This Is For All My Bitches!

Introducing my new hero...

This Is EXACTLY Why I'm All About Spanking

I'm done. Look at this face and tell me I'm not having any more kids.

Wait, that one's kind of gross. Sorry to all the vegetarians out there. And the cows.

Also, that might not be a picture of the 2 year old. How am I supposed to tell all 3 girls apart?! Don't judge me.

Ok, look at this face and tell me I'll never hold a baby that rode my vagina-slide again:

Or this one and tell me I'll never get to see her first sugar rush.
Ever.
Again.

I can't take it. I just can't take it.

Why?! Why didn't she stop growing when I told her to? Why aren't the time out's and "talking tos" not working?!

I'm done with all this "positive discipline" crap.

IT'S NOT WORKING.

It didn't work with the other ones and it's clearly not working with this one. Whatever.

~Happy Birthday 2 year old!~

A Letter: Your Vagina, The Highway of Life

So, I've been a slacker blogger lately. Whatever. Want some excuses? I have 3. 4 if you count the husband. I did have time for some correspondence between my oldest sister and I after she harassed me with texts because she has pregnancy amnesia but wants to help her friend who finds herself recently up a pole.

I'm gonna share because I want credit for doing something other than wiping asses and slamming baby feet in car doors. So here's one for the new parents to be out there...

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Subject: (unsolicited) advice from someone you don't really know - get used to it
From: Amy Talley-Klotz
Date: October 13, 2009 3:56:45 PM PDT
To: Ann-Marie

Ann-Marie - Here. I wrote this for Amy. Might post it on the blog, but if you think her humor/current state of mind can handle my deranged humor and magnificent insight pass it on. You are being a great friend to her and that's like totally awesome.
xoxoxo,
Amy

Hi Amy,

I am a stranger, I think. I don't remember meeting you, but you know my sister very well and I totally know her so we are almost like acquaintances of some kind. Anyway, we both have vaginae and uteri, I used mine 3 times to grow big whining pooping talking things and you are using yours for the first time.

Ann-Marie is worried about you. She's texting me for help on morning sickness and the likes and I'm totally glad to answer her/your questions but I felt compelled to write you a note because that's how I roll. Most of the time. Sometimes I don't answer the phone or the door or anything but sometimes I'm strangely free with my communication. Like right now.

Anyhow, what qualifies me? Well, I'm a recovering Type A with 3 kids. I had 1 c-section and 2 VBACs. That last term sounds scary, but really it just means I squirted birthed the second 2 out the hard right natural way and had the first one ripped out of my abdomen c-section. If you ask I'll give you my take on the difference between the 2 tactics options.

You may just be freaking out and coming to terms with your situation condition. I did the typical Type A thing of taking 42 pregnancy tests and then proceeded to chart and figure out what, why, HOW this could have happened. And I'd been married 6 years by then, you think I'd have known. After that I went into the 'planning' phase which included a 7 page birth plan. Yeah. I told you about me, didn't I? (Later I was told by my OTHER sister, the nurse, that the hospital staff laughs mercilessly at such nonsense and it pretty much always ends up the opposite of intended plan, as mine did.) But 10 years and 3 children later, I'm here to say, the birth which even if it lasts forever goes on for the total allotted 24 hrs WILL END. Not only will it end but in the grand scheme of things - that being the fact that you will be shackled FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE to this blood sucking alien new beautiful person - the actual birth will in fact be a mere wrinkle in the sphincter of time.

Did you hear me say that? That's a hard concept to contemplate as you are about to offer up your who-ha to the highway of life for the very first time. But believe me when I say...The actual birth is a mere millisecond in the whole scheme of things.

Once you get your brain wrapped around that remember this: Your body will do everything in its power to protect that baby from the stupidity of the parent anything that could go wrong with your body. So, lunch meats, pesticides, raves, heavy drug use...yes, be prudent, but you are more likely to come out damaged than that bundle of cells in there. I promise. That's how we are designed. So just make yourself as comfortable as you can while inflicting the most the least damage you can on the asshole loved one who is there to support you.

Also, when the due date looms, here's a little trick: circle a date a full 2 weeks out from whatever the Dr. tells you. Just do it. Convince yourself that is the date. Roll your eyes and ignore the Dr. when she says stuff like, "You're thinning out!" or "Your dilated to a 3!" It's all just a trick to give you a reason to live false hope something to talk about during the last couple of weeks. But if you convince yourself there is even longer to wait then, when you suddenly go into labor a week and half early you are STOKED that your new baby had the decency to give you a break right from the get go.

Oh and one more thing. The hospital and the Dr. absolutely do not, I repeat DO NOT want to kill you or harm you or the baby in any way. In fact they would really prefer if you remained a nameless number where nothing significant (that you can sue them for) happened in any way. Except the significance of the miracle of birth and all that, of course.

So what I'm saying is that in retrospect, if I had known everything I know now I would have spent more time hanging out with the worst babies in the whole world. I would have hunted down the colicy, puking, poo spewing, screaming infants and made myself hang out with them and their wrecked parents so that I could have spent more time enjoying my own little bundles for the goodness they offered instead of worrying what might be around the corner. Also, I wouldn't have wasted more than 10 minutes on researching the whole "birthing" process. I mean, it's a process. We have it down, pretty much, after like a gazillion years of evolution and research and questionable experiments back in the dark ages.

All that said, buckle up, hold on and try your best to enjoy this ride. It's like a roller coaster from the Twilight Zone, never ending, strangely electrifying, terrifying and exciting all in one.

Write or call me anytime. Really. Or not, if you're scare of me now. I'll try hard not to stalk you because just writing this letter makes me want to do it all again. Oh the baby head smell...the warm snuggles...the first smile. Quick, someone smack me!

Good luck and get ready to kick some ass!!
Amy :-)

P.S. I have 3 models you can try out if you like. All girls ages 2, 6, 10. I could FedEx any one or all 3 of them free of charge any time you'd like.

P.P.S. It's kind of weird to write a letter to Amy and sign it Amy. It's like writing a letter to myself. Which I mostly never do. Except when I need to remember something really important like when to pick up my kids from school, but I stopped doing that because CPS usually just drops them off for me. We have a system.

Phone Sex Anyone? Not Here Apparently.

We don't answer our phone. It rings, we hear it, we ignore it. We don't even bother screening our calls. We just let it ring and in, like, a week or so we are completely floored there are 42 messages and 96 missed calls. What?! How did this happen?

I'll tell you how it happened. We ignored the ringing apparatuses that are strewn all over our home. I mean, we have four. FOUR handsets for a house with two living spaces and four bedrooms. Guess where we bought the set? Guess where you could get a bargin price on a new cordless phone with 3 more handsets than you actually need? Costco. But even with the convenience of Costco quantity, do you think we could find it within ourselves to actually pick up the damn thing?

This all started with the whole not answering the phone at dinner thing and now it has just about rolled into don't answer the phone anytime. The hubs and I both have cell phones. We text a lot. We Twitter. Each other. Hehehe. I love saying that.

So has the house phone gone the way of the egg slicer? Or the yogurt maker I've had in my cupboard for 6 years? Or will we be very sorely mistaken when the 10 year old suddenly becomes a gum-chewing, phone-talking, hair-twirling teenager? Good lawd. That's just around the corner isn't it? Well anyway, maybe the house phone is a vestigial appliance and we just need to let go.

Yeah, either that or we are a bunch of phone phobic a-holes that need a lesson in manners.

BTW I'd like to get credit for that word up there, vestigial,  for two reasons. 1) I have been pronouncing it "vestig-U-al" for years, like a true dumb ass. 2) It's the only thing I remember from high school science because my teacher told me (in front of the whole class nonetheless) that my teeth were likely so big because they were vestigial as we don't need horse chompers anymore. You know, now that the rest of you have evolved.