my sense of Self, and there are moments that straight up suck (anyone claiming otherwise lies) but this is a gift and I am grateful.

Again, I may be hallucinating here though.