Superman’s Kid February 28, 2007

So, last year the newest Superman movie came out, Superman Returns and as soon as it hit video Dean went out and bought it for the kids. As obsessed with superheroes as they are, we knew they would love it and we set the scene that night for some serious family togetherness in front of the boob tube.

I picked up a book.

I had little interest in seeing the movie and this is common for me. I am also superhero/supervillian obsessed but I am very picky. I can handle Spiderman alright, but my love of Batman and the Flash, The Green Arrow and many others far outweigh any feelings I may have for Spiderman or Superman. So, assuming I would hate the movie, I picked up a book and zoned it out.

Five minutes into the movie, I put the book down and started watching. Big, honkin’ airplane scene aside, some kid entered the screen and I damn near spit my soda out of my nose.

It was Owen!

Not really, but at first glance, my kid was sitting there chatting away with Clark Kent and it was uncanny. Holy shit, Dean, I said. That kid looks just like Owen. There we sat the two of us staring away at the little cutie, eyes going from screen to the boy tossing popcorn at his sister. It was really weird.

The kid is Tristan Lake Leabu and he played Jason White in the movie. I have tried finding a decent picture of him, but failed. The closest I could come up with is this one:

So, the kid is cute although this is a pretty goofy looking picture of him. But he IS adorable and I wondered as I watched him launch a piano at some goon in the movie, if it was just me and my motherly, “My kid is so damned awesome” thing kicking in again. But it’s not just me. Since this movie came out people keep saying stuff to me about Owen’s resemblance to Superman’s kid.

“Oh my gosh, he looks JUST like Superman’s kid!” They say.

It has happened a couple of times in stores and other various public places and now, even Matt’s friends call him this. Owen doesn’t care. Dean, on the other hand, seems smug. As if they are calling him this because they think that he, Dean, is Superman and not because he looks like the kid in the movie.

Dean does not get to be Superman. He is already Batman and he is already Spiderman according to a number of German children. Why, you ask? Well, years ago when we were living in Germany we had a condo that was on the third floor of a building. On the first floor of the building was a pediatrician’s office. Our pediatrician, for that matter. Her office was directly below our house and her balcony wrapped around much like ours. On her balcony, she had toys and a slide and all that craziness to occupy the kids who chose to go play out there. Well, my scatterbrained husband was constantly locking our keys in the house. The door locked automatically when you left and it sort of screwed you if you did lock your keys inside, which happened a number of times to us.

On one of these occasions, Dean decided that he was going to climb up the side of the building to see if our balcony door was unlocked so that we could get in the house. Up he went, launching himself from the ground to the first balcony some ten feet above and pulling himself up by the railing. From there, he balanced on the railing of that balcony and hopped up and grabbed the bottom of the one above. So on and so on, up the building. It was rather impressive, the ease at which he did this because the balconies were quite a distance from one another. I was a bit scared that he would fall to his death or at the very least, break his ass or something. But he didn’t. He made it safely to our balcony to discover that our door was locked.

Besides that,though, something else happened as Dean scaled the side of the building. Shitloads of little kids came running out onto the doctor’s balcony to watch my dear husband climb up the building and one of them, in complete awe, said to his mom, “Look, Mama! It’s Spiderman!” At this point,there was a hush and then… the kids went buck wild. They were so psyched to see Spiderman.

Then the doctor came out to make sure Dean didn’t kill himself, which was nice of her. She had treated him as much as she had treated the kids for various things like the nasty oil burn he got when he tried to make himself a Bloomin’ Onion.

Hey, do you care if I climb up the side of the building, Dean asked.

Go for it, she said. Just don’t kill yourself in front of the children.

So, at that point, he was Spiderman. And, he was damn pleased with himself for it, too.

Batman happened when he took a quiz to find out which Superhero he was. I knew it was going to come up as Batman. Dean is very much like him. Extremely smart, very reclusive and mysterious, prone to messing with “gadgets”, silent and brooding… and very dark and cynical. He is very Batman. To find out which Superhero you are click here. Feel free to share your findings!

Dean was also pleased to be Batman. I don’t know if this is because he loves Batman or because he knows I love Batman. Either way, he had a very, “Take that, biotch!” attitude when the quiz showed his results.

“Take that biotch!” he yelled in my face.

For the record, I was The Flash which made me pretty happy. But anyway. Dean does not get to be Superman. But, Owen gets to claim being Superman’s kid. Only because he looks just like the kid who played him in the movie, but who cares. Besides….

He IS pretty super.

Chickenshit February 27, 2007

Today I had my MRI at the hospital and let me just tell you….

I am a big, fat weenie.

This from the woman who has birthed three children, one of them over nine pounds and with no medication. The woman who is covered in tattooes and has multiple holes pierced in her body.

Yeah, that woman. She wasn’t around today.

Instead, the world got to deal with weenie woman who at the mere mention of the MRI is sent into a panicked frenzy of hyperventilation and cold sweats. The panic started when they told me that I had to have one. Last week. Today, I had to face the monster machine and although I have clearly made it out alive, I’m still grasping at the hopes that I may never, ever have to do it again.

My first MRI was in Germany and I had no clue what I was up against when I skipped merrily into the radiology center. Within minutes, they had stripped me bare neckid, which the German’s love to do (I was once forced to get naked for an eye exam) and they lead me into the room of torture. In the room of torture, they pushed me into a chair and jabbed a needle into my arm to pump blue ink into my body. Then, they layed me down on the little sliding bed thingy that I had been eyeballing wearily as they stabbed at my arm. There was no way in hell I was going in that thing.

I began to sort of mumble about how I really thought we should reassess things and maybe come up with a different approach and that, in fact, I was fine and didn’t see the need to trouble them with the whole ordeal. They ignored me and went on to put my head in a cage. A goddamned cage. Then, they scooted me into the machine of death, turned it on and left the room.

Who here has had an MRI? Raise your hands….

Oh, my god… let me just tell you that I was never aware I was claustrophobic until that day in Germany. Being in an MRI machine is like being shoved into one of those morgue lockers… you know the ones. Literally, you can’t move. My head was laying flat and my nose touched the top of the machine. My arms were smashed down at my sides and I literally could not move as I was pinned in this thing. A coffin is more spacious by far.

To add to the situation and, I believe, just to make it more horrifying, it is turned on and let me tell you, that is one seriously loud ass machine. And not in a constant way where you can sort of drone it out. Hell no. It makes these noises like someone banging on drums and then horrid zapping noises mixed with grumblings and slamming sounds that sort of sound as though you are locked in a metal trash can and some dick is outside banging on it with a golf club.

I was in the machine for two seconds before I completely freaked out.

For one half hour I screamed the words to Somewhere Over the Rainbow to myself and shook uncontrollably. I emerged half sobbing at the end when someone finally came for me, my naked body completely drenched in sweat and a wild look in my eye.

This was the flashback I had when my oncologist told me that I had to have another one. I immediatly told her that there wasn’t a chance in hell I would do it again. She told me to relax and ordered me a sedative to knock me out for the proceedure.

Oh… okay, then.

So, today I went to the hospital armed with five fucking milligrams of valium. I had had a hugely different idea of medication like straight morphine or perhaps a little heroin or something. Five mills of valium wasn’t gonna do shit and I knew it. I contemplated running. I considered faking labor. In the end, I went in and demanded that they stick me in the machine backwards and keep my head out. To my surprise, they agreed.

I went in and got in my scrubs… no neckidness this time! Good old, America! Then, they took me into the room of death and I got one look at the machine and faltered. Okay, perhaps not, I said to myself. Get the fuck on the platform, they said.

Obviously someone had alerted these people that I am a madwoman and would be screaming showtunes for the duration because they tried really hard to get me comfortable. I’m talking a pillow under my head and under my knees and feet… some serious pamperin’. Then, they asked me what kind of music I liked and stuck some giant ass earphones on me. I was all cool and okay until they sent me into the tunnel thing and then did not stop at my head. They were close, but not close enough. I had a heart attack instantly. They rushed in with the defibrilator and zapped me back into a normal heart rhythm. Okay, no… not really, but it was probably necessary as I quite literally almost shit my pants. Then, they turned the machine on and…. left.

If I thought I was freaking out, I was normal compared to my unborn daughter, who, the second the damn thing was turned on jumped out of her skin. That’s how loud these MRI machines are. I swear to god, I thought without a doubt that this little girl was going to claw and scramble her way right the fuck out of my vagina. She FREAKED out. For one hour I sat in the machine listening to the absurdly noisy shit going on around me over the sound of the Beach Boys in my ears and trying to mentally will my daughter to not have a seizure. You know that scene in Space Balls where the alien comes bursting through that dude’s abdomen and tapdances on the bar? For one hour I sat still as a stone convinced my child was going to do exactly that… come flying out of my uterus and go tearing off through the hospital screaming like a bat out of hell. Instead, she thrashed about in my womb so fiercely that I was disgustingly vomitting into my mouth and, having nothing to do with the vomit, was swallowing it. I hope she is proud of herself.

After the hour, I was released from my arm restraints and the minute I was unhooked, I popped up and tried to haul ass. Once again, I was covered in sweat and my hair was plastered to my face. I looked like I’d been worked over by the Dallas Cowboys.

To get my revenge on them for making me listen to the Beach Boys for an hour while trapped in a toilet paper roll, I stole my hospital scrubs. They’re wicked comfy and I’ll probably live in them for the rest of my life.

I’m also looking forward to all the comments I’ll probably get telling me that I’m retarded and a chickenshit and all that. I can understand this and I accept it, but something strange happens to your mind when you are being victimized by the MRI machine. All logical thought disappears and you become firmly convinced that completely irrational things will happen. Like, the hospital losing all power and you being stuck in the machine forever. Or, a terrorist attack happens and everyone flees forgetting that you are in there. Even this grand regurgitation of the psychotic mind: the machine will come alive and swallow you whole. This is all clearly ridiculous after the fact, but during… it’s not just a possibility: It’s a sure fucking thing.

Now, I am feeling the need to redeem myself after this incredibly lame act of cowardice by doing something disturbingly ballsy.

Well, I’m off to get my ass pierced!

Curses!!! February 23, 2007

I admit it: I have a potty mouth.

It would appear that the time has come for Dean and I to bust out the curse jar. We don’t actually have a curse jar, but I do have an extraordinarily large jar of pickles that if given special consideration, could probably be inhaled by the end of the day. This curse jar is gonna have to be a biggun’.

Matthew tends to understand that it is not in his best interest to cuss freely in front of his parents. So, he just waits until he believes he’s out of earshot and then let’s em’ fly. Owen and Olivia, however, have taken it upon themselves to just set them free with no real thought to the consequence. It doesn’t happen often, but every now and then Owen will greet Dean as he comes through the front door with a cheerful, “Hey, Fucker!” The time has come to put an end to our disgraceful influence.

Our first encounter with one of the children cursing came when Matt was 2. We were out to dinner with my brother and all was going quite well when Matthew suddenly declared, “This chicken is the shit!” I almost fell over. After that was a short period of time when we would try to get him to go to bed at night and he would lie in his bed screaming that this was bullshit and for us to let him out. It was shortlived, though, and we soon had our good child back, the one who didn’t screetch cuss words at us.

Then, there is Owen.

Owen’s cursing debut came rather recently and I don’t even remember what he said but I do know that he has decided that if done minimally, he can get away with it. He is so very wrong here. Yet, this has not stopped him from telling Matthew that he has bitch tits, something he has been telling him for the past few days. Bitch seems to be Owen’s favorite with Butt fucker coming a close second. Last night he accused Dean of calling me a bitch out of nowhere.

Dean said: Honey, what do you want to have for dinner?

Owen said: My mommy is not a bitch!!!

Hmmmm. I can see how he was mistaken, there.

Olivia doesn’t experiment with bad words too often, but she has taken a great dislike to the baby I am carrying and will smack me on the belly and shout at my stomach, “Go away, asshole baby!!!” Then, other times she will rub me on the tummy and say, “I love you, baby”. Women. We make little sense. I have a feeling that I am going to have one seriously jealous little girl on my hands come July.

I try my damnedest to blame Matthew for all the cursing that is coming from the Little’s mouths. I know all too well that the minute we are not in the same room as him, he is letting them loose. Lately, he has been cautiously trying to see where we draw the line and has taken to s-p-e-l-l-i-n-g the naughty words out. This has gotten him the same punishment as blurting out the real thing so he has taken to trying alternatives such as “fugly”… a combination of two words: fucking ugly. I know what fugly means and so does Matt but do I consider it a cuss word? I am on the fence. Then… there is be-otch, arse, friggin’ and shiiiii-taki-mushroom. The boy has got to be kidding if he thinks I am this stupid. He is up against a professional, here.

The boy has also tried to let slip the lesser curse words to see if he can get away with it: Crap, damn, and everything “sucks”. He seems aware of what the big guns are, though, and doesn’t even make the attempt. Owen is different. He could care less about the lesser words and is drawn more towards the blatant “fuck you” approach. Some examples of Owen’s mouth hard at work are:

-“You’re a fat ass, Matt.”
-“I will kick the shit out of you, Matt.”
-“Shut up, you bastard.” (To Matt)
-“You’ve got some big ol’ bitch tits, Matt.”
-“You messed up my fucking fort, shithead.” (To Olivia)
-“Get your goddamn hands off me.” (Matt again)
-“I’m going to lay you out like the little bitch you are.” (Matt)
-“You’re gonna wish you’d never said that, ass fucker.” (To Darth Vader)
-“You’re a douchebag.” (To Barney)
and the infamous:
-“Let’s name the new baby Butt Fucker.” (To me and Dean)

I want so badly to blame this on Matthew, but I know where he gets it: Dean. I swear, that man has no self control. Every other goddamned word out of his mouth is a cuss word and we must put a stop to it. Out will come the curse jar and in it will go Dean’s whole paycheck. This man has got to learn what is appropriate language in front of the children. He needs to start using me as an example, taking a page or two out of my book. Obviously, his filthy mouth is rubbing off on the children and must be dealt with.

Dean has some very bad habits that need breakin’. Sigh. I oughtta start making him go to church with me. Maybe a little bit o’ the Lord will do him some good. After all, he may not have to answer to me, but some day he’s gonna have to answer to Jesus. And when that time comes, I really hope he doesn’t say, “Jesus, ya fuckin’ bastard! How the hell are ya!”

But with Dean, you just never know.

I’m off to go read the scriptures.

The X Files February 21, 2007

The children have overheard the talk of my upcoming hospital trip and when they enquired to me about it, I did what any decent mother would do: I lied through my teeth.

I started out by trying to explain to them the truth and then I stopped myself and instead told them that I have an alien growing inside of me. The boys sat spellbound by this and to be honest, I figured there was no chance in hell Matt was going to buy this outrageous explanation. But, the more questions they asked, the easier it became to convince them.

I have them convinced that I must have breathed in or eaten a very tiny alien from outer space and that he is getting larger by the day, desperate to take over my body as his own so that he may spy on the human race for information to take back to his home planet. I told them this horseshit with a very casual and nonchalont demeanor and acted very matter of fact about it. No big deal. Just an alien in there that the doctors are going to remove so that they might perform experiments on him. Happens every day.

Matt says, “But, Mom… you told me a long time ago that aliens don’t exist.”

I say, “Well, Matt. Often times the government insists that we keep quiet about the existance of such things so that the world not be sent into an unecessary panic. So, when I told you that aliens don’t exist, I was merely doing my duty for our country and now that you are older, I feel I can trust you to stay quiet.”

Oh, yes.

My children think that I am going in today to have my blood tested to make sure the alien has not spread cells around in my bloodstream to make my body more like his home environment. These losers will believe anything.

Then, I had to call and warn Dean. I tell him that if the children start hollering about their mother being infiltrated by the extra terrestrial, that he is not to give them a crazy look or tell them that it’s not true.

Dean says: “My god, what have you told them??!!!!”

I explain to him our conversation and he then accuses me of telling them this shit to amuse myself.

“Kyra, did you tell them this to amuse yourself?”

I’m offended. As if I would do something so absurd. I have only the children’s best interest at heart, here. It is completely against my nature to screw with the children’s minds as a way to entertain myself. That is simply ridiculous. Anyone who knows me knows that that is not how I operate.

Was it self amusement when I told them that there is a tiny, viscious insect that lives in their nostrils and will bite off their finger if they pick their nose? Of course not. I was merely deterring them from digging at boogers. And when I told them that my stash of Tootsie Rolls were actually poop clusters and then ate them in front the kids… was THAT to entertain myself?? Hell, no!! I was saving their teeth from the inevitable decay that comes from eating too much sugar.

Duh.

So, my dear husband has me all wrong here. I don’t know what kind of a sick, twisted person he thinks I am, but he is very, very wrong indeed. I am simply a concerned mother looking out for the welfare of my children by whatever means necessary.

Is that so wrong???

Besides… it COULD be an alien….. and I will be a hero to our people for containing the beast until it can be safely disposed of!!!

Being a hero leaves me no extra time to screw with the children. And, I must prioritize saving the planet. I expect everyone’s full support as I complete this mission.

Good day to you.

The Sign of the Crab

I figured I would give an update on what was going on with the surgery situation. There will not be a lot of poetry to this post, no particularly beautiful words. Everything is sort of developing into a bigger mess than before and it seems that god is having a lot of fun at my expense. I’m just not sure how often I need to have my strength tested, but to me, enough is enough.

On saturday night after Olivia’s birthday party, one of the doctors on my Oncology team called me and asked me to come and meet with him, the surgeons and the other oncologists on Tuesday, which was today. I was nervous and worried that they would pressure me into having this surgery now, while my baby is too young to survive any complications.

I went to the appointment and the surgical nurse on my team came and sat with me while my docs were finishing up another surgery. She held my hand and offered words of reassurement and hugged me a lot. She told me that my surgeons are the best there is and that they will keep me safe.

Then, my obstetrical specialist came in and sat with me and we talked a bit. He is a younger guy who will be present at my surgery in case something goes wrong with my baby. I like him a lot and I can tell that he really cares about keeping this baby safe.

After about twenty minutes, my first oncologist came in and we talked. She told me that I could feel safe, that she and the other surgeons have done this a million times and never lost a baby yet. She told me what to expect and answered some of my questions. Then, my main surgeon came in and the three of them examined me, felt the mass in my abdomen and then ultrasounded me on the portable sonogram machine. They were having a very hard time distinguishing my ovary because there is a lot of tissue damage and she wanted a better shot so she could see what they were dealing with. They decided to send me home and told me that they were going to go upstairs and meet with the fetal/maternal specialist who had discovered the dermoid and go over the video from last weeks ultrasound and that they would call me tonight to let me know what the gameplan was.

I went home and at four o’clock I received a phone call from one of the oncologists on my team. She told me that they had reviewed my tapes and had some alarming concerns about my condition. The mass that had been discovered was assumed to be a dermoid, a type of tumor that is usually benign and is very waxy and greasy often containing hair and teeth and body tissue. She was calling to tell me that it is not a dermoid at all, but a large solid tumor that has grown so big that I have no ovarian tissue left.

I asked her to be honest with me about what we’re dealing with. She told me that there is a red flag for cancer, that they are very concerned because of how large the tumor has gotten. I asked if she was sure and she told me that a dermoid looks very distinctive on ultrasound… it looks like butter and is miscolored and blotchy. This, she said was agreed by everyone on the team, that it was a solid mass.

Now, everything is a whirlwind. Tomorrow I have to go and give blood to see if they can locate any cancer markers in my blood. Then, I have to go and pick up valium so that I can do my MRI. On March 8th, Dean and I have to go and meet for an initial pre-op counseling with the surgical team, the obstetrical specialists and the oncologists and then on March 13th, they will operate.

While in the operating room, they are going to remove the ovary and examine it for cancer. If they find cancer, they will be doing biopsies on my uterus, other ovary and stomach to see how far it has spread. At that point, they will put my baby and me on steroids to try to get the babies lungs to mature faster so that they can take her out as soon as possible to start treatment.

All of this is happening so fast. I’ve been to the doctors so many times for this and they have told me not to worry about it. And now… this. I will be 23 weeks pregnant for my surgery and the NICU is equiped to deal with babies born at 24 weeks and up if something goes wrong. They have promised me that they will not cause harm to my daughter and I really hope they know what they are doing. Now, I am facing losing my baby and losing my life and I’m scared.

To me, Death is like losing every single person you love all at once. It’s being forced to sit back and watch from afar and never get to give out hugs and plan weddings and meet grandbabies. It’s knowing how devastated your children will be when you’re gone and how taxed your husband will be suddenly losing the love of his life and trying to raise his four children without her. It is trying to figure out how to say goodbye without actually saying the words. It is permanent and awful and real.

Last month, I almost lost Dean. I know what it is like to face this fear. I know how it is to love someone so much that you can’t even find reason in it. There is no science and no logic… only an unexplainable magic that bonds us to the people we care about. I have this with my husband, my children, my family, my best friend and so many others and I don’t want to say goodbye. There fear of cancer is my fear of cancer. I’m not ready.

There is a part of me that is very angry but I am trying not to waste such time right now. I am angry and left wondering what the hell I did to deserve what I have gotten in my life. It seems that I beat one thing and another, bigger thing comes at me. What is next? What happens if I beat this?? Then what will go wrong? When can I just breathe and be rewarded for all my strength and patience? What lessons are to be learned from this??

Please tell me that this will be okay. Please tell me that everything will be alright, that my daughter will be born healthy and with a mother who will cry so hard when I hold her for the first time. If it is god testing to see how hard I will fight for my child then he will see, indeed.

I’m Kyra… I’m not supposed to get cancer! I’m supposed to be here to make people laugh, to fight for the ones I love, to act silly and be there when people need me, to straighten picture frames and spout off weird information on politics. I’m not supposed to do this! It’s not me, not who I am. I’m the glue!! I’m supposed to be the glue that holds everything together. Now what?? Who holds me together?? God?? HA!

Ironically enough, my daughter is supposed to be born under the sign of Cancer. What a joke.

I’m tired. I’m going to go lie down. I’ve ranted long enough. Until the surgery, I won’t be able to do anything and afterwards I’ll be in the hospital for a week or so but I’ll be around before that and have Dean post how it went for me after.

Peace and love.

Happy Birthday, Olivia!!! February 18, 2007

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My baby turned two today!!! Woo hoo!!!

The day started off with a birthday spanking dispensed a little too roughly by Matthew. I had gotten up early to fill up balloons and Matt woke up to the sound of the helium tank. Just as I finished up, the Princess came out and belined for her presents. This is when Matt caught her and gave her the wicked spanking that made her cry…lol.

After she (with Owen’s assistance)opened presents, we spent the morning playing and goofing off with her new toys. She got everything she wanted this year and was really excited. After we had some lunch, we got the kiddos bathed and dressed and then headed off to Chuck E. Cheese’s to play and eat pizza and the kids had a blast. We left Chuck E. Cheese’s at about 6:30 and stopped at Coldstone Creamery to pick up the birthday cake and came home to continue the celebration. Now, we are all beat!!

I put a slideshow up on top of this blog with lots of pictures of my Princess on her big day. Hopefuuly, it shows up and you all enjoy!

Darth Reno-Vader February 16, 2007

My boys have always had a pretty bad ass bedroom. They have these great wooden bunkbeds and then I decorated the whole room to look very “beachy”. They got Hawaiian print curtains, bedding and tiki furniture, shadow boxes full of sand and seashells… it’s pretty neat.

Olivia has never really had any kind of theme to her room. Recently, we got her a new bed and packed up the crib to be saved for baby #4 and with her new bed, I felt that she needed the room completed.

It’s no where near completed, but I’ve done a lot of work this past week.

Her bed is a cherry wood with very earthy bedding in sage greens, pale pinks and rose colors. The dresser she has we received from a friend who had painted it to match her kids’s room which was dark green and dark purple. I started by sanding that baby down and repainting it to match the green in her room:

Here is the old one:

After I painted it the sage green, I bought new handles for the drawers. Here is the finished product:

After doing the dresser, I had work to do on her toy bin. The toy bin was natural wood and had never been stained or painted… but it had been colored on with permanent marker and crayons. So, I sanded that down, too and then stained it to match her bed. The old toy box had also been missing some of it’s lid. I’m not sure why, but we decided to fix that as well. Off to Lowe’s with the old lid to have them cut a matching piece to fit the open space and after sanding, staining and re-hinging… it was done. This is the old one:

And here is the new one after I renovated it:

The last and final thing I have to do is get some stuff up on the walls. I have about six canvases and I have decided to paint on them some of the designs that are in her sheets and bedset.

There are six canvases and six prominent things in the bedset: A snail, a mushroom, a butterfly, and a few different flowers. So, each canvas will be painted with one of those things in matching colors. It’ll be fun. I’m going to start it on Sunday since tomorrow is Olivia’s second birthday….

WOO HOO!!!!

She is very excited 🙂 Me, too. My baby is growing up. Hopefully, her new bedroom will be enjoyed for a long time once it is completed. My mother, although a tremendous bitch, worked really hard to give us all nice things. I want to do the same for my kids and I really like to make costumes,sew curtains,decorate bedrooms… things that show them that I care. And if she destroys it after all my hard work I will be forced to hand her her ass.

The little blonde one does not stand a chance against Darth Reno-Vader.

Wii Love You

Video games are a popular commodity in my house and it drives me crazy. In this house we have the Nintendo Gamecube, the computer, the Playstation Portable and the Nintendo DS handheld. We had an XBOX and a Playstation2 until they both cracked out and the Gamecube we have is the second one we have gotten since the last one broke. At any given time, we will have Dean on the Playstation, Matt on the computer, Owen on the Gamecube and Olivia on the DS.

I will be reading a book.

This has driven me to insanity. I’m one of those people that thinks video games are just one more way for kids to sit around and get a fat ass. Dean argues that it builds hand eye coordination but I swear he’s just reaching for something- anything- to get me to be okay with the constant gaming in this house. I bitch about video games so much that they end up being signs of my love and affection for Dean. I bought him his XBOX for Christmas one year to express my adoration and he loved it. This Valentine’s Day, I got him the one he has wanted since he first heard about it: The Nintendo Wii.

I’m in love with this thing.

My first reason for loving it is that it gets people off their big asses and has them moving around. I swear, we have all gotten so much more exercise since this thing was brought into our home. Also… it’s ridiculously fun. I can’t lie… it’s awesome. By far, the best video game machine I have ever met and we are now friends. Which makes everyone in my house very happy.

I swore I would not play it. I laughed my ass off and told Dean that he was going to look like a moron leaping around my living room and vowed that never would I do it myself, that I was above that sort of self embarrassment. Then, as my children and Dean were away, I played Tennis. Curiousity got the better of me and I played my heart out. There I was, leaping back and forth in my living room, sweating my ass off, cursing the “people” I was playing against and huffing and puffing away. God, it was fun. And, God, am I out of shape.My husband returned with my children to find me screetching at the machine that “that ball was not out!” and completely out of breath. And I didn’t stop. I went from that to bowling to golf and then I popped in a new game and performed surgeries on people. And, my god, it was so much fun.

Dean and I were fighting over who got to play.

And then I kicked his ass at golf. Loser.

My kids love it. And it’s something all of them can play. Since it is Nintendo, there are lots of kid friendly games for them that I approve of. Dean says the graphics are fabulous. I have no idea. All I care about is that it’s fun!!! And…. a hell of a workout!

So, if anyone is out there looking for a decent game console for their family, this one is my recommendation. And let me tell you, the minute this baby comes out I’m having a party to get everyone drunk and flail about. God, I can just see it, now.

🙂

It’s a…….. February 15, 2007

GIRL!!!!!!!

(Girlie parts)

And, boy was she more cooperative than the last one…lol. The tech spent about an hour and a half on me measuring and checking the baby’s heart, lungs, brain…etc. For that part, I was alone and then she called in Dean and the kiddos to come and see. She had told me the sex of the baby before Dean came in and then we had him try to guess. The tech is 100% certain that we are having a girl… without a doubt. Woo hoo!

(Foot print)

The baby looks great! She has chubby cheeks and a great, big, round belly and I got to watch her kick her legs and chew on her hand. She was swallowing big gulpfuls of amniotic fluid and it’s just so amazing to watch them rub their eyes and act so baby-like. It never ceases to amaze me.

She is 9 inches long and weighing 11 ounces and is just beautiful and perfect and I’m so excited! How perfect is this? Two boys, two girls… it doesn’t get much better…

(Leg… thigh, calf and foot)

BUT:

It’s bittersweet. It seems I have a decision to make… a tough one. I was taken directly from ultrasound to a doctor because the tumor on my ovary has grown to be about the size of a softball and it must come out. The doctor wants to do the surgery now because it will be easier to do it before 22 weeks, but it has risks. Big ones. It’s pretty invasive and involves cutting me open and removing the whole ovary and about a week in the hospital, extra monitoring for the rest of my pregnancy and possibly taking the baby out early anyway. The problem is that if there is a complication and I bleed too much during the surgery, I could lose my daughter and my uterus.

(Face and Belly)

If I wait until later in the pregnancy, the surgery is more difficult and the risk of complications increases. The chance of an emergency delivery is far greater and the baby will have months of time in the hospital and the possibility of lifelong health problems.

My problems are if I leave this alone and the ovary ruptures (a 90% chance)I could bleed out before I reach the hospital and an emergency surgery will be far more complicated. Also… we have to find out if this is cancer. If we don’t find out and it is cancer, then it could tear through my body in the next few months and be unmanageable.

(Profile of face)

I’m not sure yet what I’m going to do. I have to have an MRI and I have to meet with the Oncologists and surgeons in the next few days and after I hear what they say, I’ll make a decision.

Dean is freaking out. He is convinced that I will stubbornly let myself die to save the life of my unborn child and he is right. I will put this child before me. However, I’m not scared. I know my strength and I will fight. I WILL give life to a healthy, happy baby girl and I WILL make it out on the other side with my family and my children who need me. I refuse to lie down for this. I have fought some big battles in my life and this is just one more. But Dean is right about one thing… if it comes down to me or down to our daughter, baby wins. No exceptions. If the surgeons confirm that there is a risk of her dying during surgery, no deal. I will take my chances and wait and pray that I don’t rupture. It’s too soon.

(Girlie Parts Again….)

But no decisions will be made today. I have nothing left to think about for the rest of the day other than this:

I have a chubby, little girl inside of me waiting for the day when she can come out and meet the world head on. And this makes me ridiculously happy.

Nervous February 14, 2007

Well, tomorrow morning is my “big” ultrasound where we will, hopefully, find out the sex of the baby I’m carrying.

I’m nervous.

Where as I am obviously hoping for a healthy child, I am also hoping that we do not see a penis on the screen tomorrow. I have two boys and one girl and I really want Olivia to have a sister. I grew up with three brothers and wished all the time that I had a sister and could experience such a bond. Biologically, I have three of them, but I didn’t get to know them until I was an adult.

Olivia was such a wicked little pain in the butt during my pregnancy with her. I must have had a dozen ultrasounds to determine the sex and she was uncooperative each time. Until the moment she popped out, I was convinced I had boy #3 in there. Now, I’m reliving that.

I spent the first trimester convinced it was a girl based on my pregnancy symptoms. With my boys, I had no morning sickness, no fatigue… nothing. With Olivia, I had morning sickness all the time and got really dizzy a lot. I also developed restless leg syndrom at night and it sucked. This pregnancy has been very, very similar to that one… so I was convinced that I had another girl.

Now, I think it’s a boy. I base this one my cravings for Lemonheads and that damned chinese gender chart telling me it’s a boy. Grrr.

I’m very lucky. I have kids and better than that, I have sons and a daughter to watch grow up. So many decent people out there who would make great parents and offer so much to children are unable to get pregnant for random reasons they cannot control. I feel awful for them. Then, there are the heroin addicts or even people like me and Dean who probably have no business having babies and then we are the ones with all the luck. There are so many unwanted children out there or children who have been the victims of a terrible system… I wish that they could have what every one of them deserves: Parents who love them, care for them and keep them safe and secure.

I have a friend who is a victim of endometriosis and will have a very difficult time of getting pregnant due to a lot of scarring in her reproductive organs. This makes me extremely sad because any child would be lucky to have her as their mother, but due to some fluke in her body that she has had no control over, she may not get to live her dream of being an amazing mom to a child. And then there are people like my parents who kept having children they couldn’t care for, who they hurt and abused and who, ultimatly, ended up swimming through the foster care circuit until we were all adopted into families. My parents were blessed with five children and could have had so much had they just done the right thing by us.

I would have been so fortunate to have been born to a mother like my friend. I hope and pray for her sake and for the sake of a child out there that they find each other or that she may be granted the honor of carrying her own. If not and mine has a penis, I’ll just hand it over to her. Just kidding. Ha!

So, please keep your fingers crossed that our baby is healthy and all is well and that it may be sprinkled in pink baby dust. I’ll update tomorrow.