The Jeege Turns ONE

Can you believe it? It's been a whole year since the amazing drama of her birth, and today we celebrated her first birthday with a group of friends, and Granddad flew in from Pittsburgh to join the festivities.

She's such an incredible little lady, our one-year-old Gigi. She's quick to laugh, loves life, rarely cries, and is so incredibly beautiful, we've been held in her thrall for 365 days now.

Bobojeeger, AKA "The Bobes" (rhymes with "lobes") is a tinkerer and a climber, and if anyone has a lid they need put on a crate -- she's your gal. Today, while Granddad set up the plasma car he bought for the girls, she busied herself in and around the toolbox, teething on the ratchet and showing a laser-like interest in the goings on. She's phenomenal to have around, wakes up with a smile on her face, she loves her family, her cats, and her pink fleece jacket. She remains the most determined human being we have ever met -- there is no boundary she feels compelled to take seriously -- she is THE JEEGE.

We love you Bobojeeger, now leave some frosting for everyone else!

Latest Health.com Post -- Heartburn and Hair

I wonder how much hair our next baby will have. My heartburn has been more Chebbles-ish than Gigi-like. We'll see!

I wrote about the heartburn/hair phenomenon this week for Health.com. Enjoy!

Operation Crayon -- Give Me Your Beanie Babies

Hey guys.

Whenever I start feeling especially proud of the young men and women who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and wishing there were something I could do to make their sandy, isolated lives better, I turn to Adopt-A-Platoon.

For Christmas last year, we went through Adopt-A-Platoon to sent a big care package to a soldier who couldn't be home for the holidays, with games and powdered drinks and a friggin' PSP because apparently it's not all high times and excitement when you're stationed abroad.

Now I've learned about Operation Crayon, an effort to equip the schools in these war-torn regions with basic school supplies and anything else they may need.

Our country (Go USA!) has chaplains stationed in these countries whose job it is to make sure that the schools have what they need, and Adopt-A-Platoon has connected me with one of these chaplains who has asked for school supplies (notebooks, pencils, rulers), small toys for children (presumably older children) and Beanie Babies for the schoolchildren in his region.

Awesome. Beanie Babies for Peace. I'm so ON IT!

I'm sending out a care package to this chaplain on March 25. So I'm posting this in hopes that my Bay Area friends might cull their own tribes of Beanie Babies and bring me the as-of-yet unloved ones, as well as any SMALL toys or school supplies they can contribute -- and bring it over to my house before March 25.

And those of you who live further away, I encourage you to check out Adopt-A-Platoon. Their website is not the most sophistocated technological achievement on the planet, but their mission is marvelous and it gives us a concrete way to help soldiers and schoolkids half a world away.

And these kids are clearly awesome because... they love Beanie Babies!

Warning for OCD Non-Catholics Like Me

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday.

This means that there will be people walking around, acting totally normal, with ashes on their forehead.

You may be tempted to give them a subtle signal, "Pst, hey, there's some schmutz on your forehead!"

But dude, restrain yourselves! It's on purpose. It's a cool religious ritual in which you do not get to engage.

(NB to bald Catholics: If you don't mind, maybe you should wear a pin or a T-shirt or something to remind others that the ashes on your head are on purpose. Because you guys, man, every freakin' YEAR I say something to a bald Catholic guy. It's just so... right there.)

Oh, and every year I give something up for Lent, and yet again I'm stumped. Should I give up unnecessary ultrasounds? How about eBay? That would be particularly devilish.

Anyway, FOREHEAD ASHES = ON PURPOSE.

Wrist update and bad harmony

All is well in Shaken Mama land, as long as you ignore the big old bruise emanating from the surgical site on my left hand. Apparently this discoloration is normal, but it remains impressive in its size and darkness. There is nothing I enjoy more than unwrapping my wrist and disgusting as many grown-ups and toddlers as possible with the sight.

And on Wednesday? Surgery is scheduled for the right wrist! I vacillated about whether to have this surgery. Currently, my wrist does not hurt terribly, so it's hard to take it seriously. Why have surgery that feels even more elective than that for the left wrist?

Then, when I start feeling like I might cancel the procedure, I hear a Voice From the Future -- the voice of a woman who is caring for a four-year-old, a one-year-old and a newborn, and she says, "LADY, fix that wrist once and for all, before your life with de Quervain's becomes an even more monumental pain in the ass!"

In other news, I have discovered that Chebbles does better when I withhold sugar from her. Or better said: she does crappy when she eats certain kinds of sugary treats. A cookie with red icing on it? HORRORS. Bites of chocolate cake? No problem. I started reading "Little Sugar Addicts" and it's helped me get our processed sugar consumption in perspective -- in other words, we're cutting way back and to see if Chebbles can better maintain her good moods.

And finally, I've found a treasure trove of old Indigo Girls CD's, and I've become a menace to the California freeways, attempting to harmonize with Emily Saliers' way-too-high-for-me voice while simultaneously merging into the left lane. So, if you see a Toyota weaving aimlessly around the local highways, it's because "Ghost" came on and I'm trying to sing, "Can you hear it, a cry to be FREEeeeeEEEEeeee!!! I'm forever under LOCK AND KEeeeeEEEEY!!!" before I get to preschool pick-up.

Lichen Striatus

I had become convinced that Chebbles had a resurgence of the eczema that bothered her during her infancy. I had screwed around with our detergents (in an effort to rid our Bumgenius cloth diaper covers of their reek), so I assumed that her newly developed red rash was my punishment for straying from Dreft.

I reluctantly took her to the dermatologist yesterday, expecting I would have to change our whole lifestyle to accommodate a new round of eczema. No more Charlie's Soap, no more acidic food "triggers" and (gasp!) no more bubble baths!?

Imagine my surprise when the dermatologist (Dr. B) got out a little magnifying glass and said, "huh!" as he looked at her skin.

"I think she has lichen striatus," he said.

"Is that some kind of WOLF disease?" I said in horror, thinking he had said something like "Lycanstrata," which to me sounded like an opera about werewolves.

"No, it's 'lichen,' like what you see on trees."

Once he reassured me that it is not contagious and it's not painful and it will go away on its own within a year, I was thoroughly fascinated.

It occurs primarily in girls between 5-10 years old. (Chebbles is so ADVANCED.) And there is nothing to be done about it -- it follows the nerve endings in a kid's body -- so you can see where and how Chebbles' nerves are networked on the right side of her body, just by following the lichen striatus.

It also only effects one side of the body.

She's in the hot tub with Grandma right now and I convinced her I was taking a picture of her with her "mermaid ring" when in fact I was trying to get a shot for you guys of the lichen striatus, so you can STARE at it as much as I want to 24/7.

Fascinating!

New Health.com post -- There oughta be a law!

I wasn't delighted at the prospect of writing about Nadya Suleman. I mean, everyone has done it, including Dr. Laura, whose own blog entry about the octuplets singed off my eyebrows.

But there has been so much discussion about it, plus I became fascinated with the mechanics of the octuplet's conception, that I went ahead and posted about it anyway.

Let me know what you think!

Wrist -- after

Note that they wrote "Yes" on my arm, so that they wouldn't accidentally perform a tenolysis on my right wrist. Under the mummified wrappings is the yucky part -- I get to take off the wrappings tomorrow and start grossing out the world.

(Is it me, or does it kind of look like they wrote "sex" on my arm instead?)

Home and stitched

I'm back from the surgery and it went well. I guess time will tell whether the problem is solved, but it SEEMS better despite the fact my hand and wrist are now yellow from iodine and I'm sporting a row of bloody stitches under a waterproof bandage.

I finally got an OB anesthesiologist. I didn't know there was a separate category for that kind of specialist, but that was really the key. He understood what the whole situation was, and although I got the creeps when he said that we wouldn't be able to save the baby if something bad happened to her, he also assured me that we weren't going to face a "fetal demise" situation. Lord. Fetal demise.

But the whole thing went beautifully. I had general "twilight" sedation with local anesthetic on my wrist and hand. The whole thing was surprisingly brief and I had a few scary flashbacks to my emergency C-section before the lovely, lovely sedation kicked in.

Leaf was a champ. Her heartrate slowed a little (from 148 BPM to 138 BPM) when mine slowed. She did feel the effects of the sedation, but no one was worried about that. And when they gave me cranberry juice after the procedure she perked right up. The girl loves her some juice.

And I'm also allowed to take Vicodin, so I'm in a happy, happy place right now, with no aches and pains. I'm going to dole it out very gradually to myself, but just knowing it's there. Ahh.

And next week? Right wrist!

Wrist -- before

Grandma's here. The stage is set. Tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn: the surgery.

My wrist knocked gently against the car today as I carried in some bags, and the pain was big. Time for surgery. Three years of this, I've become used to the pain. I've become used to putting my babies in the arms of others rather than aggravate my inflamed wrists.

No more. Let's fix this.

I talked with the nurse tonight who promised the plan was local anesthesia, and promised me an immediate IV upon my arrival, so I wouldn't be thirsty despite the fact I'm not supposed to eat or drink anything after midnight tonight.

I'm actually kind of excited. A whole morning of lying down, not getting breakfast for anyone. And maybe minimal pain, and maybe they will let me take the big fat Tylenols afterwards, which will secretly help my sciatic pain too.

There is also a Taco Bell on the drive home from the hospital. I'm just saying.

The Jeege nests

Gigi is helping a lot with the spate of nesting that has suddenly overtaken me.

Did you know that I had a box of crackers in the back of my pantry that expired a year ago? And some sort of ancient homemade beef jerky that I shall not discuss further? And WHO bought this apricot compote?

Our local mother's club hosted a speech by a personal organizer and I learned that for me the problem is that I start floating around the house when I'm organizing or cleaning instead of focusing on and finishing one area at a time. So as a result, things tend to look messier when I'm "done."

So this is where The Jeege comes in. She picks a room of the house for us to work on, and we tackle it together, sometimes for hours at a time. We've already gotten the master bathroom in ship-shape (Hub-D was not properly impressed by how thoroughly I'd cleaned his hairbrush -- I suppose this hormone hasn't kicked in yet for him. It will. At the end of my pregnancies with Chebbles and Gigi, he went on a huge cleaning binge.)

Now we're working through the kitchen, which is a huge delight for her. It's satisfying for me to sort things and to make decisions: "I will NOT live with this little tiny bit of cereal in a Ziploc bag anymore. It am throwing it away, NOT EVEN COMPOSTING IT."

Today we tackled the snack drawer, and she found a bunch of loose bits of Pirate's Booty and ruined her dinner before I noticed how much she'd stuffed in her mouth.

(NB: My new nickname for Gigi is "The Pelican," owing to her skill in swallowing large things like dried apricots and digesting them whole, whereupon they reconstitute inside her digestive system. She is no delicate nibbler, this one, when she gets ahold of contraband food.)

When it came time to approach the baking cabinet, she went in whole hog. It's handy, because I can't bend down or squat very well. She hands me things and we evaluate their edibility together. Thanks, kid. Just 15 more weeks of scrubbing out cabinets!

My baby rockstar

Is it just MY kid who is starting to resemble Courtney Love, or does this happen to all three-year-old girls at some point?

In other news, I'm trying to interview doctors for my entry about our cord blood decisions and it's turned into a nutty circus. After I put out a query, looking for doctors who have a strong opinion about cord blood, I got a flood of people and PR agencies ready to talk... but just talk. No one will do an e-mail interview with me.

This doesn't seem like a big deal to anyone else I'm sure, but DUDE, I have children up my craw all day long. (Adorable childen, some of whom resemble rock stars, but nonetheless...) Plus I have a brace on my left wrist that makes writing difficult. And if I take it OFF, it makes writing impossible. If I were to interview people by phone, I'd have to type like the wind or scribble madly to get down their august thoughts.

I've fired off a bunch of questions to some likely sources, only to have them e-mail me back with a good time for me to call them. I know that they are doing ME a favor, but dude, seriously, can you just write me what you're thinking? You like cord blood? Yes? Just say it in your e-mail, man.

Also, I've started to have "Medium"-like dreams -- where I learn of a friend who needs help of some kind, and I wake up with a sense of urgency that I have to do something about it. But it's really private stuff, like I dream that a friend's sister is contemplating an abortion and I dream that a high school friend is worried about his upcoming surgery. So contacting these people out of the blue would be lame, like, "I had a pregnancy dream about you, and I wanted to let you know everything will be fine." And then they'll totally de-friend me on Facebook. Even though I have connections in the rockstar universe.

Just call me Fatty Boomballaty

My new Health.com post is about how I learned it is possible to give yourself gestational diabetes.

It's official: I now know TOO MUCH about pregnancy. What am I going to do with all this knowledge after I'm done being pregnant?

Did you store cord blood?

Hey, I have a question for you guys, for an upcoming Health.com entry...

Did any of you seriously consider banking your kids' cord blood? And did you end up doing it?

In our family, we're kind of in a cord blood trap, in that we banked Chebbles' and then we banked Gigi's, so what are we going to tell Leaf, "I'm so sorry, but we spent our whole cord blood budget on your sisters?"

So we plan to collect hers too.

But I'm starting to wonder if we're just big fat old suckers. Cord blood suckers. It seems like science fiction, the whole cord blood universe. But there is something oddly comforting about it.

I remember, after my C-section with Gigi, they were wheeling my gurney from the recovery room to my postpartum room. There was so much general shock from the surgery having taken place, and the uncertainty as to whether or not The Jeege had contracted my infection prior to her birth.

The cord blood kit containing her sample was on my gurney with me (in a taped-up cardboard box), and in the hallway we were intercepted by the cord blood courier. He looked kind of like the god Mercury to me, even though I think he was a dimunutive fellow of Arabian descent. But he kind of shone with the light and hope of future science and immunilogical imperviousness at that moment to me.

Could have been the morphine, but it was a strange ray of power during a particularly powerless time.

I'm curious what you guys did, and your thinking surrounding the science of cord blood retention.

Bay Area Doctors Threaten Headlocks Over my de Quervain's

Yesterday, I made the final decision to cancel tomorrow's surgery (to finally cure the de Quervain's in my left wrist). I had called the anesthesiologist (Dr. Be) for one last consult regarding any possible risks that the surgery could pose to Leaf.

What Dr. Be said threw me for a loop:

"If you were a family member of mine, I'd tell you to wait for surgery until after the baby is born. The risks are too great of your going into premature labor, or having something go wrong with the pregnancy and wondering whether it was the surgery that caused it..."

Well obviously, after hearing that, I had to cancel the surgery. So I left a message for my orthopedic surgeon (Dr. Bro), who doesn't work on Mondays, letting him know what Dr. Be had said, and that we'd have to find a date in July instead.

Upon hearing my message, Dr. Bro called Dr. W, my faithful OB, and the two of them got all hot under the collar about Dr. Be's advice.

As a result, this morning I got THREE messages from Dr. W while I took Chebbles to her swimming lessons, urging me -- nay -- TELLING me to get the surgery tomorrow.

"You are in pain. There is no risk for a woman in her second trimester. Do not cancel this surgery!"

When he finally got a hold of me on his fourth call, he told me that he planned to get "Dr. Be in a headlock the next time I see him -- because his advice was just wrong."

"We don't do surgery in the first trimester because we risk birth defects. We don't do surgery in the third trimester because we risk premature labor. We do surgery in the SECOND trimester -- right NOW -- do not delay this procedure, because your wrist will only deteriorate further and you will NOT have time to deal with this after the baby is born."

He grumbled for awhile about Dr. Be, and how he really is a friend, and how he was sad when Dr. Be went to India with his wife for a whole year, but how Dr. Be is Ivy League educated and how he should have known better than to discourage me from having this surgery.

I just really want the surgery, my friends. I'm tired of being in pain, of being inept in my left wrist all of the time, of scratching my daughters' skin with the Velcro straps of the brace I have to wear all of the time, of balancing the baby on the cast I wear at night. I have been working around this problem for three years now and after the horrible flare-up two months ago, the swelling has NEVER gone down in that wrist. It has never healed and I just drape it over my chest at night, hoping that it feels a little better in the morning.

It had frustrated me to cancel the surgery, but Dr. Be's words had me terrified. What if I did something that wasn't strictly urgent surgery and ended up hurting my dear little Leaf?

But Dr. Bro is not planning to put me under general anesthesia at all -- which is what Dr. Be was all worked up about. And apparently, even if he were going to put me under, there is no risk.

When I talked with Dr. Bro's assistant, incidentally a hugely tall, massive woman who could probably put ALL of these doctors in a headlock if she so desired, she was clucking her tongue about Dr. Be. "Imagine him, telling you all of that without checking with Dr. Bro and Dr. W. What was he thinking?"

I'm as addled as I can be, but dimly looking forward to the surgery which is now scheduled for next Wednesday, and having the de Quervain's GO AWAY for pete's sake. I also plan to ask Dr. Be and Dr. W to have some sort of wrassling deathmatch in my recovery room, by way of apologizing for all of the confusion.

New post, house full of glitter

My latest Health.com post has just gone live. It's all about my struggles with anemia, and the completely obvious solution that I eschewed for YEARS.

In other news, Chebbles finished up her valentines just in time for her school party, which is scheduled for Wednesday. I told her she'll be getting a valentine from all of her classmates too, and she's skeptical about that. "Even P.? I don't think P. is making a valentine for me."

He better be.

Gigi on a rampage

She's getting more hilarious every day, as she nears her first big milestone... just 16 days until her first birthday! Today she found the treasure trove of birthday presents I had hidden in our closet. It's part of the haul I got from eBay back in November. Luckily I was able to move her on to other pursuits, such as dismantling the shower drain, before she started unwrapping anything.

She is my "mostly companion" now (where does that expression come from?). She is at my feet, skedaddling from one end of the house to the other, perfectly happy to play with Tupperware and sisterly possessions all day long. We take little walks, she and I, and she is thrilled to the bone every time I pull out her little pink jacket. That means it's time to go on an OUTING.

And I should also let you know about the hat. A few days ago, I wore a baseball hat against the rain. She thought that was the most awesome thing I'd ever done. IMAGINE! Putting something on your head like that! So when I unearthed Chebbles' old military hat and plunked it on her head, she was elated. She studied herself in the mirror and cocked it down just a little over one eye, then kept it on for over an hour, as she dismantled the snack drawer in search of prunes.

She's The Jeege, man. Prepare for waves of joy every time she crawls into the room.

Like a returnable can, we're viable in NY and MI

OK, this is one of those pregnancy topics that are too bizarre for me to address on Health.com, but I know you guys can take it.

Today Leaf is 24 weeks in gestation. She's entering the realm of hypothetical ex-utero viability. But don't just take it from ME! According to the laws in the states of New York and Michigan, she is totally a PERSON, worthy of protection under the law.

Specifically, both of those states have ruled that if anyone should do anything to harm a fetus at 24 weeks of gestation and beyond, then they are (besides total assholes) liable for homicide (NY) or manslaughter (MI).

This was a huge topic out here in California surrounding the Laci Peterson case, which inspired the passage of Lace and Conner's Law. This law redefined the already-murky laws so that super-jackasses like Scott Peterson could be convicted of a double-murder. And California got impressively aggressive about it, saying that it's a double-murder at 7-8 weeks of gestation.

But most other states hemmed and hawed about this strange topic, that I shouldn't even dwell on, but here we are. Recently, Roe vs. Wade was redefined so that people could be convicted of harming a "viable fetus." Those were the new words, "viable fetus." It's up to each of the states to figure out what that means to them.

Anyway, that's my thinking as I hit 24 weeks. Totally morbid, but I'll take any positive indications at this point. So if clever states like New York and Michigan think that she's a real baby, maybe I can start believing it too!

Public service message

In a glaring case of the obvious, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is NOT FOR PREGNANT WOMEN. Hub-D suggested that the motion picture association enact some kind of special rating system so that we don't make this mistake again.

You know, the mistake whereby your pregnant wife is bawling outside of the theater, wiping her nose on napkin after napkin, saying, "It's just so sad! It's just so damn SAD!"

Hub-D thinks that no pregnant woman should go to the movie unaccompanied, at the very least. I couldn't even see the road on the drive home, the tears were blinding me.

That movie is SAD. That movie is "Color Purple" sad times ten. You put second trimester hormones on top of this giant casserole of sadness -- it's trouble, my friends, trouble.

So heed my warning, and wait until your kids are teenagers to see this movie.

Some syrup with that waffle?

There is something carthartic about having simply expressed my reluctance to stop reproducing. I feel more relaxed on the whole subject, and I have started to feel excited about this being the LAST newborn I'll be nursing.

I hate the idea of shutting down the systems that made Chebbles, Gigi and probably Leaf possible, but there is something supremely satisfying about the idea of releasing the Gymini from our house, about shedding all of the million swaddling blankets we have accumulated, about being thin and wearing those nice dresses in my closet once more.

I guess I'm not ready to admit that we're "done." I can't imagine surgically ending our reproductive capabilities, and I'm not sure what, if any, birth control method we'll use once Leaf is born. But all of that doesn't mean that I need a fourth child. It's just sad to have functioning plumbing and not use it.

Then I get a jolt of pain from my sciatic nerve and remember, oh yes, this is what I might never again have to experience.

Yearning

Perhaps I'm feeling so judgemental about the mother of the octoplets because I understand her.

I remember being a young girl, and visiting the Carnegie Museum of Art in downtown Pittsburgh with my mom and sister. My mother was distracted, feeding my sister at the delicious little cafeteria they had there, when I spotted an amazing baby.

I still think about that baby. It was African-American, I think it was a girl, and she was incredibly beautiful. I stared and stared at that baby, thinking of a scenario by which I could potentially steal the baby and raise her as my own.

I couldn't have been more than seven years old, but it was one of the strongest feelings I have had in my life -- the desire to take that baby and be its mother and look into its beautiful face every single day.

Luckily, I never acted on an impulse like that. I became afraid of babies as I came of age and started babysitting occasionally. Babies were mysterious, they cried, their mothers were spastic, and the mere idea of diapers skeeved me out.

But I think about that moment fairly often, the moment I knew that I had something of a problem when it came to babies. The moment I knew I wanted one of my own.

And it took forever. It took forever for me finish school, then a whole decade for me to find a proper husband, then more than two years to marry the man. THEN we waited a few more torturous months before we ditched the Loestrin and started to "try."

Now I have a real live Chebbles to show for our efforts, and a bonus Gigi riding in the wagon behind me, hair whipping in the wind and laughing her head off, showing off her six marvelous choppers. PLUS I have the real possibility of giving birth to yet another little girl in late spring.

And now, when I ought to be satisfied, when that seven-year-old version of me ought to sit back and just marinate in the cuteness and juiciness of these children, I find that I don't want to stop.

I recognize that this impulse to continue reproducing is irrational, and unfair to many bodies, mostly my own.

Even in the best days of pregnancy I'm exhausted, I'm snapping at Chebbles, and I'm still checking my underpants, just in case I experience some kind of super-late miscarriage. I'm a basket case. I think everyone is talking about me, and/or planning parties that don't include me. And I miss lying on top of my husband (without crushing him), quietly recounting our days.

So I recognize that the very best thing to do would be to have my tubes tied during my C-section, or, at the very least, get an IUD, or return to my beloved Loestrin pills. Man, those were GREAT back in the day. No PMS, no period, no worries.

But it's hard to think of turning off the plumbing. Perhaps, like the mother of the octoplets, I can't stop thinking about the potential embryos that I'm leaving behind. This has nothing to do with "trying for a boy," it's just that when I think of taking "measures" to prevent another pregnancy, I feel remarkably sad about it.

I've had so many pregnancies, it seems. I feel like I've endured some of the crappier things that the pregnancy experience has to offer. So what I want is not to be PREGNANT again, necessarily, but I want to see another double-line on a pregnancy test, then I want to see another infant rolled into my hospital room in a clear plastic bassinette. I don't need all of the crap in between, although I recognize how lucky I am to every experience that crap, and there are highlights -- e.g., the first kicks, discovering the sex, the incredible intimacy of harboring another human being inside your own body -- there is nevertheless a lot of pain and anxiety involved.

So can I really turn it off now? Can I tell my reproductive system which has worked so hard and so faithfully for so many years -- pumping out eggs and being nice to sperm, then nurturing the result -- to simply shut down?

Perhaps this is something that happens to women who have experienced pregnancy loss. Or maybe this is just something that happens to women like me, who spent so many years yearning for children, so many years reading books like "Cheaper By The Dozen" and fantasizing about what I would name all those kids, once I got around to having them.

The idea of pulling the plug on the whole operation seems so logical, so correct, and so abhorrent at the same time.

Two points I've got to make

* Although The Jeege is stumbling from place to place around the house, I wouldn't call it walking yet. Has she taken steps? Yes, several. But it's more like lurching.

* I'm having a tough time believing that the mother of the LA octuplets actually underwent IVF. It really smells like Clomid to me, because I know of no fertility clinic in the US that would knowingly implant more than three embryos. I think she's lying.

красивый ребенок

"Look, Mama, I found a NEST!" (holding a twisted clump of weeds)

"Really, is there an egg in it?"

"Yes, it's really tiny."

"Shall I take a picture of you and your nest and the tiny egg?"

"Yeah."

And thus, I was able to distract and capture the new haircut in all of its glory.

It looks sweet on Chebbles' face, but I can't imagine we're ever going to do this again, this, uh, well there's no better way to qualify this haircut other than "Soviet gymnast."



I rest my case.

Ya'll wanna party?

I took Chebbles for a professional haircut today, meaning one administered by someone over the age of 5.

(The photo to the left is her hair PRE-professional haircut, but post Chebble-haircut...)

She asked the woman giving her a haircut if she could make her hair look like Cinderella.

Uh, dude? I'm pretty sure Cinderella didn't hack off all of her bangs and the sides of her hair into a "all-business-up-front/all-party-in-back" mullet with kid's paper scissors.

As she sucked on her post-haircut pink lollipop, I told Chebbles that we'll work together on the Cinderella look, but it's going to take a few years at this point. In the meantime, we've got some "layers" to help kind of blend in the mullet.

The hairstylist first suggested that we leave the back long. But, my friends, you must trust me that this would have only exacerbated the mullitude.

Now we're all going to work together toward that Cinderella-ish day.

And something else random I've noticed about The Chebs, is that when she gets tired at the end of the day, she suddenly stops. I mean, she completely stops functioning, and attempts to lie down wherever she is, crying for me to do something like reach her Mimi, who is one foot away from her. I tried to wait her out tonight, leaving her on the floor between her bath and her bed, while she moaned that she couldn't possibly move an inch in any direction. But nothing worked.

So I think we're looking at a ridiculously early bedtime for the time being. Right now, it's lights out at 7pm. But we're looking down the barrel of 6:30pm. At least until we get the narcolepsy under control.

'Cause THIS little Cinderella's happiness turns into a pumpkin waaay before midnight.

Hair-n-Hormones

OK. Now that we can BREATHE. Poor Hubs lost about ten years off of his life waiting for the Steelers to win tonight. Without even knowing the outcome of the game, I tucked Chebbles underneath a fleece Steelers blanket which might well have been purchased on the day she was conceived. And I cried my eyes out while I was doing it.

See, I'm fully into the High Emotions part of pregnancy. As if all of the High Drama weren't enough, some set of hormones has kicked in which makes it impossible for me to function as a normal human being because -- didn't you know? Everyone HATES ME, and is TALKING ABOUT ME and I am patently OFFENSIVE in every way you can think of.

And this level of hormonal accusatory energy is RETROACTIVE, I'm sad to say, so this is also the part of my pregnancy where I look back with abject regret on every situation I've ever participated in. Seriously. I think about a summer camp I attended when I was ten, and I think, "What an asshole I was. Why was anyone my friend?"

I now wonder, in retrospect, how have I moved through my life with so much negative energy sloughing off of me everywhere I went? How has anyone shared an elevator with me, let alone voluntarily attended my wedding?

I would just be lying if I said I was perfectly pleased with myself. I'm overjoyed that I have the life I do, it's a miracle, considering that I should have been institutionalized years ago. But I have this cloud of hormonal energy sitting between my brain and my heart, and it's making everything look dark and horrible.

I feel like I'm particularly impatient with Chebbles. And she's reacting to my impatience with unheard-of rebellion. Or perhaps SHE STARTED IT. I don't know, but I've never experienced so much deliberate disobedience coming from her direction. Today, for example, she took her paper-cutting scissors, with which she was newly entrusted after the "dress cutting incident" many months ago, and she cut her hair.

She didn't just cut a little hair. She cut a lot of hair. Her hair was littered all around her bedroom. She had been alone with those scissors for ten minutes, and she gave herself an insane mullet. It makes my eyeballs hurt to look at her raggedy, forlorn hair -- my baby, whose hair was perfect when she woke up this morning, looks like hell.

After moping about it all afternoon, touching her head and weeping (I kid you not, I was weeping about her hair, pathetic!), I realized I had to turn my act around, lest I burden her with hair-paranoia for the rest of her life. I told her she looks beautiful. All of her stuffed animals told her that they think she looks beautiful, and I just hugged and and told her how I really do just love her haircut after all.

Because it's my kid's head. And I'll get used to it. And I'll get it trimmed in some way this week, although I think we may be looking down the barrel of a pixie cut here, sad to say, losing the blondest locks on her head.

Then I looked at Gigi, and realized that she's starting to resemble Danny Bonaduce circa 1979. And me? I've got some unflattering screwed-up Wolverine long layers going on.

I think it's time to just have Joan Crawford come in and give us all a good clipping, yes?