Twist and Shout

I hate gaining weight. Even though I totally get that I am pregnant, and that I am supposed to gain weight. I seriously understand that this is part of the process, however, I hate it so much.

Okay. Moving on.

I am trying to decide if i want to have an unmedicated birth or not.

Or wait. Let me rephrase. I WANT an unmedicated birth, I am just trying to decide if I will be able to go through with it. I already know I can handle the ring of fire (which happens during crowning)) , because, well, I did with Georgia. (I had a med free transition and birth)

Some women say the ring of fire the worst part of giving birth. Now I'm not saying it was a picnic or anything...in fact I believe  described it as "feeling like you are being skinned alive while set on fire" so that is not really too fun. But I know I will live. Maybe.

I was not med free during my 15.5 hours of labor, and that is the part I am worried about. Will I be able to have contractions for 15 hours? I totally think I am incapable of doing that. That is a LONG ASS TIME. I am hoping that it will be quick since it is my second child.

I actually can't believe I have to fucking do this again. WHO MADE THIS UP?  Who decided that person comes out of your vagina!!!? FUCK YOU, whoever you are. It sounds like a horror movie, except it isn't. It's normal, everyday, hohummmdrummm oh yeah I just had a baby, no biggie. I swear to god if babies came out of men there would be like some national holiday every time a man gave birth and paternity leave would be like 5 years long because they would spend the first 4.5 years taking care of their sore/disfigured wangs.

But alas, because women are giving birth we are expected to be up and at 'em within three days, back to work in 3 months ( if we work) hormones and postpartum ANYTHING be dammed.

We are supposed  love and accept the fact that kids ruin our bodies, we are supposed rock our stretch marks, and float wholeheartedly into motherhood on a puffy cloud of breastfeeding unicorns. It pisses me off.

Anyway, where was I? OH. Birth. Yes.

So,no epidural is what I'm going for this time. Having gone through labor and delivery once before, and being obsessed with birth stories in general, I know not to get my hopes up at all, and that you are not in control, and that basically, baby decides how he/she is going to enter the world. So I am ready for anything. However, if things are running smoothly, this is my preferred method of childbirth.

If you have had unmedicated birth, please offer me words of wisdom. And "take the drugs" is not helpful. 

Dreams

In February, I will be 37 years old with two daughters. I would be less shocked if I won a Grammy. I sit here, and I think about it, and I feel like I've been hit in the face with a frying pan. Me? A mom with two kids! Two daughters?  How is this happening to me?

I never in a million years dreamed of children. Honestly. When I was growing up, singing was my life and all I thought about was what musical path I would go down when I was older. When I was 10 I practiced my best Judy Garland, and Shani Wallis n my backyard every day after school until I had perfected a belt suitable for a 25 year old woman, when I was 16 I wanted to be a Broadway star in Les Miserables, when I was 20 I wanted to find my Lindsey Buckingham and break up with him and be in a real rock band and write songs about love and heartbreak, when I was 25 I took a more realistic approach and thought about careers where could use my voice if fame and stardom did not pan out. I heard melodies and harmonies in every sound that came my way, I constantly made up ( and still do) songs in my head, and poems, and rhymes, and metaphors and put them to music when I am cooking, in the shower, cleaning, walking... I never imagined a wedding dress, I imagined a dress for when I won my Tony or Grammy.

All of a sudden,  I'm about 26 years old, and I get my stupid vocal cord injury. I did everything wrong in the year leading up to my eventual diagnosis. The main thing being I kind of ignored it for too long, I went to the wrong doctors (plural), and most like damaged something that was totally fixable, and all of a sudden  I'm 27 years old with no dream. It really sucks to lose your dream. Dreams are the keys that get us through our days. I've written about this a million times...Nightmare. It's a nightmare to lose your voice when it is connected to your entire soul...

So now I have a daughter. And I am going to have two daughters. And they are the greatest dream I never had come true. Really.

I've had people ask me if now that I have children has that filled the musical void, and the honest answer is no. I still miss it, I still cry sometimes, and I feel sad and regretful at least once a day...but that is better than 27/7 which is how it was.

I have been asked, "so would you change having children if you could have your voice back?"

Uh...what?

Missing my voice does not mean I do not want my daughter. It means I miss voice. One has nothing to do with the other, and I think it's weird first of all that I've had this conversation more than once, and second of all I think it's weird that people think children are a replacement for voids in life. My daughter is not a replacement for anything. My new baby is not a replacement for anything. They don't complete me, (I'm still working that out myself) and frankly it is not their job to complete me. That is a really huge expectation to put on a baby!

So...this blog totally went a different route that I expected. I wasn't even planning to write about singing, but its been on my mind lately. Mostly because my voice has gotten a little stronger so I've been practicing a bit more than usual which is good but also frustrating.

blah.

I will go back to being funny tomorrow. For right now I will just sit here blown away by the fact that I'm a mom, a lady with two kids, pushing 40, deciding whether or not I want an unmedicated birth. Seriously, this conversation I am having with myself is shocking. Although if I give birth on Superbowl Sunday I will get the epidural so I can watch. But otherwise the epi is up in the air.

See ya...wouldn't want to be ya!

Oh the first trimester! The worst 12 weeks of life ever invented. A foggy haze of fatigue, vomit, starvation, bloating, and exploding hormones.

During my first pregnancy, I knew nothing about trimesters, or symptoms during trimesters, or what the hell a trimester was. I found it all to be very shocking. 

I even wrote myself a note at the end, "DO NOT EVER DO THIS AGAIN"

Of course, we forget how horrible it is. If we did not, none of us would have siblings. I totally thought I was ready and prepared this time around and that i would become a beautiful version  Mother Earth Incarnate in heels. 

But alas, it sucked more than I remembered and thus renewed my hatred of pregnancy and all things related. Mother Earth incarnate I am not. 

For those of you who are not pregnant, I will break it down. Basically there are three symptoms. Starvation, exhaustion, and nausea. It's basically like a three month hangover. 

So yes. You are starving. More starving than you have ever been in your life. Imagine the hungriest you have ever been and then multiply it by like eighty five million billion, and add the confusing overwhelming urge to barf when you think about food even though you are starving.  Frantic 3am fridge attacks, stuffing anything in your face you can get your hands on. Yogurt, pretzels,cold pizza, chips, pickles... You are stuffing it all down your throat....spoons flying, cans breaking, bags ripped open, OMG a cupcake...YES!!!!   Apples are being violently smashed on the ground because who the hell wants an apple  in this kindof national   crisis...tears and serious dramatic crying because no matter how much you eat it doesn't go away!!  It sucks to think about food 24/7. Eating becomes a horrible chore, the baby is just sucking up all of your nutrients and energy which brings me to the next symptom. 

And the fatigue...the sheer exhaustion. Remember that Sunday night ( 20 years ago?) you stayed up until 7AM because you decided at 2AM that ecstasy sounded like a great idea, since all the bars had closed and OMG there was NOTHING TO DO AT 2AM even though you had to go to work on Monday. Remember? Or maybe you don't remember. But you DO remember how exhausted you were. That is exactly how tired you are... 24/7 no less!

Kick in some good old fashioned 21st birthday party vomiting at any and all hours of the day, and  there is my description of the first trimester in all of its glory.

So, pregnancy ROUND 1 with Georgia. I was totally stunned at how horrible everything was. I had no idea it could be so bad. I knew pregnant people threw up, but basically...that is all I knew. I was literally knocked the fuck out AND I didn't even have it that bad compared to other stories I heard from other moms. I did throw up in the beginning, but once I stopped taking those stupid horse pills my vomiting stopped. I was exhausted and starving, but I talked to ladies who threw up morning, noon, and night...they couldn't' go to work. They were throwing up in the basement of their works so no one would know because they did not want to announce their pregnancies yet. I think that is crazy, yet also admirable because with both pregnancies I told at least some people basically before the pee stick was dry, and if I was barfing in a basement I would NEVER be able to keep that shit to myself. But anyway...going through the first trimester the first time was rough,  some had it rougher...but for me this time was a million times worse because there is now a three year old in the mix!

There is NO TIME to be sick. Literally. None. You need to throw up? Do it while you are running after your kid holding part of a potty seat. Yes. I was walking around with the seat part of G's potty seat in case I needed to yack. You want to take a nap? You will have better luck asking your boss to take a nap on his desk, because when you have a three year old you have to be on all the freaking time.

You can not call out pregnant when you have another small child. You get home from work, you play, get dinner ready, eat...or in my case watch other people eat and decide whether eating is going to be worth it in 3 hours when your stomach sounds like the bog of eternal stench. At least mine did. Like, one night I was literally laying there and my stomach sounded like 1000000 dead farts were dying in my body and I am just sweating and crying and praying to please throw up and  to please not throw up at the same time and maybe it would be best if I just pooped but I've been constipated and painfully bloated for a MONTH so that probably is not going to happen.

Um, where was I? Oh yes! DINNER!

So like, then there's all that stress of whether or not you should eat and get sick, or not eat and starve. Usually I would just cry.  Time to clean up!!! Then it's playtime, vacuum dog hair, give kid bath, story, bed...now it's 8:30. A sort of respectable bed time so I go to bed. Get sick all night. Sometimes I don't make it all the way to the bathroom. Sometimes don't get sick at all but OMG that horrible nauseous seasick feeling that won't go away. One time I was throwing up, I did not make it to the bathroom and I'm getting sick all over the floor and Georgia was standing right next to me saying "MOM IS THAT YOU THROWING UP OR THE BABY? IS THE BABY THROWING UP THE MUFFINS I GAVE YOU? MOM? MOM? MOM?

AGGGHHHHHH!!!!

And also can we talk about clothes? My shit doesn't fit. I have gained 5 pounds which doesn't seem like a lot  but on me it is. It is all in my stomach, hips and butt are already expanding, and my pants are not buttoning and the crotch is like all up there. It feels very uncomfortable, my boobs are bigger so my shirts look pornographic (even though my boobs are not really that big, my shirts are just really small) Same for mostly everything I own.  I look like I'm about to pop out of everything, but I'm still too small for maternity clothes. I went to LOFT to try to buy a 2 pairs of pants in a bigger size to get me through the summer and they fit in the waist but everywhere else was too big and I looked like an ass clown. So I have about 6 dresses that have been in rotation for the past 1.5 months which is torture for me and today I broke down and wore leggings and a long shirt. I just need a belt and I will look exactly like Peg Bundy! Yippee! Toss in my gray roots because I have not colored my hair in 2 months and you have one big hott mess of a woman!

Anyway, this is my last week of the first trimester. I am feeling so much better. I am getting my hair did tomorrow, I'm eating like a normal person, I have not solved the clothing issue so if anyone has suggestions that is great...but ....besides that I am doing great. It is OVER. My last first trimester for the rest of my life! (I'm getting my tubes tied after this).

Goodbye first trimester you old bitch! Don't let the door hit you on the way out!

Bye By Miss American Pie

I'm always reading internet blogs or posts where people (most of them are people who don't have children) complain about parents. They complain if a parent posts pictures of their kid of facebook, they complain if you bring your kid to a restaurant, they complain if your stroller is too big, they complain that you think your kids is God's gift to the world...basically they HATE parents and think that all parents should punch their children in the faces if they do so much as get a runny nose.

I get it. I was not too fond of kids nor did I understand anything about being a parent before I became a parent. If I was at a restaurant and a kid was sitting at the table next to me, I moved. I hated when I read things like "you never know true love until you have a child". And I wanted to execute anyone who put up an ultrasound picture on facebook because for some unknown reason, it personally offended me.

So fast forward a few years. There is an ultrasound picture somewhere on my facebook page, I have never known love like the love I have for Georgia, and I sigh with relief when there is another person with a kid at a restaurant I am patronizing.

The thing about these internet people who hate kids, is that they are always talking about how "parents these days" do not discipline their kids. There is a post that went viral a few days ago about some asshole who bought all the pies at Burger King because (according to him) a kid was screaming that he "wanted a fucking pie" and the mom was on the phone. I am inclined to believe that this story is greatly exaggerated BUT if it is true my first thought was also that this child was special needs.

"But why wasn't the mom doing anything, even if he was special needs? " One would ask, rightly so.

Here is my answer: She is fucking exhausted. It is physically impossible to correct, discipline, or  yell at your child 24-7. She was at a goddamn Burger King, not Le Bec Fin or whatever it is now. People are paying 99 cents for a hamburger, and if you need to ignore your kid for a few minutes, in my opinion Burger King is a great place to do it.

I came to this conclusion on Tuesday evening. Before Tuesday, I was in the camp that parents should at least TRY to make some effort to discipline if their child is misbehaving. If they act up in the grocery store-just walk out. If they are screaming and making a mess, put them in their room.I have not had to deal with too much of this, as Georgia is a pretty good kid and temper tantrums are few and far between. Getting ready for school in the morning was always a challenge, but if I don't want to get up and get ready to go to work, I can't expect my kid to want to do the same, so I did have  sympathy for her.

Anyway, back to the whole "parenting issue". Now that Georgia is almost 3.5 years old, our expectation of her at dinner is to sit at the table with us and eat three bites of everything on her plate. If she doesn't like what we are having, I make something she likes, but still she needs to eat it. She has always sat at the table with us at least for a few minutes, but when she was 2 I didn't push the issue too much, because she did not really understand the point of sitting at the table and I thought it was stupid to try to correct a child on a concept that is above their head.

So anyway now she is three, dinner is a non stressful event for us (because I never made it one), usually she is good, however she has gotten a little flip during the past few weeks, testing us on all kinds of shit, and Tuesday evening she did not want to eat dinner.

She was laying on the floor, rolling around, kissing the dog, yelling at us "NO DINNER! YOU ARE A MEAN MOM!" And basically being a total jerk.

Here is where I was mentally. I am 11 weeks pregnant. I am nauseous 24-7. I am exhausted 24-7. And I am starving 24-7. I work full time, and when I say that I have not taken a nap the entire first trimester I am not kidding. No naps. No extra rest (well actually on our "vacation" I slept all day but I was so sick the entire time it did not feel like a luxurious nap. It felt like hell) In order to maintain my house and my life I have to push push push, which is fine and when you are pregnant with your second child I think this is what everyone does. But damn. I would love a nap.

Anyway. Dinner. I was fucking tired. Chris was tired. We were both staring at each other hoping the other one would get up a do something. I just wanted to ignore her, and eat my steak because I was starving, and concentrate on  not throwing up because I also felt like that was going to happen any second. Georgia is acting like a crazy bat out of hell, yelling at us and basically telling us that  we sucked.

99% of my entire being had given up, and I really had to rally in order to say the following words because I knew that after I said them, all hell was going to break loose.  I had tears welling up from just thinking about how much I did not feel like dealing with this. Not because I felt bad for yelling at her, but because I just wanted to be left the fuck alone in my first trimester misery.

"You are going in time out."

Screaming ensues, I pick her up and walk upstairs and we go to her room and I put her on her bed. 'Stay in her until you are ready to eat" She starts screaming and crying, I close the door and sit at the steps to make sure she isn't going to jump out a window or something. "THIS IS NOOOOT TIME OUT! THIS IS MY PINK ROOOOM! I DON"T WANT TIME OUT IN MY PINK ROOOOM." So then I feel horrible, because I remembered reading that their rooms should not be where you put them in time out, but like now it was too late to change my mind. God, I suck.

She opens the door and I say sternly, "Get. Back. In. Your. Room." and I sound exactly like my mom and it's all so totally shocking. Georgia goes in her room, but not after first sobbing that I am a mean mommy. Sob. Sob. Sob. now there are hiccups. I feel like a dick. All I want to do is eat my steak in quiet.

After about 15 minutes the dramatic sobbing dies down, and  I hear her playing with her toys, and I'm all like "I am so over this." Chris and I go downstairs (he was there too) and sit at the table and start/finish our dinner. Blah.

I hear G come out of her room and walk downstairs. She comes into the kitchen and sits down. "If I have three bites, can I have a popsicle?" I tell her yes, and she starts to eat. I am like ready to jump out of a window at this point. We still have to clean up, walk the dog, give her a bath,  play some dumb game with her, read three books  and lay with her until she falls asleep, and I feel like there is no end in sight.(this is our nightly routine. It is exactly the same every night. It is like Groundhog's day and is as boring as I am making it sound)

"Mama, I'm sorry I did not eat my dinner." She is like totally seriously looking at me to make sure I still love her or something and I am immediately overcome with guilt because feeling sorry sucks and I don't want her to feel like I am mad at her. Even though, like I guess her punishment worked, but I had such mixed emotions about the whole thing, even though I know what we did was right. HOWEVER. It was so mentally draining. Those without children will not understand how much it sucks to discipline your children, but it really does. It's like fighting with your spouse or significant other 24/7. Does anyone like doing that? No. Do you sometimes just ignore them or tune them out to avoid an argument? Yes. And there is how I came to my conclusion that sometimes parents are just too fucking tired to argue with their kids, and I am totally okay with that because 99% of the time they do deal with them and possibly you are just seeing them the one time they don't have the strength to fight.

So maybe if you do see a kid acting up in a restaurant, grocery store, movie theater, wherever, think of the parents as a person who has the same mental capacity for conflict as you do. Maybe smile at them, or buy them a coffee ( I mean no one would ever really do this, but it sounds like a nice gesture), or think to yourself, "It's okay. I am tired too from all my partying last night! Here is a flower." Or don't do anything at all except think about how awesome it is that you get to go out to dinner with your friends tonight, but please for the love of god stop thinking parents are your mortal enemy. We are sometimes just tired people who are trying to live. You can walk away, move your table, not look..I did all of these things before I had Georgia and they were not hard or invasive! It is very easy to avoid children if you do not like them! Ahem...(One way to avoid them is to not go to Burger King. I'm just sayin.)

Being "parent tired" is EXACTLY the same as "hangover tired" except you did nothing fun the night before. And sometimes we just don't have the strength to do it all, all the time, and would like nothing more than to give our kid a shot of whiskey and let them fall asleep, or leave them in the car screaming  for a second while we run in the store,or pop them in the mouth if they are mouthing off...But then some person would call the cops and we would be arrested, so really we just can't win. American society's expectations of parents AND children is pretty stupid and ridiculous and fuck that guy who bought all the pies.

Let it Go

We are in full blown princess mode at my house...or about to be. Georgia knows the names of all of the Disney Princesses, which is weird because we have only watched Frozen, Cinderella, Brave, Rapunzel, The Little Mermaid...um...hummm... okay we have seen more movies than I thought. I was going to write that I'm not sitting around telling her their names, but I guess I kind of am. We have movie night most Fridays, and she loves Disney so that is what we watch. We have also watched Annie, Sound of Music, Oliver, Wizard of Oz but I still think she is a tad too young for them. Maybe she will like them in this coming year, but for right now it is all Disney all the time.

This is one of those things that I reflect upon and think, wow I was stupid. Throughout my pregnancy and when Georgia was a baby  I said over and over again that we would not be watching Disney anything, and that she was never going to dress like a Disney character or wear a t-shirt with a Disney character on it. I thought it was tacky and lame..and of course I did. I was 33 years old when I got pregnant. I had not seen a Disney move in 20 years and ALL kids everywhere in every public place I went to were annoying to me, and they just all always seemed to be in Disney shit and that made them even more annoying to me so to me Disney=Annoying.

So fast forward to all of the pledges I made when I was pregnant. No Disney, no character shirts, no ugly baby furniture in my house, she will never have food on her face or unbrushed hair...you get the idea. I was a CLUELESS first time mom who thought I could do what no mom before her had done!!

It is possible to keep your kids away from Disney I think, but it would just take so much EFFORT. Her friends at school love Frozen, her friends in our neighborhood love Frozen, and goddammit when I put on that fucking move I can actually clean my bathroom and vacuum my stairs because she is so into it.

And who am I to deny a three year old a Disney movie? Like seriously? Why did I want her to pop out as a mature 33 year old baby with the same tastes as me? That is so stupid. I LOVED Disney when I was little (my grandfather somehow got copies of all the movies in the early 80's so I had all of them!) It was a huge, fun, part of my life. I loved the songs, I loved the stories. Why did I feel the need to deny my child of something that was such a positive experience in my life? 

When our kids are babies and maybe until they are 2 years old they are our own walking billboards. We can give them the haircuts we want, put them in the cool outfits we want, decorate their rooms as un-gender specific as we want, but then...they start to develop personalities. And they start to develop a fondness for ugly plastic shit from Target over that beautiful, whimsical, expensive wooden Pottery Barn doll that is not a monstrosity décor wise. And yes, I am aware that I can so NO I AM NOT BUYING YOU PLASTIC SHIT FROM TARGET.  But my reason would be so lame. My reason would be because *I* don' t like it.

She has opinions on what she does and does not like. I think it's good for her, and don't get me wrong we expose her to other stuff besides Disney. She is super into the solar system and we have  science books that she loves to read over and over again, but these things are not hot button issues like the Disney phase is.  And to me, it is just not worth it to deny her of something that at this point is harmless ...to her...it is harming me to hear those songs over and over but I did that to my parents with movies so whatever, I look at it as payback. Except my favorite songs involved Judy Garland who EVERYONE loves, not Idina Menzel who I can't stand. Her voice makes my hair stand up in a bad way and I want to jump out windows ever time she starts singing. Blah.

It's just a phase. A harmless one. One that she is having a blast with, and I just can't keep up this facade that my kid is too cool for school. When she is 13 and wants to buy a pair of slut shorts I will responsibly give her my adult opinion that I don't want her walking around with her butt hanging out. I feel that is a different situation than her right now wanting Magic Clip Ana from Target. I actually don't know how I am going to deal with the teen clothing situation, as I was the poster child for like everything you DO NOT want your teen daughter to wear...but for now..I am not worrying about it. I will enjoy the hilarity of my daughter waving and bowing to her imaginary subjects, of thinking her father is her prince charming, and of calling the dog King Buckley. (PS no one calls me anything so I just say I'm the maid)

And of course, I will enjoy her love of Disney Movies and the fact that she loves to watch them with me. It is going to be in no time at all that she does not want me anywhere near her while she is doing her thang, so I will appreciate our time together now and let her be a child who likes princesses, solar systems, dogs, Paris, and trucks.