The Dermatological Freak Show

If you ever want to feel like a slightly hideous monster I would suggest a visit to the dermatologist.  If, however, you want to up your experience and feel like an unholy abomination, may I suggest going during your 4th week post-partum...while the belly bread dough is still sagging and the boobs stubbornly refuse to stop looking at the floor.  Yep, go then.

It all began about a year ago when I was having my first OB appt with my last pregnancy.  I was all "suited up" in a stylish dressing gown and having my body gone over with a fine tooth comb.  During said process nurse and nurse-in-training both mentioned that my back looked like a war torn country invaded by moles and that I really needed to have them checked out.  I did what I always do when I'm pregnant and pushed it to the back of my mind.  I was making a baby, I didn't need to worry about anything else.  Right?

Fast forward to the end of January when I finally went to see the Dermo (this is what I'm going to call her from now on).  I figured that if I went while still clearly in the post-partum phase that they would figure I had gained like 75 pounds with this pregnancy and be more compassionate to my girth rather than disgusted.  The opposite would happen if I went six months later and they saw the truth, that the bread is going permanently un-baked.

I was asked to strip down naked....um, huh?...and put on another gown.  I'm getting to be a real pro at these gowns!  Then the Dermo came in and I did all kinds of turning and standing with arms out etc.  There were some uncomfortable moments, such as when she checked out my butt cheeks.  Also when she asked me to "please lift your breasts", the time it took to gather up those saggies and heave them out of the way caused some discomfort to both of us. 

As she's wrapping up the body portion of our exam she throws out this self-esteem building little gem.  "I can see why your OB was concerned.  You're really moley."

Uh, thanks?  Glad I could keep you in business?

Finally done with the body we moved to the face.  One of the catalysts to me finally setting the appointment was a strange growth that had suddenly popped up on the side of my face.  I also had a rather beach ball looking brown nasty growth on the side of my neck that my children insisted on playing tug-of-war with and I was hoping to have it removed, stat!

I pointed out said growth on my face.  She got out a magnifying glass  - not joking - and looked it over.  Then she stood up and headed for the door.  Was I that nasty? 

"Oh, that's just a wart.  I'll be right back" she said over her shoulder as she left the room.

A WHAT?  Did she just say wart?  'Cause I'm pretty sure she meant to say Dangerous Growth That May Have Been Life Threatening So It's Good You Came In Today.

She showed back up with a hand held spray can, came right at my face and froze that sucker before I even realized what was happening.

"This totally makes sense that you'd have wart.  You live with small children" she says as she's freezing my face.

How does this make sense?  Oh, I get it.  Because having small children at home makes you begin to transform into a witch.  Gotcha.

With trembling, embarrassed hands, I pointed to the growth on the side of my neck. 

"Oh, that?" she zap freezes it too before saying anything else.  "That's just a skin tag.  Should fall off in a few days.  If it doesn't..." she makes a scissor cutting motion with her hand and a noise like a click.

Does this mean I cut it off?  I need clarification.

"Um, so I just cut it off?" I say, still reeling from the multiple unexpected freezings I've just endured.

"Yep.  Just don't tell me about it" she winks as she's setting down her freeze-ray-gun and whipping out her pad to write down what she's just done to me.   She winks as though it'll be our little secret.  She winks as though I'm accustomed to cutting growths off my own body with a pair of scissors and it's "no big thing chicken wing". 

At this point I just sat there feeling like the monster I thought I might be.  And then, this song started playing in my head...

I feel pretty...oh so pretty...

I feel pretty and witty and bright...

And I pity any girl who isn't me tonight.

I feel charming, oh so charming...

It's alarming how charming I feel...

I'm so pretty that I hardly can believe I'm real!

To Go?

You know, I've always held a certain level of disdain for mothers who abandon their families never to be seen again.  I'll admit it, I've sat in self righteous judgement and thought, "Ooh, boy, some day they'll really regret that."

And then, last Sunday, I opened the door to the playroom.  It was a black vortex of toydom gone wrong.

It was all I could do not to grab my car keys and lay a strip of rubber on the freeway entrance ramp as I left my home and family behind me in a spectacular cloud of dust.

So, I did what any postpartum hormone rage spiraling mother would do.  I grabbed my cleaning supplies and began scrubbing bathrooms. 

Apparently noticing my absence and hearing strange mumbling noises coming from the bathroom The Hubs came to investigate.  Silly, silly man.

"Uh...what are you doing?"  This from The Hubs.
"I'm cleaning the bathroom."
"Uh...why?"
"'Cause it's either clean or leave you guys."

This caused Hubs to pause for a moment.  He may have been a little confused.  Probably not the answer he was expecting.  Then again, I do pride myself on keeping him on his toes, so he probably never knows what to expect.

"Uh..okay.  You do know it's Sunday right?" Hubs again.

This time I spared him a glance.  I'm sure it was "Mom's Angry Face" as Cadence so lovingly calls it.  "Yep.  I'm pretty sure God would rather I clean the house than leave my family."  I scrubbed for a minute more and then added.  "Seriously, I want to just get in the car and drive away.  So I'm cleaning instead."  (This makes perfect sense to me!)

"Well, maybe a drive would be good.  You could get out for a while and just clear your head."  Sweet, sweet Hubs.  Trying so hard to help.  So not understanding that a car is the last thing I should be given access to. 

"I'd seriously end up in St. George spending a week with my sister Emily and you'd have to scramble to find someone to care for the kids.  I think I'll just dust next instead."

Hubs finally left having found himself up against the proverbial wall. 

I scrubbed, dusted, cleaned windows, swept, mopped, vacuumed, changed light bulbs and did dishes.  My family cowered on the couch like gerbils in the face of a Cobra.  (Who says rodents are dumb?)

When all was said and done I'd worked off my hatred of being the mom and was kind of in a dull numb place where I knew one day I'd heal from this.  So, I ate some cookie dough until I was able to dredge up the guilt necessary to keep me in my place.

In the end I'd say I chose the less of two evils.  Sure, I may have broken the Sabbath just a bit.  But, my family still had their wife and mother on the premises...well, at least the evil twin wife. 

And...my house was clean!  Well, at least until the gerbils felt safe enough to leave the couch.

To all those women who I previously misjudged as weak and selfish, now I understand.  You must have had a playroom too!!

Beware the Me Monster

To borrow a phrase from my favorite comedian - Brian Regan - Beware the Me Monster.

Now I understand that everyone wants to talk about themselves on occasion.  This is normal.  Humans, as a species, are a bit egotistical at times.  But then there are those who go on, and on, and on, and on, AND ON about themselves to the point where you can actually stop listening and they aren't daunted.  They plug away and somehow manage to convince themselves that they have a rapt audience.

The Hubs and I like to refer to these social giants as "One-Uppers".  You know the type.  For every tale you tell they can go one bigger.  For example someone recently asked how we were doing with having a newborn in the house.  Upon hearing the answer, "oh, you know, good but tired" he fired back with "oh, you don't know tired until..." and then proceeded to list the many things in his life that would make him more qualified for the title tired than we are. 

Pardon us for our mistake.

Don't you just want to kick them in the shin?  Of course, after you did they'd probably tell you how they've been kicked MUCH harder than that before, and even your sad little attempt at punishing them would be invalid in their eyes.

There are definitely situations where it's considered appropriate to talk about yourself to the exclusion of others.  An example of this would be a job interview.  Yep.  I got nothing else. 

All other social situations would dictate that you shut your yapper for at least a full minute, whether you're actually listening or not, and allow the other party to talk.  If nothing else these Me Monsters could use it as a chance to build up steam and take a deep breath before plunging headlong into their next diatribe. 

To these Me Monster, One-Uppers, I say....

Get a blog.

It's worked for me :)

Life's Little Bummers

I have occasionally been accused - mostly by The Hubs - of being overly optimistic to the point where I live in denial about life's little disappointments.  In an effort to prove that I am actually able to see the annoying things in life, I've compiled this short list of bummers that make me grit my teeth.

Why is it that every time I go to put a load of clothing in the dryer there is already something there waiting to be folded?  Even when I'm totally sure that I finished up my last load.  I don't really know what to blame this on.  My children and The Hubs certainly aren't sneaking loads of laundry in behind my back.  I think my towels are breeding like rabbits - or, like my sister Emily says, breeding like frogs.  (Ha ha ha...love you Em!)

I hate how every time I load the dishwasher and hit start I almost immediately come upon a straggler dish.  An empty cup in the playroom, a fork next to the computer, an empty bowl under the recliner.  Grrr...  So annoying!

Why is it that kids only poo in fresh diapers?  They go all day without having a BM and then I'll change their diaper and like two seconds later they're grunting in the crib.  Why?  And on a side note, why is it that I always run out of diapers in the middle of the night?  During daylight hours the diaper stash looks mighty full, but sometime around midnight the same "elves" that are filling up my dryer with clothing are also steeling diapers.

Speaking of nighttime, why is it that people only get sick in the middle of the night?  Never during daylight hours do you hear, "I think I'm coming down with something".  No, instead you're woken up at 2:00 a.m. with the magic words, "Mama, are you awake?  I think I have poo on my leg."  Honestly.

So I'm a hip lady, jammin' along with the times in the year 2012, and I rarely use a checkbook these days.  My kids probably don't even know what one is.  But, why is it that the one or two times a year I dust off that relic and take it somewhere that I'm out of checks?  How is this possible?  Don't boxes of checks have like 200 in them?  So it would stand to reason that I should ALWAYS have plenty.  But no, I'm always caught unawares at the checkout stand, checkless and shamed.

I find it ironic, and not really that humorous, that my fuel light only comes on during rush hour traffic.  As a stay at home mom I avoid rush hour fairly easily.  But the one or two times a year that I'm forced to endure I'm also forced to listen to the repeated dinging of my fuel light.  I like to live on the edge as much as the next person, but listening to my children whimper in the backseat about how we're running out of gas and will probably have to cannibalize the baby in order to survive gets a little tedious.  Also, thoughts of having to call in back up with my classy excuse being, "How was I supposed to know I'd get stuck in traffic", isn't as titillating as you'd think.  No one wants to be rescued by a ticked off knight with an I TOLD YOU SO attitude!

So, there you have it.  I am capable of getting annoyed and I do realize that there are just some things in life you have to admit stink to high heaven. 

Now, Hubs, if you want to stay off this here list you'd best start appreciating my ability to line everything with silver.  'Cause this glass is half full baby!!

Foxy Mama

Nothing screams FOXY like a woman who has recently given birth.  In fact, I believe the spelling of foxy should be changed to p-o-s-t-p-a-r-t-u-m.  Shazaam. 

Having bodily fluids oozing from various places on my body doesn't make me feel smelly or fermented, it makes me feel like I'm "glistening" all over.

Having bread dough where my abdomen used to be isn't discouraging, it's invigorating to realize that I can transform my body in ways I never believed possible.

Having acne and dry scalp doesn't make me feel itchy, it's a nostalgic reminder of the fact that I'm young and vibrant and not at all dried up.

Shedding hair by the handful doesn't make me google Hair Club for Women, it makes me feel light and free and sexy when I toss my few remaining strands into a pony tail.

Yep. I am loving this 6 week time frame of maxi pads, ointments, lotion and putting make up on with a spatula. Because nothing reminds you that you're alive like watching your body fall apart right before your very eyes.

Disclaimer:  Don't fret, things aren't THIS bad :)

Blogger's Guilt

I am currently suffering from an extreme case of blogger's guilt.  You know it's bad when I logged on here just to let you know that I know that I haven't blogged for a while.  And I'm sorry.  I've been a bit busy...see previous post. 

When I get my feet back under me, and all my thoughts aren't smudged by formula, hormones, diaper cream and nostalgic moments, I'll get back to it.

For now, just know that I'm alive, my baby is super great, and yes, the oddball happenings continue. 

So, eventually you'll have some stories to giggle over.

For now please content yourself with oohing and aahing over this little guy.  Love him!

Yawn,
Aspen

The Baby Post

Here it is folks, the baby post.  The one that gives you some details and pictures featuring the newest member of our clan. 

Jasec Benjamin was born Thursday, December 29th at 1:28 a.m.  He weighed in at a surprisingly small 7 lbs. 12 oz..  I expected him to be bigger considering my last baby was in the 8 lb. range and they only seem to get bigger.  Let me say, I'm not complaining.

The labor went like this.  Check in at the hospital at 7:30 a.m. on the 28th for induction.  Have already started a bit on my own, but not moving anywhere.  Started all the drugs - pitocin, penicillan (for Group B strep) and fluids to keep it all going - at 8:30 a.m. 

Wait, wait, wait, wait. 

Get epidural.

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Water miraculously breaks itself around 3:00 p.m.  But still make minimal progress.  Find out baby is posterior - my third time with this - which is keeping labor from going quickly.

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Have emotional breakdown at midnight as I realize I've been laboring for roughly 15 hours and have now crossed the date line into the 29th with no baby in sight.  Baby's heart rate is erratic and my doctor begins thinking we may have to do a c-section if he doesn't stablilize.

1:15 a.m. I suddenly and finally am ready.  Doc - who is amazing - is able to turn the baby, who once in the right position comes out in three or four pushes.  Cord is around his neck which explains the heart rate issues and his lack of crying at birth.  Also, he was purple like a purple skittle.  (I was hungry!)

His delivery itself was almost nothing compared to the 16 hours of labor leading up to it.  And I was so grateful, because it's never gone that fast for me and I wasn't sure I had hours of pushing ahead of me.

Jasec (pronounced jay-sik) seems to be our mold breaker to an extent.  His little face is definitely our mold, but he is the only one of our four children to have blond, blond hair and no stork bites on his face.  Yes, Hubs is the father, hardy, har, har.

The name is our made up special as discussed in this post: The Name Game. 

Stockings rearranged after his arrival to spell out his name

His middle name is after my courageous brother, Ben, who has fought three cancer battles in 2011 and came out like a lion.  We hope Jasec can have that same warrior spirit.

And now, the picture section.  Our best holiday gift ever...

Big Sister Cadence - Big Helper!!

Happy Big Brother Joel - wants to keep him!

Oldest Sister Eliana - Loves, loves, loves him!

Daddy & Jasec just after birth at hospital