The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

I've been tagged...

1. WAS YOUR FIRST PREGNANCY PLANNED? Yes
2. WERE YOU MARRIED AT THE TIME? Yes
3. WHAT WERE YOUR REACTIONS? Thrilled and grateful.
4. WAS ABORTION AN OPTION FOR YOU? I wanted a baby!  So - no.
5. HOW OLD WERE YOU? 37
6. HOW DID YOU FIND OUT YOU WERE PREGNANT? I took two pregnancy tests.
7. WHO DID YOU TELL FIRST? My husband
8. DID YOU WANT TO FIND OUT THE SEX? No - I wanted to be surprised.
9. DUE DATE? June 7, 2002
10. DID YOU HAVE MORNING SICKNESS? A little - just queasiness.
11. WHAT DID YOU CRAVE? Everything.
12. WHO/WHAT IRRITATED YOU THE MOST? my fred flintstone swollen feet in the last month or so.
13. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CHILD'S SEX? Male
14. DID YOU WISH YOU HAD THE OPPOSITE SEX OF WHAT YOU WERE GETTING? No- I didn't care what gender as long as it was a healthy baby.

15. HOW MANY POUNDS DID YOU GAIN THROUGHOUT THE PREGNANCY? around 40

16. DID YOU HAVE A BABY SHOWER? Yes - 3, actually.
17. WAS IT A SURPRISE OR DID YOU KNOW? One was a surprise.  One I had to be told about because it was the same day as a bridal shower I was planning to go to.  And the other one...I think I knew about that one from the start.
18. DID YOU HAVE ANY COMPLICATIONS DURING YOUR PREGNANCY? Not really - just some bleeding that terrified me but nothing was wrong with me or the baby.
19. WHERE DID YOU GIVE BIRTH? South County Hospital, Wakefield, RI.  I was born there, too.
20. HOW MANY HOURS WERE YOU IN LABOR? 17
21. WHO DROVE YOU TO THE HOSPITAL? My husband
22. WHO WATCHED YOU GIVE BIRTH? My husband, my doctor and a couple nurses.
23. WAS IT NATURAL OR C-SECTION? Natural
24. DID YOU TAKE MEDICINE TO EASE THE PAIN? I really wanted to go completely drug free, and I came pretty close.  My contractions were in a weird pattern, though - like, BOOM boom boom rest BOOM boom boom rest...they gave me stadol (sp) which, if I remember right, knocked me out for an hour.  Other than that, I don't think there was anything else.  No epidural.
25. HOW MUCH DID YOUR CHILD WEIGH? 7 lbs 15.5 oz.  (he couldn't just be a simple even 6 pounds, of course.)
. WHEN WAS YOUR CHILD ACTUALLY BORN ? June 10, 2002
27. WHAT DID YOU NAME HIM/HER? Alexander
28. HOW OLD IS YOUR FIRST BORN TODAY? 4 - almost 5, actually. 


and now for my 7 random facts:

1.  I was once hired to drive a limo for an evening.  I'd never driven one before.

2.  I used to like to eat sandwiches made of peanutbutter, balogna, cheese, and mayo.  On white bread.

3.  I can quilt by hand and my small stitches were once complimented by a Mennonite woman.

4.  In college I was a Design/Tech major in the Theatre dept. for a couple of years.

5.  I won a poison prevention poster contest when I was in the first grade. 

6.  I love to watch "Whose Line is it Anyway?"  No other show makes me laugh so hard.

7.  I can recite the "Challenge Yahtzee" commercial that Jack Klugman and Tony Randall were in (as the Odd Couple) by heart.  And other odd bits and pieces of television from years past. 

Rules: Those tagged must list 7 random facts about themselves. They also need to write in their blogs the rules of the game, which are pretty simple--you list your 7 facts, then list 7 people you are tagging. Then you leave them comments letting them know they've been tagged.

(frotoe tagged me)

(taken directly from an instant messaged conversation with my sister the other morning when i should have been working...)

me: this morning while i was getting julia dressed
me: and repeatedly asking alex to please take off his jammies and his pull up and put on his underwear and pants (over and over and over)
me: he finally took off his jammies and the pull up (which he just HAS to FLING into the air.  fortunately he is dry just about every morning now.  but still)
me: anyway
me: i'm trying to get julia's diaper on - like wrestling an octopus - and he's leaping around, happily naked for the moment - "Mommy!  I don't have any clothes on!"
me: and then he comes over toward me
me: saying
me: "my pee-pee"
me: i said "what about it"
me: and he said
me: "my pee pee is all twinkled up!"
mere: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
mere: what did you say?
me: i said "what?"
me: and he said it again, so of course i looked to see what "all twinkled up" might possibly mean
me: and i think it actually means "brrrr, it sure is cold in here"
mere: aahhhh.  Heehee
me: all twinlked up
me: twinkled, i mean
mere: Oh

me: and a julia thing
me: she LOVES the wizard of oz...or "Boz" as she calls the movie...
me: especially the singing and SKIPPING they do
mere: heehee
me: we were watching last night, alex and me on the couch and julia on the floor destroying one of alex's books...and the munchkins started singing happily because the witch was dead, and - as we have seen her do every time - julia got to her feet and started "skipping" all around the room, with a big big BIG smile on her face
mere: how cute
me: but she doesn't skip, it's more like a canter - there's one foot that always leads.  she doesn't switch back and forth.
mere: skipping is hard
me: yep
me: she thinks she's skipping.
me: bill has heard her say "kip!  kip!" while she's doing it
mere: heeheehee
me: it's extremely cute
mere: i bet
me: and at one point when some munckin is climbing out of a hole in the yellow brick road (i think it's when glinda is singing "come out come out wherever you are," etc) julia ran over to the tv and pointed at him right in the face.  she likes the little munchkin boy.  i think he's one of the lollipop guild guys...
mere: its guild?
me: yeah

mere: i thought it was lollipop kids
mere: :-[
me: there's the lullaby league (the ballerinas)...and the lollipop guild.
me: i used to think it was kids too.
me: but i read it was "guild" somewhere...
mere: i never knew it was league either
me: oh
mere: oh
me: i always thought the middle of the lollipop guild guys looked sort of like grandad.
mere: hahahaha  i'll have to take a closer look next time
me: i think it reminds me of that black and white picture of grandad in the bowler hat, with a cigar, looking like a thug...
mere: oh
me: oh
me: and
me: apparently alex had stuff on his face yesterday morning when i dropped him off at daycare.  his teacher checked his face this morning just before i left and oh it's too long to go into but jeepers crow some days i just feel so worn out after i bring him there.
me: and it's actually NOT oatmeal or milk...it's his runny nose that he wipes across his right cheek.  OKAY????
mere: that woman is so weird
me: i go through periods where i think - no - FEAR - that somehow, due to some incompetency of mine - he is going to somehow be a kid other kids make fun of.  i don't know why i do this, but i do.  and he's fine. and he has his little friends, and all that.  but still...this is what sneaks around the back of my mind...and then i've got HER bringing up something like his messy face...so...I'm sending my child in to preschool DIRTY.  IS THAT IT?

mere: hahahahahahaha
mere: its HER.
me: i know
me: but it's also MEEEEE
me: because that is how my brain works sometimes
mere: yeah, but thats normal
me: oh
mere: its the naked parent moments
me: yeah
mere: you'll get used to it.
me: sometimes i can laugh about it
me: other times i can't.
mere: thats good
mere: i know
mere: i know how that is
me: but if i write about it...usually i can end up laughing about it.
me: because then i can read how silly it all really is
mere: yeah
me: plus, Alex can say - and identify - a parasauralophus.
me: Which is a dinosaur that has a weird bone thing sticking off the top of it's head...pointing toward the back.  It's one of the "bonehead" dinosaurs.
me: He knows that.
mere: thats good.  whats wrong with that?
me: NOTHING.  He knows his dinosaurs.
me: that's really cool.
mere: oh good
me: he's perfectly fine.  i'm the wack-job.
mere: too bad about the snotty face
me: yeah
mere: if it wasn't for that he'd be normal
me: :)

Conversations

My best writing (about the kids, about my life and whatever's going on with it) seems to be done while I'm at work emailing my sister.  And until my daughter decides to sleep through the night again, I don't know how successful I'll be at getting up early and writing or working out or anything else just for me.

So...I started saving some of these emailed conversations, because the way my memory works, it's pretty much guaranteed that once I type it, it's gone.

So...here we go...

Me:  This morning, in the car:  "No, mommy, talk in a mad voice, like a bad guy.l"

Mere:  Was he requesting this? or telling you not to talk in a mad voice?

Me:  He was talking in a bad guy voice about the bad guys in Tarzan (which is the new favorite, by the way) and how the bad guys are NOT NICE because they're BAD GUYS but those bad guys are nice but those bad guys are BAD GUYS cuz they're NOT NICE.

And whenever he spoke of the badder of the bad guys (I'm not sure who the good bad guys were, actually) he would speak in a gruff, growly voice and make a mad, bad guy face:  brows furrowed, nose scrunched, and teeth bared in a grimace of bad-guy-ness. 

And when he'd say that the bad guys were not nice, I'd agree with him - "Yeah!" and that's when he told me to speak more like a bad guy.  And how to do so.

And another day........

Me:  If I could just get up at 4 every day, I would have plenty of free time for myself.

I honestly wanted to get up at 5 this morning and just BE up from that point...maybe do some yoga or something or write or whatever...but then Alex woke up at 4:30 or so and wanted juice and we were OUT OF JUICE OH THE HORROR OF IT ALL and I told him he could have milk or water or orange juice, BUT I WANT JUUUUUUUUUUICE we don't have any juice, you can have milk or water or orange juice, BUT I WANT JUICE...and I just went downstairs and filled one sippy cup with milk and one with water and brought them up and put them near his bed and told him if he gets thirsty, there they are, BUT I DON'T WANT THEM!!!! and on and on and finally just so Julia wouldn't wake up too and want juice even though she never wants juice, I brought the juiceman into our bed and told him he needed to be quiet until the alarm goes off and it's time for MOMMY to get up.  Of course, he was wiggly and kept whispering stuff to me, but at least it wasn't about juice.

And then finally he said, "Mommy, could I have some milk?"

Okay, perhaps it's not my best writing...but it's my most frequent, and that's got to count for something.  Actually, now that I think about it, it's my favorite writing.  The little daily bits and pieces about my kids.  I've got more, but they're buried in my email and I have to find them.