Hello there ladies and gentlemen!

In his true narcissistic namesake's fashion, Dorian Shane, arrived one week before schedule on July 13th, 2010 at 4:58pm. He weighed 6lbs. 12 oz. and measured in at 17 inches.

Mommy and Baby are doing fine, as are big brother Dante and proud daddy Randy.

1 + 1 = WHAT?!?!?!?

I keep forgetting there is an end result to this pregnancy. Not that I don't understand that there is a baby inside me, but I tend to forget the part where it is actually going to be coming out of me at some point. For example, my mother and I were talking about what I wanted to do for hubby's birthday (August 27th, mark your calendars), and I said, "maybe you can watch Dante and we can go out to dinner". She replied, "Sure I can watch the baby and Dante for a couple of hours."

And that's when I realized that there is GOING TO BE A BABY at some point. Actually, within the next two weeks there is going to be a baby.

Totally slipped my mind. I completely forgot that Casa Lane will be inhabited by four people instead of three.

The same thing happened to me the other day when I was considering getting Yo Gabba Gabba Live! tickets since it is one of the best kid shows out there. Here I am, nonchalantly picking out tickets at Ticketmaster and thinking to myself how fun the three of us will have dancing to such awesome tunes as "There's A Party in My Tummy" and "Don't Bite Your Friends" and "I Like Bugs".


Then, it dawned on me. I'd have a baby. A three month old, to be exact, which a loud screaming theater of dancing life-sized puppets is no place for. Plus, there's no way I could leave Mr. Bean (who will have a name by then) for many hours at a time if I am going to be exclusively nursing!

So...no Yo Gabba Gabba for me. And secretly, I'm the one who really wants to go the most.

How can I be so forgetful when I am reminded every day when I try to put shoes on, or put pants on, or get kicked in the ribs, or break a sweat rolling over in bed that there is an end result to this pregnancy.

Let's go over the simple math here:



PLUS



WILL EVENTUALLY EQUAL




.....which will, in turn, become some scary teenager with hair in places I don't want to think about, an attitude to match, and some bimbo hanging off his arm. And trust me, they will ALL be bimbos.













So I need to keep reminding myself that come July 21st (assuming Mr. Bean does not want to come early), I will have A BABY.

Someone please shoot me.

"The Time Has Come," the Walrus said, "to talk of many things"...

..."Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--Of cabbages--and kings--And why the sea is boiling hot--And whether pigs have wings." -with apologies to Lewis Carroll.

No, not really those things, but I seem to have neglected blogging for a bit despite the fact that I have loads of time on my hands to do so. (insert sarcasm here).

So where to begin? I think probably the most important factor going on these days is that I am approaching the end of my second, and final, pregnancy. I am currently 35 weeks and a couple of days with just about a month to go and let me tell you, I am ready. I know, I know, I waxed philosophic months ago about how "beautiful" pregnancy was and how sad it would be when all this would end, but I'm singing a brand new tune right now, and that tune is, "Get this fucking kid out of me before I perform my own Caesarian right here on the kitchen table". Not to say that I am hating every moment as there are those two minutes when I have some restful sleep that I actually forget I am pregnant, but let me tell you, I AM DONE. Finito. Kaput. Finished. Hasta La Vista and Sayonara.

For some reason, Mr. Bean, my womb tenant has decided to forego sharing my body and prefers rather to suck the very life force out of me. My thyroid, which already was on a limited work schedule before I got pregnant, has pretty much decided to go on permanent vacation and just "hang out and be a gland" instead of doing it's thyroid-ish things. Consequently, my Synthroid dosage is something astronomical and probably would have made Andre the Giant feel as though he was taking "too much". I blame Mr. Bean, who has also taken it upon himself to completely and utterly drain my heart and lungs of their functions so that my resting heart rate is 122 and I get out of breath just thinking about stuff. As a matter of fact, as I type this, I am sweating like Senator Larry Craig in a men's room. I went to the Emergency Room the other day because I literally could not get air into my lungs. Scariest feeling in the entire world. They hooked a monitor up to my belly to make sure that Mr. Bean was ok, and wouldn't you know it, he was just fiiiiiiinnne in there; moving around, kicking random organs, shoving my lungs and heart upward. The attending nurse said she had never seen such a "perfect monitor strip" and that I should be so happy the baby is so healthy. Sure I'm happy, but does he have to kill me in the process? I feel like Kuato from Total Recall!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not bitching that the kid is healthy and happy in my body, but if you ever hear me talking about getting pregnant again please 1)slap the shit out of me and 2) show me this blog.

What else is going on in the wonderful world of an Aging Goth Mom? My husband got "laid off" which in his line of work is more like, "you're fired but go collect unemployment". I mean, it couldn't have come at a better time, what with a new baby on the way. *barf*. But we're managing and he's been pounding the pavement and has some prospects. Apparently he was hired by a company and has undergone all the HR rigamarole (drug tests, paperwork, etc) but hasn't heard from them since. Which kind of sucks since he got another job offer today from Pep Boys, so...who knows? Unemployment is a joke, by the way. It's more like, "Here kid, go buy yourself a pack of gum, a nudie mag and some lube and go screw yourself". How anyone is expected to survive on unemployment is beyond me, let alone a family of (almost) four.

But enough bitching, since it seems that that is what I always seem to be doing. I do have something awesome to write about which has been a long time coming, but I just really have not had the time to sit down and write. Not that I do now, but I felt like I was neglecting my dear readers so appreciate the little I am giving you. I have to say that I have the most amazing friends in the entire Universe (and that includes any parallel Universes too, where The Borg have already taken over and Riker has a beard). They threw me the most incredible Baby Shower I have ever had or been to and I was so deeply humbled and flattered that I "mattered" to all these people, let alone women. Granted, my track record with female friends ain't so hot: either they are psycho, backstabbing whores or just plain whores who backstab, I have "issues" with trust and friendships and women in general. Well, no more I tell you. I have got the best women friends. I really do. And not to gush all sappy and cheesy, but they really are my support group. So, here's a shout out to my ladies who threw me such an awesome Baby Shower, complete with skull and crossbones cake and teddy bear wearing a spiked collar on the diaper cake. They know me and all my quirks and, it appears, that they actually like me. Which is a whole new bag of "wow" for this girl right here.

So that's about it. I'm pretty sure that the next blog will probably be either some venomous rant about politics, religion, or the two combined, but let's hope that it won't be and that the next blog will be pictures of Mr. Bean, in the outside world, safe and sound, ten fingers, ten toes, and content with not draining the life out of me anymore physically, but prepared to do it emotionally and financially for the rest of his life.

Oh, and I realize I haven't mentioned Dante, who is weeks shy of being 4 years old, in this blog because despite the infinite love I have for the kid, he is driving me incredibly crazy and he's got to realize that it ain't always about him!

Well, yea, it is.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

I seem to have reached that stage in my pregnancy in which I would like to change my mind. It happened with Dante, and I blogged about it then, but in that case four years ago, my mind was being changed due to the fact that I was terrified of giving birth.

This time around, I would like to change my mind for completely different reasons. First and foremost, Dante and I have a good thing going here. We have our own routine, our own "thing"; we're a great team. Now, I'm going to bring a new baby into the mix and it's going to screw everything up! Secondly, I enjoy sleeping. The amount of sleep I currently get, scratch that, the amount of sleep I used to get before getting pregnant was really not bad. I got a good 6 hours at least. Nowadays, with the pregnancy keeping me up at night "preparing" me for the new arrival, I'm lucky to get 3 or 4 hours. I can only imagine what is yet to come. Thirdly, I'm terrified of this C-section. So terrified that I would like to detract all of my statements from my blog linked above about Dante's birth and say that I would much rather birth this kid the "normal" way instead of being sliced open like a Tauntaun on Hoth and have my innards spill out everywhere.


And last, but certainly not least, I'd like to change my mind because I don't think I can do this again. What the hell do I remember about babies? I hardly have any memories of life when Dante was an infant due to sleep deprivation (See, reason #2 above) and plain old exhaustion. Now I'm going to start all over again?!?!?! The diapers, the round-the-clock feedings, the spit-ups, the gross poops, the crawling, the not crawling, the hours spent working on new words, walking, new foods, strollers, car seats, carriers, tummy time, and on and on and on and on and on.

I seriously have got to be crazy.

So I am officially changing my mind here. I have no idea how I am going to be able to accomplish this, but I currently have Stephen Hawking on speed dial working on some sort of time machine for me.

Defending My Life

I'm getting a little sick and tired of having to defend my choices both in parenting and life lately. As I reach my 30th week of pregnancy, I am bombarded daily with random strangers asking some very personal questions and then turning around and questioning my answers, as though I have offended them somehow by NOT choosing the answer they had concocted in their brains.

For example, a random woman, never seen her before in my life, commented on "how big" I was and proceeded to rub my belly. I'm kind of used to the invasion of my personal space by strangers since it seems that having tattoos gives people the notion that coming up to grab my arms and say "Does that mean something?" is ok. The belly rub isn't what irked me, though. The fact that this woman proceeded to ask me if I was going to breast feed did. Ok, um, what business is it of yours "Strange Woman at Publix"? Are you really concerned with my boobs that much? When I answered "yes" she said, "Oh good! It's better that you don't give them formula. It's pretty much poison." Ooookkkk thank you, random stranger for your idiotic "fact".

Look, if you don't want to feed your kids formula, go for it. If you want to nurse your kid until they are 40 years old and in law school, fine with me. But let me tell you something. Dante had both breast milk and formula and he's not dead. As a matter of fact he's sitting here annoying the #$%$@ out of me asking me to play "knights" with him and then to look at his butt. He's very much alive, healthy, and now singing a song about saying "Hello in the telephone" that I am assuming he just made up 3 seconds ago.

I kind of looked at this lady funny and said, "well have a good day" and sauntered on. I kind of wish I had walked into the formula aisle and grabbed a whole mess and filled my cart up as I walked past her, but the "mature" person in me said, "Forget it, there's a jar of Nutella in aisle two that has your name on it".

But that was really not the straw that broke the camel's back.

I visited my endocrinologist today whom I haven't seen in quite a while. Normally when I go to the endo I see the practitioner and the nurses who just take my blood and then "discuss" the results with me. But today I got to see the head honcho, the doctor whose name is on the door, and whose been following my thyroid ups and downs (mostly downs) since March of 2009. So, if course, my pregnancy is a big topic of conversation, since my thyroid seems to have gone out of business since I've gotten pregnant, and of course I get the question, "When are you due?". And I say, innocently, "I go in on July 20th at 5:30am".

I say, "innocently" because I don't expect anything other than, "Oh that's great!" or "Wow! That's coming up soon!". Instead I get a clicking of the teeth, a sigh, a disappointed look of scorn and the phrase, "A C-Section then? Why would you do that?"

So, of course I go into massive detail about the horrible problems I had delivering Dante. Between the 30 plus hours of labor, the fact that I was 41 weeks and had to be induced, and the fact that after pushing to exhaustion and immense pain, it was determined that Mrs. Lady Parts down below was on strike and wasn't going to open her doors to let anyone or anything out. Consequently, between me pushing, Dante straining to get out, things got hairy (not like that) and Dante's heart rate started going down and I started "giving up" and the doctors decided to C-Section me. It was not "forced" upon me, nor it was done hastily or because the doctors "didn't feel like helping me push" as that stupid Ricky Lake movie, The Business of Being Born would like you to think EVERY C-Section is like, but rather an INFORMED decision after I, the mother in labor, had struggled for quite some time and my unborn child was stuck and in distress.

So I go through all of this story and retelling with my endocrinologist and she starts LECTURING me about how I should not have another C-Section, "just because your doctor told you to", and that she had 600 VBACs after her first child was born and that she was fine and that I was "selling yourself short of a miraculous experience" and that just because I had trouble with the first run, I may not have trouble with this one. I felt like I was being cross examined and I didn't like it. I tried to explain to her that my choice and my feelings were that the risks of a VBAC outweighed this "miraculous" experience and that I wasn't going to risk my health or Mr. Bean's just to "try it out". You "try out" shoes or cars or new foods. Not giving birth in the safest possible RECOMMENDED way by your doctor. Yet, my endo kept insisting to the point where I just had to tell her that it was my choice and that was that. I got a little snippy, I think and rightfully so.

Where do people think it is ok to, in essence, DEMAND that you do things their way? Whether I breast feed or formula feed, C-section or vaginal birth, cloth diaper or disposable, circumcise or not, indoctrinate into religion or not is really nobody's business by mine and my husband's. And it certainly doesn't give anyone the right to interrogate me like I'm some sort of murderer on Law and Order. (Although maybe if Vincent D'Onofrio was the one grilling me about this stuff, I wouldn't mind as much).

I see it all the time. People ask such personal questions of pregnant mothers that it's really as though as our belly grows our self-respect somehow fades and people think you can say or do anything to us and it's ok. Do I walk up to random men on the street and say, "Hey, when you masturbate are you a lefty or a righty?" or to random women, "Do you wipe front to back or back to front"? Yet people see a pregnant woman and think they can ask pretty much the same questions and then attack you when you don't give the "right" answer.

Hang on...wait....I think I hear that jar of Nutella calling to me from the kitchen. Let me go take my non-working vagina, forced C-section, breast feeding but also formula poisoning ass over there and see what it wants.

Puff-y the Magic Dragon

I have reached that stage in pregnancy where I have begun to resemble the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. No, I am not 80 feet tall and lumbering through New York City trying to eat the Ghostbusters (although I think Bill Murray would be a bit salty), no I am talking about being so puffy, that my shoes no longer fit, my face looks like I was stung by ten thousand bees, and my hands are so swollen that I can't wear my rings anymore.

It's great! I love it! Can you sense the sarcasm? So now, not only I do have the stupidest haircut in the world, I now can't fit into my clothes, wear my rings, and lumber about looking like something out of Lord of the Rings. They had to create a whole new character called "The Fatness", and what it does is waddle about Middle Earth eating everything in sight, sitting down every ten minutes, and peeing every five. Yes, The Fatness is incredibly frightening, especially if you catch it without its clothes on.

Seriously, I feel like my body is no longer my own and I'm sort of "inhabiting" this big fleshy mass of boobs, butt, arms and legs. I feel like that woman who was on a mission of reaching her "goal" weight of 1000 pounds.

I think I may go audition for the role of "Thunder" in the remake of Big Trouble in Little China. I can swell myself up like that WITHOUT the use of special effects.

Nevermind....

If you know me personally, or have been reading my blog, you know that I am that annoying pregnant woman who is constantly espousing the joys of pregnancy and how everything is wonderful and great when you're pregnant, even when you're barfing your brains out or feeling like Jabba the Hutt's cousin, or pulling groin muscles looking at an ant. Yes, that's me the "I Love Being Pregnant" girl who you want to punch in the face on a daily basis.

Well, I have news for you.

In the famous words of Emily Litella (ancient Saturday Night Live reference, that only a handful od people may get):



Yes, I said it. Or rather Gilda Radner said it for me above. "Nevermind".

Nevermind being all happy happy joy joy with this pregnancy right now because frankly, it's making me a nervous wreck. When I was pregnant with Dante, I had no clue what I was supposed to be doing, feeling, thinking, etc. and I had the luxury of being able to lie down, take a nap, rest, take it easy whenever I wanted. I had no idea what to expect other than the beauty of being big and fat and having a good reason to be.

This time around it's different. I am constantly aware of how much weight I am gaining, constantly trying to keep my cravings in check, constantly chasing after a 3.5 year old who, despite me thinking he has, is not really adjusting well to the idea of a "new baby". Between peeing his pants, to tantrums, to screaming, to turning into Godzilla from one second to the next, my praise for my so well adjusted kid may have been premature. On top of all of this, I have an absent husband (not because he's horrible but because he works and goes to school) who is gone from six in the morning until midnight Monday through Thursday, so my house looks like a shithole because I have been lax in my "housecleaning" duties because, well, I AM EXHAUSTED and honestly, because the LAST thing I want to be doing at almost-six-months pregnant is mopping the floors, dusting, and cleaning bathtubs.

The worst part of this pregnancy is me, though. I am seriously a nervous wreck. I was in the hospital last Saturday because I tore a groin muscle picking up my fast asleep 40 pound child (who feel asleep on top of my ass...seriously, I'm that soft). When I couldn't walk and was in pain, did I think I pulled a muscle? Did the first thought that entered my brain involve a strain or a muscle? No. You know what I, the genius, was thinking? I'm having a miscarriage! I swear, reason and logic go RIGHT OUT the window when you're pregnant.....and me.

But it gets better. What does my paranoid, overly nervous, worried, stressed, not-at-all relaxing ass do last night? I stuff my face with chocolate, sugar, Orange Juice, 3 glasses of cold water and lie on my left side for 3 hours because I haven't felt Mr. Bean move all day. Does the thought that he is sleeping cross my mind? Does the notion that he is extremely small still and I may not feel every movement come into play? Does the idea that I'm just overreacting grace the skies?

No. No. and No. I call my mom and go to the Emergency Room at 10 o'clock at night all the while thinking I have a dead baby inside me.

I swear. Where did this tough-I-can-handle-everything girl go? Where is she because she sure isn't here. Maybe she's somewhere hidden underneath these pregnant layers. I have no clue and no amount of "relax" or "stop stressing" seems to be helping.

Don't get me wrong, I still really love being pregnant, but I hope that someday in the future an invention will come along that will allow expectant (neurotic) mothers to have a little window into their uterus so they can check in everyday and make sure everything is going smoothly. It's all about control issues and in this case, I have no control, and I pretty much think that sucks.

On a side note: Mr. Bean began kicking and moving last night at the hospital the instant a monitor was put on him. I think I may have hear a "nyah nyah nyah you can't catch me" at some point. He has also proceeded to kick me throughout the evening and is presently kicking me so hard that I almost peed on my chair here.

Now can someone please punch me in the face and bring me back to my senses?

The Empathy Belly: Suck it Up!

This weekend I worked the It's A Baby and Family Expo and one of the booths was the Miami Birthing Center (I think that was their name). What made this booth really special (other than ours, of course) was the fact that they had an "Empathy Belly" with them and were letting all the dads, dads-to-be, and new dads put it on.

If you don't know what an Empathy Belly is, it is basically a huge frontal piece that fits on the torso and belly and consists of breasts and a pregnant stomach all weighted accurately as though the person was between 8 and 9 months pregnant. In other words, it is supposed to made men (and non pregnant women, but mostly men) understand what it feels like to walk around with huge boobs and a person living inside you.

Let me just say that most of the men I saw participating in this activity were BIG WUSSES. Before the suit was even securely placed on them, half of them were complaining that it was "too heavy" or that it "hurt my back" or that "they felt stupid". Really? Really buddy? Try walking around like that FOR REAL! Guys get the extremely easy end of the whole "making babies" deal. Their "job" in making said baby lasts all of 5 minutes (7 if you're lucky) and then for the next 40 weeks they go off and tell everyone "WE'RE pregnant"!.

Um, excuse me. WE? WE are pregnant? No. Wrong. Sorry. I. Me. The Woman. The fat chick over here is pregnant. You are just walking around as though you are King of Fertilization and you scored some sort of miraculous goal or something.

Sorry guys but you're not the ones waking up every hour on the hour because you have to pee. You're not expanding to the size of Texas (unless you are my husband and gaining "Empathy Weight), and you're CERTAINLY NOT, at the end of this whole process, going to push a 7-9 pound human being out of a SMALL OPENING or get cut in half, have your insides moved around and pulled out and then get STAPLED back together like you're a 10th grade English Book Report (that would be my scenario).

So I would like to say to all the men who tried on the "Empathy Belly" at the Baby Expo this past weekend, "Shut Up and get over it". You were in the suit for all of 5 minutes. Seriously. Shut Up. Anyone who is still under the misguided, archaic notion that women are somehow "the weaker sex" needs to go visit a Baby Expo and watch all the men put on "Empathy Suits".

Ok, granted, when it comes to spiders, I am like a baby and need a big strong man to come rescue me before it jumps on my face and eats my eyes, but when it comes to being pregnant and having children, please.....Let the big girls handle it, mkay?

There's a Signpost Up Ahead......

I don't really remember my pregnancy dreams being THIS odd with my first pregnancy, but let me tell you, I think Rod Serling (think 1960's Twilight Zone) has taken up residence in my brain and decided to take me on "A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. There's the signpost up ahead - your next stop, the Twilight Zone!"

Seriously, the other day I dreamed that the husband of one of my mommy friends was a child molester and using his business as a front for molesting children. In my dream, we all got together and beat the living daylights out of him while his wife (my good friend) made excuses for him. It was so real!

Another night I dreamed that we were in a gigantic hotel and Dante let go of my hand, ran off to an open elevator, stepped in, the doors closed, and he disappeared forever. I honestly woke up sweating and crying and thought it was true. I had to run into his room at 3 am to make sure that he was still there and not in some random elevator.

Then I had a dream that Dante was Boba Fett. Really. Boba Fett. How nerdy am I that I even have nerdy pregnancy dreams?

It's really strange but none of the dreams I have had have involved the new baby. They all center around Dante or things other than Mr. Bean in the womb.

With such vivid dreams, I am often worried about going to bed at night because some of these dreams are so realistic that I usually wake up expecting them to be real! (Sue me, I think it would be neat if my kid was Boba Fett, except that he would not fall into the Sarlacc Pit in this reality, rather he would kick its ass).

Maybe the fact that I am not dreaming about the baby and only really dreaming about Dante is that I am worried about my relationship with him when the new baby comes. Who knows, I'm not Freud. But I do wonder what the heck is going on in my brain these nights.

A Tough Act to Follow

Now that we know our next child is a boy, we are having a tough time following up our first son's name with an equally powerful and meaningful title for boy #2.

Our son's name is Dante Marcello. Dante, after the famous medieval author Dante Alighieri, and Marcello after my father.

Logically one can't follow up a name like that with something like "Jimmy" or "Steve" or "Bobby" (no offense if anyone has those names), so I've been scouring my favorite literary authors and works to find the perfect name that can match in awesomeness to our firstborn.

Boy is this tough. Do we go Italian again? Do we venture to the English kings? Knights of the Round Table? Renaissance Painters? The Musketeers? Philosophers and Great Thinkers? Greek and Roman Myths? Norse myths? Dare I say, biblical?!? Do we simply flip the name book, stick our finger in, and go with what we are pointing at (not a good choice, since when we did that we landed on "Englebert").

We may have an idea for a first name, but now what? Do we have to come up with a middle? I don't have a middle name, so why should we?

Dante has given us two suggestions: Spinwheel and Baby Junior. Right now, those two don't seem that bad.

Cheers, Mr. Bean!

We are proud to announce that The Bean will now be known as Mr. Bean (with thanks to Rowan Atkinson for use of the name). Note the crossed leg in the first picture. That's Dante's favorite way to sit as well, and his Nonno's. Runs in the family! Apparently also, Mr. Bean was "excited" as evidenced by photo number two. That also seems to run in the family.

All genetic and neurological tests were negative for defects and mommy and baby are healthy and happy.

The Second Coming

I assume that, unless you are living under a rock or that, in fact, this blog is just an excuse for me to talk to myself, that you know that I am pregnant. I think I can also assume, unless the above criteria apply, that you already know that I have another child of whom I brag about constantly on this blog and in real life, much to the annoyance of my friends around me. But hey, they do it too, so I am entitled.

Anyway, I would like to ask a question. It is a very important question and one whose answer I seek on a daily basis. It may even be a more important question than "What is the meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything?" (the answer is 42) and may even go down in history as the question of the ages. Ok so here goes,

WHY THE HELL AM I DOING THIS AGAIN?!?!?

Now now, before you go all "she hates the baby", and "she doesn't see how lucky she is to be pregnant", let me clarify that I know why I am doing this again and am very happy to be pregnant with a (hopefully) healthy child, but, I do wonder sometimes,

WHY THE HELL AM I DOING THIS AGAIN?!?!?

Seriously, we've been done with diapers for over 6 months and now we are going to start all over again. The midnight feedings, the 2 am feedings, the 5 am feedings, the feeding feedings, the crying, the rocking, the spit up, the barfies, the pukies, the poopies, the sleep on your back, the sleep on your stomach, the "is he breathing", the baby monitor, the onesies, the burp cloths, the no sleep, and all this on top of having a demanding, independent, cranky, lovey, mixed up tortuous 3 year old to take care of as well.

The first time around, I remember that I was constantly aware of being pregnant. I think I had already purchased half the baby department at Target and set up the nursery before I was 4 months pregnant. We were giddy with excitement! Every day I was closer and closer to having a new baby and every day I was more and more excited about having said baby. I was fresh, and cute, and yes I had pimply skin, but I was glowing and my hair was thick and I was wonderful!

This time around? It's a different story. I am constantly forgetting I am pregnant and just still think I am fat. When I get tired, I can't just sit on the couch and watch Judge Judy, no, I have to attend to Screamy McScreamerton who has just "accidentally used scissors" to cut his pillowcase. When I feel like going to sleep, I can't, because I've got dinner to make, a bath to run, clothes to fold, and Angry McFusserton demanding that I read "I'm A Big Brother" to him for the 67th time. When I get the sharp pains of the ligaments stretching in my belly, I can't sit down for a second because out of the corner of my eye, I see the dog is now half green and half yellow and Leonardo DaPoopy coming around the corner with the fingerpaint bottles that were on the high windowsill (how he got them, I have no clue) in his hands.

I've got the Andromeda Galaxy exploding on my face, I am pulling clumps of hair out in the shower, and I thought I would love every minute of it, but to be honest, I keep saying to myself,

WHY AM I DOING THIS AGAIN?!?!?

No really, before I get another lovely "Anonymous" poster commenting that I am a horrible person (funny how it is always under the guise of anonymity that people grow a set), I am happy to be pregnant, I just don't remember it being this tough. Granted, I was younger (4 years is a lot in dog years) and I also did not have the huge responsibility of being a mommy already. Being Dante's mom is my top priority and now that I have another top priority, it makes it that much more difficult to juggle between the two. And it doesn't help that I have to tend to my farm in Farmville, or keep up with who I am offending on Moms Like Me, and organize my book club, and schedule and attend meet-ups and playdates with my mommy group. This is hard!! And it is just going to be that much harder when The Bean actually enters the world and hangs out with us.

The Bible speaks of the Second Coming as "....of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken." Matthew 24: 29 (KJV). I'll settle for this second coming with an epidural, a knock-out pill, and a couple hours of sleep.

How to spell "Irony"

We've been trying to conceive. Yes, it's true, Randy and I are trying to produce another heathen free thinking baby to overthrow the balance of nature according to *ahem cough cough cough* "god's plan". So of course, we've been having lots of sex, which started out being quite fun, but now has become more like "C'mere and stick it in, I have to do laundry so hurry up".

My last period was March 3. Yes, March 3rd. Three months ago. Yet every pregnancy test I have taken has come up negative. Not for lack of trying, though, and thus we were getting very discouraged. I finally broke down and decided that I needed to see a doctor. Trust me, I HATE going to the doctor and with no health insurance, one has to be extremely selective on when and why going to the doctor is necessary. But, Randy and I agreed that 3 months and no period plus negative pregnancy tests meant that a doctor was needed to tell us what was going on. So I called a clinic and made an appointment for today, got my mom to come and watch Dante and went.

So here's the irony. I get to the doctor. They give me a urine test (which comes up negative, surprise surprise). I get naked and lie down on the table, place my feet in the stirrups, say hello to the extremely nice doctor, and get ready for the icky part. The doctor puts in the speculum and................

I get my period.