Womanhood

So yesterday I had a very traumatizing experience that has really made me reconsider being a woman. If there was a vote in heaven and we got to choose what sex to be when we came to get bodies.....I was truly tricked into choosing to be female. I am also convinced that if there was not a choice involved then there had better be bonus points involved for every year I survive womanhood without losing my mind. We all joke about the thing we have to deal with, but I really mean it when I say we got the short end of the stick. Men might get physically used more but we get physically abused more..and not in the domestic violence way. I mean we hit puberty way earlier and have to deal with that mess way longer then guys. I mean who wouldn't rather deal with pimples and sketchy vocal sounds rather then Mother Nature's monthly visit. Besides the pain and other unpleasant side effects, that is one costly monthly visit! And actually more then monthly because 28 days is not a whole month! Plus your annual GYN appointment! Then yes I am sure some women love being able to feel a baby grow inside her, but wouldn't it be so much nicer just to be able to put a hand on someone else's stomach and feel it when you want to then roll over and go to sleep with all of your organs in tact! I would put up with all the late night food runs and swollen foot rubs for that convenience. Then there is child birth which I have already vented enough about. And lastly the reason I wrote this post..... Birth Control. What an incredibly horrible thing to deal with. Because of a poor family history and my personal views on the matter (stroke, blood clots, cancer, heart attacks, weight gain, etc.), anything involving hormones are out of the question. Using (or not) condoms is how I got my first two amazing kids. So that leaves either surgery, again out of the question, or some rather uncomfortable options. Like a diaphragm ... seriously? I know they work but who thought removing something like that would be what a woman feels like doing on any regular basis. So I am left with the Para guard IUD or being pregnant again which I seriously need a break from for little while. Without going in to all the gross details of getting an IUD I just have to say that it was one of the most horrible experiences. I hate it. Now my periods are so bad i have to use the same pads i used the day after my kids were born. I go through a tampon in minutes. I have to sleep on the same mattress protectors my kids use to keep the bed dry from their nighttime accidents. And there is no point getting dressed because I will just ruin my good clothes. Sometimes being a woman is really not cool.....

Grown-Up Clothes

So a couple of weeks ago, John sent me out to buy some clothes for myself. I guess he was tired of seeing me in my pajamas all day. I needed a break from being "Mom" for a little while so I said okay and headed off to Marshall's. Now when I go shopping, the store is split in two sections.... the "I am young and hip, have style and no kids" (the Juniors) section, and the " I am old, have kids, love spandex, and hate style section" (also known as women's) section. I have always wondered at what age you finally cross over that abyss and no longer go in the juniors department. When do people start looking at you and saying "Oh, I hope she is just shopping for a neice and not herself"? They go up to size 16 so you could possibly shop that department forever. I looked around the juniors department for a while, picked up a couple of shirts, but I didn't feel in the mood because nothing looked like what a mother of four should be wearing. So I looked across the store at the Women's section and decided to head over and just take a peak and see how bad it really was. And if by some chance I saw someone I knew I would say I was looking for my mom. As I wandered around the Tops section I saw the cutest sweater! I grabbed it, it was a large which is what I usually buy in tops, and decided that some lazy person had put this back in the wrong section. All of a sudden I saw two more tops I liked, then a few more. I looked at the sign over head to make sure this really was the women's section and it was. But I was so baffled. This had to be a fluke. I grabbed a couple more shirts and went to try them on. Then the best thing ever happened.....The top was too big! Now I am rather large on top so this NEVER happens. I have been wearing large tops since puberty. I ran, yes ran, out of the dressing rooms and back to my new favorite section. I got the right sizes and was about to go try them on when I walked past the pants section. Now this the the true test for Women's clothes. Everyone knows about the famous "Mom" jeans. They are skinny at the bottom, wide up top, and go up way higher then the belly button. I saw a couple pair that might be okay and grabbed my usual size again. Now in juniors I have been a size 9/10 FOREVER! And again as i went to the dressing rooms the clothes were too big. WOOHOO!! I felt like the ladies on the Jenny Craig commercial. "I used to be a size 10 but now I am a size 4!" I dropped 6 pants sizes and all I had to do was go to the Grown-up section!!!!! Best diet ever.

Prego T-shirt Slogans

So I will never be a clothing designer, but I always wanted to design a line of maternity shirts with cute slogans on them. Mostly it's just the things I was thinking while I was pregnant but could never say out loud. And this way if it was on a t-shirt, people would get less offended. If anyone who reads this owns a t-shirt printing company and wants to steal these, go ahead. I will give you my address to send my royalties check to. If anyone wants to add to them, awesome.

1. (Across the stomach) Private Property!

2. Alien 4 (or whatever number child it is for you)

3. When am I due for what?

4. Just because I am pregnant doesn't mean I want to hear all the horrible things that happened to you when you were pregnant. I have a little person in my stomach kicking my kidneys! I think I am freaked out enough. It's like Thumper said, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all!"

5. No I am not pregnant I just like chocolate....a lot.

6. Do I know what it is? I am hoping it's a baby.

7. I'm not sleeping, my skin is tearing, I spend more time in the bathroom then in any other part of my house, my organs are being shoved around, I am craving gross things, my feet are swollen so big they are stuck in my shoes, my pelvic bone just cracked open, and I lost my belly button last week ...... so no honey, I am Not in the mood.

8. Immaculate Conception number 3

9. This is my fourth attempt at giving my Father-in-Law a heart attack!

10. I make Dolly Parton jealous.... you just can't tell because I have a stomach to match.

11. Do I need anything...... I need someone to tie my shoes for me.

12. No they are not all mine. I stole 2 of them from the lady in line behind me.

Smell up my House Day

So today is officially "Smell up my House Day". No, its not really a holiday for me but more of a ritual I follow several times a month. I fill my house with every smelly thing I possibly can. Let me rephrase that.... every good smelly thing I can find. I love plug-ins, febreze, candles, etc.I really wouldn't care if they told me all the scented stuff in my house causes cancer. I need my smellies. I go around and strip down all the beds. Then I spray each mattress down with either febreze or antibacterial spray and if that is not enough I put baby powder all over the mattresses before I put the sheets back on. I love the smell of babies! Today I even put fabric softener sheets under the sheets because I was out of baby powder. And the finishing touch is carpet refresher. Luckily my husband never says anything to make fun of me over my smell fetish. It really isn't my fault anyways. I inherited it from my mom. I am reminded of that every time I walk into her house and she has enough incense sticks lit to shame a Buddhist temple. That is on top of a plug-in in ever outlet, those nasty oil sticks my son LOVES to knock over, and tacky potpourri in bowls. Plus my mom bathes in her perfume to make sure she smells just as wonderful as her house. So this illness gets better with every generation. I don't really use perfume and I have never, (okay once) bought tacky potpourri. I do have to say I love incense, but only the real kind and not any funny scented stuff. Well time to go vacuum up my carpet refresher.

My cooking Talents

So last night for family home evening, I decided we were going to make popcorn balls. I had this crazy idea that the best way to make them way to make popcorn from scratch. My mother-in-law makes it all the time, so how hard could it be? I called her for directions and I set off to make 3quarts of popcorn. I followed directions perfect, except for taking the pot off the burner, and since my stove is electric it stays hot for a long time. I lifted the lid and suddenly my eyes felt like they were on fire. I realized that what I thought was steam was smoke. I emptied it in the trash can and set off to make another pot. I couldn't give up that easy! Well, after the smoke came pooring out of the lid a second time, I was pretty sure that the popcorn was ruined. While I was cooking popcorn I was alos cooking dinner. So of course when John walks in from work he thinks his dinner is ruined and cracks a couple of jokes. Unfortunately my self-esteem is down in the gutter because who can't cook popcorn? Oil, kernels, and heat.... how hard could it possibly be. Then John comes up with the most brilliant idea, use the bags of microwave poporn from downstairs! Of course I thought of that but it didn't seem as good of an idea as making it from scratch. I did give up since my house had smoke pooring out the windows and used the microwave stuff, and after making the...sticky gooey stuff that goes on the popcorn I made some good looking popcorn balls. They tasted awesome even if the popcorn wasn't from scratch. And of course the idea of making popcorn balls with the kids didn't work because the carmel-like topping is extremly hot when its liquid and and has to be put on before it cools. Both kids burnt thier hands but not too bad. Maybe tomorrow we will try caramel apples.........